 
### Narrator Magazine

### Blue Mountains

### Winter 2011

### Smashwords Edition

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The copyright for each item in this publication rests with the author of that piece. Please contact us at Narrator Magazine if you wish to contact any contributor featured herein.

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**Cover:** 'Self Portrait Drawing on iPhone'

Christina Frost Clayton created this image on her iPhone using an application called Brushes, while her husband drove the car along the F3 during a wild and frightening storm. What a great distraction for a terrified passenger! To understand WHY Christina was so frightened, read her story, _Knock 'n Roll_ , online in the Autumn 2011 edition.

You can view other art by Christina Frost Clayton on her website: <http://www.frostclayton.com.au/>

### A few words from the publisher ...

Welcome to this, our fourth edition of Narrator Magazine, Blue Mountains!

First of all, thank you to all contributors without whom we wouldn't have content—you support is greatly appreciated. And second—a special thanks to Diane O'Neill of Blue Dragon Books for so willingly reading through all contributions, without illustrations or formatting, as our second judge.

I've had an interesting time over the last four weeks, having enjoyed a long-awaited holiday to the west coast of America. From the deserts and canyons of Arizona and Nevada to the hustle and bustle of San Francisco and Los Angeles to the flash and razzle dazzle of Las Vegas, it was certainly a great experience.

One of the big thrills I had as a publisher was to be able to purchase a Barnes and Noble 'NOOKColor' e-reader. I have long held the belief that while books, magazines and newspapers are wonderful to hold and read, for a sustainable future we must start looking to electronic publishing as the norm, with print publishing for those things that are special, that should be kept.

As well as being able to purchase ebooks from many different websites and load them on my NOOK from my PC, I can also put music and videos on it, as well as acquiring many 'apps' and accessing the internet via the NOOK—so it's almost as good as an iPad, but cheaper.

As you can tell, I love technology, and was thrilled to received the image for the cover of this month's issue—a totally new form of art, created digitally on an iPhone. What we can do these days without wasting paper never ceases to amaze me.

Which brings me to my next thought—Narrator being online. We do hope that you're enjoying being able to access Narrator online more quickly than before and that you are forwarding your friends and relatives links to the electronic versions so that they can see your words in print!

And as a result of now delivering Narrator as a free, online magazine, we have reduced the print run each quarter to 120 copies, so first in, best dressed—and the environment wins again.

Well, that's my spiel for the quarter. Happy reading, tell your friends, and if you know someone who's thinking of sending in an entry, encourage them—the more people we can reach, the more sustainable the magazine will become.

### Jenny Mosher

June 2011

### Winning Entries for Autumn 2011

Our third issue, Autumn 2011, was judged by Blue Dragon Books owner Diane O'Neill, Diane's final choices were:

First prize — $200 to Mary Krone, Glenbrook, for her poem Scarred — 'a simple and elegant way to convey strong emotions'

Second prize — $100 to Aristidis Metaxas, Katoomba, for his story Ticket — 'gets the reader involved with the characters — nice twist at the end'

Third Prize — $50 to Robyn Chaffey, Hazelbrook, for her poem The Wind At My Door — 'wonderful imagery!'

Diane also offered high commendations to:

Greg North, Linden, for his poem Stick It! and

Christina Frost-Clayton, Woodford, for her story Knock 'n Roll

### A few words from our Guest Judge ...

I started with quite a long list of stories and poems that I liked—and it took quite a while to finally cut it down to just three. It's always hard to put personal preferences aside, but I think I ended up with a good mix. I hope you enjoy them too!

Diane O'Neill

### Table of Contents

### Poetry

Anna – Paris Portingale

From a Window – James Craib

Hanging Swamp – Alan E Lucas

Heartbreak – Julitha De La Force

I Feel Like Writing Today – J-L Heylen

I Remember You – Mary Krone

Mercury Rising – Albany Dighton

Ode to Tony – Brendan Doyle

So You Think Your Truth Trumps Mine – Karen Lane

Spin Me Round Sky – Cathy Tanaka

The Sea Dog's Last – Stephen Studach

Untitled – Christina Frost Clayton

### Short Stories

A Quick Fix – Michael Burge

A Wedding – Adrian Johnstone

Cut Grass and Disco – Sam Miller

Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure – Aristidis

It's a Bloke! – M Grace

Locked in the Corridors of Hell – Karen Easton

Mrs McGinty's Secret – Felicity Lynch

Phyllis – Paris Portingale

Searching For Sarah – Sharon Hammad

The Baptism – Alan E Lucas

The Cost of Doing Business – David Bowden

The Day I Skipped School – Robyn Chaffey

The Monasteries of Mardan – Bruce Nenke

The Red Hart – Jordan Russo

The Stranger – John Ross

Unsolicited – Albany Dighton

With Love comes Blood – Elizabeth Diehl

### Essays

Where is the Female Tolstoy? – Natalie Muller

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I Feel Like Writing Today - J-L Heylen

I feel like writing today.

Problem is, I'm not sure what to write.

I could write more of my book, but I've stalled a bit in terms of ideas. As per usual, my characters have taken themselves off at a tangent and now the story has diverged rather radically from the careful and thoughtful outline I wrote before I started. So, I keep looking at the outline, then looking at the narrative, and concluding that I don't know where to go next. Maybe my characters do, but they haven't let me in on the secret yet, so ...

