
A Little Gathering

By Pat Moore

Copyright 2012 Pat Moore

Smashwords Edition

Cover image "Puddles", courtesy of Gillian Moore

**Smashwords Edition, License Notes**  
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Table of Contents

Foreword

Dumb Tourism

How Not to Leave Florence

Chilling in San Gimignano

Bangkok Special

Doing Nothing in Bali

Koh Samui

Conversations With My Daughter

Shopping

Questions

Naughtiness

Avocado

Negotiating

Pee

Puddles

Goodness

Rants and Random Rambling

Men Shouldn't Cook

The Manwich

Dyslexics Rlue!

Deer Ser

There's Something About Mary

The Black Art of the Job Interview

Baby's First Swear Word

Dear Mr Abernathy

Apologies

An Alternate Reading of the Treaty of Waitangi

A Tourist's Guide to Auckland

One Hundred Word Challenges

Poetry... Well, Sort Of

Short Stories

You Knew

A Holiday, Somewhere in the World

Resident Ghost

Michael and Titania

The Last Cinderella

~~

# Foreword

This is a vanity project. I don't think I'm shocking anybody by saying that.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a published author. Actually back then nothing less than worldwide fame of the likes of David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey, both of whom I was reading at the time, would do. So, I wrote my first novel. Five years and two rewrites later - all in longhand, too - it was finished. It was the first of a fantasy-slash-science fiction series that would take the world by storm; an epic battle of good and evil that spanned worlds and generations, and the perfect showcase for my writing talents.

It was also quite terrible. Not mildly awful but completely, spectacularly and utterly terrible.

So, I hid it in the back of a cupboard and never spoke of it again. My writing was reduced to a jumble of plot outlines, notes and scraps kept in the back of the same cupboard, a handful of letters to the editor, a couple of competition entries, and various other ephemera. I never lost the dream of seeing my name in print but as the years progressed, I realised that it was less and less likely to become a reality.

Then five years ago, I was introduced to Gather.com. To explain, the Gather website is to writers what _Terra Magica_ was to Pinocchio... well, except for that whole turning into donkeys bit. Gather is a place where one can indulge in every literary fetish one can think of: poetry or prose, satire or tragedy, reportage or fiction, stylised or rambling. It is a place full of people dedicated to sharing their own work, and to challenging, collaborating and critiquing the work of others. Gather.com is a writer's paradise.

I am having a ball there, but I am no closer to creating my magnum opus.

Life has a habit of getting in the way of such plans. I am no longer a teenager with the time to commit to writing another terrible novel. In any case, I have written more for Gather in the last five years than I have for anything else in the fifteen years before that -- the fact that none of it is contiguous is beside the point. And when fellow Gatherer and guest editor Pam Brittain embarked upon a project to e-publish _Twisted Shorties_ , an anthology of Gather members' works (an anthology she graciously allowed me to submit some articles to) it occurred to me that I may have the volume of Gather work to do the same. So here we are, a selection of my posts on Gather, neatly compiled into an e-book for the benefit of non-Gatherers.

I fully expect it to sit on a metaphorical shelf, accumulating metaphorical dust, from now until forever. But that doesn't matter because now I can finally say, albeit with a degree of exaggeration, that I am a published author.

Yay, me.

~~

# Dumb Tourism

I love reading travel writing. Not just the likes of Intrepid Travellers such as Paul Theroux and Michael Palin and PJ O'Rourke - although _Holidays in Hell_ remains one of my best reads ever - but also the sort of article that gets slipped into the Saturday edition of the local newspaper and pads out local tourism magazines. These do not advance the art of great writing, nor do they contain the deep insight and unvarnished viewpoint of the Intrepid Traveller. They are puff pieces designed to entice Dumb Tourists into parting with their money. They come with disclaimers that read something like _John Smith flew on XYZ Airlines and stayed courtesy of ABC Hotels_ , disclaimers that announce to the reader that John Smith very probably has the best job in the world.

I read these articles because, unlike the works of the great writers, they describe experiences I can most aspire to. I am not an Intrepid Traveller. Intrepid Travellers revel in their environment: they roll in the dirt and sniff the locals' bottoms and eat stuff off the side of the road. I am a Dumb Tourist, one of the worst, in fact. I do not travel; I go on holiday. I will fly halfway across the world but will not venture even a few kilometres from my hotel. I like to eat recognisable food while seated in a restaurant rather than something char-grilled on a skewer from a roadside stall. I like to lie next to a pool rather than trek up a mountain or over a jungle path, and I like locals to wear uniforms and bring me drinks rather than try to hustle me or pick my pocket.

This is why I am never going to make my living in the manner of Paul Theroux, Michael Palin, PJ O'Rourke or even John Smith. Dumb Tourism is too cosseted, safe, and anodyne to make riveting travel writing, and I am too narrow-minded a tourist to make a good travel writer. But, sometimes, Dumb Tourists can still manage to stuff it up.

I am living proof of that.

~~

## How Not to Leave Florence

My wife works in the travel industry. She is organised. She makes lists and timetables and she keeps to them. She anticipates everything that can go wrong and she makes sure she can avoid or fix each one. She plans our holidays.

I do not work in the travel industry. I lose lists and ignore timetables. I see no need to review my plans and am constantly surprised when something goes wrong. I have never planned any of our trips except one. If you can see where this is going, raise your hand now.

It was 1998. My wife was finishing an extended stay with her cousin in Germany. She called me to say she was missing me. "Why don't you come over? We could go to Italy together. You've always wanted to do that haven't you? I just want to see you again. I _miss_ you... Oh, and by the way, bring lots of money. I've run out." I booked the lot from New Zealand, and joined her for the last couple of weeks of her stay.

We flew down to Rome, which in September is eerily devoid of Romans. My wife found out the meaning of the word "Saldi" within about five seconds of arriving. Fortunately, I had brought lots of money. Then we caught the train to Florence and hired a car to see if this whole "Tuscany" thing lived up to its reputation. It did. So did the Italian driving. "Did you even see that scooter? You know the insurance won't cover you if you kill him, don't you? They drive on the _right_ over here, Pat!"

We marvelled at the towers in San Gimignano, at the beaches at Viareggio and at the sunflowers everywhere else. We toured the Duomo, took rude photographs of Michelangelo's David and ate ice cream in the evening on the Ponte Vecchio. All in all, we had a great holiday.

Then came the time to return to Frankfurt.

Now in my defence I must say that the official Florentine travel literature expressly said that Florence airport was regional only. All international flights depart from Pisa, and you can even book your baggage onto your flight ex Pisa straight from Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence. Great, I thought. We'll catch a train up there in the morning, go check out the Leaning Tower, grab something to eat and still have plenty of time for our one o'clock flight. Which is what we did.

When we arrived at the airport, I could not locate our flight number on the board. Never mind. I figured I would just sort it out at check-in.

The woman at the counter looked at me quizzically. "What do you want me to do with this?" she asked, holding our tickets between her fingertips as though I'd given her a used tissue.

"I want to check in." I replied.

"But this ticket is from Florence."

"Yes..." I started to feel a little apprehensive. My wife was staring daggers into my back. I didn't need to turn around to know this: I could feel it.

"This is Pisa. Your flight leaves from Florence. You are at the wrong airport."

Oh.  
Bugger.

I tried without success disguise my panic. "I thought that all international flights from Florence left from Pisa. That's what it said in the brochure. Florence only handles regional flights."

There was a flicker of pity in her expression. Then she remembered who I was: a Dumb Tourist, holding up a line of other impatient tourists. "That is correct." She replied, as though she was talking to an idiot. "Next please."

It appears that flights from Italy to Germany are classed as regional. Now _that_ would have been a helpful nugget of information for the bloody brochure.

We scrambled for the train back to Florence. More accurately, I scrambled; my wife had decided that we'd been made to look enough like a fool at the counter and was not about to make it worse. "Hurry up." I said, "We have one and a half hours. We can still make the flight." My wife, who as I said works in the travel industry, did not dignify me with a reply.

The atmosphere in the carriage back to Florence was icy.

So, it goes without saying that we missed the flight. It also goes without saying that airline counter staff the world over have a well-developed sadistic streak. Yes, there is another flight in a couple of hours. No, your ticket does not allow you to rebook. Yes, you can upgrade your ticket for a fee. Thank you. Now let's see. Oops. Sorry. That flight appears to be overbooked. No more flights for two days. Next please.

We decided to take the train back to Frankfurt. Now, for somebody used to living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it can be a novelty to travel between countries by train. At least that is how I chose to view it. My wife disagreed. As soon as we had clambered onto the carriage, she commandeered two seats and fell asleep.

Some points about train travel in Italy:

\- Buying a ticket does not guarantee you a seat.

\- Italian trains are routinely overbooked, and overflow passengers must stand in the aisles. For about seven hours.

\- Standing in an aisle for seven hours makes you cranky, especially when you see somebody sleeping across two seats.

\- Dealing with a cranky Italian backpacker is still preferable to asking your irate, sleeping wife to give up one of her seats.

The next day we were back in Frankfurt, recovering from sadistic airline clerks, officious train conductors, suspicious customs border guards, cranky Italian backpackers, German train passengers who were just, well, German, and a large blonde and braided _frauleine_ at Stuttgart train station who screamed blue murder because we were standing in front of her shop. It was only at this time, nearly twenty-four hours after my faux pas in Pisa that my wife managed to speak to me again.

"Pat, you are a _bloody idiot_."

~~

## Chilling in San Gimignano

"Hon, they really do look like that."

What my wife was talking about was that Tuscan staple image: the serpentine chalk road with cypress tree sentinels, crossing over rolling fields to the grey and terracotta coloured stone farmhouse on the hilltop. Found on every Tuscan brochure, poster, postcard, website, TV travel show and souvenir teaspoon, I had half expected it to be apocryphal, perhaps the same four or five farmhouses pictured ad nauseum from different perspectives. But no, they really do look like that, and they really are everywhere.

Of course, I am driving an unfamiliar car on the wrong side of an unknown road, bracketed by definitely non-apocryphal Italian drivers. Looking at the scenery was the last thing I should have been doing. However this was the first, and possibly last, time I was ever going to be here, and nobody hereabouts knew who the hell I was anyway, so I gawked until the rumble of tyres on gravel reminded me to pay attention.

"Pat! What the hell are you doing?"  
"Well, stop _showing_ me things then."

Once off the autostrada at the town of Poggibonsi and onto the country roads that led to San Gimignano, the tourist-brochure Tuscany enveloped pretty much everything either side of the tar seal. On the other side of the flanking telephone poles, the green and gold hillsides were patchworked with yellow of sunflower and rapeseed and the deep lavender of, well, lavender. Dotted among them were by equal turns the more modern and mundane villas, and the picture-pretty stone houses. ( _I should pause here to advise you that I am relating events that took place back in the late nineties. If the sunflower fields and stone houses have now been replaced by condos for other Dumb Tourists, don't blame me._ )

The road got steeper and narrower, and I left the landscape ogling to my wife. The one thing I couldn't avoid noticing however, was the crest of hill on which the town of San Gimignano is perched.

From a distance, you would be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at God's Lego box; such is the close-packed nature of the buildings. The town has long since outgrown its old walls and in some places newer constructions flow down the lower parts of the hill, however these so complement the old town they are not immediately obvious. The place is a UNESCO World heritage site and I suspect that this, combined with the usual Italian penchant for bureaucracy, means that development around San Gimignano is so heavily circumscribed as to be impractical.

San Gimignano's parking lot rivals the town itself in size, and has a narrow, Florentine-style one-way system that was way too complicated for my tourist-addled brain. However, once parked, it was but a short uphill walk to the main gates.

When I first heard of San Gimignano, I was prepared to dismiss it as a sort of Italian historical Disneyland, and the parking lot - with as many German, French and British number plates as Italian - did little to change my mind. But it is a living, working town and, while the parking was full, the San Gimignano itself was not, as I had feared, heaving with badly dressed tourists such as myself.

For a bloke from suburban Enzed I was immediately taken by how the triple-storeyed, close-built houses turned the narrow streets into tiny canyons. Every iron-grilled doorway was a little cave, and sported a ye-olde wooden shop sign that lured you into a tiny ground floor souvenir store, delicatessen, trattoria or wine shop. The medieval headroom meant I frequently found myself missing lintels and beams by millimetres as my wife dragged me behind her. After about a dozen close encounters, I developed a head-ducking twitch that took me about a week to unlearn.

There seemed to be a fair amount of game meat and processed animal bits on display. Apparently deer and wild boar are relatively plentiful hereabouts, which surprised me as most of the land seems to be arable rather than bush. A wild boar found among rows of lavender plants ought to be easy to spot, not to mention uniquely tasty. I wasn't really up to finding out, though. Pretty much every conceivable bit of boar and deer was proudly displayed, and I prefer my meat to look as little as possible like the animal it came from.

I can confirm, however, that the wine is really * _hic_ * quite lovely.

The streets themselves were paved from wall to wall with the sort of old, rounded flagstones one would expect from a place that's been lived in for many hundreds of years and, faithfully following the lie of the ground, they cambered in a uniquely medieval Italian way. If this was Switzerland, you just knew the streets would have been levelled to within a millimetre of their lives and not nearly as much fun.

There also seemed to be no real pattern to them except that, eventually, you would end up in the Piazza del Duomo, which sloped down quite markedly from the cathedral. I mentioned this to my wife, who helpfully pointed out that she had no problem with it, and perhaps I had been a little too enthusiastic with the wine tasting. So while she went browsing the market, I sat on the steps of the cathedral considering how much havoc I could cause right then, if I was ten years old with a big bag of marbles.

However, just as Florence has the Duomo and Rome has the Coliseum, one cannot come here and ignore the towers. According to Wikipedia, the towers date from the middle Ages, and were built by rival families, as expressions of wealth and power - a more Freudian expression of wealth and power I cannot think of. At its peak San Gimignano boasted seventy-two towers, however today only fourteen are still standing, and only one of them, the Torre Grossa, is open to the public.

I may have been aware of this history as I climbed San Gimignano's tallest non-air-conditioned structure in the middle of one of the hottest days of the year, but really, I didn't care. The only things on my mind were: what the hell was I thinking, how much further did I have to go, just how stable was this vertical death trap, and what exactly happened to the other fifty eight towers?

However when I got to the top, all was forgiven.

From this perch, the geography of the town started to make sense. Each block of houses inside the walls seemed to ring a private common garden, a sort of green and laughing Eden completely invisible to the tourists in the streets. Beyond the walls in the near distance were the blocks of apartments that housed the overflow population - it is surprising how, in the middle of the European countryside, architecture can be as vertical as it is in the city. Further out again the view was a rumpled smorgasbord of green and gold, tempered further out by the haze that lends the Tuscan light its famous warmth and softness. There was no noise at all, and the distant hills took on a shifting, ephemeral quality, like looking down onto somebody's dream.

I could have stayed up there for hours taking photographs. That is, if I hadn't left my unused rolls of film with my wife back down in the piazza. Once back down I enthused to her about how beautiful and peaceful it was, and how I'd be glad to go up with her if she wanted to see for herself.

"Is there a shop up there?" she asked.  
"Well, no."  
"What's the point, then?"

After that, the rest of the afternoon was a pleasant dénouement. My wife finally sated her shopping jones by buying a couple of landscapes from one of the artists in the piazza, and we grabbed a couple of cooling slices of watermelon and ate them on the town wall. On the way out we bought half a dozen of the local white that lasted about twenty-four hours, as we sat at the window of our hotel room and drank straight from the bottle.

Hey, I never said we were classy.

~~

## Bangkok Special

In the preceding story about our exploits in Florence, I mentioned that it was better when my wife arranged our holidays. This is mostly correct, barring one exception: that of conflicting priorities.

My wife thought it would be a wonderful thing to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary with a weekend trip to Bangkok. At that time, we were facing the start of a large, healthy mortgage, and she planned this holiday as a Great Experience, a Final Blowout and a Trip to Remember. A great experience? That depends who you ask. A final blowout? Definitely. A trip to remember? Absolutely, though for differing reasons.

Bangkok is famous for three things: the culture, the shopping and the... well, let's just call it the nightlife. As my wife's definition of fun is confined to shopping, she was happy. My definition of fun however, does not, so there remained two things with which to enjoy myself, one of which would be guaranteed to end our marriage before we ended our trip.

That left me with the culture. I can confirm that Bangkok is a cultural wonderland: a profusion of Buddhist temples and shrines, narrow alleys jumbled with shacks, their front rooms over to the family business. Photo-op ramshackle houses built on stilts out over the Chao Phraya river. Colourful local food markets conducted across a logjam of boats and canoes. Street side food stalls promising your best last meal ever, should you be brave enough to eat from them. I know all this exists, because I glimpsed them as we drove by at 100kmh on the motorway.

You see my wife believed that all the Bangkok we could manage in our forty-eight hours was MBK, Patpong and Suan Lum.

Patpong and Suan Lum are the local night markets, and they at least promised something unique, something that justified suffering through a ten-hour economy-class flight. However, MBK is... umm, well, it is a mall. So you will appreciate my complete lack of excitement at the prospect of caddying my beloved's shopping bags from store to store for eight floors: Yes dear, those shoes do look lovely. Yes dear, those ones are lovely too. Which should you choose? Oh I don't know; perhaps the red ones. Okay, the blue ones then. What's that? No dear I'm not bored, not at all. I'll just be sitting down over... oh, sorry dear, of course I'll come with you into the bag shop... _sigh_.

We spent ten hours of our anniversary day at MBK, and I could not tell you the difference between any of the shops we visited.

Still, as night fell we retired back to our hotel and girded for the second half of our adventure: the night markets.

By day Bangkok seemed be an enormous though otherwise unremarkable city, but it changed when the sun went down. The offices closed and the stalls and the bars opened, and it developed a certain edge.

Our plan of attack was simple: eat, then shop. Eating was simple enough: beer and French fries at the top of the Baiyoke Sky Tower. Then we hopped on a tuk-tuk, the English translation of which I am sure is _scare you s***less_ , and made our way to Patpong. I was looking forward to Patpong. I should have known better.

Patpong is a farang ( _foreigner_ ) market, and if you do not want to be skinned by the stallholders you'd better be damn good at haggling, something we were both tremendously bad at doing. I wimped out completely when it comes to forcing down the price...

Stallholder: "3000 baht!"  
Me: "Okay."  
My wife: "What the...!?!"

... And my Darling Beloved lacked, shall we say, a sense of direction during negotiations:

Stallholder: "3000 baht."  
My wife: "1500 baht."  
Stallholder: "2700 baht."  
My wife: "1000 baht."  
Stallholder: "Eh? 2500 baht. Best price!"  
My wife: "1200 baht."  
Stallholder: "No, no, no! 2400 baht. No go lower."  
My wife: "800 baht."

