Now, a year later, the river flows placidly, with hardly a sign left of the damage caused. Now, we seek a reason for it all, someone to blame, maybe someone to sue. Where did all that water come from? A flood on the top of a hill – Toowoomba! A tidal wave in the main street, sweeping everything before it, cars, people, lives, with no warning. Rolling down into the valley where more hapless homes and people waited to be destroyed. And the rest of us watched it all on television, horrified but helpless and thankful it wasn’t happening to us.
Water, so necessary for life, and so destructive, like the ocean, unstoppable. People drown thinking they are more powerful than the ocean. Lack of water can kill; lack of respect for the power of water can also kill.
Summer drenching 4pm
By Nene Davies
When the leaves on the trees turn inside out, you know it’s coming. When smudges of grey cloud build into a swirling black and green soup over your head, you know it’s coming. Sudden gusts, like a blast of wind heralding the arrival of an underground train will send you scurrying to the washing line, pulling newly dried laundry into your arms. You don’t need Mother Nature’s final rinse today. You run around closing windows, battening down the hatches. It’s exciting in a way – pulling up the drawbridge; your home becomes a fortress.
Fat splats landing messily onto hot bricks. Seething clouds, sinking lower and lower. A slow drumbeat on the tin roof. Building, building. A split of light, a crack of noise and it happens. Thundering rods smash down on your garden, your home. You can’t see the houses over the road for the blinding white mass. And then it’s over. So fast. And all that’s left is the drip, drip, drip of a thousand droplets of water.
Powerless, and powerful
By Laurie Gilbert
I am water. A single molecule, two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. One molecule among gazillions. On my own I’m insignificant, but in a gathering I’m sometimes powerful, and sometimes a mass of us molecules stick together over time. It doesn’t happen often. We are at the beck and call of the winds, the mighty oceans, the effects of the sun, and wherever we are sent. We can be fluid and clear, salty, gaseous, ice, boiling, sadly polluted. Yes, powerless at times. But powerful too! I can be a cleanser of bodies, inside and out. I can reduce a temperature. I can save a life almost lost through dehydration, but only with my friends en masse.
We are invested with a memory and a way of contacting our particular family of molecules. Sometimes there is a special happening and I break through the powerlessness and somehow send up a request, a sort of prayer I suppose. Up – I’m not sure about up – but I send a request out anyway, a message to know how something turns out, for all of us who were together at a particular time.
Hundreds of years ago as we lapped as waves on a shore in Australia we saw a young girl throw a bottle into the tide with a note inside. My request was to know where that message might end up. Wonder of wonders, today I got my answer. Again, me and my friends were on a tidal shore in a river in South America when that same bottle was picked up by a fisherman. He was very excited and so were we. A few of the mates with me had been there in Australia all that time ago, but mostly they were far spread. I sent out the message on the air. It would travel to the poles, in the winds, in the rivers, to the irrigating pipes and down the soft spaces in hard rocks and millions of other places. And they would know too that the girl’s message had found a destination. They would rejoice.
THEME: BLOGGING
Stories by Sara, Laurie, Carole, Nene
What is a blog?
By Sara Sutherland
I don’t know who invented the term “blogging”, but it is certainly one of the ugliest expressions I have heard for a long time! I mean to say – BLOG? What on earth does that mean? He or she must have had a pretty rotten sense of humour. It certainly doesn’t do justice to some of the really good “blogs” I have read lately. People who have something to say can actually say it, in writing, and other people read it. You don’t have to be a journalist and employed by some newspaper to write informed, interesting articles on world or local happenings. You don’t have to be a published author airing your views for the cognoscenti to nod at and pretend to understand, or even an aspiring published author getting in some practice and hopefully getting known. Anyone can do it. The air waves are full of people’s thoughts, wafting around... (or whatever happens out there in internet land). But why on earth call it “blogging”? It sounds sort of disgusting, somehow, but what the hell! Let’s all jump on the bandwagon and “blog” for all we’re worth...
(Don’t get me started on “Twitter”.)
Understanding?
By Laurie Gilbert
Michael was a gentle and patient lad. He knew that was why he’d been sent to keep Aunt Maeve company instead of his brother Sean who had a quicksilver response to everything and could never delay a thought or an action even if it was to his or someone else’s disadvantage. But Michael was finding it tough. The old lady had been demanding. He listened over and over to her tale of her husband’s death. He’d read somewhere that this happened when people were grieving and that listening was helpful. But he really needed to get away just for a while to get his head straight again.
When there was a lull and Aunt Maeve seemed to be a bit sleepy, he said, “Auntie I’m off to do some blogging. I won’t be too long.’
Maeve said, ‘What a treasure you are Michael Malone. While you’re out be sure to bring me a barrow back.’
Michael was stuck. What could she mean? He said again, loudly, but not too loudly, ‘Blogging. I am going to do some blogging.’
‘Yes I heard you. Bring a load back with you. I could do with some more.’
Michael went out. Too hard to explain and too hard to repeat things to get through the deafness.