I could write a love-letter to my wife, but she might wonder why I suddenly did this after 15 years of verbal expressions of affection and lovely messages in birthday and Christmas cards. Not that this is necessarily a good excuse for not writing to your wife. I love her very much. She knows it. I could write and tell her, but it wouldn't take very long, and it wouldn't satisfy my need to write today.

My need to write today is a big need. It's a burning, seething, rocking-tectonic-plates need. It won't be satisfied with just any old thing, you know? It's not satisfied now, for example. It keeps whispering to me 'if you're going to write this sort of drivel, just go back to work, will you?'

What am I to say in response?

'Bugger off, I'm trying to help you!'

Or,

'Your commentary is not appreciated at this time, please call back later'.

Or,

'I'm not at work, you goose!'

The possibilities are endless, but one thing is certain. That little voice of the critic is probably right. I am writing material which is of no earthly use to anyone right now, except, perhaps, me.

And let's face it, without me, the critic, the characters and the outline wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting written.

Furthermore, my lovely, beautiful, creative wife would miss me.

Mrs McGinty's Secret – Felicity Lynch

Mrs McGinty, a small colourless woman, lived in a narrow colourless street, in a deadly boring town in the Blue Mountains.

Every morning, if her neighbours had bothered to look, they would have seen Mrs McGinty, seemingly dressed in the same colourless clothes with a capacious handbag, leaving her house and walking out of the street.

However, if anyone at all had been interested, they would have seen around the next corner, little Mrs McGinty stepping into a luxurious silver limo, with dark windows, being kissed very affectionately, by a most handsome man.

If they had then followed the limo down the Western Highway, they would have seen a small elegant woman being escorted from the limo to disappear into a large office building in the Sydney CBD.

Mrs McGinty had vanished. The only remnant of the colourless Mrs McGinty was that this woman too was small; but this woman's hair was styled into the latest small dark cap, she was beautifully made up, dressed in an elegant suit, with slim legs and high heels – her capacious handbag nowhere to be seen.

Mrs McGinty had a secret. She was in fact the famous author of the Blue Mountains Mysteries, seen often on TV. Being interviewed, she never talked about her private life.

Mrs McGinty wasn't her real name and no one in the street who had read her books associated their colourless neighbour with the glamourous portrait of the author on the book covers.

Mrs McGinty had set all her novels in the most boring town's most colourless street. Her intricate plots and dastardly murders were based on the residents. As they were totally uninterested in her they had no idea of this.

Mrs McGinty had been there for many years living this double life. However, her forthcoming wedding to the much loved and wealthy Baron De Rothschild meant big changes.

A sign was placed outside her house stating that it was to be auctioned. Moving vans were seen with men carrying many boxes. The house was emptied of everything very quickly. Nobody in the street noticed anything, even though Mrs McGinty had lived in this house for many years. The people in the street were indifferent to her.

The day that Mrs McGinty was to be married, the journalists discovered Mrs McGinty's secret. The story was blazoned on the front pages of the main newspapers and T.V. It was reported that the books would be filmed.

Mrs McGinty's secret was out. It was rumoured that as the baroness she would visit the street and meet the residents there. Meanwhile the journalists interviewed the residents who really had very little to say. They expressed great surprise. Who would have thought ...?

The people in this very boring street began to talk to their neighbours. Lunches were arranged. People were trying to work out who was who in her novels. They emerged from their own secret boring lives and plans were made to celebrate their new found fame. It was resolved to be more aware of others in the street. Houses were painted, lawns mown, children played outside in the street and neighbours talked to each other.

No one could describe or could remember talking to Mrs McGinty. But the new-found notoriety of the street pleased those who lived there. They forgot how they had ignored her altogether and enjoyed their new-found fame, as they tried to work out who was who in her stories of murder in the street.

Mrs McGinty was rather bemused by the fuss. She was asked if she would continue to set her novels in the street. She declined to comment.

Felicity Lynch

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Spin Me Round Sky – Cathy Tanaka

Make my feet of clay and stones

My legs of craggy, weathered bones

My belly form of wooded splendor

My hair of breezes, keen yet tender

Stain my hands heath black with night

Reaching out for endless light

Bejewel my fingers, one by one

And press my nose to stars that hum

Though my heart in trepidation

Echoes ghostly excitations

For hurrying spirits tremble still

And long dead elders haunt your hills

Becalm my mind with dulcet breath

Through the teeth of rugged depths

And raise your arms of ragged trees

To issue expirations to appease

For constellations gathered here

With breathless glimmer beckon near

And trembling, lilting harmonies

Charge this restless joy in me

So, spin me round

Oh, spin me round sky

On my heels, arms flung high

Etch my soul with midnight sighs

And spin me round, spin me round

Spin me round sky

It's a Bloke! – M Grace

An endeavour to pay back Conan McKenney's debts to redeem his unfavourable behaviour is something to be desired and a matter stemming from any reasonable understanding of how the situation is leading to Conan's destruction; he is his own worst enemy. Unaware how deep Conan can sink into desperation, he might as well sink in quick sand – it might be kinder. Getting drunk is not the way to do it; running away is not going to do it either, nor will hiding behind his mother's apron to pull him out of his financial woes.

'I want to help you,' said MacGyver, 'but being friends doesn't give you license to expect me to save you every time you decide to go on a debt-drive. I'm done with you, Conan,' as he leaves the apartment in anger.