Not that I was paying attention to the Twilight Zone into which my beloved was sending the stallholders, as Patpong plays host not only to the night markets, but also the nightlife. So while my wife rewrote the rules of haggling, I was accosted by several barely clad young women waving illustrated pamphlets in my face, illustrations the like of which would get them arrested on the streets of New York.

"Hey Aussie, Aussie! Geeday mate! Come in here! Best prices, best time! Ping pong show!"  
"I'm not an Aussie. I'm a Kiwi."  
"Kiwi! Hey Kiwi! All Blacks! You All Blacks! You come in!"

I don't know how a rugby team is an effective selling point for a Bangkok girlie bar. They couldn't be less successful if they'd suggested sheep. And I think some of them did as the girls and pimps are scarily persistent. I'm glad I was there with my wife. She provided me with something to hide behind.

We weren't feeling inspired at Patpong, so we escaped on another tuk-tuk, trailing angry stallholders and touts, towards Suan Lum. As I understand it, Suan Lum was created, by the city administration as an alternative to places like Patpong. Which meant it was safer, more laid back and about as full of atmosphere as you would expect a local government - inspired market to be. However you have to love a place that can put a Ferris wheel, a beer garden and a Buddhist shrine within spitting distance of each other and see no incongruity in it. My wife bought lots of stuff, I drank lots of beer, and we both went back to the hotel happy.

The next night we flew back home, and the best purchase I made the entire weekend was the duty free alcohol in the arrival hall.

~~

## Doing Nothing in Bali

As a tourist destination, Bali has a lot to offer the Intrepid Traveller. For the Adventurous there's the surfing, and the crepuscular climb up Mt Batur to watch the sunrise. There's also the white water rafting and jungle trekking, either on foot or by elephant. Anthropologists can immerse themselves in village and rural life. Aesthetes can head inland to Ubud for silversmithing, woodcarving, batik and dance, while the Gourmand would have their pick of places offering Balinese cuisine and courses in cooking it.

My Darling Beloved and I however, are not Intrepid Travellers. We are Dumb Tourists. We came to Bali to do precisely nothing, and to do it in comfort.

Choosing the precise location for our lethargy turned out to be a bit of a task. It was mid-2005, not quite three years after the Bali bombings, and the New Zealand and Australian governments had issued yet another warning about travelling there, yet the hotels were booked to capacity. In the end we chose the Le Meridien near the Tanah Lot temple, at the western extreme of the tourist triangle that stretches along the south coast to bland and expensive Nusa Dua, and inland to Ubud. The Tanah Lot Temple, with its traditional pagoda-like structure, is located on a rocky outcrop just off the shore and was built back in the sixteenth century, though the stalls, hawkers, and eateries that line the cliff are a more modern phenomenon.

We ventured down to temple itself only once, the day after we arrived in Bali, at 10 in the morning when there were no more than a dozen tourists in all, figuring the experience would be more enjoyable before the daily invasion of the tour buses. Kids swarmed us like mosquitoes, trying to sell packs of postcards for 20,000 Rupiah - about 3 New Zealand dollars - each. The postcard scenes were local but the spiel was universal, the economical broken English aimed exclusively at the hard sell:

"Mister, mister! Postcards! Good price! You buy!"  
"Please Miss! Must sell!"  
"Really good pictures Sir! Look!" _waves cards in my face_ "You like! You buy!"

That evening, from the comfort and peace of the hotel, we watched the same children go to work on the guided tourists arriving for the golden hour that is the Tanah Lot sunset.

Every morning the hotel posted a list of activities available to the guests. Most of these were far too Intrepid Tourist for my taste, which tended towards lying next to the pool with a colourful drink at hand. However it would have been silly to come all that way and not venture out the front gate, so my Darling beloved and I booked a couple of massage sessions at a health spa in Seminyak.

Seminyak is, to my mind, the best place to stay on Bali. The beach here curves in an unbroken arc all the way to Jimbaran Bay. The sand is backed by hotels, palm trees and a profusion of the sort of frangipani that are sold in pots at garden centres for three figure sums back home. Back from the beach the main thoroughfare, Jalan Seminyak, is lined with air-conditioned shops selling everything from cheap tchotchke to high-end fashion. The streets are narrow. The only traffic law being obeyed is the law of inertia. There was the constant sound of car horns, yet none were sounded in anger. Back home these would be the perfect conditions for road rage, but here nothing is any trouble and everything is done with grace and good humour. If the Balinese do not have a local word for _sang-froid_ or _mañana_ , they'd better make one up.

Our taxi ride from Tanah Lot however, reminded me why I'd preferred not to leave the hotel. Driving in the countryside involves two speeds: walking place or flat out. The vehicle of choice is the scooter, and they are more often than not comically overloaded. Rice paddies take precedence over infrastructure, which means the road tips and corners without warning and actually seems to narrow through the villages as it squeezes in between the homes and shops. They measure following distances in millimetres here. I missed dozens of photo opportunities because I couldn't pry my white-knuckled fingers off the passenger's door grip. Believe me, when we arrived in Seminyak for our massages, we were ready for them.

We were greeted with large glasses of something fruit-based and guided to our room. I was expecting gentle and soothing, and I don't recall requesting anything that involved somebody actually walking up and down my back. But walk they did and I came out feeling as if I'd done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Strangely enough, it was so good that I actually considered doing it all again. My Darling Beloved, who actually had red marks down her spine, dissuaded me: there was shopping to be done.

We walked the length of Jalan Seminyak. Twice. My Darling Beloved, who adores shopping, had a blast. I didn't. After the second circuit I decided it was time to eat.

Right on the beach at the western end of Seminyak is a restaurant called La Lucciola. Just why a restaurant serving mostly Asian cuisine and located on a Balinese beach has an Italian name I don't know, nor do I care. The food was exquisite, the sunset view was superb, and I discovered Bintang beer:

_"And verily, the Almighty looked upon this island and He was pleased, and He gave the people nectar sprung fresh from His Eden. And the people rejoiced and they named it Bintang._ " That is my personal creation myth for Bintang. I realise I am now a blasphemer and am going straight to hell. It was worth it.

Somehow, we got back to the hotel. And the next day my Darling Beloved sought to punish my hangover and me by taking me shopping in Kuta.

Kuta is tourist ground zero. There is a Hard Rock Cafe and a Starbucks. There are air-conditioned malls and supermarkets, more compressed versions of the shops on Jalan Seminyak, and triple-sided concrete stalls arranged in rows along alleys, shaded from the heat by strips of canvas. The streets of Kuta were so crowded as to make Jalan Seminyak look agoraphobic by comparison and bordered, like most places that need to deal with tropical downpours, with wide and deep open drains that are a treacherous cross at the best of times. I would not be surprised to find the local hospital crowded on a Friday night with drunken tourists and their broken legs.

My wife was ready to haggle, and every encounter she emerged from triumphant, with a black-plastic-bagged purchase on her arm. As the day progressed and the air grew hotter, I took a breather near a construction site. A local man sidled up to me. His English was good but his line was the same as the children at Tanah Lot:

"Gidday Mate."  
"Er. Gidday."  
"You wanna buy a suit? My friend he makes good suits. Really good price."  
"No thanks. Too hot for suits."  
"What about shirts. He makes good shirts."  
"No. No shirts."  
"What about DVDs? "  
"Nah. I'm fine thanks."  
There was a pause. "You looking for massage?"  
"No. Definitely not."  
"Place just round corner. Guaranteed Happy Ending. I'll show you."  
I know what he meant. The lackadaisical half hour backrub is more or less free. What you pay for is the Happy Ending.

"Sorry. Got to go. My wife wants me."  
"Okay, Mate. Take my card." and he handed me a cheap green-on-yellow business card:

_Dinky Di Enterprises.  
Proprietor Mel Giv sen  
Phone..._

I don't know which disturbed me most; that he thought I was sad and horny, or that he thought I was Australian.

When my Darling Beloved finally exhausted herself we still had an hour's wait for the hotel shuttle. So we poured ourselves into a local bar, bought a huge, dew-encrusted pitcher of Bintang and watched the world go by. When the shuttle - firmly keeping island time - finally arrived, we found ourselves sharing the journey back to the hotel with a happy but exhausted Australian family. The mother and teenaged daughter in the back row were vocal in their admiration for our shopping bounty. They wanted to know our tricks with haggling. We didn't understand.

We hadn't noticed, but there were three colours of plastic bag that stallholders used when they'd made a sale, and they were a local code. White bags marked the punter as complete novice, black and white striped bags meant they had a better idea of what they were doing, and black bags warned of an expert who haggled to the bone. My Darling Beloved's bags were all black.

Of all the things she bought, those black plastic trophies are what she values most.

~~

## Koh Samui

"Oh, you're going to Koh Samui."

My regional manager, a refined Singaporean gentleman, appeared a little concerned when he learned of our planned holiday to this island off the Thai peninsula. He knew of my Darling Beloved's pregnancy and had some advice for us. "Don't drink the water. Not even the ice. Very bad. And make sure you take some medicine, just in case she gets... she gets..."

At that point his English failed him, and he resorted to sign language.

I got the gist. "Diarrhoea?" I asked.  
"Yes. Yes. Diarrhoea."

I developed a renewed respect for my regional manager. Not only because of his genuine concern for my Darling Beloved, but also for the refined way he managed to mime diarrhoea.

This trip was, as all our trips were, a last-minute affair. We hummed and hah-ed about it for a while, contemplating as we were a 2009 with one income, a mortgage and a baby. And just like all our trips, once we made the decision to go we went rather rapidly. Within a week we had our airline tickets, transfers and hotel reservations. And after a twelve-hour arse-numbing flight - I have yet to meet an airline economy seat that does justice to the concept of thigh support - and an expensive overnight at a Bangkok hotel we found ourselves decanted outside the tiny airport at Koh Samui.

_Arriving._

My strongest impressions of foreign places, especially tropical ones, has always been rooted in their smells. My first experience of coconut oil was on a trip to Hawaii as a boy, and the two have been intertwined ever since. For Langkawi it is the fragrance of the spices used in our wedding ceremony. And the scent of Frangipani takes me back to the trees lining Seminyak beach in Bali.

My first impression of Koh Samui was the odour of jet fuel. Not an auspicious start.

Airports the world over are built for a specific purpose: to contain and herd people from one part to another as efficiently as possible. To that end they tend to conform to a particular template: air bridges and gate lounges and concessionaires and security cameras and acres of glass and concrete and metal.

Koh Samui airport doesn't even have walls. All the buildings are steep-roofed, open-sided pavilions. The aircraft park on the tarmac a hundred metres or so from the terminal proper, and passengers are ferried between them in open-air trams. It seems odd, but it works. Koh Samui airport also has some of the best public toilets I have ever experienced. There's a huge tropical fish tank in the foyer, and each cubicle is like a little executive suite. I have no idea why I felt the need to share this with you.

Processing is a perfunctory affair and before I knew it, we were on the street outside the arrivals gate. A well-practised chorus - _Teksi? Teksi? You need teksi?_ \- greeted us. We took up the offer of the closest driver to get us to our resort for 500 baht. I had no idea whether that was a good price or not. Although the cabs have meters, none are used. Price is always by negotiation, and it always pays to negotiate in advance.

The road to our resort at Chaweng Noi was concrete - I suspect that tar seal would not last a day in this heat - and has a tendency every so often, to eschew high-speed corners for abrupt right-angled turns. Also, narrow like you wouldn't believe. A couple of times we turned into what looked like somebody's driveway, only to realise it was a major thoroughfare. I would not be surprised if some of the houses here regularly have to deal with errant cars and their bemused drivers in their front porches.

Speaking of houses, there seem to be two methods of construction in Koh Samui: wood or poured concrete. Of the two, wood seems to be the more successful as concrete buildings can take on the appearance of ancient ruins before they're even halfway constructed. To appreciate the true meaning of the word entropy just take a look at any concrete structure in Koh Samui.

_The Resort.  
_ The beach of Chaweng Noi is lined from one end to the other with resorts. Only at the southern end does the road come close enough to provide access for the locals. Our resort was squeezed in just before this point, right next to where the bars bang out music twenty hours a day and backpackers come to party and pass out on the sand. The resort's website promised deluxe rooms with sea and mountain views, wireless internet, air conditioning, and first class amenities. The reality was something different. Our room had concrete walls and all the charm of a Russian bunker, the wireless internet was at best a sometimes thing, the air conditioning was a wheezing, rattling racket, the first class amenities were cracked and chipped and the mountain views were a glimpse of a gaggle of half-dead palm trees through the tangle of power lines bordering the road. I roamed the resort, reconciling the glossy internet images with real life, and came to the conclusion that if those pictures did indeed paint a thousand words, eight hundred of them were lies.

Never mind. We were here in a tropical paradise. The sand was soft and white, the water was crystal clear, we ordered complicated drinks crowned with umbrellas and orchids and contemplated a week of doing nothing but relaxing in the sun, although I would love to meet the guy who decided that, in a place with thirty degree Celsius heat and scorching sun, the beach chairs ought to be upholstered in dark brown vinyl. Our first evening there was perfect. The next morning however, the rain pounded at the tarpaulins hastily erected over the paths, and the wind spat sea spray and sand over the beach chairs. This was shopping weather.

_Shopping At Chaweng.  
_ Chaweng is a tourist town, there's no doubt about that. There were half a dozen name-brand designer stores, a hundred more that claimed to be but weren't, and uncountable more tiny shops and stalls crammed into about three kilometres of street front. There was little by way of footpath, and what there was sat a good six inches up from the road and the free-for-all of traffic, so watching your footing was a matter of survival.

I don't know who strung the power lines here, but I'll bet they were drunk when they did it. When I stepped back to allow somebody to pass, I felt something brush the back of my neck. I turned around and found myself cheek to cheek with a low-slung loop of what seemed to be live power cable. From that point on I decided to take my chances among the scooters.

For all the shops there was not a great variety of stuff for sale, outside of the usual cheap tat, and after four hours my Darling Beloved admitted defeat. Feeling a little deflated we caught a taxi back to the resort. On the way, we passed the place where the real Koh Samuians go to shop: Tescoes.

_Shopping On the Beach.  
_ In any case one does not need to go to town to shop. Here, the shopping comes to you. The procession of beach vendors was fun for about fifteen minutes. All kinds of goods are on offer, whether you want them or not: dresses, sarongs, tee-shirts, board shorts, ice creams, hats, plastic beach toys, jewellery, silk throws and cloths of every shape and hue, wigs (yes, you read that right), temporary tattoos (at least I hope they were), and special tours at discount prices, the brochures of which all featured a traditional-looking boat that would be turned down by Haitian refugees.

If you're lucky the hawkers figure out, after the sixth or seventh time, that if you hadn't bought anything so far you were unlikely to at all. But only if you're lucky. Soon you feel like yelling _Listen you $%^ &, I just want to &%$^ well sit here in peace and @(&^ quiet, so take your &*^)$ rubbish and @!~^ off!_

Of course you don't. You just put on your sunglasses, turn up your Walkman and feign sleep. By mid-afternoon all the sun loungers seem to be occupied by narcoleptic deaf-mutes.

On the fourth day I decided to walk to the far end of the beach. Chaweng Noi is easily a kilometre long, and made up of that soft and powdery sand that makes for great photos but is purgatory to walk on, like tramping through ankle-deep molasses in afternoon blast-furnace-strength heat. I needed two detours into the water before I reached my goal and when I got there, hot and exhausted, I saw those exact same hawkers and their armfuls of wares.

It was at that point I realised that on any given day, these beach vendors probably completed at least a dozen laps of the entire beach, that they did so laden with kilograms of goods with no chance of the respite that I had found essential, all for the purpose of selling to a bunch of lazy, cranky and increasingly rude tourists, and they did so with smiles and laughter, for what amounted to little more than a few dollars a day in profit, if they were lucky.

After that I made sure I was nothing but polite, and smiled at every unwanted intrusion into my precious tanning time.

_Elephants, and the Real Koh Samui.  
_ I am not an open-minded sort of tourist. My normal mantra is anything worth seeing is worth seeing from the hotel. However this time I decided to try something different. After eliminating anything that hinted at exertion, we decided to try an elephant jungle trek.

This was supposed to be a look at authentic Koh Samuian life, though I don't quite know why. The island is 30 kilometres from the mainland at its nearest point, so unless they're world record swimmers elephants were probably as native to the island as I was. Whatever. It was outside the hotel, and that was authentic enough for me.

Our elephant's proper name was Jumbo. His nickname was Lady-boy. I had no idea elephants were that way inclined, however it pays not to make a big deal about it with the elephant you're about to climb onto the back of. We started out in a paddock, which reminded me of New Zealand countryside, or would have if New Zealand farms had coconut palms and banana trees and water buffalo with ropes through their noses. In any case, everything becomes more interesting when perched ten feet off the ground on a swaying metal seat attached to the back of an elephant by bungee cords around its neck and arse.

Halfway through the tour we got to the photo-op part. This was where our mahout took our camera, slipped off Jumbo's neck and started snapping away while shouting commands at his charge in Thai. After a few minutes he indicated we should hop off the seat and climb onto his neck. My Darling Beloved looked at me and said "You have got to be kidding..." So it fell to me to make like the Great White Explorer. I think I disguised my panic pretty well.

Another command and Jumbo moved off again, sans mahout and me still gripping for dear life to his neck. I asked our guide "Uh... dude... you gonna get back on?"

Apparently not.

After the trek had finished, we were encouraged to part with 40 baht for a basket of bananas to feed to our particular pachyderm. I'd have thought that sort of thing would have been included in the price, but no matter. It is all for a good cause, and in any case when Jumbo looks down at you expecting bananas, you damn well better feed him some bananas.

_Our Fellow Tourists.  
_ One of the advantages of resort life is the time it allows for people watching, and the United Nations of holidaymakers thrown together in a forced semi-intimacy. Before long I had compiled a list of characters that would do credit to Charles Dickens.

First on this list would have to be the Laptop Lady. At first impression she was the archetypal thirty something executive. Early morning she could be found in the lobby with her Sony Vaio, wrestling with the hotel's intermittent internet. However after breakfast she would be on the beach, tanned, thonged and topless. By mid-afternoon there were more men in sunglasses surrounding her than the American president.

The Arguing Italians spent their time from sun-up until the close of the bar in loud contention with each other. I have now come to the conclusion that if you want to swear at somebody, Italian is the most eloquent language to do it in.

The Sisterhood of Three Indian Girls were on a bonding holiday until, on the second day and for some unknown reason, they split into two against one.

The High-Maintenance Girlfriend was blessed with an impossibly trim figure, strawberry blonde hair and a face like a young Nicole Kidman but she could not go five minutes without fishing for a compliment from her boyfriend, a large American with a southern drawl and the patience of Job. Beauty does come at a price, and he was paying it in spades.