He went to the computer and started to send out messages, humorous anecdotes of his communications with his deaf auntie. She wouldn’t get to know about them he was sure, so he let rip and laughed to himself. He felt better with getting the frustrations off his chest. And then went back to the listening.
Next afternoon after another blogging session, he returned to his Auntie’s room to hear her telling a neighbour, ‘He’s a grand lad is our Michael, but you know since he got to be a teenager he’s not as thoughtful as he used to be. He didn’t bring me any peat back from the bog yesterday when I asked him.’
To blog, or not to blog
By Carole Worthy
To blog, to blog, wherefore cometh this word? Sounds like- toblogganing. A slippery slope; gathering speed; bumpy ride; dangerously close to the wind; the thrill of sheer exhilaration; a moment of terror with a misguided turn; a soft landing, or a horrendous crash!
What to blog? What’s in a day? What’s in a name? A rose by any other. Arise to the challenge. Fly like the wind. A wind that blows no ill. A window on the world that opens when you dare to share your mind and thoughts and feelings. To dare, to do, perchance to dream. A dream that you can only find when thoughts and words run free.
Regular Joe
By Nene Davies
Joe was a regular guy. He was the kind of person to make eye contact with you in the street. ‘Hi’. ‘G’day’ and a nod and then he’d move on. He lived what some people might rather unkindly call a lawnmower life; he washed the car on Saturday mornings, religiously mowed the grass on Sundays. (No pun intended – but you get my drift.) He had the 2.4 children, a wife, mortgage and Labrador in the back of the station wagon, which is a lot to cram into a car if you think about it. If he could have afforded it, he’d have driven a Volvo. Their ads were cool.
Joe worked in the city, whatever that means. He’d wait on the station platform every morning to catch the 7.03 to town and he’d alight onto the opposite platform at 6.21 each evening. Mary would be there to pick him up. Dinner would be in the oven. Every night before sleep, he’d write in his diary.
A boring man? A little life? A dull
existence? Well – some may think so, but I’ll tell you what, he’s a market researcher’s dream. And here’s his biggest secret. He’s Joe Bloggs and he’s the man who invented blogging. Where else did you think it came from?!
THEME: SUMMER
Stories by Sara, Laurie, Robert, Nene
Memories of summer
By Sara Sutherland
When I lived in the UK, I longed for summer most of the year, and saw in my mind bright blue skies, and warm sunshine casting a golden glow over my world. People looking tanned and healthy, wearing light clothes, heading for the beach, or out on picnics. Tennis at Wimbledon. Strawberries and cream. Cricket and the thwack of bat on ball on a lazy afternoon. Opera at Glyndebourne. Long sunny evenings and warm nights.
A wonderful change after the long months of winter snow and rain, and chilly spring. Summer never lasted long enough. It’s a gentle season.
Now I live in Queensland I see summer in a different way. Plenty of sunshine, but also heat and humidity and lots of rain, slashing down in violent summer storms. Here it is exciting – but ever beautiful. A different kind of summer. Hot nights tossing under a ceiling fan moving air around, barely cooling the temperature; the sound of air conditioners and pool pump motors in every street. Lazy barbecues under the patio, with lots of wine and mozzie candles to keep the nasties away. Going to the movies to cool off and freezing in the excessive air conditioning. Walking on the beach looking out to sea and watching the waves roll in and the seagulls screeching. Thinking how lucky I am to live here...
Who said the livin’ is easy?
By Laurie Gilbert
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. That’s a song isn’t it? I used to think Queensland summers were the greatest. That’s when I was young and didn’t seem to feel the heat. But after living in the northern hemisphere for over twenty years I got to enjoy the cold, even the winters had their compensations.
Now though, apart from the heat and humidity I think Queenslanders aren’t finding the living so easy. How many floods in how many places in the last two summers, and lives lost, and damage still not repaired from years-ago cyclones? And the insurance companies being sneaky about interpreting the policy fine print?
And it’s not just us here. Look at New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria right now coping with evacuations and damage. And all that money that has been spent on levees (well at least most of them held in Queensland this year, so far).
But the weather office is forecasting more rain in the next few days and lots of it and maybe even the development of a cyclone in our region. Here in the Redlands we’ve been lucky, lots of rain, the occasional closure of roads, but nothing desperate and no lives lost.
How do the hemispheres measure up? Somehow I feel like a traitor but the northern summers, while not so reliable for sunshine and drying of clothes feel a bit more comforting right now. How will I feel when the next drought hits? Don’t ask me now. I might change my mind. But the living is not easy in Queensland this summer.
Summer
By Robert Caffrey
Sweltering hot hot hot. indecisive cant think what is the best thing to do. It was a great idea to start with. The trip of a life time. I look around and all I see is the dust swirling in the distance. They say that you should stay with the car, yet I have to go and get help. I am conserving my water I have left. Just one foot in front of the other. Flat as when you look towards the horizon, but the ground is undulating gently. Still walking along this track, hoping against hope that I will run into someone. Dizzy now, I have been doing this for hours. Wife and kids still with the car must keep going.