'I'll remember this MacGyver,' Conan shouted after him in frustration. 'Who needs friends like you, anyway?!'

Conan searches for his diary without success. He has everything going for him except his spendthrift attitude. Loving the high life is one thing, paying back what you spend is another. In frustration Conan threw his temper at a vase nearby, recklessly smashing it on the floor.

Conan looks out his window of his 14th floor apartment and observes people going about their way through life. 'People look like sticks walking on two legs,' he thought. Conan couldn't endure the scene any longer, picked up his car keys and drove out to the country - anywhere but where his troubles were. Country people were considered backward and uneducated once upon a time, and now they are considered the lucky people living away from the rat race of the city. Conan could do with some luck. Nevertheless, it still takes money to live out in the country. These days country properties can fetch prices as high as those in the city and as the suburbs, if not more. He wondered if a change of scenery would get him back on track, if not settle his debts. Conan's apartment in Sydney would be worth a small fortune; he could sell up, pay his debts and have enough money to buy a small weatherboard house, at least if his calculations are to go by. His antique furniture and items would be more in keeping in an old house than his soulless modern apartment, anyway. The more he thought of this idea, the more his enthusiasm became part of him and lifted him to a new level of conscience. Keeping up with the Joneses can be exhausting; it ruins romance to say the least. Is it not a person's right to want things – too much of a good thing has its drawbacks, but you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Selling up and living in the country meets with his approval.

Before Conan knew it, he had returned to Sydney, sold his apartment, paid his debts and a few months later, bought a weatherboard farmhouse settled in two acres in a country town called Rydal, a few miles outside of Lithgow. Conan's antique furniture and items fit in like they own the place. The village recorded having at least eighty people - now eighty one with Conan moving in. The pretty village has a hotel and two churches, but no shops. The hotel could be Conan's downfall; too close to drink, but he realises that to make his new life work, moderation has to be in play. Having no shops is a good thing. A drive to Wallerawang about ten minutes away would be a treat.

As time goes by, bored out of his wits, Conan is beginning to wonder about his real intentions wanting a new life in the country. Conan wonders if maybe has he lost sight of the dream. Basking in the sun in his rocking chair in deep thought, Conan overstated the force of the chair, hit the tree at the back of the chair, flew off it from the force, rolled down the grass and landed with his ass facing heaven, and his shorts down around his knees showing off his red underwear on display for all the world to see... completely unaware of his neighbour arriving to introduce herself.

'That's no way to greet your new neighbour,' said Susan. 'And what man wears red underwear? It doesn't do you justice.'

Conan scrambles to his feet, pulls up his shorts and apologises to the lady.

Offering her hand of greeting; 'I'm Susan Bates, by the way. Your new neighbour.'

'I'm Conan McKenney,' as he shakes her hand.

'And what are you doing here?'

'Absolutely no idea.'

'Well, that's a good start. You better tell me all about it over a cup of tea.'

'Tea? You only want to drink tea?'

'Don't be surprised! We country people like our tea or coffee, but I prefer tea.'

'I'll see if I can accommodate you.'

They talked all afternoon, finding out they have a lot in common like books and antiques. Susan, about Conan's age in her early thirties, was brought up in Rydal as a farmer, had spent many years on and off in Sydney, but prefers the country.

'I better get back to the farm,' says Susan. 'I'll drop in tomorrow to check on how you are going.'

Susan drops in tomorrow, the day before and so on.

As time goes on, Conan realises his boredom won't subside. It's not as romantic as he thought it might be, and though Susan replaces that idea, he decides to move back to Sydney, and lease his house to an arts and craft business venture with Susan in charge; something she always wanted to do.

Conan goes back to working in the advertising industry, organises a mortgage to buy a small apartment in Balmain and returns to Rydal in the weekends to a thriving business. So much so, a café is put in place not only for the tourists to enjoy, but the locals. Conan's belongings settle in Susan's farmhouse, as did he when he went to visit. Only time will know how that will work.

M Grace

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Searching For Sarah – Sharon Hammad

'The hardest thing in the world for a mother is to give up her child. That's why I have to look for Sarah.' I broke the news to Greg as gently as I could. Not every man is happy to be confronted with his wife's 'past'.

Naturally, he had reservations about my decision. After all, Sarah didn't share his genes, wasn't part of his history. 'What's done is done. Why do you have to drag it up now?'

'I don't know. Somehow, I feel ... incomplete.' Immediately, I knew that this was the wrong thing to have said.

'What about our family? Aren't we good enough for you, Lisa?'

'Yes of course. This isn't about us. It's about Sarah. I have to know what happened to her. Was she cared for? Was she loved? Can't you understand?'

Greg wore his I'm-too-stubborn-to-admit-it look. 'What if you can't find her? What if you spend your life looking? You might uncover things you'd rather not know. Wouldn't that upset you more?'

'At least, I won't die wondering. For heaven's sake, this all happened long before we met. It won't affect our relationship. You needn't be jealous, you know.'

'Jealous? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not jealous.' Greg slammed his coffee mug on the kitchen bench and stormed off.

I could hardly blame him. Since our children had grown up, Greg had had me pretty much to himself. Perhaps, needing to be needed, I'd spoiled him. And now I expected him to share me with someone that, until recently, he never knew existed.