The German on Holiday was a stereotype in speedos. Middle-aged, bald and constantly sweating, he was the kind of overweight that manifests a smooth, rounded paunch from sternum to groin, like an overstuffed bratwurst. He spent every breakfast loudly _sprechen auf Deutsch_ on his cell phone. I noted without surprise that while he wore a wedding ring the Thai woman by his side did not.

The Guccied Israeli Couple would easily have won the award for the most Bling on the Beach.

The Spanish Backpackers almost always won the daily beach soccer game against the bar staff.

The Solitary Scandinavian's wardrobe seemed to consist solely of a grey bikini and a tattoo of a butterfly on her hip. Short of an occasional polite hello she spoke to nobody, and spent the entire day, from sunrise to sunset, prone on the sand. Where she disappeared to after dark was anybody's guess.

The Door Slammers took me a while to isolate, occurring as they did in an echoing hallway at odd hours of the night. I finally figured out it was the Australians in the room next door. Vengeance came via a 5 a.m. rerun of Jaws with the volume way up. They only ever swam in the pool after that.

_Leaving.  
_ I have yet to stay in a hotel where the checkout process was uncomplicated. There is always an overlooked form, a miscommunicated instruction or an incorrect account. This time was no exception. "It's quite simple," my Darling Beloved explained. "The deal was for five nights but pay four, see here?" and she pointed to the email that said quite clearly October Special: stay five nights, pay for four. "Do you understand?"

The clerk smiled and nodded, even though it was obvious he did not.

So he sent us off for breakfast while he located somebody who was not there to get an authorisation they did not have to credit the account he did not understand. Once we returned, it was all sorted out. Nearly.

While my Darling Beloved tried to explain to him one last time, my attention was drawn to the huge jade and jewelled paperweight in the shape of a dragonfly, holding down a sheaf of receipts. Only when I went to test its weight did I realise my mistake. I recoiled in shock, though not as much as the dragonfly did.

\--

What is there left to say? Nothing much. The trip back was uneventful, except for the usual economy class torture: 400 people, 4 toilets, 12 hours and everybody ate the curried prawns.

Never again.

~~

# Conversations With My Daughter

My daughter is three years old. I have learned that three-year-olds will talk about anything and everything to whoever will listen. These conversations are frustrating, migraine-inducing, mind bending, stream of consciousness rambles, and I am determined to get in as many as I can before she develops that filter between mind and mouth that grown-ups have, and our conversations become a lot less fun.

The selections that follow may give you an insight into the mind of my three-year-old. Continue at your peril.

~~

## Shopping

Daddy, I need it!  
No you don't angel. You want it but you don't need it.  
No! I need it!  
Why do you need it?  
It's Dora daddy!  
And?  
... It's DORA!  
You already have lots of Dora things. You don't play with them anymore.  
But...  
In fact you told me that you didn't even like Dora anymore. You liked Ariel instead.  
But... but... but...  
Look, what about this one? It's Dora and it's on sale.  
No! I don't want that one!  
Why not?  
No!  
But it's Dora too.  
No!  
But...  
NO. I. Don't. Want. That. ONE!  
...  
Mireya. What have I told you about shouting?  
...  
Do you think you're going to get anything when you act like that?  
...  
Well?  
no.  
What was that?  
No.  
That's right.  
Sorry daddy.  
Sorry for what?  
Sorry for shouting.  
Hmm. Do you think you deserve that Dora after that?  
Yes.  
Really?  
No.  
Naughty girls don't get rewarded. You know that don't you?  
Yes daddy... I love you daddy.  
Don't do that.  
I _love_ you daddy.  
All right. You can have that Dora. Just this once.  
Thank you daddy... umm... daddy?  
Yes?  
What about this one?  
Go ask your mother.  
~~

## Questions

Is that a yes daddy?  
Sorry angel, what was that?  
Is that a _yes_ , daddy?  
I'm not answering yes until I know the question.  
What question daddy?  
What do you want me to say yes to?  
... Is "yes" a question daddy?  
"Yes" is an answer. You have to ask a question first to get an answer.  
Oh, so if I ask a question first, then you'll say yes?  
Depends on the question.  
Oh. Ok. Umm, daddy?  
Uh-huh angel?  
Can I have a chocolate?  
No.  
~~

## Naughtiness

Sorry daddy.  
Have you done something wrong angel?  
No.  
That's OK then. You only say sorry when you've been naughty.  
Oh. Ok... Daddy?  
Yes Reya?  
Have you been naughty?  
Not today.  
Not today?  
Nope.  
Have you ever been naughty?  
Well... yes.  
Did you say sorry?  
Sometimes.  
Only sometimes?  
Umm, yeah.  
That's naughty, daddy.  
I guess so.  
( _singing_ ) Daddy's been naughty. Daddy's been naughty. Daddy's...  
That's enough Reya.  
( _still singing_ ) DADDY'S BEEN NAUGHTY. DADDY'S BEEN...  
REYA!  
Yes daddy.  
If you keep that up you'll go straight to the naughty step. Understand?  
Sorry daddy  
~~

## Avocado

What's this, mummy?  
An avocado, Reya.  
Abocado?  
A-VO-cado angel. It's got a V in it.  
...  
Mummy?  
Yes angel?  
I've looked but I can't find a V in it anywhere.  
Not there angel.  
Is the V in the kitchen?  
No angel, it is in the name. Say after me... A.  
_A.  
_ VO.  
_VO.  
_ CA.  
CA.  
DO.  
DO.  
That's right. Avocado  
Abocado.  
Oh for pity's sake... here, take this instead.  
Mummy?  
It's a banana.  
~~

## Negotiating

Reya, time for dinner.  
Daddy, I want a popsicle.  
No. Sit down and eat.  
Daddy, I want a biscuit.  
Dinner, Reya.  
Daddy, I want my boots.  
You don't need your boots.  
Daddy, I want my princess costume.  
No.  
Daddy, I want my bike.  
No.  
Daddy, I want a juice.  
No... oh, ok then, sit down and I'll get you some.  
Daddy, I want a strawberry milk.  
No.  
Daddy, I want a banana.  
Maybe after dinner. We'll see.  
Daddy, I want an ice cream.  
No.  
Daddy, I want a...  
What you want is to sit down and eat your dinner. Now.  
Daddy... daddy... daddy...  
Reya. Sit. Down. And. Eat.  
Daddy, I want Dora.  
Reya, listen to me.  
Yes daddy.  
I'm going to give you a choice.  
Yes, daddy?  
You can sit down and eat your dinner...  
Yes, daddy?  
Or you can sit on the naughty step.  
...  
Daddy?  
Yes Reya?  
Can I have my dinner now?  
Good choice.  
~~

## Pee

Daddy, can I pee in the bath?  
What? No Reya, you can't.  
Why not daddy?  
It's dirty. If you want to pee, get out and go to the toilet.  
Is pee dirty?  
Yes. Have you peed in the bath Reya?  
No daddy.  
Are you sure?  
I'm sure daddy!  
Okay then.  
....  
_lbdrulbdrulbdrulbdr  
_ What are you doing?  
Blowing bubbles daddy.  
In the bath water?  
Yes.  
And you haven't peed in there?  
No daddy, I haven't!  
Because if you have, that would be like peeing in your mouth.  
Oh, yes... daddy?  
Yes Reya?  
I want to get out now.  
You peed in the bath, didn't you?  
Yes.  
In that case, out you get.  
Thank you daddy.  
~~

## Puddles

Daddy, is that a puddle?  
You and puddles... yes Reya, it is a puddle.  
Can I jump in it daddy?  
No. You'll get water in your boots.  
Can I step in it daddy?  
No.  
Can I tap it daddy?  
Okay. Quickly.  
_Tap. Tap. Tap.  
_ Okay then. Let's go.  
One more minute daddy.  
_Tap. Taptaptaptap. TAP.  
_ Reya...  
Two more minutes daddy.  
_TapTAPSTOMP!  
_ Reya...  
Four more minutes Daddy.  
No Reya. Now.  
_STOMPSTOMPSTOMPSPLASH!  
_ Daddy... my feet are wet.  
I told you so. You can take your boots off in the car.  
Five more minutes daddy.  
No more minutes. I'm leaving now.  
_TapTapSTOMP.  
_ Bye, Reya.  
_STOMPSTOMPSTOMPSTOMP._ Daddy! I'm coming!  
Good.  
...  
Daddy.  
_Sigh._ Yes?  
Is that another puddle?

~~

## Goodness

Daddy, have you lost your goodness?  
I don't think so Angel. What happens to people who have lost their goodness?  
They're bad.  
Do you know somebody who has lost their goodness?  
Yes.  
Who?  
Kendra!  
Why is that?  
She didn't share her magic pony. She's bad.  
Bad is a strong word, Reya.  
Is it a bad word?  
It can be.  
Bad is bad. Kendra's bad too. She doesn't share.  
What about you?  
I'm good.  
You didn't share with Asha the other day, when she wanted to use your bike. Then you wanted her princess dress when she was wearing it. Oh, the tanty your threw...  
I _do_ share daddy.  
Not always. So if Kendra is bad and Asha is bad, you must be bad too.  
...  
Daddy, here you go.  
What's this... your biscuit?  
Take it daddy.  
That's OK honey, I don't need it.  
Daddee! Taaaake it!  
Okay, okay.  
Daddy?  
Yes, Reya.  
Have I got my goodness back now?  
Yes honey. You do.  
~~

# Rants and Random Rambling

The thing I like about Gather is the wide variety of articles one can post. No matter the skill, the subject or the form there will be a group, a challenge or an informal circle of friends somewhere on Gather to accommodate it. _Rants and Random Rambles_ is a catchall for posts I have made in response to various Gather writing challenges or requests. For my part, the 100-word challenges taught me the virtues and discipline of concision, the poetry groups taught me the joys of looking at the form of words as well as their meaning, and my freestyle rants simply gave me a release valve during some of my grumpier moments. I have tried to edit context into each, but where I have failed I have simply added a preamble in an attempt to explain myself.

Enjoy.

~~

## Men Shouldn't Cook

Before I start, I just want to get one thing off my chest: men should not cook.

There. I said it.

Now I did not mean to say that men are _unable_ to cook. Nor did I mean to say that women ought to cook. Nor did I mean to say that they look fat in those jeans and we don't love them anymore and they should get back into the kitchen. I simply said men should not cook. And I say this simply because male cooking sucks.

Back in the mists of prehistory, cooking consisted of a caveman killing a woolly mammoth, chopping off a leg and throwing it on the fire. Of course the woman of the cave was not satisfied with that for long. Pretty soon she wanted to add some roots and ferns for flavour. Then came the doilies under the stone slabs and cutlery made from mammoth tusks. Then she wanted to know why they couldn't go somewhere nice for dinner, just once in a while, like all the other cave families in the valley did.

Of course, the caveman couldn't see the point of any of this, so while humanity has evolved, male cooking hasn't.

Okay, there are exceptions to the rule. One or two men out there are good at cooking, and have garnered fame and fortune from it. Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, for example. But they are, like the three-toed sloth and duck-billed platypus, freaks of nature, and in any case those who buy their books and watch their TV programs are mostly women.

Then there are married men. Much like the trained chimpanzee, they are outside their natural environment and have learned by rote the secrets of the kitchen. They may know the motions of good cooking but will always fail understanding.

No, the man I'm talking about is the unreconstructed, as-seen-in-the wild bachelor, who should never be let loose with anything more complicated than a toast-n-grill. Today's technologically savvy man grasps only two forms of cooking: microwaving and frying. Microwaving is simple: take food from box. Place in microwave. Punch in time. Open a beer and wait for the ping. Frying is only marginally more complicated. Take food from tray. Place in frying pan. Open a beer and occasionally poke food with something sharp until it starts to smoke. Turn it over and repeat. If it needs extra seasoning, pour some of the beer over the top. Or whisky, for that flambé effect. However with any other form of cooking - roasting, boiling, grilling, simmering or steaming - he'll be completely lost. As you will be when trying to navigate through the smoke-filled kitchen before the fire department arrives.

Women know all about the components of food and how construct them. I'll bet that for those languages that assign a gender to nouns, all food is feminine. Women know the difference between a pulse and a legume, and the meaning of words like julienne and roux and jus. That is why supermarkets devote their first half dozen aisles - the ones immediately after the fresh fruit and vegetables - to things like sauces of the world and marinated artichokes in aspic.

Men don't know these things and they don't care. Men understand eating, and that the shortest distance between two points is to be found frozen, in a cardboard box. That is why supermarkets place the TV dinners next to the beer and the aisle that sells DVDs and gardening equipment.

Which brings me to the one thing that has enabled modern men to survive unaided: processed food.

Men are at their best with food that is at least partially pre-prepared. Take that bachelor staple, spaghetti bolognaise. Many is the male who would point to this and say _Of course I can cook. Gordon Ramsay eat your f@ &$*^g heart out_. But the pasta will have come boiled in a bag, the sauce will be out of a can and even the parmesan will be pre-grated. Give the same guy the raw ingredients to start with and he'll have to call his mother to find out that that is what a tomato is supposed to look like.

Consider also the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The bread is already baked, the peanuts buttered and the jelly jellied. All the master of construction has to do is slap them together, grab a beer and voila. Dinner.

Hell, for most men opening a packet of chips is about as much preparation as he's willing to endure in his search for sustenance.

I was trying to find a way to end this article, some way of highlighting the gender differences in cooking that I have observed, so I took a walk through my local hardware store. It says something, I think, that barbecues aren't sold alongside other kitchen equipment. You won't find these modern marvels of maleness displayed next to your latest wall oven or ceramic hob. You have to go to the other end of the store - the outdoor centre, near the ride-on mowers and the petrol-driven leaf blowers. Here, stainless steel behemoths line the shop floor, gleaming in the fluorescent light, where an arms race of gas burners is waged. Here, size is king. There are coffin-sized hoods concealing rotisseries that could skewer a cow, and wok attachments that could take a Jamaican kettledrum. Barbecue utensils of a size suitable for Fred Flintstone are offered up alongside, next to gas bottles of Greek-god dimensions.

And walking among them _sans_ wives and partners, were men being men: gently caressing the chrome and steel curves, fondling the knobs and switches, peeking under the grills at the gleaming, virginal burners, swinging the outsized tongs and prongs and barbecue forks like so many prehistoric clubs and spears. Just then, I could see them crouching behind the racks in the electrical department, waiting for a woolly mammoth to come along ripe for slaughter and incineration on the altar of the Gas Master 2000.

Some things will never change.

~~

## The Manwich

Despite my previous article to the contrary, I actually spend quite a lot of time in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy cooking, however now that I cook for two I have to make compromises... and by compromises I mean I prepare exactly what my Darling Beloved feels like eating. Unfortunately what she feels like eating I usually have to pay serious money in a restaurant for: things like grilled salmon smothered in dill sauce and a side of mesclun salad, or sautéed chicken breast on a bed of carrot and parsnip with a cranberry jus. These meals have expanded my cooking skills but I have to admit I miss the sort of food I used to indulge my bachelor days with. So I have struck a bargain with my better half in that every so often I can now cook for myself food that I miss from my single days: spag bol, mac 'n cheese and my eternal favourite, the manwich.

Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about food here.

Whatever you do, do not confuse a manwich with its distant cousin, the sandwich. A manwich is a thing of beauty when done right, and to be done right, you have to follow certain rules. So, if you are a married bloke who feels the need to revisit one of the blisses of bachelorhood, or a non-bloke who craves understanding of this hallowed male gastronomic ritual, please read on...

_Rule Number One: A Manwich is A Personal Thing.  
_ A proper manwich should reveal the inner self of its maker - and I'm not referring to the happy, rainbows-and-fairies sort of inner self. I mean the greed, the sloth and the dirt that the true bachelor can indulge in only in the privacy of his own hovel. This is why you will never see a true manwich sold over the counter. When you inhale the aromas of your local delicatessen or lunch bar, you expect to be transformed, pavlovian, into a drooling, clamouring fool. By contrast the only effect one person's manwich ought to generate in another is the gag reflex.

_Rule Number Two: M is For Manwich and M is For Meat.  
_ Dead animal flesh is the building block of the true manwich, and ideally there ought to be bits of more than one animal involved: turkey can sit next to beef, or tuna, or ham, or salami, or sausage, or chicken, or anything else that is sitting at the back of the refrigerator. And before you even think about putting any tomato or lettuce in there, think again. Lettuce is rabbit food. Real men don't eat rabbit food; they eat the rabbit. Also, age is no barrier to meat inclusion. In fact, ageing adds a certain piquant flavour to the end result, as well as building important resistance to everyday illnesses such as salmonella. So long as it has not risen Lazarus-like from its plastic tray and is fighting to open the refrigerator door, it is a contender.

_Rule Number Three: Grease is Good.  
_ Forget South Beach, forget Jenny Craig. Atkins had it right. Scientific tests have proven* that 83.7% of a food's flavour resides in its fat, and a manwich is proud to show it all off, topped with melted cheese and a fried egg. In fact, nothing in a manwich ought to escape the frying pan, especially the bread. For those who just cannot shake the health implications, you can always console yourself with the idea that half an hour on a smoking hot stove top will have "cooked the fat" out of anything. Whatever. Just so long as when you've finished, the frying pan resembles a paddling pool and the kitchen floor has the texture of an ice rink.

_Rule Number Four: Too Much is Never Enough.  
_ To gauge the size when stacking your ideal manwich, open your mouth as far as you can and measure the distance between your jaws. Add at least an inch to the result and that is your goal. No manwich ought to be able to be eaten in one bite. They're meant to be messy, and a seasoned manwich observer ought to be able to discern the contents of your creation with one glance at the front of your shirt. Anything less than that and you may as well have filled the damn thing with boiled egg and cucumber slices and served it with a pot of tea. Piker.

_Rule Number Five: Time is Relative.  
_ One thing about the bachelor lifestyle is a lack of a timetable. The true bachelor has no concept of a circadian rhythm, and manwich preparation is a perfect example of this. A manwich is not mealtime food - that is what McDonald's is for. Some of the best manwiches I have made have been at four o'clock in the morning or, as I used to call it, nearly bedtime. It was at this time, when my perspective on the world was sufficiently altered, that a week old chicken, a half-eaten tin of sardines, an ancient pickle jar, the hardened crust at the top of the ketchup bottle and some green-looking mayonnaise was the perfect artist's palette for my creation.

It took me a while to learn however, that such artistry was also the reason I often woke up the next morning curled around the toilet bowl. For some reason, my Darling Beloved doesn't find this as amusing as my mates used to.

Hmm. Maybe grilled salmon and dill sauce isn't so bad after all.