Staggering now, must now give up. A black shape appears in front of me. Three more join. Trouble now I am imagining things. It speaks to me. "Mate you want help? What ya doing out here? said the black shape that materialized into a native aborigine. I started to cry and fell to my knees. I hope that I was not too late to save my wife and kids!
Summer wine
By Graham Thomas
Sam spent most of his days wandering from one part of cardboard city to another in his continuing and frantic search for something to drink. It was around four o’clock on this Tuesday afternoon in July, and he wasn’t on the lookout for a spot of afternoon tea to be drunk out of a pretty, refined and delicate bone china cup. In such circumstances, he might have expected cucumber sandwiches cut neatly into triangles – crusts off, of course.
No. Sam was hunting alcohol. Whatever he could find, wherever he might find it – he wasn’t fussy. To Sam, this Tuesday was like any other but at least it was warm and dry, and so was he. Well, warm, anyway. He’d never be ‘dry’. In fact he’d not been dry for some fifteen years or so of his thirty one year life thus far.
He met up with a couple of argumentative chums, who, like himself, jealously guarded their alcohol trophies. Sam had tried it all, the meths, the aftershave – where had he found that? Ah yes. In a refuse skip in Bloomfield Road, or was it Havering Gardens? It didn’t matter much, as long as he got some. And there’d been the exotic drinks too. They mixed their own cocktails when they were sober enough to imagine the high life that might have come their way, if life had dealt them a better hand. Too many ‘jokers’ in theirs, sadly. Petrol was something they found pretty easy to get hold of. Syphoning from the cars of unsuspecting owners had in its way become an art form. In their more lucid moments they used to laugh at going for diesel. As one of them said, it was more expensive than unleaded – and more upmarket too. They fell about when another said that being diesel, it should go further.
It was later that same Tuesday night when, having indulged in an abundance of his favourite tipple, that Sam, having been persuaded by his mates that he could fly, tried it. They were right, at least for the space between the bridge parapet and the railway line and the onrushing train.
Yes, it was summer, but it could have been anywhen. Sam really had been a man for all seasons.
Summer Down Under
By Marci Dahlenburg
Summer. . . Summer, Christmas!
Really?
Summer-Christmas; when is that going to feel right? Is one word ever really going to evoke images of the other?
They do for my children. I have heard them, blithely say, “I love summer; school holidays, Christmas....” I laugh, and they don’t get the joke. After a lifetime (albeit short in years) of Santa bringing beach towels and togs wrapped under the tree, Christmas and summer aren’t incongruous at all, they go together like vegemite and cheese on tiger toast.
So we treat ourselves to a bit of both on December 25th. Crank up the air con and roast the lunch, pull the crackers and finish with a choice; pudding and brandy sauce, or pumpkin pie.... then roll outside for a swim ... float like dugongs and say, “What a beautiful day.”
Sunshine and Jingle Bells, welcome home!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Robert Mark Caffrey
Robert is currently writing a fiction/fantasy novel as well as short stories. Captivated by books since he could first read, fiction still is, his first choice. He laid his hands on works by Isaac Asimov as a young boy. Humanoid Robots with positronic brains, journeys to other space faring worlds, took him to another world, Stories with a twist are also his favourites.
Robert has only recently discovered a burning passion for writing. It was confined to reports, within his work as a Paramedic for the last twenty two years. This has given him a unique view into human nature, which is the catalyst for his short stories .
Now he is learning the craft, with the assistance of a writers group. Currently is editing his first novel, and has other projects in progress.
Eventually wanting to share his world with others.
Twitter: @RobertMCaffrey
Sara Sutherland
Sara has been writing since she was a girl – long and short stories written in exercise book to amuse friends and family, and later typed painfully on an old ma
nual typewriter. Her other big love has always been tennis and she was very proud when an article she wrote was published in a tennis magazine.
After a lifetime of travelling, bringing up children and working in the community sector, Sara has now retired happily, with the ambition to write. She has just completed a novel set in Brisbane, which she hopes to publish having, as her husband says “worn out three printers” with drafts. She also writes poetry and paints flowers in her spare time.
Sara joined the Victoria Point Writers Group to learn more about writing, and appreciates the friendship and help of like-minded people. Ten Minute Tales started as writing exercise, and has taken on a life of its own; challenging and fun.
Email: [email protected]
Marci Dahlenburg
Marci Dahlenburg was born and raised in the USA. After studying theatre and dance, and spending several years as a starving artist in Los Angeles she moved to Papua New Guinea. Yes, her parents thought that was an unusual choice too. In 2004 she moved to Brisbane with her Australian husband and three Aussie children and acknowledged the niggling secret that she would like to write. Because she loves stories almost as much as she loves children she began with a correspondence course in Children’s Literature, which led to a novel for readers 8 to 12 years. Marci was encouraged when this manuscript was long listed in the Allen & Unwin Development competition, and having made significant rewrites she is currently looking for a good home for it. Subsequently Marci has had a short story Commended by FAWNS and a memoir published in the Redlitzer short story anthology. She is currently working on a Novel for young adults. Marci Is a member of the Queensland Writer’s Centre, and a proud member of the Victoria Point Writer’s Group.
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