'Don't worry about Dad,' Amy, our youngest, advised. 'He'll get over it. Don't you think he's being a teeny-weeny bit selfish?' This from one who believes replacing an empty toilet roll is an act of mercy. 'It's great you've finally got something else to think about. Maybe now you'll stop hassling - I mean worrying about - us.' She floated off, all dark wisps and flashing blue eyes, and I couldn't help wondering how much of a resemblance, if any, she bore to Sarah.

Whatever. I didn't need anyone's approval. I had already decided which way to veer at this particular fork in the road and I wasn't about to change my mind.

***

The agency guaranteed to charge like a celebrity chef, even if the proof of the pudding wasn't necessarily edible. I had dresses in my wardrobe that were older than the consultant, but she appeared professional in a power-suited, high-heeled, hair-in-a-bun kind of way. She warned me it was a difficult case. She'd run a search: births, deaths, marriages, court records, immigration. There was a strong possibility Sarah had changed her name. Not everyone in her situation wanted to be discovered. If she had left the country, there might not be anything to find. Overseas investigation – well, that was another kettle of smoked salmon. It might be painstaking. I must understand there could be 'additional costs'.

'I'll pay whatever it takes,' I promised.

Better not to think that way. Hope for the best. I left, feeling as if I'd just been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease.

On the way home, I questioned whether or not I was being taken for a ride. Desperate people often are. At this stage in my life, I had no idea why I was suddenly so obsessed with finding her, craving the smallest hint about what kind of person she turned out to be. For so many years I'd told myself not to think about it, to focus instead on what was important at the time, rather than worrying about things I couldn't change. But lately, the truth about what happened to Sarah – whether or not she had died somewhere, alone and afraid, with no-one to turn to - had become my holy grail. After all, she was my flesh and blood.

But what if Greg was right? Could the harsh circumstances of Sarah's early life have turned her into some sort of hardened criminal or ... killer? No, surely not that. But what if, despite everything I did to find her, Sarah had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth, just like all those missing persons who could not be located, even with the help of modern technology? Clues disintegrate, documents fall apart, writing fades, memories die with their owners. It becomes more difficult to trace someone with each passing year. How much of our life savings was I prepared to risk just to have my hopes crushed like fruit in a blender?

No mother gives up her child willingly. There are always reasons, pressures that others don't understand. The privileged don't have to wonder where the next meal is coming from, unlike a young woman sent away to a strange place without support, forced into giving up a child that she loves because it's the right thing – the only thing - to do. People say it's a choice but, in fact, the notion of choice just doesn't exist.

A surge of emotion transported me back in time and space. I was that desperate young mother, alone and friendless, unable to provide for the tiny being who relied on me totally. I couldn't bear to see my baby suffer - to be the cause of her suffering. It was an agonising decision. I handed the infant over, turning away quickly in case I changed my mind. This I must not do, for it would mean murdering my baby's chances in life.

As I fled the scene, I told myself the child didn't realise what was happening. Hopefully, she'd be looked after by people who wouldn't hold her responsible for her humble beginnings, who'd let her grow strong and clever. And when she was old enough to know the story of her birth, she might learn to forgive the poor wretch who thought of her the first and last moments of every day.

Somewhere inside me a voice whispered, Why not search for Sarah? Every person has the right to know where she comes from, where she belongs. Once, it was called identity crisis but nowadays tracing your family had become the height of fashion. When Greg and I were first married, we'd struggled to make ends meet, and I'd done my share of going without. Now it was my turn to realise a dream I'd nurtured all of my adult life.

It took weeks: weeks of waiting, checking my emails several times a day, wondering about missed calls from unidentified numbers. I'm ashamed to admit, I almost lost my nerve. Then, finally, the call came. 'Good news. We've found Sarah.'

I was too emotional to take in much detail, so I arranged a meeting with Ms Additional Costs for the next day. She had collected the evidence and could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person she'd found was my Sarah.

Amy was suitably impressed that her long lost relative had been located. 'Go Mum! I want to know everything.'

'Well -' I began.

'Gotta run right now. Catch you later?'

So when Greg arrived home from work that evening, I hurled myself at him like some sort of desperate housewife. 'If I'd known finding Sarah would have this effect on you, I wouldn't have been so negative,' he said.

I stroked his face, despite the scrape of his five o'clock shadow. 'You and the kids are my first priority. But Sarah is part of our family too.'

Greg nodded. 'I see that now. Come and tell me all about her.' We sat on the sofa and I nestled into his arms while I filled him in on what I'd learned so far.

'I'll find out more tomorrow. The main thing is we've found her. After all this time, we know what happened to her.'

'What did happen to her?' Greg asked, tentatively.

'That's the best part. It's what I was hoping for all along.' I sat up and beamed at him. 'She ended up with Mary.'

'Mary?'

'Her daughter. The one she gave away. Don't you see? Mary must have forgiven her.'

'That's important to you, isn't it?'

'Of course it is. Sarah wasn't a bad person, only poor. When her husband died, she had no-one to turn to when she couldn't manage to bring up her child on her own. Imagine what it would feel like to have to give up our Amy.'

'Mm. I'll bet you've been doing a lot of imagining, haven't you?'

He knew me well. 'Oh Greg, it must have been awful for both of them. It helps to know that they were reconciled in the end.'

'Your great, great grandmother paid a high price for stealing that loaf of bread back in the Old Country.'

'Poor Sarah. I can't help feeling grateful that she did. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.'