* _Don't ask me to provide you with the actual scientific tests. I'm going by the principle that, in today's Googled world, 99.95% of what you choose to believe is good for you been proved by scientific testing._

~~

## Dyslexics Rlue!

What is wrong with technology today? I don't think of myself as a grumpy old bugger, but I often have an issue interacting with the modern world: one of us has a problem, and I'm damn sure it isn't me.

I give you Exhibit A, from the IT Situations Vacant section of my newspaper, where I keep encountering instances of acronymical vomitus, thus:

SQL, IIS, ISA server. HTML and VRML. MCSE, ITIL, CCNE cert. rqd. SDLC knowledge prfd.

My lack of empathy for this sort of thing probably precludes employment in the IT business, as it seems your average techie likes nothing more than a couple of good, hard acronyms with his coffee to start the day. Now I'm all for acronyms in the right place and time, but the truly geeky can wield the little buggers like a light sabre:

_Yeah, your QWERTY-board isn't ISO standard and it's PEBKAK-ing your RAM so the CPU and the HDD are sharing an IRQ with the CD-ROM and you need to RTFM for your PCB and LCD, see..._

Get thee to a pocket protector, Nigel.

Anyway, soon after that I received this text from a friend who really should have known better:

_Hei bro! jzt chkn  
ur dere tlk 2nite  
eh cu l8r h8r!_

This is not communication. This is the lower half of an eye chart.

I am gladly not part of the TXT generation. My thumb is too big for the touch-sensitive nano-sized keypads that are the result of a brain backfire by cell phone designers these days. In any case, I dislike my sentences unpunctuated, nor my words abbreviated to within an inch of their lives. And don't even get me started on those "boutique" stores in my local mall, with names like _TEMT_ and _rabi_ and _nVision_ and _Xpress_ , which cater to the current crop of facile gum-chewing generation -Z with ungrammatical misspellings for the sake of mindless fashion and drivelling design...

Excuse me for a moment. Nurse has told me to calm down and take my medication.

In any case, so far it appears that everybody else had the problem, not me. That was at least, until I found myself in front of my (cutting-edge wireless, ergonomic) keyboard, composing this:

_Dear Ssir.  
With refrence to your leter of the 15th, I wuold like to enquir ferther aboutt..._

Okay. I can't blame anybody else for this, no matter how hard I try. So now, I began to suspect that, perhaps, it was not the rest of the world that has the problem. Perhaps it was indeed - _gulp_ \- me.

Well if it was my problem, I was damn well sure it wasn't my fault.

So, in the tradition of internetted paranoiacs everywhere I went to the web. Therein I discovered that I was not a pedantic, lazy, disagreeable curmudgeon, no sir. I have a condition. I am dyselx... I am dyspept... I am dyslexic.

Not the Friday night sort of dyslexic where you can't read the advertising over the urinals because your forehead is pressed against the wall and it is the only thing that is keeping you upright. Nor the more permanent kind where, because you couldn't read the safety pamphlet on the aircraft you don't know how to tie your lifejacket and the other screaming passengers are just too damned rude to help you out.

Rather a more modern, transient sort, newly diagnosed by me: _Techno-Dyslexia_ , defined as that cross-eyed confusion that manifests when the technology that is supposed to make our lives easier insists that _we_ must change to fit _its_ needs. For example when you try to use the abovementioned cell phone keypad, or perhaps when you're forced to wade through that End User License Agreement for your newly-installed piece of software, or maybe when you think you've finally deciphered the 2-point font in your DVD setup manual, you realise you're reading the bit that's written in Estonian.

It all makes sense now. That Wikipedia dyslexia entry was me in print. I mean, just look at the associated symptoms:

Poor personal organisation skills – you should see my desk.  
Difficulties with numeracy or arithmetic – that explains those heated discussions I've had with my bank manager.  
Left-right confusion – I couldn't reverse into a car park if my life depended on it.  
Balance and co-ordination issues – yes, but only on a Friday night.  
Poor short-term memory – just ask anybody I've spoken to at a party. A goldfish has a better chance of remembering names than me.

There is also, according to Wikipedia, an association with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - I think this post is evidence enough of that - Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) and Developmental Dyspraxia (DCD). And there are those bloody acronyms again.

Of course, my newfound condition puts me in some serious company. Name pretty much anybody famous and there is a good chance that they're dyslexic, including:

Scott Adams, Dilbert cartoonist - hero to cubicle dwellers everywhere.  
George Bush - and if you were to guess which one you'd likely be wrong, though it would explain a few things.  
Alexander Graham Bell - and I suspect he invented the telephone because he had the same feeling for telegrams that I have for TXTs.  
Robert Rauschenberg, artist – poor beggar, just writing his name must be a dyslexic's version of hell.  
And Albert Einstein – which makes me think that e=mc2 probably started life as Al's shopping list.

Not to mention great states people such as George Washington, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, George Patton, Winston Churchill, and Cher.

In fact Google tells me - and Google is never wrong - that around ten per cent of any population is likely to be dyslexic. Include Techno-Dyslexia and I'll wager we are in the majority now. We could rise up in revolt. We could write our own Techno-Dyslexic Bill of Rights - in 14 point, double spaced font. In fact I'm creating my Enemies List as we speak, and you can be sure that EULA authors, cell phone TXT designers and Estonian DVD manual creators are at the top of it.

And, if anybody tries to question our newfound status, we can simply stand up straight, puff our chests out proudly, and tell them to go gte stffued.

~~

## Deer Ser

_I was moved to write this after reading two articles in my local newspaper. The first was about high schools which were planning to accept txt language in students' exam answers, and the second, a group of academics advocating the use of phonetic English._

Dr McGregor  
Lekturer, Medical Fakilty  
Auckland Universety

Deer Ser,

I wud like the oportunity 2 respond 2 your coments on my last papper. In partikular u mentioned my poor speling and literasey. I would like 2 say that what u called poor speling is in fact TXT-speek and phonics, both of which r now considered aceptible by ur bosses in the Minustry of Edukashun. It wuz gud enuf 2 get me thru hi skul and into uni, so I fail 2 c how it isunt gud enuf 4 ur corse now. I would also like 2 point out that I put my papper through the Microsoft Spellchekur and it kame out fine, so if Bill Gates, who is richer than the hole world, thinks I write OK, who r u 2 argue?

U complained how TXT was a bakwerd step in humun comunicashun. I put it 2 u that u r living in the past. TXTing is the haiku of the modern age and cellfone prediktuve txt the new dikshunerys. In fact Ill go so far as too say if God didn't want us 2 TXT, he woodn't of given us opposible thums.

U also said I was desekrating the language of Shakespeere. That mite b true, but u r talking abowt a guy who lived, I dunno, thousunds of yeers ago, before computers wer even invented and nobodey cares about him any more. Unless Shakespeere komes back & writes Hamlet - the World Of Warcraft Expansion Pack, nobodey is gonna give a rat's ars about all those thee's and thou's:  
_Prithee dear sir, wouldst thou take thy battle packs and swing round yonder hill to frag those f@% &ers back into the stone age_ _..._  
...I don't fink so.

U also complaned about how I displayed an unaceptible lack of knowlege of Latin terms. Well when I m a doktor, I won't need Latin 2 tell my patient that his leg is broke, so wat's the point?  
Latin is a ded language, and anyway all the Latin people I know speek Spanish.

In conclushun I just wanna say that this is Inglush as she is spoke today. We are the futur, and yous old fogeys in the fakulty beter get used 2 it.

C u l8r, h8r.

Urs Sinceerley  
Jon Smith  
(pre-med, 2nd yeer)

~~

## There's Something About Mary

_Submitted to Gather as part of a challenge to sketch a scene with words._

A few years ago Mary was a houseguest of my sister in law. She had come over from Samoa for a few weeks in summer. I think she ended up staying about six months.

Time is a fluid concept in Samoa.

Mary may have actually been family. I don't really know. She may have been a family friend, or simply somebody a cousin's friend's brother in law ran into at a nightclub. It didn't really matter. On my wife's side all relationships tended to coalesce into an _AuntyCousinNiece_ sort of thing, anyway.

Family is a fluid concept in Samoa as well.

Recalling Mary is like looking closely at a mosaic: I stare at the individual pieces for a while, then step back to let the pattern make sense as a whole. I remember large earlobes, with equally large earrings. I remember long fingernails with complicated patterns painted on them. I remember loud, floral-print dresses and impossibly high heels. I remember thick makeup and cheap perfume. I remember a loud laugh, and when laughing a set of curiously worn teeth. I had no idea what had worn them down and didn't want to ask.

Mary's three passions were drinking, loving and fighting, usually in that order. The drinking was formidable, the fighting mythical: if the laughter ended and Mary started taking off her earrings and high heels, somebody was in serious trouble.

But it was the loving that scared me the most. You see, Mary had a thing for palagis and would flirt shamelessly, outrageously and ruthlessly with any that she could find. During family events, that was usually me. Whenever this happened I tried to remain within earshot of my wife, hoping that would afford me some measure of protection. I was wrong: Mary couldn't care less about my wife, and my wife did not feel in the least bit intimidated by Mary. She knew that Mary was very definitely not my type.

It wasn't just the cheap perfume, the complicated fingernails and quick temper that turned me off.

It was also the large hands.

And the stubble.

And the fact that Mary's birth name was Phillip.

You see, sometimes gender is also a fluid concept in Samoa.

~~

## The Black Art of the Job Interview

When I originally wrote this Gather post, I was in the market for a new job. This brought me back in contact with the job interview, something I haven't had to face since the eighties. Back then I wore a knitted tie and a shiny grey suit to my job interviews. I had a mere one year of work experience under my belt, and that was part-time cooking burgers and pizza while pretending to study at Auckland University. I hated the things back then and now, twenty years on, nothing has changed.

_Job Ads  
_ But I'm getting ahead of myself, because to get to the job interview first you must read job ads. Lots of them. There is a particular art to this as well. A combination of cliché and euphemism in their writing, and pragmatism and cynicism in their reading. If you read them for long enough - and chances are you will - you start seeing the same phrases again and again. Phrases like: _Superstars wanted. Challenging Role. Can-Do Attitude. Flexible Hours. Great Team. Modern Office. Well-Known Company. Great Location. Job Satisfaction. Career Progression_.

This is not all bad of course. Some of these act as a handy warning flag for the experienced job seeker, such as:

_Young and Dynamic Environment_ : people over thirty need not apply.  
_Able to deal with strong personalities_ : the rest of the team are complete bastards.  
_Able to take direction_ : the boss is a complete bastard.  
_Project-based role_ : expect to get laid off in six months when the project is completed.  
_Experienced in change management_ : we don't yet know what the job will entail.  
_Dynamic go-getter_ : job requires an amoral bastard who would sell their own grandmother to close a deal.  
_Great social opportunities_ : there's a company cricket team, touch-rugby team and bowling team and you'll be considered an arrogant loner if you don't join all three.

Anyway, let's say you successfully navigate the ads and apply for a job. Let's say that you're even lucky enough to get a response that doesn't read like ... _unfortunately your skills and experience don't quite match our expectations for this position and therefore_... You may think that you're about to get that elusive job interview, right?

Think again.

_Recruitment Consultants_  
Welcome to the world of the recruitment consultant. They have flashy and little bowls of mints on the table. The consultants themselves have wide, welcoming smiles and an easy banter. They say things like _you're perfect for this job, but can we review your résumé a little? There are just a couple of minor holes we'd like to fill in_...

The fact is, when recruitment consultants advertise a job they're already scraping the bottom of their particular barrel. They have an existing list of available candidates who have already unsuccessfully interviewed for it, and they're now desperate and casting as wide a net as possible in order to land that commission. This means they're going to make you fit that job come hell or high water, and the first step is to what they would call pumping up your résumé, or what you and I would call lying.

Yes, recruitment consultants lie. They lie more eloquently than a politician, more often than a used car salesman, and more transparently than an eighteen-year-old male hovering somewhere near third base, who swears he's never felt like this for any girl before, honest. In my case, having worked for the same company in the same office for the last twenty years, my résumé required more padding than an American Idol semi-final. It was more a work of fiction than any of my Gather posts, but thanks to the expert revision of a couple of recruitment consultants - _Just sign here Pat. Blood will do. Don't concern yourself with that bit about your eternal soul_ \- it became a work of art. Once you are on the other side of that however, you are ready for the job interview.

Oh, joy.

_The Interview_  
Some people actually like these things, though I cannot see why. They are about as painful, humiliating and personally invasive as a prostate exam. And, just like a prostate exam, you have no idea how it went because you were looking in completely the wrong direction. There are a couple of things I did learn though:

\- If one of the interviewers spends the entire time just looking at you and glancing at his clipboard then, when asked by the other interviewer whether he has any questions, simply says "Nah. I'm fine", then he made up his mind about you the moment you walked in, and it wasn't good.  
\- If at the close of the interview they say, "That was great, however there are a couple more candidates we have yet to see and we'll be in touch soon", then it wasn't, there aren't and they won't.  
\- If they come in with a big smile and say "Great to meet you Michael", and you say "My name isn't Michael, its Pat", and they then rifle through their folder and pull out your résumé, and their smile disappears and they go "Oh. Okay...", then you might as well just leave right then and congratulate Michael - who is waiting in reception for his interview - on the way out.

And then there are the Important Questions. On the face of it they seem about as banal as the interview section of a beauty contest, but upon them rests the success of the whole exercise. There is always one right answer and a million wrong answers - no prizes for guessing which one mine were:

Why do you feel you would suit this position?  
_Right answer:_ I have wanted to work for ACME Flange and Fasteners Co. for as long as I can remember. I will dedicate every waking moment to my job, and will give 110 per cent to everything I do. You will never regret choosing me.  
_My answer_ : Dude, I need the money.

Can you list your good points?  
_Right answer_ : I'm ferociously driven. I'll tackle any problem and never give up until it's fixed. I'm also loyal to a fault, and for the good of the company I'll do anything, anywhere anytime.  
_My answer_ : Sorry, I'll have to consult with my therapist and get back to you on that.

Can you list your bad points?  
_Right answer_ : I'm a workaholic and I cannot lie.  
_My answer_ : Geez, how much time have you got?

Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?  
_Right answer_ : Doing your job.  
_My answer_ : Doing your job. (Yes. This was the wrong answer as well. Nobody said these things were simple...)

_Conclusion  
_ If you are lucky this particular form of masochism will be short-lived. I however, am never lucky, and found out that it can also go on for months, a sort of job seeking Groundhog Day. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, when the last scraps of my self-esteem were fluttering down around my feet like so much dandruff, I actually found somebody willing or desperate enough to take me on. So in one week I start my new Challenging Role in a Modern Office of a Well Known Company with a Great Team that promises Job Satisfaction and Career Progression. I'm sure I'm going to be the happiest I've ever been. Hell, even if I'm miserable, anything's better than submitting to yet another job interview.

Check back with me in another twenty years.

~~

## Baby's First Swear Word

Have you noticed that somewhere in the reportage of a traumatic event, there is always someone who talks about how normal everything seemed: the crazed gunman was always a nice, quiet guy, and train crashes and explosions and earthquakes always occur without warning on an otherwise unremarkable day. For some reason, juxtaposition is needed to accentuate just how surprising the event was, and just how world shattering the effects.

Well, now I understand why, because that is how this story starts.

It was a pleasantly autumnal Saturday. I took my three-year-old to the shops to buy some lunch and, after some intense negotiation by her, chocolate milk. As we returned to the car a little old lady, with all the speed and precision of her ilk, parked next to us. I waited for her to exit her car and we exchanged smiles.

Then it happened.

"For f@(% sake."

Everybody froze. My little girl smiled, that proud sort of smile young children use when they believe they have been especially clever or grown up. I had no idea what to say so, naturally, I said exactly the wrong thing.

"What did you say?"

This time, she shouted. "FOR F@(% SAKE!"

I bundled her into the car. By the time I had the courage to look up again, the little old lady had disappeared. "Where did you learn that word?" I asked.

"Mummy said it."

Yes, her mother. It was exactly what she would say, albeit muttered under her breath. So would I, for that matter. Sometimes a situation requires a safety valve. But how do you explain that to a three year old?

Simple. You just drop mummy right in it.

"That is a very bad thing to say, honey. Mummy shouldn't say it either."

"Naughty mummy!"

"That's right. And when you hear her say that again, you tell her so, Okay?"

She nodded, beaming. "NAUGHTY mummy!"

But I could tell the damage was done. Not only did she now know there were such things as Bad Words, she also knew one of the worst ones. On the drive home she was whispering it, delighting in the sound of it, and I had to reconcile myself with the fact that my little girl, who now stood as high as my hip and could count to ten in three languages, was of course going to pick up on anything mummy and daddy uttered, especially when it was uttered in anger.

When we got to the front door, my wife was waiting for us. Our little girl and I both spoke at once.

Me: "We need to talk."

Daughter: "NAUGHTY mummy!"

Wife: "What the...?"

We have managed to train her away from that word, I hope. She is now having fun with the more phonetically pleasing FOR PITY'S SAKE! Which bursts off the tongue with more vigour and has the bonus of being accompanied by a fleck of spittle if done right.

And we made a commitment to never, ever swear in front of our daughter again.

Of course, that lasted all of three f@(% ing days.

~~

## Dear Mr Abernathy

_This was written in response to a challenge by Gather guest editor Len Maxwell. Len described it as a freestyle challenge; the only requirement was to include the words ramose (branched, having branches), georgic (relating to agriculture or rural life) and marplot (one who frustrates a plan by meddling).  
Len is nothing, if not a sadist._

\--

Dear Mr Hardwick,

I am writing to you on behalf of my client, Mr Adam Wilkins, in an attempt to bring to an end the dispute that you have engaged with him over the last six months.

It appears that your grievance with my client is ramose and protracted, involving matters georgic, pecuniary and personal, and stem from issues related to my client's late uncle Wilbur Wilkins, the former owner of Blue Ridge farm. This acrimony is unwarranted in respect of my client, who has endeavoured to improve the economic productivity of the farm and the surrounding district. Your rancorous accusations of my client as a dilettante and marplot have only served to undermine his standing as a progressive and assiduous promoter of alternative agronomical practices. My client would welcome the opportunity to discuss your concerns at the earliest opportunity, preferably before the next monthly shire meeting.

Please indicate your willingness to engage in mediation by return.

Yours Sincerely,  
Thomas A Abernathy, Esq.  
Solicitor at law.

\--

Dear Mr Abernathy,

Please excuse the lateness of my reply. It is late because I had no idea what the hell you was writin' about. It took me a day to realise that Georgic Rams it wasn't some goddamn abomination from one of them communist breeding programs I keep hearin' about. Which is just the sorta' thing your damn dilettante marplot – yeah, I looked them words up too – of a client would probably get up to.