'You're not the only one who's grateful,' Greg said, drawing me towards him.

Sharon Hammad

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With Love Comes Blood – Elizabeth Diehl

You cut me; tore open my throat and it feels like you ripped out my heart; you've destroyed my soul. With eyes closed I did my best not to think about you or hear your voice in my mind; for better or worse we belong together; can't you see that? Why do you do the things you do to me; are you that broken yourself that you feel the need to bring me down? You walked out the door without a backwards glance and left the pieces of me on the floor. I couldn't move; couldn't speak or even moan out loud. My heart and throat were burning with the pain and my body screamed out for you to come back and put me back together. It seemed like hours but it was probably only a few minutes as I remained there; ridged with fear on the floor; cold and starting to feel nothing in a room as silent as a graveyard at midnight.

As I felt the room spinning out of control, memories of when I had drunk too much flooded back to me. An angel looked down on me; she was moving slowly towards the room and I knew just knew that you had sent me to my death once and for all. You cut my throat open almost like a professional; have you done this before; did you break their heart too? I let you know the real me and you betrayed my trust in the worse possible way. I changed so much of myself for you, you never really let me in and now I know why, all those secrets, lies and late nights. So many broken promises so many days spent crying over you and for what; to have it end like this?

I can see my unfinished paintings in the room and I try to cry out at the senseless waste, and the regrets I have. Was I a random victim or did you stalk me like a cat stalks its next meal? You stretched out on the lounge most days like a cat and purred like a kitten when I stroked your hair; was it all an act? I was putty in your hands; those eyes of yours pulled me in and melted me to my very core. I wish now I had of taken off my blinkers and seen you for who you really are; but it's too late now isn't it, or is it? Love is a strange and wonderful thing.

We spent countless days out on the open highway free and easy riding on your Harley and I never once suspected you were looking for the right place for me; not us. You told me we needed 'our' very own private haven; but it was solely for me wasn't it? We used the money from the sale of my house and my inheritance to buy it, you said we would start a new life; and I believed you. I wanted to believe you so much. I hung on to every crumb you ever gave me and wiped up the mess you often left as the screen door slammed behind you and the sound of your bike tore at my heart as you rode off; leaving me to wonder what I had said or done to make you so mad. Little did I know then that you were always pretending, holding back the real you and play acting with me to get from me what you wanted. The wonder of you has had me spell bound for a very long time. You towered over me with those dark good looks and bedroom eyes; the softness of your touch melted me that very first time I saw you. Do you remember that night; I do; like it was yesterday. I looked up and there you were holding out your hand silently asking me to dance.

How could I resist you? The women in the room would have given anything to be me. You moved smoothly like a cat onto the dance floor with such ease; like you have done it all your life and you have, haven't you? That first dance is so vivid in my mind; you put a hand in the small of my back and pulled me into you with such softness and tenderness I had never known. I felt your thigh brush mine and I let out a sigh, I had come home in your arms. When our hands and fingers touched they melted into each other as if we were one and I wrongly thought we were meant to be together. I felt the thrill of the electricity running through my body as we moved around the dance floor like there was no one else and for me there wasn't. I lost myself in you that night with no hope of ever recovering.

We danced like that for hours and then you took me outside and made slow sweet love to me; on the bonnet of a car right there in the car park under the stars and moon. It's there you promised me that you would get them for me along with the sun, remember? We loved each other from top to bottom all night long in your bed and I knew for sure I had been lost but now I was home. I whispered in your ear; 'where had you been all my life' and you laughed that beautiful laugh of yours and said 'waiting for you my love' and I believed you. I was in love with you from the very first moment I looked into your eyes.

I want scream out to you to stop and come back. I want to beg you; don't leave me this way, but you don't hear me and who would in this isolated place or above the roar of your bike. But none of these words come out of my mouth it's all in my head. You have thrown me out like the baby with the bath water many times never giving a thought to how I feel; each time making me beg you to let me come back into the house. I pleaded with you to hold me, and never let me go and you did. My family and friends are all gone; you blamed them for trying to break us up. I put my mother into a nursing home because you convinced me she would be better off and I would get more rest. It was your way of getting everyone I loved out of my life; they have given up on me now. I've lived an isolated life with only you for company. You took the words out of my mouth; I have never been allowed to have an opinion of my own; I lost all self respect and confidence in myself a long time ago. You wouldn't let me work; I had to look after you. With the inheritance from my favourite Aunt money was never a real issue for me till you came along and spent it all. I had to give up being a vegetarian to cook you those 'bloody' steaks night after night; always feeling sick at the sight of them. I cleaned up after you because I never dare complain for fear of you and your temper. You didn't allow me to even go to the hair dresser; you said I was fine the way I was and that it was a waste of your money. But you seem to forget it was my money till you came and took over my life. I used to look forward to my weekly visits to the spiritual church and meditation, you said it was all the devils work and you would have none of that around here so that stopped too. If only I had have known then that I was living with the devil himself.

I had many dreams and now they will never be fulfilled because of you; you killed those ages ago. You have been working towards this very moment for a long time; taking pleasure in my displeasure; why? I try to scream out again but no sound and one comes; I can feel the life inside of me draining away and the warm sticky blood spilling out of me, onto the carpet. Once this would have bothered me but now I feel nothing but regrets for all the time wasted on you and for all that should have been. How many people out there let life slip past them and then on their death bed have regrets for the 'love' they should have had; for the 'life' they wanted but never went after; afraid to step out of their comfort zone and afraid to take the chance. I was afraid but you convinced me that we were right together and after all you had offered me the moon stars and sun.

Now I lay here with the life draining from me and wish I had side stepped you and gone on that trek I had been meaning to do for years. You convinced me it would be a waste of money and time; time you and I needed to get to know each other. I can hear a phone ringing and it takes me a moment to realize that it can't be ours you had it cut off saying we didn't need the intrusion of the outside world when we had each other; so it must be in my head; I am going crazy; like you have been telling me? I can't move; not a muscle. You have taken care of that haven't you? Please I beg you come save me? No one is coming are they? We are so remote not even the postman comes here.

Waiting for me are several angels and I want to scream out to them that I am not ready to go, please don't take me. I haven't lived and loved properly; I need to live. We all walk around in a daze never fully living and loving; always too afraid to let go and experience life to its fullest. Why do we humans create wars and starve each other of love? Why?

I hear a song; it is playing in my ears and I hum silently to myself, 'another one bites the dust'. Is it really music or am I imagining it? Oh please let me live; let me know 'love' and I promise I will not waste a precious moment of any day. I will wake up with enthusiasm for each and everything I do. No more moaning about my lot in life; just let me live.

How many nights did I soak in the bathtub only to have you come into the bathroom with that nasty look in your eyes and tell me I was getting fat and had better do something about it? In reality I was all skin and bone, you hardly ever let me eat. When you had your dinner and I had cleaned up I would sit down in the corner of the kitchen to eat any leftover food and you would throw it on the floor and accuse me of eating what belonged to you so I went to bed like a starving wounded animal. Cringing and praying you would pass out in the living room and leave me alone.

I can remember the anticipation of our love making when we first met; the thrill of your touch on my skin and when you climaxed I would shudder and come with you delighting in it all. You taught me to do things solely for your pleasure, I never minded because I loved you and I think I still do in a sick kind of way.

Your kisses could transport me to another world and I believed you had given me the stars, moon and sun after all. But then one day the tender soft touches turned into beatings and the slow delightful love making became a nightmare.

I'm broken dying and remembering too many things that I would rather not remember at all. When you die; you relive your life and as the last breath leaves your body you meet your maker; am I ready for that? I think not.

The angels are smiling at me now and I know the time is getting nearer and the room will go completely dark and I will be gone. Oh please don't leave me here to die alone? Even though you cannot hear me I want you to tell me, why me and why now? Wasn't I enough for you, didn't I give you enough pleasure, enough money and didn't I give it all up for you just as you asked? Anything you wanted I would do for you; I was bewitched by you. My life was on hold and then you came and changed it, and I thought my life had finally started. Our love is a sick kind of love I know that now but it is too late. They are coming for me and I can feel their wings touching me and I can feel the love surrounding them. It is pure bliss; I feel no pain and I'm not cold anymore; I cry out please I want to live. The angels are asking me if I had it all to do again what I would do differently. If I could turn back the clock what would I say and do? This is not such a tough question because I know; I should never have let you into my life, but I can't say that. I thought you had taught me all about love, but it was not love for you; you took away my friends, family and my life.

Who will mourn for me and who will find me here alone in a pool of my own blood? If I had my time again I would wake up each day and say a prayer and thank 'God' I am alive. I would eat fresh pasta and drink chardonnay in Italy. I would cherish and love my family and friends without conditions. I would smile more; laugh often and love deeply and purely. I would dig in my garden and plant flowers and sit back on the verandah and watch them grow. I would climb mountains and swim in emerald green oceans and I would learn to live all over again and I would never ever moan about my lack of. I would paint like there was no tomorrow and make sure I stopped every so often and smelt the roses. I would make a list and systematically work my way through it, not from the top to the bottom as you would think; I would close my eyes and pick one and get on with it.

Is that laughter I hear; I try to open my eyes but they are heavy now and I am feeling colder. Have you come back to taunt me or am I imaging it all; maybe it's just another dream or am in hell? The laughter grows dimmer as does the room and I feel like I am fading away and I try with all my might to hold on to stay here and live again. I hear your voice close to my ear, 'baby it's time to go'. I cringe inwardly trying with all my might to stay alive.

I call out to the angels and ask them 'where are they taking me and is it time now' but they just smile and wait patiently for me to finish my thoughts. I ask them again; 'why me'? The answer is whispered on the wind; 'why not you' and then it's time to go.

I hear sirens in the distance, they have come too late. When they walk into the room I'm laying there with blood all around me with a smile on my face; and they question each other as to what would possess someone dying such an ugly death to smile in this manner? They start taking photos of me and I wish they wouldn't do that.

I stand very close to a police officer and try to tell them about you, who you are and what you did to me. No one hears me, no one sees me. That's when I notice you standing in the corner of the room with a satisfied smirk, arms folded across your chest and blood trickling down your face.

A shaft of white light beams down and you scowl moving towards me, its then I notice for the first time those black menacing figures standing either side of you. They take an elbow each and start moving downwards and your screams are enough to wake the dead.

My sister and another police officer come into the room and her cries of anguish as she looks down at my crumpled lifeless body is heartfelt. The officer mentions the fatal motor bike accident down the road that occurred some hours before. I can hear them speculating that I must have died around the same time as the accident. He thinks today is not such a good day with both these deaths. But to me it is a good day after all; it's just a shame our love has turned to blood.