As for Wilbur, sure I had a lot of problems with him: he was a grumpy old bastard who ran his cattle on my side of the creek, never repaid a loan, and stole my wife, Martha. But he was still a damn good farmer and someone who could be counted on when the creek flooded and the sheep needed shiftin' to higher ground. When he died, I missed him, more than I missed Martha.

I had no problem with your client inheritin' Wilbur's farm. I had no problem with him swannin' around in that fancy four-wheel drive of his. I didn't even have a problem when he said he was gonna get rid of the cows and start raisin' alpacas and organic mink instead. But when he started usin' the shire meetings to sign the rest of us up to his goddamn eco-farm collective, that was the last straw. And when his goddamn minks got loose and killed my chickens, well, I didn't wait for the next shire meeting. I let him know all about it.

At the next shire meeting he had the gall to claim that thieves had let his minks out an' he got my idiot neighbours to sign up to some goddamn expensive security system that goes off in the middle of the night and scares the cows so bad they no longer give any milk.

And then at the shire meeting after that he got 'em all to agree to those goddamn dogs that patrol his place to catch the thieves that set off the alarms every night, the same dogs I that caught chasin' my sheep round the high paddock.

And then at the shire meeting after that he got 'em to sign up to the goddamn guards to try to find the dogs that the thieves had somehow managed to steal right from under the security system, and who spend more time cuttin' up my front paddock and gettin' their cars stuck in the ditch.

So Mr Abernathy, in reply to your request for mediation, please inform your client that if he would like to find out what happened to his minks, his security cameras, his dogs and the wheels from the guards' cars, he will find them all hangin' from the boundary fence. And if he has a problem with that, he can bring it up at the next goddamn shire meeting.

Mediate that, Mr Abernathy.

~~

## Apologies

_This particular rant came into being after another Gatherer, the excellent John Phillip, penned an article claiming that men never apologise. There was no way I could let that one pass._

I'm sorry.

I can't help myself. While wandering through Gather I came across an article in which John asserts that men never apologise because they never make mistakes, and then goes on to commit an absolute howler of one himself. Setting aside his contention that men never apologise – I'll get to that in a minute – Mr Philipp's faux pas was that he referenced, quoted, and even based his article on, the writings of not one but _two_ women.

John, John, John... what were you thinking?

At first I had no knowledge of Mmes. Anna Quindlen or Deborah Tannen, so I performed some exhaustive research - okay, two minutes on Google - and discovered that not only are they both indeed women, but one is also a Professor of Linguistics. Add to the mix the fact that they are both successful authors, and you end up with what I call the J K Rowling syndrome, where one day some publisher said "Hmm. I kind of like this Harry Potter concept. I wonder if it's got legs." And we haven't been able to get her to shut up since.

Thus did John violate the _First law of Manly Communication: never let a woman get a word in first_. I like ya John, I really do. But the chance of you or me winning this debate against these two protagonists is about as much as either of them beating either of us in a belching contest.

This is not intended as a sexist diatribe - no, really - but as a matter of survival. Women are naturals for wordsmithery. I know this from bitter experience. Whether it is the massive volume of verbiage designed to confuse and disorient the listener – my Darling Beloved for example, has not once replied to "Did you have a good day?" with anything less than a twenty minute reply – or the scalpel-like precision of the Distaff Haiku:

_Do I look fat?  
Do you think she's pretty?  
You don't love me anymore._

..as well as, of course, the dreaded:

_We need to talk._

Fact is, women know how to use words, and the people they like to use them on most are men. Which brings me to my second point of contention with John's article: men never apologise.

Rubbish.

Actually my retort was a little stronger than that but I don't want to get flagged.

Perhaps what John meant to say is that single men never apologise. That would make more sense. Young single men are the living embodiment of hubris and it is hubris, not love, which means never having to say you're sorry. The married man by contrast, thinks hubris is a fancy Mediterranean chickpea paste that his wife serves up at dinner parties. Terms like pride and self-assurance cease to have meaning about five seconds after uttering those fateful words, "I do". From that point on, there are only two phrases he needs to know: "I love you" and "I'm sorry". And the reason for this is a variation of the _Second Law of Manly Communication: stick to the facts_.

To understand why, you need to understand that the evolution of language has occurred along two distinct paths: female communication and male communication.

Women are social creatures. For them, language is used to establish a rapport, and women took up talking about the time humans started growing less body hair and it became socially unacceptable to pick nits off each other. With women, it isn't what you say, it's how you say it: words are a tapestry, an art form, and an end in themselves. Mere facts are an afterthought, often misunderstood and certainly not required. This is why my Darling Beloved speaks three languages but still can't simply reply "I had a crap day, actually", why she knows fifty-three different terms for the colour brown, and why she spends every evening watching The Daily 10 on the E! channel.

Primitive men however, developed language to communicate facts. Men were hunters, and the use of language was how Erg was able to warn Ugg of the Sabre-tooth tiger in the tall grass behind him. Alternatively it was how Erg could distract Ugg from the Sabre-tooth tiger until it was too late, kill and skin the tiger while it was snacking, then bring the fur coat back to the cave and get lucky with Ugg's widow. For men, brevity is king and any words that do not convey actual information are a waste of time and space. This is why my Darling Beloved knows I don't buy Playboy for the articles, why it takes more time for me to dial the number than to talk on the phone, and why I can't watch more than five minutes of E! News without fighting an urge to throw something at Ryan Seacrest. It is also the reason I am never, ever, going to best her in an argument.

At which point I ought to include the _Third Law of Manly Communication: never argue with your wife or your mother_.

I would have thought this one was self-evident. Mothers can end an argument before it starts. We are never going to win against the woman who gave birth to us or changed our nappies. She has too much (metaphorical) dirt on us and anyway, mothers invented the concept of the guilt trip.

Wives on the other hand, will expound for hours about our failings, they will wax lyrical about how we don't deserve them, they will perform Shakespearian on the travails of unappreciated wifehood and at the end of it all, the best we etymologically-challenged, fact-restricted males can come up with is "Your face has gone red." or "Look, it's gone dark outside." or "Sorry, have you finished?"

At which point we remember, far too late, that women don't grasp the need for facts in communication, and that it pays not to piss off the person who prepares our food.

Which is why men - married ones at least - always apologise. Whether or not we mean it and whether or not it is deserved, the only common ground we have, the only two facts that can be understood by both sides, are "I love you" and "I'm sorry".

~~

## An Alternate Reading of the Treaty of Waitangi

_This was written in response to another challenge by guest editor Len Maxwell. In this challenge he asked us to take a part of some famous literature, poetry or song, and rewrite in our own words. Len's example was the Gettysburg Address. I chose to use the preamble of the Treaty of Waitangi, the original agreement between the British Crown and the Maori chiefs of New Zealand. It was signed in 1840 and is considered the founding document of the country of New Zealand. It is also considered by some as the biggest land deal in history in which one side didn't have a lawyer._

The Treaty of Waitangi, preamble:

HER MAJESTY VICTORIA Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland regarding with Her Royal Favor the Native Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and anxious to protect their just Rights and Property and to secure to them the enjoyment of Peace and Good Order has deemed it necessary in consequence of the great number of Her Majesty's Subjects who have already settled in New Zealand and the rapid extension of Emigration both from Europe and Australia which is still in progress to constitute and appoint a functionary properly authorised to treat with the Aborigines of New Zealand for the recognition of Her Majesty's Sovereign authority over the whole or any part of those islands – Her Majesty therefore being desirous to establish a settled form of Civil Government with a view to avert the evil consequences which must result from the absence of the necessary Laws and Institutions alike to the native population and to Her subjects has been graciously pleased to empower and to authorise me William Hobson a Captain in Her Majesty's Royal Navy Consul and Lieutenant-Governor of such parts of New Zealand as may be or hereafter shall be ceded to her Majesty to invite the confederated and independent Chiefs of New Zealand to concur in the following Articles and Conditions.

\--

_What the Author really meant:_

Gidday.

My name is Victoria, and I am the queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Seems like a lot of my subjects have moved down to your neck of the woods and are making pests of themselves. Now, I can understand how that might just bother you a little bit, and just between you and me, it bothers me as well. I mean, how can I tax them if they've buggered off to some place that I don't have any control over?

So I have a proposal for you: if you just agree to call me Queen and let me rule the place, I'll keep them all in check and make sure they don't bother you too much. You can keep running around in those quaint little grass skirts and doing those war dances I've heard so much about, and if you want to sell off any of your land you can sell it to me rather than those ragamuffin settlers you've been doing business with so far. I'll pay you a fair price for it, honest.

So, do we have a deal? Excellent. I'll let this guy you're talking to now, William Hobson, iron out the fine print and sign you up. It's great doing business with you.

Oh, and by the way, if you see any smelly little Frenchmen show up tell them to bugger off, and that the place belongs to me now.

Ta very muchly,

Victoria (Queen)

~~

## A Tourist's Guide to Auckland

_I wrote this in response to a few of my Gather friends asking questions about New Zealand, and for the benefit of a couple others who seemed to confuse us with Australia._

What can I say about New Zealand? Well, it's not part of Australia. If you think I've said that before you'd be right. Thanks to some American friends who keep confusing us with Australia I'm gonna keep saying it. Maybe I should start calling them Canadian and see how they like it.

Now, as far as I'm concerned New Zealand is split into two regions: Auckland and everywhere else. Auckland is New Zealand's biggest city. Auckland houses one quarter of New Zealand's population. Auckland generates most of New Zealand's wealth. Auckland serves New Zealand's best coffee. And the rest of New Zealand hates Auckland. Luckily, we Aucklanders don't give a rat's patooty what the rest of New Zealand thinks.

Contrary to our belief that we're a jumping sort of place, a sort of South Pacific London or Paris, the reality is Auckland is a whole mess of suburbs gathered around a few shopping centres. The only bit that tourists would even deign to consider properly urban is a few city blocks around Queen Street. That is the real reason we built the Sky Tower: so no matter where you are, if you want to find where the action is you have something to aim for.

What people call Auckland is actually four different cities: Auckland City, North Shore City, Waitakere City and Manukau City.* Let's break them down:

_Auckland City_ is the bit in the middle. As well as the Sky Tower, the Casino, all the best nightclubs, some great beaches and a pretty good view of the Waitemata harbour, it is also home to some of the region's most expensive suburbs. And despite the fact that they have the smoothest roads and the most carefully landscaped grounds in the whole of the country, they also have the biggest and most expensive SUVs you'll see anywhere. You aren't anybody here until you own at least one Porsche, Mercedes or Volvo that rides as high as a delivery van. Most of them are permanently and illegally parked on the footpaths outside the many cafes and wine bars that infest the area. When others tell you they hate Aucklanders, these are the people they're talking about.  
_Tip for tourists_ : carry an expensive cell phone, lots of money and talk really loud, and you'll fit right in.

_The North Shore_ sits on the other side of the Waitemata harbour from Auckland city and is connected to it by the traffic jam that is the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Back in the 50s and 60s when New Zealand opened its arms to English immigrants, this is where most of them settled. They didn't seem to like the place very much, and as a result the North Shore became known as the home of the Whingeing Pom. On a quiet night you can still hear them whine from all the way on the south side of the Waitemata harbour.  
North Shore also has some of Auckland's most popular beaches, primarily because they all have car parks big enough for SUVs and you can get really good coffee there.  
_Tip for tourists_ : don't be embarrassed if you get lost in the maze that is the East Coast Bays. We don't know the way around there either.

Off to the West is _Waitakere City_. This is the traditional home of the Bogan: the beer-drinking, mullet-wearing, black-tee shirted, car-racing fanatics of Auckland. Many residents of Waitakere City of course, would like to point out its other attractions: it is the Eco-City of New Zealand, it has a thriving arts scene, it is cultured and sophisticated, and you can get really great coffee there. Unfortunately you can't hear any of them over the roar of the V8s and the clatter of discarded Steinlager cans.  
West of Waitakere City, on the other side of the Waitakere Ranges, are some of the country's best black sand beaches. They're especially good because most Aucklanders don't seem to know where they are and wouldn't go there even if they did, because the back sand dirties their SUVs and you can't get coffee of any sort there, either.  
_Tip for tourists_ : you'd better know the difference between a Ford and a Holden or you're in trouble.

To the South and East lies _Manukau City_ , the city with a split personality. To the East are the white-collar suburbs of Botany, Howick and Pakuranga. These are where recent immigrants from Asia and South Africa are mostly to be found, as well as Poms who couldn't find room on the North Shore. People here prefer to be known as East Auckland rather than Manukau. Once you've seen the rest of Manukau you'll know why.  
To the South is Manukau City proper. These are the suburbs that house most of the people of Auckland who actually work for a living. The population is mostly Pacific Island, and because of this, we have the two things that make Manukau City unique: more churches per square kilometre than anywhere I've seen outside of Rome, and the Otara Flea Markets.  
Seriously, this is a great place to be on a Saturday morning. If you want to see, touch, taste and smell the local Polynesian culture then you want to experience the Otara Flea Markets. Just be warned, the food will take ten years off your life. Even something as essentially healthy as raw fish ( _oka_ ) can be made into a diabetic time bomb if it's done right.  
Manukau is the one city that lost out on beaches. Most of it borders Manukau Harbour, whose main claim to fame is the sewerage treatment plant. Swimming here is not recommended. Nor is inhaling, on the bad days.  
Aucklanders have been known to venture into Manukau City: the Southern Motorway passes through here on the way to the ski fields further south. They don't hang around though as their SUVs make too big a target for the local kids and the coffee isn't up to much anyway.  
_Tip for tourists_ : if you're here after dark, get the hell out.

* Update: since I originally wrote this, Auckland is no longer a neighbourhood four different cities. As of 2010 we became one big city - a super city, apparently. If you think that the blue-ribbon suburbs of Epsom and Remuera then forgot about the old regional boundaries and joined hands with the blue-collar suburbs of Mangere and Otara and sang a round of "Kumbaya", then you really don't know Aucklanders at all.

~~

## One Hundred Word Challenges

**Snake Oil** _  
The challenge: write 100 words using the phrase "I didn't come to ____ looking for redemption, but somehow I found it."  
_ He was gaunt, smartly dressed and carried two large bags. He looked like any other snake oil salesman. The only difference was the snake oil.  
...Brothers and sisters, I didn't come to Nebraska looking for redemption, but somehow I found it. And now I want to share that redemption with you. Pray with me...  
Mike sighed. The man wasn't even being original.  
The townsfolk of Redemption took their religion seriously, and this man was on dangerous ground. As soon as possible, Mike would take him aside and show him what had happened to the charlatans who had been here before.

**The Lesson** _  
The challenge: write 100 words about the picture (not shown here) of an elderly, smiling woman leading a donkey.  
_ Every afternoon at the taverna, Yaya would pass by, leading her donkey. And she would laugh and say to me "Be careful!"  
So one day I had to ask. "Yaya, every day you tell me to be careful in the taverna. Why?"  
She smiled. "Because I still remember my husband. Every day he went there and every night, drunk, he said that he couldn't even trade me for a donkey at the market."  
I didn't understand.  
Her eyes sparkled. "It seems he was right. Apparently I was not worth even one donkey." Then she looked behind her. "But he was..."

**Those Five Famous Rings** _  
The challenge: write 100 words about the famous Olympic logo._  
"Okay, we've got a million dollar contract and a week to go. Any questions?"  
"Yeah, pass the coffee pot."  
"Anybody else?"  
"Me too."  
"And me."  
"Come on guys, this is the Olympics we're talkin' about here. Get this logo right and we'll be famous. You gotta have something."  
"Who's got the sugar?"  
"Yup. Here you go."  
"Aww geez, guys, that's a contract, not a coaster. Move your cups will ya?"  
"Oops. Sorry."  
"Look what ya... hang on, you see that?"  
"See what? Oh. Yeah."  
"Colours are wrong."  
"Photoshop'll fix that."  
"Call the Olympic committee. We could be onto something here..."

**Another Day** _  
The challenge: conclude your drabble with this famous line from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the wind - "After all, tomorrow is another day."  
_ "They're well known round here, the Day family."  
Ralph pushed back from his desk and looked down the hall. "Alan and Jane are products of the sixties. Got eight kids. All girls, all trouble."  
"Trouble?"  
Ralph sighed. "Yep. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. All the best women are."  
"Do I know any of them?"  
"You know one of 'em, and soon enough you'll wish you didn't. There's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and..."  
I followed his gaze to the figure in the hallway.  
What... Tamara?"  
"Don't let the accent fool you. It's Tomorrow, and be careful... After all, Tomorrow is another Day."

**And Baby Makes Three** _  
The challenge: write 100 words on the theme_ One Whole Year _.  
_ It was one of those rare moments where Tom had time to himself, and he crept into his old den to remember: he remembered when the walls were brown on grey and his guitar propped up the corner, when the room smelled of cigars and Joe Cocker grumbled from the CD player.  
Now it was pastel pink. A cot stood against the wall, redolent with talcum and nappies. A clutter of toys washed over the floor. Joe was gone now; nursery rhymes on high rotate in his stead.  
He sighed heavily. One whole year had passed. Another eighteen to go.

**Baker's Dozen  
** _The challenge: write 100 words about lucky, or unlucky, 13.  
_ What's wrong with this one?" Small, dark fingers traced the egg white cooked into the crust.  
"Nothing child. It's just left over."  
"What about the rest?"  
Esther checked them off as she piled them on the plate "Two for the Master. One for the Medem. One each for the children. Four for the guests. That makes twelve." She wiped her floured hands and sighed. "And the rooibos. Good."  
"And this one?" She placed one hopeful, sticky finger on the last soetkoekie.  
Esther smiled. "Very well umntwana. Take it and sit on the stoep."  
She grinned widely "Ndiyakuthandela nana!"  
"Ndiyakuthandela umntwana".

**Locked and Loaded**  
_The challenge: write 100 words about what it would be like if you could understand baby talk.  
_ "Corporal!"  
"Whggmff?"  
"Spit out that rusk and report!"  
_Dribbles half-eaten rusk down playsuit_. "Sir, we have sentries at the jungle gym and slides, and two mobile."  
"Mobile?"  
"Gone walkies in strollers."  
"Good. The ice cream van is due at fifteen-thirty hours, and..."  
"Sir?"  
_Sighs_. "Just after naptime corporal."  
"Yessir."  
"The diversion ready?"  
"Abraham is working up a really nasty rash from something in the sandpit."  
"And the heavy artillery?"  
"Six nappies, locked and loaded."  
"On my comman... wait! That man there. He's... listening! He can understand us!"  
"Oh, sh..."  
"Emergency! Change to babygarble code twelve!"  
"Attention! Chongle gabba wah..."