Elizabeth Diehl

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The Monasteries of Mardan – Bruce Nenke

Mardan is a town; an area in the North-west Frontier Provence of Pakistan. It sits on the first foothills of the Hindu Kush above the Punjabi plains; gateway to Swat valley. The Swat River runs into the Indus not far below. In its hills one of the largest Buddhist monastic complexes ever built lays in complete ruins. It housed 20,000 monks in its day and rivaled the capitol Taxila in size and industry. Here Ghandharian Art had reached its apex but that is about all we know of a long forgotten Greek Buddhist Kingdom. Founded by the good king, Meander, who by staging a debate had chosen Buddhism as the state religion. The winning argument being; 'They are all lying and so am I'. In a debate about 'Truth' Meander could pick an honest man. Long before Dharumsula; when Lhasa was a backwater, Mardan was the place where you heard Buddhist doctrine debated; Mardan was the place where you made your mark.

I tried to visit this place once. The guide book said you had to stop the bus; i.e tell the driver to stop 'Bus Gardi!', somewhere non-descript, somewhere along the road between Malakand and Mardan; walk five miles, walk back and then try to hail passing buses to continue. I am sure nothing has changed but whether there is a Monastery there or not I don't know but I know in my memory I did this. As above, in a debate about Truth; honesty wins out. By the time I had figured it out, I'd already passed the place; so I missed out. Below this complex was the world's largest Buddhist Stupa. Before St Paul's Cathedral in Rome it was the largest dome on the planet built by the Kushan Kings. It contained a relic; the finger bone of the Buddha 'Gautama Siddhartha'. The Kushans spoke Aryan; they had to learn Sanskrit and Pali. Under the Kushans India was the wealthiest country on earth. There was Pax Romana in the west; Historian quote these times as being an endless summer of prosperity, for one hundred and ten years the world was at peace with itself. Rome, Persia, India and China traded peacefully with each other and before the Silk road Kingdoms; the Kushans were at the centre of this global trade. They were the ones who built the biggest Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, the ones the Taliban bombed; these students may now regret this but this is the attitude of Muslims. To them it's pre-history; before the coming of the light, it has nothing to do with them, 'Of interest to you.' They would say to me cynically; meaning Japanese and English speaking tourists. If it's not in the guide book it was probably a Japanese Tourist who told me about the place; they were the only ones travelling in Pakistan at that time who were just there to see ancient Buddhists sites. They knew something Western travelers didn't; they had a different guide book. So it is in Mardan I am setting this story, in this big emptiness of a lost Buddhist world; a void of history. Their word for such stories as this is 'Apocryphal' but Ghandhara fell long before Islam arrived. Unlike Nuristan the neighboring Kingdom, originally Kafirstan they were never converted by the sword they had already fallen on their own. The story from now is called 'The birth of Zen'.

The Birth of Zen

Most people don't know this but there actually was a 'Zen', a personality; a person. He was the Master and founder of the Orphanage at Mardan Monasteries. In truth only a third of the boys were orphans, most were just from poor families but to them he was 'Master Zen'. Zen was a Persian; a Zoroastrian convert with an accent but to the boys he was foreigner and the butt of all their jokes. One might construe that the boys being Greek by descent were racist in their humor but Greeks and Persians though traditional enemies were both Aryan; they realized they were cousins. The boys may have been bigots but Zen had gotten to expect it at the Monastery where he was the odd one out. Zen was only ever going to be a simple Monk, it was his Karma; incarnated Buddhists Monk's 'Lamas' have Buddhist mother's.

Zen was a strict Father; every boy knew the sound of one hand clapping that was the sound they heard Zen make with his right hand every morning as he woke the boys before dawn. Though Zen picked on all the boys, one boy got it more than any other; he was dyslexic and because of this he was Zen's whipping boy. The boy use to call the teacher 'Zen Master'; this was the first time the term was ever heard. 'Master Zen!' Master Zen would point with his finger; 'Master Zen!' slap. Zen with that one right index finger from that hand in the air would lecture the boys. 'You can't be a Buddha by being late'. 'You can't be a Buddha with dirty finger nails'. 'You can't be a Buddha by climbing trees'; someone was caught climbing a tree. What the boys basically did was clean the toilets for 20,000 monks. 'It's your Karma'; Zen would lecture them with the finger. The boys were scared of that finger they had heard stories of where it had been; apocryphal stories.

One day Master Zen had got an invitation to watch a debate. Finally someone in the hierarchy had noticed his good deeds with the children he thought to himself; his work with the Orphanage had accumulated merit. This was an important day for Zen, a day that was written in the stars. The kids would have to manage by themselves; unsupervised, he'd be off for three hours. 'It's your Karma, Good luck'; he wished them at the same time wishing it on himself; but when Zen got to the debate somehow everything had gone wrong. His chair had been taken by another student, he was told to sit outside where he could hear the debate but not see it. So Zen chose to go home; back to the Orphanage. Poor show thought his peers.