**You Promised  
** _The challenge: write 100 words, using the phrase "But I have promises to keep" anywhere within it.  
_ I snuggle heavy-lidded into the warmth and smell of her. Fingertips stroke my hair.  
_Enough, Pat_.  
"No. Not yet."  
_Yes_. Chiding now.  
"Just a little bit longer. The way it was. Just... a... little..."  
_No Pat. You cannot. You promised me, remember? Listen._  
I jolt back to the bitter cold and the remembered pain, and the tiny, plaintive wail from the other room. I hold on to the memories and the dream, but she fades.  
The wail grows. Demanding, insistent. Ignorant of the tragedy it caused.  
Damp-eyed, I ache to be with her again.  
But I have promises to keep.

~~

## Poetry... Well, Sort Of

**Sleeping - rictameter** _  
_Sleeping.  
The click of the  
kettle beckons me forth  
into a new day of working  
with deadlines and demands impatiently  
shuffled and shared among workmates.  
But all things considered  
I'd rather be  
sleeping.

**Broken - cinquain** _  
_Broken  
a thing may be,  
yet through its flaws it can  
display a beauty that decries  
repair.

**Quiet Autumn Light - cinquain** _  
_Sunshine,  
coruscating  
among benchtop glasses,  
marks a somnolent coda to  
summer.

**Tell Me - rictameter** _  
_Tell me.  
Tell me about  
how well you spent today;  
about the people you met and  
the things you did. But most of all can you  
tell me exactly how someone  
like me can be loved by  
someone like you.  
Tell me.

**A Good Lie Down - not quite a rictameter** _  
_Weight shifts.  
My feet rejoice.  
My bones, like pick-up sticks,  
scatter upon the mattress, and  
the rest of me gratefully follows. So  
I throw one arm over my eyes  
to deny the daylight.  
Will I get up?  
Never.

**Winter Misery - not quite a poem** _  
_Take heed and please take pity  
'pon this benighted soul.  
For I endure such trials  
as to give pause to the Heroes of old.

My poor Medusan visage  
would turn mighty Perseus cold,  
and my effort in drawing an unwrack'd breath  
is a Sisyphean bould...  
_...er._

The sun torments like Icaran wings,  
my eyes to shrivelling pits,  
and Tantalus weeps at the joys of life  
just beyond my fingertips*

(* _yep, the remote control...no, not that one, the other one... just behind the tissues...yep, over there... no, the other way...oh look, never mind, I'll just get up and get it myself._ )

Yet when all I ask is a tender touch  
or a sympathetic sound,  
scorn and derision are all to be had  
from the one to which I am bound.

So take heed and please take pity  
'pon my miseries untold.  
For I am a man, a mortal man,  
and I have a cold.  
\--  
Well, what did you expect? Poetry?  
Whatever. I have a cold, dammit!

~~

# Short Stories

_You Knew_ and _A Holiday, Somewhere in the World_ were both written as a response to Gather challenges. _Resident Ghost_ was an attempt to give form to, and therefore exorcise, a kernel of an idea that had been gnawing in the back of my mind for a couple of years. _Michael and Titania_ predates my time on Gather by quite a while. _The Last Cinderella_ just popped into my head from nowhere (although note the disclaimer at the beginning), begging to be placed on a page.

All of these stories mark a change in tone from the preceding articles, but I enjoyed writing them just as much. I hope you enjoy reading them.

~~

## You Knew

_This was submitted to Gather in response to a Two-Word challenge, the two words being_ You Knew _._

Aidan.

I don't know where you are, but I hope this finds you. I never got a chance to thank you and now this is the only way I will be able.

I want you to know that AnnieBell is doing fine. That is her name. Of course, everyone calls her Annabel. They just don't listen, or they hear what they want to hear. Don't worry, she knows her proper name and she will know how that came to be. She is nearly two now, and she is talking. She says AnnieBell quite clearly and my mother and father keep correcting her. "It's Annabel dear" they say patiently and proudly and they laugh gently at her. She simply answers with AnnieBell. Again and again and again.

I wish I could talk to your mother Aidan. I wish I could let her know about her granddaughter, but you never told me anything about her other than her name.

That night we talked until daybreak. I'd never talked so much in my life, which was funny, considering. I told you everything there was to know about me, even the bad things, the secret things that gave me the scars and clamped my mouth shut whenever anybody pressed too close. The things the doctors never knew, with all their tests and their interviews and their opinions borne from study and degree and interrogation - I never trusted a White Coat, but then none of us did, did we?

However, at the end of that night I knew almost nothing about you. I knew your name and your mother's, and that was it. And much later when I asked, after you had gone and when they knew about AnnieBell, they claimed it was Private Information. They said they were Unable To Divulge. They said I must go through the Proper Channels. Then they wiped their hands of me and closed the doors and locked the gates, and I was here in the world with the one thing that kept me to you. They don't know what happened that night and that's fine; it was none of their business. I told them nothing. Maybe that was why they spited me later on.

You listened Aidan. You looked at me and you listened. You didn't ask, and you didn't judge. You didn't take notes or offer explanations. And you laughed when I laughed and you cried when I cried and you were still when I was quiet. You _knew_. You knew what I needed even though you'd never met me before.

There are times here at home when I will cry all day and my mother and my father will come into my room with concerned looks and take AnnieBell away from me and call Doctor Matthews, and he will come over and count my pills and make sure I am keeping to my schedules. They just don't understand that I cry because I need to, and when I'm done it is gone. Then they let AnnieBell see me again, and I look at her face and she looks at mine and we both know it is all right.

You are no longer here, and maybe that was your choice or maybe it wasn't. I don't understand it but I've accepted that things don't need my understanding. Things happen or they don't. You happened to me: you gave me what I needed and you gave me AnnieBell, and then you found the path you had to take.

I don't know how these things are supposed to work. I haven't done this since I was a child, but I needed to tell you these things, and for you to know that I am grateful. So, I've written it all down and AnnieBell and I are going to walk down to the church tomorrow morning and give this to the Reverend, and then I'm going to start telling her all the things you knew about me, and the things I don't know about you.

Amen.  
~~

## A Holiday, Somewhere in the World

I paused halfway along the path. The two coffee cups were hot enough that I had to adjust my grip. For a moment the park seemed to be empty in a manner that only winter could manage: dreary, devoid of people and leached of noise and colour. Then I saw Ian, sitting on the bench.

"G'day."

He glanced over as I sat down. "Thought you were out of town."

"Hardly."

The bench had only been there the last couple of years. It had been set between the arms of the Resting Tree, so named because of the two huge branches, which, unable to support themselves, had placed elbows on the ground, and then cantilevered out over the path, forcing people to duck and bow as they passed. The Resting Tree - the biggest and oldest in the park - could not grasp the concept of a straight line and its twisting, tangling limbs were a perfect foil for the children who had climbed on, carved into and sheltered under it for generations. We had played there ourselves many times, and the imprints of our own probing toes and grinding heels lingered somewhere in the memory of the wood.

I handed him one of the cups. "Sophia called yesterday."

"Thanks. How is she?"

"Good. She's in Buenos Aires. With Paolo."

"Still. That's gotta be a record."

"Yep." I took a sip. "She wanted me to tell you she's taking today off as well. Albeit in another time zone."

"Always a holiday somewhere in the world, eh?"

"Always." I replied, quietly.

Time had been kind to Ian. It had barely touched him and when it had, it had been to flatter. As is the way with attractive people he was well known, and as is the way with good people he was well liked. But those others never saw him on this day. Always and only for this day, he looked like what he was: a forty two year old man with a burden of memories, and a friend who understood why.

_It's a holiday somewhere in the world_... those had been Helena's words, not his _...anyway it's my second birthday. Help me celebrate_.

-

We had never needed much convincing. Helena had ruled over us since we had been young. With her grey eyes, olive skin, long brown hair and her impish, imperious manner, we had titled her the fairy queen. She had hated that: she always wanted to be the knight, shining in her silver armour. She had constantly tilted at windmills and nobody who knew her could avoid being pulled along in her wake. Least of all Ian. When his family had moved into the neighbourhood he had been a shy and awkward five year old who had stood on the other side of the street and watched as we played. Helena had been four, and she had marched over and said _I'm Helena. You're_ my _friend now_. Then she'd kissed him right on the mouth and grabbed his hand and pulled him over to join us. That had just been Helena's way, and if Ian had fallen for her that very minute, well, nobody could blame him.

We had never questioned why Helena had two birthdays: she was Helena, after all. Her first, real, birthday was in summer and involved barbecues and backyard games and Helena's dad dressed as a clown. The second birthday was in winter and involved a huge roast dinner and a chocolate birthday cake and party hats and sometimes a noisy sleepover. And when she had outgrown her second birthday, she reminded us that _it's a holiday somewhere in the world_ and she was still going to celebrate. She never wanted for company in doing so, especially in Ian. We had all loved Helena; Ian was not alone in that. But he was unique in that Helena, typically wholeheartedly, loved him back.

-

The view framed by the branches turned to a soft watercolour as a drizzle of rain set about the Resting Tree. I was glad I'd remembered the coffee.

"You cold?"

Ian wrapped his jacket a little tighter around him. "Nah. I'm fine."

I looked at my watch; it was just past 3 o'clock. "Right on time."

Ian did not reply.

-

Over time some families moved away, and the rest of us grew up and discovered more interesting things than knights and fairy queens. Of the original dozen, only four of us remained.

For a while we had been two couples, however Sophia and I had put our tempestuous courtship down to the inexperience of puberty and reverted to simple friendship. Not so Ian and Helena. As soon as she started at university they moved into a tiny flat together and started to share a life. Their circle grew but the dynamic did not: Helena was still the centre of the happy chaotic storm that was university life, and the _holidaysomewhereintheworld_ became a part of everyone's social calendar.

Then one day after just such a party, Ian had me meet him at a bar. His eyes were red and he had been drinking shots as though he wanted to drown in the glass.

_Bloody hell Ian, slow down. What's wrong?_

_It's Helena._

_You two haven't had a fight have you?_

_Yeah. No. Kinda._

_Why?_

_I asked her again this morning. You know, about the whole second birthday thing._

_Shit, Ian. Why?_

_I just wanted to know where it had all come from. I mean, why wouldn't she tell me, at least? I said I deserved to know._

_You're an idiot, mate. Just let it go. You know Helena. She's not going to say, and it's your own fault if you're gonna get angry with her over something like that._

_At first yeah, and then..._

_Then what?_

_Then she told me._

It seemed that Helena's genes had conferred upon her more than just grey eyes and long brown hair and pale olive skin. Somewhere, deep inside them, was a flaw; twisted strands of her life caught in a fatal embrace. When she was diagnosed at six months old, the doctors could not say how much longer she would live. So every anniversary of the diagnosis, every year she proved them wrong, was a celebration, and Helena lived every year as though it would be her last.

-

I finished my coffee, took Ian's empty cup and placed them both in the nearby bin. The winter wind picked up from the harbour and set the branches of the Resting Tree to creaking. It also remembered.

-

Helena had been briefly and bitterly angry with Ian, but she resigned to the fact that we now knew. On the surface of it, things returned to normal. But, only on the surface. I could not help but feel that something within her had cracked. A chink had appeared in her silver armour. Nothing I could put my finger on - just a feeling, but it bothered me nonetheless.

On the eve of her twenty-second birthday, she fell ill.

At first it seemed to be just a chill or a touch of the 'flu. Nothing to worry about, for all that it was summer and nobody else had so much as a sniffle. However we decided that the _holidaysomewhereintheworld_ would be her official twenty-second, so we could celebrate properly when she got better. But she didn't. Trips to the doctor became trips to the specialist, and then brief stays in the hospital. At Helena's insistence, they moved back in with her parents. The doctors began to refer to her treatment as a _regime_ , and the tests and medicines drained her energy. The four of us would spend long afternoons together in the sunroom of the house, where she would rest her head on Ian's lap while he stroked her hair, and they would sing to each other. Then the doctors dropped any pretence of treatment and recovery. The term _palliative_ became a frightening new reality in our lives.

One day Ian called me:

_Can you guys meet us in the park?_

_Sure. Why?_

_Helena wants fresh air and sunshine._

_Is that wise?_

_Does it matter anymore?_

It had just gone 3 o'clock when we met them. Ian was propped in an elbow of the Resting Tree, and Helena was nestled against him. She had been sleeping, but Ian had whispered in her ear and she looked up and smiled as we approached. _Hey, there you are. I'm so happy to see you guys_.

Sophia and I sat down against the other branch. Helena sighed and huddled in closer to Ian. _Sing with me, love_.

Ian could not lift his gaze from the ground. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and his eyes glistened. Then he started to sing, softly, her favourite lullaby.

_Sleep my child and peace attend thee,_

_All through the night_

_Guardian angels God will send thee,_

_All through the night..._

Then Helena joined in.

_...Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,_

_Hill and dale in slumber sleeping_

_I my loved ones' watch am keeping,_

_All through the night..._

Sophia was shivering. I drew her closer and held her hand. Helena faded into sleep, but Ian continued:

_...Angels watching, e'er around thee,_

_All through the night_

_Midnight slumber close surround thee,_

_All through the night_

_Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,_

_Hill and dale in slumber sleeping_

_I my loved ones' watch am keeping,_

_All through..._

and then he stopped singing.

-

Twenty years ago. That was too far in the past for memories so fresh, but there was a reason for that. The Helena we had known, the one before the illness, had been far too vivid, far too essential to be constrained within a single, flawed, body. And that day twenty years ago where she had left off, Ian had taken over with a vengeance. His more recent friends, those who marvelled at his passion and vigour and love of life, did not realise just whose life he lived. And his old ones, Sophia and I, saw the spirit of the love we had lost, in the soul of the one who remained.

I came back to the here and now. "Happy anniversary, Helena."

Ian wiped his face. "Happy holidaysomewhere love, wherever you are."  
~~

## Resident Ghost

Later when sorting through my memories, three facts remain with me: Matthew was standing at the gate. I shook his hand. And it was definitely Monday.

-

First, a little history. My wife Anne and I first met Matthew when we were fresh out of university and trying to make our name in the city. He was the sort of person that others gravitated to, and when he met and married Claire they became what one would describe as the It couple. They were invited to every party, included on every list and mentioned in every conversation that counted. Just invoking their names - _MatthewandClaire. ClaireandMatt. EmandCee_ \- was like some sort of incantation, conferring upon the speaker some measure of their good fortune. They exuded a quality that made them the centre of everyone's orbit, we included.

However as the years progressed and middle age came upon us, Anne and I started to tire of life in the city, and we were gripped by that desire for dislocation that makes the corporate lawyer abandon his career to become a painter, or the successful surgeon move to a general practice in the country. In our case, we bought an entropic, lonely old cottage out along the coast. It was only a few windows and floorboards away from being a ruin, but it had a veranda that followed a full day's worth of sun, it shared the place with a bit of beach, a narrow dirt road and little else and, most importantly, it was a good two hour's drive from anything seriously urban. It was the perfect place to swap suits for jeans, where Anne could grow her hair long again, and where I could nurture an expanded waistline and a week's worth of stubble without guilt. The place was a bargain – though for reasons that did not become clear until later.

Soon after the paint was dry and the roof repaired, we made plans to move. Our friends met this with equal parts amusement and distrust, but Matthew and Claire were happy for us and that was enough of an endorsement to obtain the respect, or at least the forbearance, of others. So when we said our goodbyes we told them both, _if there's ever anything we can do for you, come down and see us, anytime_. It was a polite formality, but we meant it genuinely enough. After all, Matthew and Claire were good people.

-

The news first reached us perhaps three months ago. We heard it from four different sources, each laced with a sentiment appropriate to the teller: disbelief, dismay, scorn, or ghoulishness thinly disguised as concern. Details were sketchy and conflicting, but the essence of it was that Claire had betrayed Matthew, and that it had been sordid and public. From Matthew we heard no word, not that we had expected to. He was a proud man, and we were loath to impose on him our curiosity. However, it seemed he now planned to take us up on our earlier offer.

It was a Monday, one of those slow mornings where breakfast lingered all the way through to lunch. Anne was detailing my chores for the rest of day, as was her wont, when she looked out the window and gasped. "There's someone out by the gate. It looks like Matthew."

"Can't be," I replied, but there he was, leaning against the gatepost, like it was the most natural place in the world for him to be. There was a miasma of dust behind him, of the sort kicked up whenever a car passed by on the unsealed road.

"How long has he been standing there?" I said.

"You know the polite thing would be to invite him in, rather than just stare at him through the window."

"Damn. Of course," I ran outside. "Matthew. How in the hell are you?" I grabbed his hand in greeting.

"Good. Hope I'm not intruding."

"Of course not. Come inside. Come." He followed me into the cool of the house where Anne was waiting.

"Matthew. So good to see you," she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"What on earth are you doing all the way out here?" I asked. "Is everything alright?"

Anne elbowed me gently.

Matthew looked about. "You two made the right choice moving here. It's quite beautiful."

Anne took over before I buried my foot any deeper in my mouth. "You look very tired Matthew. Why don't you go and freshen up a bit and we can catch up later?"

She showed him to one of the spare rooms, and set it out for him. When she came back alone, she gave me an exasperated look. "Subtle, Pat. Really subtle."

"Well, I didn't know what else to say," I replied.

"Then don't say anything," she said. "Look at him, look at his eyes. He seems..."

"Seems what?"

"I don't know... frail, I guess. He looks like he hasn't slept in a week. So just give him some space, Okay?"

I threw up my hands. "Okay. Okay."

That evening we took dinner on the veranda. That is to say, Anne and I took dinner. Matthew indulged our polite conversation but his plate remained untouched. Afterwards I poured three large glasses of wine and we watched the sky measure the shadows along the fence line, and listened to the cicadas sing themselves to sleep. On closer inspection, I had to agree with Anne. Matthew had subtly changed. There seemed to be a slightly ragged edge to him now, with grey hair among the blonde. However, he seemed more or less at peace, and that was good enough.

Every so often however, he would turn in his chair and stare down the passage into the house.

"You okay there Matthew?" I asked.

"Sure. I just thought..." he twisted about again, frowning. "Is there anyone else here right now?"

Anne and I glanced at each other. "No," Anne replied. "Just us."

"I could have sworn someone was talking down there," he said. "Can't you hear that?"

We shook our heads. "Oh well," Matthew said. "I guess I'm just tired."

Soon after that, we said our goodnights and went to bed. "You're right about him," I said as we lay in the dark.

"Hmm," Anne murmured. "I hope he'll be OK. Maybe some rest and peace is all he needs."

"Maybe. You heard what he said."

"I heard," Anne replied. "Let's hope he was just hearing things."

-

That night we were roused by the echo of footsteps in the hall and kitchen and the banging of the front screen door. The bones of the house seemed to settle and moan in sympathy. "Oh dear." I mumbled, half asleep. "We'll have to tell him now, won't we?"

"I'd hoped she'd be quiet."

"Fat chance."

-

When we rose the next day, Matthew was already at the kitchen table, coffee in hand. "Morning all."

"Morning." I replied. "I hope you slept well last night."

He looked as though he had not slept at all, but he seemed content enough. Then, apropos of nothing in particular, he asked. "Who is Rosemary?"

"How in the hell do you know..." I shared a quick look with Anne. "Okay then. Rosemary."

I sat down at the table while Anne made us both coffee. "We learned about her about a month after we moved in. We had wondered why the place was so much of a bargain. It seemed the real estate agent forgot to mention her at the time. The locals all have stories about her. They say that Rosemary and her husband lived here only a few years. Apparently it was not a happy marriage, and he treated her very badly."

" _They_ say a lot of things." Anne commented as she handed me my coffee. She sat down opposite me and watched Matthew carefully. " _They_ like to scare people. We're apparently the fourth lot to buy this place in ten years."

I continued. "Anyway the short version is, her husband left her. One day she woke up, and he was gone. The next day, she killed herself."

Now, we had heard this story retold a number of times by a number of people, and every time the teller would pause at the same point, knowing there would be the inevitable question. When we first heard it a year ago, my question had been _how did she do it?_ Anne had asked _why did she do it?_ The question was always more or less the same, with minor variations depending on the predisposition of the asker, and that was what I expected Matthew to ask. I was wrong.

"Who buried her?" he asked.

"Sorry?"

"Who buried her? Who took care of her after she was dead?"

"Umm... I don't really know."

He seemed lost in the moment, somehow disappointed in my reply. Then he took a sip from his cup. "And she's been here ever since?"

"So it would seem."

"Hmm."

There was a moment of silence. "How did you know her name?" I asked.

"I don't really know." Matthew replied. "I thought I was dreaming. I have this feeling of talking to her. To someone anyway, a lost soul. Then just when you walked in now, the name popped into my head. Rosemary. Go figure."

He pushed his cup away, firmly, like he was coming to some sort of decision. "Now, I know I've imposed upon you without any warning," he said, waving aside our protestations. "No, no. It is the truth. Anyway, I don't plan to stay under your feet. I'm going to go for a walk into town and let you get on with things, if that's alright."

"Well, I guess so," I said. "But town is a good hour away on foot. Let me drive you in."

"Not a chance," he replied. "Anyway, I've got nothing but time now."

We did not see him again for the rest of the day. In fact, it was late evening when he reappeared. His meal was again untouched, and he made his excuses and went to bed early.

"Have we offended him somehow?" Anne asked.

I shrugged. "If we did then I missed it."

For two more days this routine continued. We would wake to the sound of Matthew going through the front gate and down the road. We would not see him all day and he would return well after sunset, and every evening he seemed more drawn. We would share a meal, then he would go to bed early and we would clear away his barely touched plate. Then Anne and I would sit in the cool night air and try to figure out exactly was going on.

On Thursday night, Rosemary woke us again. "What is she doing now?" Anne asked irritably.

I was still too far gone in sleep to hear. "Don't worry about it," I replied. "She's not bothering us, let's not bother her."

"It's not her I'm worried about."

The next morning, Matthew was sitting on the porch. The low angle and the sharpness of the morning sunlight threw deep shadows over his darkening eyes and his hollowing cheeks, but the expression on his face was almost beatific.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" I asked.

"I'm fine. Never felt better."

I let that slide. "Did Rosemary bother you at all?"

"Nope, not at all."

"Glad to hear it. She was quite noisy last night."

"She's an interesting woman, Rosemary."

"I guess."

"She has quite a story to tell."

I stiffened a little. "Are you telling me you're talking to her Matthew?"

"Of course. I thought you knew."

"Matthew, she doesn't talk. You don't talk to ghosts."

"Of course you do. We talk every night," he stretched in his chair like a cat in the sun. "I can't understand how she put up with things. I guess back then when you married, you stuck with the way things were. Least that's what she did," I thought I saw tears in his eyes as he spoke. "You put me wrong about what happened next though. She was ill. That is why he left her, at least partly. And that's why she... well, she did what she did."

"You're talking about a ghost, Matthew. She just rattles pans in the kitchen and slams the front door every so often." I may as well not have spoken.

"And with all the time that has passed now, all the time she has been stuck here. Well, she wishes she had done things differently. I guess it didn't quite work out the way she thought it would."

I started to feel like a broken record. "Matthew. She. Is. A. Ghost."

"I heard you the first time, Pat. You really need to get over that."

"Get over..."

"It's a fine line, you know." he sighed. "Rosemary knows she is dead, but she doesn't _feel_ like she is. Can you imagine how that must be? You're dead, and that is it. Nowhere to go, nobody to care for, or have care for you."

"I'd say she's had long enough to get over it."

We sat in silence for a long moment as the sun warmed the veranda. Matthew closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest. I decided I had left it long enough, and touched on the subject we had avoided since he arrived.

"Matthew, I guess you already know that Anne and I heard about what happened back in the city."

He did not open his eyes. "What's done is done."

"Because if I'm being honest, you look like hell. And Anne and I are worried. Are you seeing anyone about it? A counsellor or anything?"

He laughed just once.

"Y'know Anne still has contacts in the city. All it would take is a phone call."

"That's okay. There's no point."

"I know it might seem that way now, but they're good. And they're discreet."

"There's no point, because I'm not going back to the city."

"What do you mean?"

"Bridges have been burned. There's nothing for me back there anymore."

"I'm sorry if I sound a bit thick here Matthew, but where exactly were you thinking of going then?"

He smiled. "I don't know. Isn't that great?"

I actually felt dizzy when he said that. Matthew had always _been_ the city, as far as we were concerned. The idea of him living anywhere else was as surreal as the idea that the sun would not come up the next morning. I didn't know what to say next, but then I was never the one who was good with words.

"Hang on a minute, Matthew. I'll be right back."

I caught up with Anne in the kitchen. "Love, can you go have a talk with him? Maybe you can get some sense out of him."

She looked up through the window. "It'll have to be later," and she pointed to the gate. Matthew was walking off down the road.

"Oh, bloody hell, I asked him to wait."

That afternoon I had cause to go into town using the road past the cemetery. As I drove by, I noticed a familiar figure, motionless among the headstones. I swore and braked but by the time I was able to stop, he was gone. I made my way over to where he had been and, looking around, I noticed a low headstone, on which were inscribed two lines:

\---

Rosemary Atkins

Died 15 March,1922

\---

When I got back to the house, I wasted no time in finding Anne. "Any sign of Matthew?" I asked. She shook her head.

"I swear I saw him down at the graveyard. One minute he was there. Then... he was gone. Just like that."

"Gone where?" Anne asked. "There's nowhere to go."

"I know that."

"Maybe you should be getting some rest. You're seeing things."

"No I'm bloody not." I said. "It was him. What's more, I checked in town, and nobody knew who the hell I was talking about. He hasn't been seen anywhere. They thought I was crazy too."

"Well where on earth has he been then?"

"I'm dying to know that myself."

We never got a chance to ask him. He did not return that evening, at least not while we waited up. Then, well after midnight, we heard familiar noises in the hall: the footsteps, the door, the sighing of the beams. This time though, there was an underlying murmur of voices.

"Is she talking this time?" I asked.

Anne sat bolt upright in bed. "Not just her. Listen."

There were two voices, one male, and one female. "Bloody hell. That's Matthew."

We were both out of bed in a second and padding down the hallway. The house was completely dark. That was, except for the light issuing from under the door to Matthew's room.

We pressed our ears to the wood. Neither of us could make out what they were saying but we could tell they were speaking in low, comfortable tones; the sort one uses with a partner or lover.

"What do we do now?" I whispered.

Anne shrugged. I shrugged too, and placed my hand on the door handle.

At that instant, the voices stilled, and when I opened the door it was to darkness. We switched on the light and found the room empty.

Not just empty, but exactly as it had been before Matthew had arrived. The blankets were folded square and set with the pillows at the foot of the bed, the way Anne always left them. The boxes she had moved into the hall closet were back, stacked against the far wall. The lamp was unplugged from the socket. There was no sign of Matthew or his bag. It was as if he had never been there.

The next morning, as soon as was practical, I placed a call to one of our old friends in the city. He picked up almost as soon as it rang.

"Aaron, its Pat here, look, I've got a question to ask and I hope I don't come across as crazy or anything..."

"Thank God it's you. We've been trying to get hold of you guys all week."

"Really? Why?"

"Look mate, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but there's been a car accident. You know that part of the highway where it narrows and goes around Signal Hill?"

"Yeah. Yeah of course."

"Well he came off the road. He was killed instantly."

"Who?"

"Matthew."

"Jesus. I don't understand. He seemed to be..." then the detail of what he said sank in. "Hang on... Did you say you've been trying to get hold of us all week?"

"That's right. We have all been trying. Your phone's been out."

"Aaron, when did this happen?"

"Monday morning. He was heading out of the city. No-one knows where or why..."

I dropped the phone.  
~~

## Michael and Titania

_Have you ever seen a lion in heat? He is a study in obsession. If he senses a lioness is in season he will ignore even the basics of life until he has had her. Sleeping, eating - none of it matters._

_The lioness however, is all the more dangerous because of her perspective. As long as the lion remains interested, there is more for her to eat._

-

"Black. One sugar... thanks."

I held the cup with both hands. It was a summer day on the other side of the net curtains. The filtered sunlight promised warmth but struggled against the air-conditioning. The man who handed me the coffee had a predator's gaze. If I could have been somewhere, anywhere else I would have been. But I needed the money he had offered.

He sat opposite me with the tape recorder on the table between us feebly whining, waiting for my story. I sipped from the cup, trying to bring some heat to my lips, then I closed my eyes and remembered events nearly a decade gone.

-

We had been four back then: Joshua, Sarah, Michael and myself. Joshua was, like me, anonymous, used to the expression of chagrin that others display when try to remember your name. Sarah somehow managed to be less than that again. Mouse-like, deliberately invisible, she was constantly reading, her long brown hair spilling over the top of her book and cutting her off from the rest of the world.

Michael however, had been blessed with the looks, the intelligence, the wit and the success we wished for ourselves. Our friendship with him was vaguely demeaning, filling an emptiness in us that we would not acknowledge. As for Michael, I suspect having an entourage filled a need of his to which we were not privy. He graced us with his company, he got us into places we would never have been able to go our own, and we were grateful in return.

If Michael had one weakness, it was his intense desire for the female form. More than a desire, his many and regular encounters seemed to form the basis of his existence. However, in an effort to turn a vice into a virtue the hunt became his, and therefore vicariously our, favourite game. We were all jealous in our own way, but dislike was not as rewarding as sycophancy, so Joshua and I pretended our advice and encouragement mattered to him and we tried not to notice the pain he often caused. For a long time it worked.

And then came Titania.

It was only just spring, the last flick of the tail of a long winter, and the air was haunted by a fog so cold that you could smell it. At six thirty in the morning I woke to Michael pounding on my front door. Joshua was already with him, caught between irritation and curiosity. We both knew him too well though, to demand an answer. He would not tell us anything until he was ready.

He took us to the lake at the southern end of town, and as we walked along the bank we heard the motorbike approach.

"Quick. Over here," he hissed, pulling us off the path and into the trees.

It was some moments before the bike ghosted through the gloom. It was black as tar, and the rider was obviously a woman. It stopped right by the water's edge, and a light began to pierce the mist of my sleepy incomprehension.

She was beyond beautiful, this stranger, moving with a grace and fluidity that seemed to defy gravity. This was obviously the latest subject of Michael's obsession and I could sense even then, that she was at least his equal. As we watched, she did the most extraordinary thing. Without a care for the biting cold she quickly disrobed and slipped into the water.

I did not dare to move or even breathe. Joshua swore quietly. "You _know_ her?"

"Titania. Met her in a bar last night." Michael replied, "She told me about this thing she did every morning. I didn't believe her but figured it was worth a look anyway." He grinned. "I swear. If I never have another woman again, she's mine."

In the space of five heartbeats she was a silhouette in the fog, then gone. Not even a ripple remained to crease the water. I was mesmerised, and it was a number of moments before I realised that Michael and Joshua had both moved away. However, for a reason I did not understand or was too ashamed to admit, I hung back.

A long while later, when the fog started to lift and the sun just began to warm the air, Titania emerged. I felt my face warm with embarrassment when I notiiced the tattoo just over her heart. I should have been too far away to recognise it, but I could. It was the face of a cat, with the eyes picked out in the colour of blood.

Then, once she had dressed and started her bike, she looked over to where I hid. Her eyes were the palest grey, and a shiver went down my spine. A small smile twitched her lips, and she was gone.

She knew I was watching.

-

A couple of days later, the three of us met Michael in a cafe. His normally neat mane of brown hair was mussed. He was nursing a coffee and looking tired. Joshua and I of course, were dying to know what had happened. Sarah, as usual, had her book open even before she sat down.

"How did you get on?" Joshua asked.

Michael threw him a dirty look before returning his attention to the cup.

"Never mind," I said. For some reason I was relieved. "It had to happen sometime. Even to you."

"Bugger that," he absently toyed with the spoon on the saucer, "I almost had her last night. So close. You know how frustrating that is?" He sighed and pushed back his coffee. "What the hell, I like a challenge. It'll be a novelty."

"Why?" I asked.

The briefest of grimaces crossed his face. Then he grinned. "Because I can't let her get away."

-

First Wednesday of the month was cards night. No matter what else he usually had going on, Michael always joined us for that. This time we waited over an hour, not really expecting him to appear. It had been nearly three weeks since the café and none of us had seen him. We had heard about him of course, though we wished we hadn't. The ill-concealed schadenfreude, the snickering comments and prematurely finished conversations from people we knew, people whom we had thought were his friends. And for us, the sad hangers-on, there was the guilt by association.

"I can't believe he doesn't see how this Titania's making a fool of him," Joshua snorted. "Which part of his anatomy is he thinking with?"

"You know Michael." I replied. " _No_ just isn't in his vocabulary."

There was a breath of a chuckle from the corner. Sarah had been so quiet that I'd forgotten she was there.

"It's not that funny," Joshua said.

"Yes it is," she sighed, not looking up from her book. "You've just never seen the game go on this long before, that's all."

Joshua shook his head. "More fool him then."

"Still leaves us short though," I looked over at Sarah, "Why don't you put that book down and join us, just this once. You'll enjoy yourself."

"Hmm," she cast her gaze briefly over the beer and cigars on the table. "No thanks. Looks too much like your boys' games. I think I'll just stick to my own."

I woke very early the next day. It had been a rough night for some reason, and I wasn't going to get back to sleep. I needed to find Michael.

He was not at any of his usual haunts. When I finally caught up with him, he was outside one of the seedier places; somewhere he normally would not be caught dead in. It was near daybreak and he stood gaunt and unmoving in the poor shelter of a doorway. I had to look twice to be sure it was him; he looked terrible.

"Christ, what have you been doing?" I asked.

He bared his teeth in an exhausted attempt at a smile.

"When was the last time you slept?" I asked.

"I don't know. What day is it?" It was a joke. At least I hoped it was a joke.

"You can't drive home like that. I'll take you."

"No thanks, I've got a lift."

I heard the bike howl and Titania came round the corner, leathers glistening in the yellowing glow of the streetlights. Michael climbed on behind her, and the way she looked at him with those piercing grey eyes...

"Michael, I'll call you later on. We need to talk."

He grinned again. "Okay."

When I knocked on his door, he did not answer. I used his hidden key to get in. I found him lying on the bed, awake but unmoving. The room reeked of illness. "That's it," I said. "I'm getting you a doctor."

As I reached for the phone, he placed his hand on my arm. He was able to stop me only because I was shocked at how weak he was. "Don't. Please. No doctors."

"What the hell is wrong with you Michael? You look like you've aged fifty years."

Fatigue had lined his face and darkened his eyes so much he hardly looked human any more. "I have no idea. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I just lie here but... my head..." He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples and screwed his eyes shut. "...I just can't hold onto a thought. No matter what I do she's in here. For pity's sake Pat, what's happening to me?"

"Michael, you've got to let her go and end the game. It's killing you, can't you see that?"

Tears moistened his paper dry skin. He was scared: not with an adult fear but desperate, small-child terrified. "Let her go? Let her go?" he whimpered. "She won't let _me_ go! I want to Pat. I want to end it so much."

I hate to admit it, but I panicked. I didn't know what I could do, so I left to fetch the others. When we got back however, there was a note on his door:

_Pat. I'm all right now. I've gone to sort it out._

_Michael._

That was the last time we heard from him.

-

There was a memorial service a year later. Winter this time had long since slunk away to lick its wounds. The sky was clear and the air sharp with the smell of sap. Some of his acquaintances gathered in the churchyard afterward. Joshua and Sarah were there, but I hadn't seen them for months. Joshua had become as distant as - well, as I guess I had. Sarah was almost unrecognisable. She stood straighter, her mousy hair had lightened and she smiled often. Actually, it was the first time I could ever recall her smile.

"Did anyone see _her_ there?" I asked. They shook their heads.

We made some more small talk for a while, enjoying the springtime, but it was obvious that we no longer had much in common. I doubt that we actually ever did. For better or worse, Michael had been our glue.

Joshua made his excuses and walked off, but Sarah gently guided me along a little used path that led down to the lake. "Do you miss him much Pat?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Really?"

"Sure. Why?"

"Because to be honest, I don't."

That caught me off balance but Sarah brushed the awkwardness aside. "Don't worry. There's just the two of us. The world is a better place with him gone."

"Really? You always seemed to be okay with him before."

"We all have our secrets."

We walked on arm in arm, in silence except for the gravel crunching under our feet. It was obvious she had more to say, but she wanted to be sure nobody else was around. Then, when she was ready, she continued. "You see, a long time ago, long before you and he met, Michael and I...well, he hurt me badly. He was never a considerate person. Everything was always about him, and I wasn't what you would call a prize." She lowered her voice, even though there was nobody else near. "But I knew, I _knew_ , that some time there would be a reckoning."

"What do you mean by that?"

She hooked her hair behind one ear and glanced down, the way she used to when avoiding others' gazes. For a moment, she seemed to be the Sarah of old, but it soon passed, and there was a coldness in her look. "Did you ever wonder why I was always reading, Pat?"

I shrugged. "No. I never gave it much thought."

"All stories have a truth in them somewhere, you know. All of them. Not always obvious, but it is there. You just have to find it. That was what I was doing - searching. Then one day I found it."

"Found what?"

"The one with the truth I needed. This one."

She drew something out of her bag and placed it in my hands. As soon as it touched my skin, cold and hard, it demanded my attention. I had no choice. Sarah's voice seemed to fade to the background and despite my best intentions I was only half listening to her. "You see that's the way this works. It cannot be kept. I have to pass it on and only you I think, would understand. At least, you're the only one I can trust. Read it, and maybe one day you'll appreciate it. Maybe one day it'll even help you. Then again it might not. You never know."

The book was small, no larger than my palm and very, very old. The cover was black leather, shiny with use, and on the front, picked out in gold letters, were the words:

_Wytchkraft and Familiars_

When I looked back up Sarah was already turning away and as she did, a glint of sunlight drew my attention to the necklace resting in her décolletage. It was the shape of a cat, and in the eye sockets were set blood red rubies.

-

The tape recorder still whirred, and we both sat silent for a long while. "What happened next?" the man finally asked.

I shrugged. "Nothing. I moved away and I never saw either of them again."

He leaned forward over the table. Hints of his need crystallised before me: the whitening of the skin on his knuckles, the shallow rhythm of his breathing. "Did you ever read the book?" he asked.

I nodded, so tense that I felt sick. I had no desire to tell him what had happened in my life since then.

"Do you still have it?"

I pulled it from my pocket and threw it on the table. "Be my guest. I sure as hell don't want it anymore."

I got up to leave. I did not want to be around when he finally found out what it was he had been after. But I owed him one piece of advice. "Be careful," I said. "Sarah was right. But the truth in there you won't like one little bit. Respect it, for your own sake."

I escaped into the sunlight, and breathed the summer air. He didn't hear me, I knew, and he would figure it out the hard way, like I had.

And Michael.  
~~

## The Last Cinderella

_Six months after writing this, I re-read Stephen Donaldson's_ Unworthy of the Angel _, something I had read several years before. It was at that point I realised just how similar to it_ The Last Cinderella _was. Somebody told me at the time that there are few genuinely new stories in this world, and most are simply variations on classic themes. It was their way of telling me that this was a bit of a rip-off. So, I apologise in advance to any fans of Stephen Donaldson, and can only say in my defence that imitation, no matter how unintentional, is the sincerest form of flattery._

-

**GIR S G RLS GIRLS**

The neon flashed nearby overhead, a cold blue light. With it came the soft buzz and click of broken electrics.

There was noise everywhere, but I heard that sound. That noise, along with the feel of the rain, was _real_. They were the first things I had sensed, when I had gained my senses. The rest had come later, which meant they could not be trusted. I had two real things, however. That was a start.

I tried to get my bearings. This was not my world. I merely had a job to do here, though I did not yet know what it was. I felt like I had the worst hangover ever. A cacophony of impossible sensations slowly merged into comprehension. That was to be expected however, as this was not my body. As usual I was only borrowing it, and it took time to get used to the subtle differences in the senses, the way the nerves twitched and the muscles moved. This particular example was thin, dirty and unkempt, with years of aches in the bones. I was prostrate on the sidewalk, half hidden within the shadow of an alleyway. After a few more moments of nausea, I scraped myself unsteadily off the pavement.

I did not like these places: not the way they sounded or smelled, nor the way the misery flowed in the gutters and mingled with the detritus. I did not like the press of the cold night air, hard as a boot heel against the back of my neck, nor the dull pain deep inside my head, the spiritual indigestion of the raging, impotent psyche that had been rudely pushed aside. The clothes I wore were little more than rags, and they had the odour of someone else's death on them. My heels slapped against the grimy shoe leather. The trousers clung to my legs, making my skin itch. The coat hung about my shoulders like a blanket, falling past my hands.

The cars growled past, headlights glaring. The rain started to fall harder, enough to force everyone other than the very desperate or drunk, to seek shelter. One car passed too close, clipping the runnel in the kerb and spraying me with muck and water.

Under the broken sign were an awning and a door. At least inside I'd be warm and dry and I would be able to think.

There was a woman standing under the awning. "Excuse me." I asked. "May I go inside?"

She gave me a casual glance, unwilling to expend the energy even to look at me. The flashing blue light flickered off her thick makeup.

"Piss off. I'm working."

I went in anyway. The passageway was damp, narrow and dimly lit, and smelled no better than the street. There was loud music coming from behind the door at the end, where a very large man was standing. His expression was not welcoming. "Whaddaya want." It was not a question.

I was unsure of what to do next. "I just want to get dry."

"S'what? This ain't no dosshouse. Get outta here before I do you some damage."

I hesitated, and the large man unfolded his fleshy arms and stepped forward. "I told you..."

"Leave it alone Maccaa," a woman's voice. "He's with me."

The man looked startled. "Very well Ms Randall."

She stepped out of the gloom, through a doorway I had not noticed. She was of middle age, her face lined and her gaze hard. She looked straight into my eyes, showing, for the moment, neither threat nor fear. "You took your time," she said, her voice the product of a lifetime of whiskey and cigarettes. "By the look of you I can see why."

Without another word, Ms Randall turned and led me back the way she had come. The noise shadowed us to our left, a thud and boom that vibrated through the walls and floor. We came into a sort of common room, though there was nobody else there. It was sparsely furnished: a few ratty posters on the walls, a kitchen bench down one side supporting a kettle and some containers, and a telephone. A set of drawers sat underneath. A simple and none too clean wooden table and chairs stood in the middle. Nothing here gave me any clue as to my purpose.

She indicated I should sit. There was a door ajar on the far side, and through it came the music and a fog of cigarette smoke. There was something else there as well, on the edge of my perception. An unwholesome miasma of lust, guilt and self-loathing.

Ms Randall put a cup on the table with a thump. "So then Jonas," she said as she sat opposite. "Did you get it done?"

I decided to play it safe, and simply nodded and occupied myself with the coffee.

She seemed to accept my lack of reply. "Alright then, we're even. Letitia'll probably be missed for about a month. So I don't think you need come here again for a while, okay?" She lit a fresh cigarette. "Don't mess with me Jonas," she said quietly. "You know what will happen."

I shook my head and gulped my coffee, ignoring how it burned my throat. "Trust me."

"Trust you?" she laughed, "Jonas, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could spit you. But I know you, and I know you're not stupid. Believe me, if anybody finds out, you're gonna wish the cops get to you first." Then she smiled, an expression so strange on her that I thought I had imagined it. She produced a small wad of dirty notes and threw it on the table. "Should never have taken Letitia into bond. I knew she'd be trouble from the start. If the punters didn't like the idea of indentured girls so much I'd be rid of all of them."

At that moment the far door opened wider, admitting more smoke and noise into the room. With them came a young woman with honey coloured hair and dark eyes. I felt a familiar, strong click and I nearly fell off the chair. She was _real_. And she was in pain. Ms Randall gave her a sidelong glance, the same sort of glance the woman outside had given me. "What do you want Amanda?"

"Cassie asked for you Ms Randall," she said. "There's some trouble at the bar."

The older woman swore at her. "Very well then. Stay here and keep Jonas company. Fat lot of good you are out there anyway."

Amanda did not move from the door. She glanced at the money on the table then quickly looked away. Ms Randall pushed her aside and shut the door far more firmly than necessary.

Amanda stood paralysed by some fear or indecision, her gaze fixed on the floor as though her balance depended on it. I felt I should say something - anything - to break the misery of silence. "You want some coffee? The kettle's just boiled."

She flinched. "Yes, thank you."

"Have a seat. I'll make it."

She was obviously used to obeying instructions, and she sat where Ms Randall had been. I had no real idea how to make coffee but I did my best to remember what Ms Randall had done, and I placed the cup in front of her. She reached out with both hands; like me, she had no desire for coffee, but it gave her something to do. I noticed her hands were thin, too thin for beauty, the skin pale and stretched over bone. She was attractive, or had been once, but makeup highlighted the bags under her eyes and the pinched corners of her mouth. Her clothes lay wrinkled where they should have fit snugly, and she squirmed where she sat, as though the touch of the fabric repelled her.

"Bad night huh?"

Amanda nodded slowly, but then changed her mind. "No worse than usual, I guess. A couple of the regulars get rough when they're drunk, that's all." Her attempt at appearing casual did not quite work, and with every noise from the other room she grew more nervous, until she let out a startled little cry and the cup slipped from her grasp. I had seen it coming and was quick enough to stop it before she completely let go. At that moment, the side of my hand brushed her fingers and the full _reality_ hit me square in the face.

There they were; perched atop the bench, arrayed along the table edge, scurrying across the floor, rustling, pushing, snarling, and whining. A hundred minor demons, carrion feeders gathering around a victim not yet dead, waiting for that final release, that last jugular gush of life. Demons that fed on pain, despair, anger and misery. Demons covered with scales, feathers or fur. Some with legs and feet like chickens, or tails like rats. Some with horns, others with ridges down their backs. Black ones, grey ones, some green like slime. Some with veined wings, others with arms that ended in sharp claws. And all of them had their attention focused on Amanda, and the sound of their bickering filled the room.

_...nearlynowminenosheismineicantaste  
smellitnowtfeelitsoongetoutofmywayquitpushing  
nomorewaitingsohungrysoamibutitsmyturnitold  
younoyouareallwrongnoyouarewrongsheisMINE!_

One small, brown creature broke off from the others, jumped and nipped at her. With a small unknowing grimace she twitched and it fell back to the floor. The others cackled and jeered.

I could also see the poison inside Amanda, sluggish through her veins. The drugs that she had been given to keep her compliant had eaten through her body, leaving her exhausted and vulnerable. That was why they had gathered, and with a rising bile I knew what it was I had been called here to do. But there was still something missing. Minor demons like this were a cowardly lot. For so many to be gathered in one place could mean only one thing: somewhere near was their protector, something far more dangerous.

There are several disadvantages to using an actual body rather than a simulacrum. There are the physical limitations of that body, for one thing: it meant I was rooted more or less in the physical world, unable to employ some of the more exotic abilities of my being. But there is also one useful advantage; I had available to me a store of information and knowledge skulking away deep inside. Jonas' life in this place, and the particular customs and details of this _where_ and _when_ , were available to me if I could pry them loose from his psyche. I closed my eyes for a moment. He recoiled from my touch, screaming and kicking at his fetters, but there was nothing he could do to stop me.

When I had finished I felt physically sick, however I had formed the skeleton of a plan.

"Are you alright?" Amanda asked. For all her pain and disgust she appeared genuinely concerned. I knew that there here was no way she could recognise me, and yet there was something to her stare...

"No, I'm fine," I replied. "Just a little dizzy, that's all." I got up, and went over to the sink to pour myself some water. Jonas was still screaming within, and I needed another moment or two to compose myself.

I picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons before letting the hand piece drop onto the bench, then I opened drawer and rummaged around a little, until I found a small, thin knife, which I slipped into a pocket of the coat.

I settled back down at the table. Now all I had to do was wait a little while.

Amanda appeared a little more at ease for some reason, as though she knew she could trust me. However there was no way for her to see anyone other than Jonas, so it may just have been that she was so resigned to her situation that she no longer cared. Her pain was such that it was hard to tell.

"Are you religious, Amanda?" I asked, and as I said it I winced at the clumsiness of my question.

"Sorry?"

I shrugged. "I don't mean anything by it, just curious. What do you believe in? God?"

"Do you?"

"Yes. No. Not really." I sipped my coffee. "I believe in fate, I guess. I've got no idea from where it comes, but there is a plan."

"You sure about that?"

"Yep. Pretty much."

She looked at me oddly for a moment, then retreated into her thoughts "When I was young we always went to church. The Dominie was a stern man. Always telling us about God's will, and God's power and how everything is a part of His design. I guess back then, before all this, it made sense, but now..." she shrugged, "...now I don't know. If there is a plan, I'd like to know what it is."

We sat in silence for a moment, then she continued with her thought. "It would be nice to think that the things that happen to us aren't our fault, but what we do, we do."

I nodded a little. She was right. She sipped quietly at her coffee, risking a long searching look at me. After a few moments there appeared a glimmer of comprehension. I'd seen it before, when someone at the extremity of their life gains a certain level of insight. Her mouth dropped open slightly, as if she was about to say something, but she never got the chance.

At that moment another of the little demons appeared at her side, smacking its lips in anticipation. This time I was prepared. With a psychic shove I sent it spinning across the floor, and all hell erupted in the room. That was enough that they recognised _me_ now, and the place was alive with panic. I knew what would happen next.

The door flew open and Ms Randall reappeared. Amanda started and tried to stand, but I held her by the arm.

This time I could see Ms Randall was not alone.

Draped about her shoulders and wrapped around her waist was a huge serpent. Green as envy, with a satinous skin, its head was level with hers and its gaze dripped with malice. This was no minor demon, content with pecking at scraps. It and Ms Randall had long ago made a pact, and both had thrived in the corruption and misery of this place.

It knew my type, if not me. It hissed. - _What are you doing here?_

_-You know perfectly well._

"Amanda?" Ms Randall appeared confused. "What's going on?"

Amanda froze like a deer in the headlights. "Nothing Ms Randall. Nothing's wrong."

"I didn't ask if anything was wrong, I asked what was going on." She stood at the door. The serpent hissed slightly and nudged her neck, and she stepped into the room. Amanda flinched in her chair. Her fatality was rising just under her skin. Before long it would be obvious to everyone.

"Everything's fine, I just nearly dropped the coffee, that's all." I said, seeking to distract her. Time. I needed a little more time. Ms Randall knew something was amiss, but not what. The serpent's gaze drifted away from me.

_-This one?_ It stared at Amanda with yellowing eyes, tongue flicking in the air, trying to put a name to the danger it could sense but not identify. - _Very well, her time is near. Do your job and leave._

The minor demons twittered about the edges of the room. Those that could slipped out the door, their appetite dissolving in the tension.

_-Soon. Why do you care what I'm doing?_

The serpent's attention seemed elsewhere. - _I don't. That is your business. If it is her time, then do it and perhaps these creatures will feed and stop irritating me._

_-Maybe_. Jonas was screaming deep inside. He was desperate to free himself and stop me; it took a lot of energy, too much to spare, to keep him bound.

"Is there still a problem out there?" I asked. Ms Randall's glance darted between Amanda and myself. She licked her lips. The serpent tightened its coils and she drew in her breath. Ms Randall scanned the room. She noticed the phone off the cradle, the open drawer, and my hand clenched in the jacket pocket...

( _Realisation_ ) The serpent's eyes flashed. "Macca! Get in here!" Ms Randall yelled. The noise in the other room dropped just slightly as creatures beyond picked up on the panic.

A few moments more. That was all I needed, but it was becoming more than I could do to keep Jonas contained. I released as much of my power as I could spare to reach out to Amanda.

- _Amanda. Please. Be calm. Listen to what I say._

She flinched again. "Who..." - _Who are you?_

_-I am here to help you._

_-Help me? How?_

She was confused, but she was also too aware of her fading mortality. There was a flutter of fear. But then acceptance. - _What do you want me to do?_

_-Just trust me._ I stood up and drew her off the chair into the curve of my arm. Macca burst into the room just as Jonas broke free. I still had my arm around Amanda, but my - Jonas' - face contorted as he forced his way back into control of his body. Both Ms Randall and Macca froze in confusion.

Jonas, still uncertain of his abilities, tore out a cry from his throat. "For Chrissake stop him!"

It was too garbled to understand. Fighting each other, we stumbled a couple of steps away from Macca's immediate reach. Then he screamed again. "Can't you hear me? Stop him! Stop him before he kills her!"

The serpent reared up as if to strike, but Ms Randall's hesitation hampered it, and it could not reach me. Instead, it screeched out a command. - _Stop him now!_

Hundreds of minor demons flooded into the room, forced against their panic to attack. Macca and Ms Randall both tried to grab at Amanda but were thwarted by each other and the flailing of Jonas' body. I could feel Amanda's pulse fail, as fear and adrenalin forced the poison into her heart. At that moment there was another confusion out in the passage and the other room: a thumping of booted feet and cries of surprise and panic.

_-It is time now Amanda. Close your eyes._

She took one last breath and let go. As soon as her heart stopped I gently slipped her soul from her body and gathered it to me, away from the ravening and the panic of the demons, but I could not yet fight back. The door burst in and men in uniforms and waving guns shouted and pressed Macca and Ms Randall against the walls. Before they could reach us though, I withdrew the knife from my pocket and slipped it between her ribs. Then I left Jonas, jabbering and bloodstained, on the floor.

I was not finished though. Amanda's last gush of life energy was a spark, and in a matter of moments I fanned that spark into a flame. I made it feed upon itself and let it grow until it was too painful to comprehend. The serpent, too long now joined to Ms Randall to separate itself, screeched and hissed unheeded commands as the lesser demons tried in vain to flee. I could no longer see or hear the clamour about me. If I waited much longer I would burn away or burst and so, incandescent with energy, I released it as a concussion of brilliant white fire, shrivelling and scattering them to ashes.

-

_-What happened?_

_-You are free._

As if through a thick mist, we could see fragments of what was happening. Macca and Ms Randall handcuffed and taken away. Jonas lying prostrate. Men with guns surrounding him. Amanda's lifeless body pooling blood on the floor

_-I'm dead, aren't I?_

_-I guess that's one way of looking at it. Does that disturb you?_

A moment's thought. - _No. Not really._

_-Anyway, for me this here is real. The rest... I don't know. You never belonged there anyway._

During my interrogation of Jonas I had learned of the system of indenture that existed in that time and place, and how Amanda had been taken into service to pay a debt that was not entirely hers. I had learned how that system was used, and abused by people like Ms Randall. I had learned how she treated the girls and what had happened to Letitia at the hands of Jonas. And I had learned what the penalties were for all those crimes. I had also learned of a telephone number that guaranteed a response by the authorities and roughly how long it would take them to arrive. So while Jonas and Ms Randall might never be held to account for Letitia's death, I was certain they would for Amanda's.

-

Some time passed and we drifted together in comfortable silence. I certainly appreciated the respite; after all the effort required in binding Jonas and burning the demons I was exhausted. Amanda, like those before her, needed time to comprehend and understand. Naturally she had questions, which I did my best to answer. But there was one, which was always asked, to which I had no real reply.

_-So, what happens now?_

I gave a metaphysical shrug. - _I don't know._

There was a lightening of the aether, a glow sensed rather than seen. The approaching end of our time together.

_-Here we are Amanda. Further than this I cannot go._

She seemed a little sad. - _Why not?_

_-It is my fate. I have other things that await me here._

_-And what will you do?_

_-You said it yourself. I will do what I do. Take care, Amanda._

She was fading from my sight as her last thought drifted back. - _Take care. My personal angel._  
~~

# _  
_###

Well, that's that. The End. Finis.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this e-book as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thank you for downloading and reading it. I hope that in the future I will be able to publish more, but in the meantime you could visit my Gather page at pifflem.gather.com. Otherwise, watch this space.

(Of course, I don't _literally_ mean watch this space. This particular space is never going to change. The more I think about it, it was a bit of a silly thing to say, really.)

Okay then. Bye, for now.