The boys were cleaning the vast complex's kitchen floors when Zen walked in. They didn't expect him back so soon and there was the dyslexic boy pointing with his right index finger, imitating Zen's accent perfectly, saying 'It's your Karma; You can't be a Buddha... '. Zen immediately interrupted the Boy and shouted 'You can't be a Buddha by imitation!' The children laughed, they thought the Master was in on the joke, so well had the boy imitated Zen's lists of don'ts but who knows what was in the Master's mind at that moment. Anger, humiliation; humor was a concept that this most conceptual of Buddhists was unable to grasp. Within a sixth of a second it seemed he had picked up a meat clever and cut off the boy's finger. The boy was immediately 'Enlightened' and in gratitude to his Teacher he grabbed the meat clever and cut off the Master's offending finger saying 'Now!! It is you who will imitate me!' In the Master's head all he heard was 'Now' but he was 'Enlightened' and the boy was banished from the Monastery and this is where the story should end but there's more. If humor be the opposite of anger maybe revenge is the opposite of justice.

The Boy's Journey

The Boy now basically unemployed gravitated to the Stupa outside the Monastery walls. A thousand pilgrims a day, he thought to himself; if only each threw an Anna that would be a thousand Anna a day, divided amongst a thousand beggars he realized, so he became a beggar at the greatest Stupa in the world. But at this Stupa he saw people he had never seen before, new people. They dressed in green. 'Chillum Worshipers'. 'Malangs', they smoked hashish and ate meat. 'People of bad Habits', pious pilgrims would comment. 'They eat meat but not flesh; so they say'; the comments continued. When you live in the Punjab it's easy to criticize non-vegetatarians but what do you expect Eskimos to eat and to them these Sufi's were as alien as Eskimos. They didn't belong but neither did the Boy so it was amongst them he made his friends. They really were the poorest of beggars, their cotton and wools were rags within a week. Once they put on a piece of clothing they would never take it off; as if it became part of their skin but they were the most generous of their breed. To the boy they were the Kings amongst Thieves. When the boy had told them the story about how he lost his finger, they were indignant, sad, sympatric and hurt themselves. They confronted Buddhist pilgrims saying 'Buddha has stolen this boy's finger, when will Buddha give it back'. Passing pilgrims threw coins rather than be faced with the Boy's stump or answer the question. The Boy started making money and he saved it carefully, like the 'Butterfly'.

One day someone turned up with lots of sparkles and tinsel. The green guy's Guru. They treated him as a saint and they told him the boy's story. It was a night by the Sufi's fire. Their Father prayed and the Stupa cracked in half as Buddha's finger bone lifted out of the centre of the dome and drifted on to the Boy's stump. His finger had been restored with Buddha's relic. 'A Kingdom Falls at its Apogee'; was as all Mr. 'No-name' said to them as he walked out into the night back west into the darkness beyond the fire.

The next morning the pilgrims were shocked; the Stupa had been split down the middle from north to south. Only an earthquake could have done such damage and yet no-one had been awoken by a tremor last night. The 'Pujaris', the Monks in charge of the Shrine rushed to Mardan to get the Monastery's Oracles to see if they could make sense of what had happened. The main Oracle possessed by the deity whirled in the centre of the divided Stupa which was now empty. He looked east at one half of the broken circle and west to the other half. East and then west, he started babbling as if the whole contents of Kali Yug were rushing out of his mouth. Most of it nobody there wanted to hear. 'The Death of a Buddha', 'Babble'. 'The Death of Buddhism', 'Babble'. 'The Death of the King', 'Babble'. 'The 'Death of the Kingdom', 'Babble'. 'The death of 'Babble, babble, babble'. They stopped listening at this point. The last thing the Oracle said before he collapsed was 'If it comes to war between East and West; East will win'. The people looked to the experts; the ones who had accompanied the now sleeping man and were taking off his heavy head dress. The oracles of the Oracle one might say, heard 'East will win'; om? this was reassuring they thought. It was a time and a place where three generations of Ghandharians had never seen or known war. The only enemy they could imagine was the Persians but India had never gone to war with Persia nor Persia with India. Unlike Asoka; Ghandharian Kings had never engaged in wars of conquest. They had inherited most of it from previous Kings and Conquers and what they didn't own, belonged to Buddhists too. India was Buddhist, China was Buddhist, even the War-like Tibetans had gone Buddhist. The Mongols were still a threat on the far horizon but when Kublai Khan held a debate like Meander; he too choose the honest answer. The only difference being that at this debate in Xanadu there was a Christian representative; blue eyes and a roman nose.

The audience could only imagine the Oracle was talking about the future. 'That's why he sounded so gabbled'; they reasoned, like a distant transmission from the 'End of Times'. Which was about as far away into the future as they could imagine so they really had nothing to worry about and it was best just to cover up the mess; it felt somewhat embarrassing anyway and to just get on with their life's. It was still sunny, no one had died which was reassuring so they decided to fixed the Stupa. One might say it was done in the interests of local shop keepers but even the beggars relied on the Stupa getting up and running again. So they encased the broken Stupa inside an even larger Stupa but to save time rather than materials they made it Elliptical; it was no longer a perfect circle. It had two points of focus from where the centre had split apart; one east, one west and no relic. Whether this mattered to the Monks we will never know, it was a topic they never debated.

The Boy was still a Buddhist though and wished to return to the Monastery to see his childhood friends. He thought with his finger back all his sins were forgiven and forgotten or at least hidden. He had leveled his Karma, he reasoned and could return to his Sanhga but before we can tell this story we have to go back to the Monastery itself; back to 'Zen'. Now the story is called 'One Finger Zen'.

One Finger Zen

In the Boy's absence Zen was making waves, Zen was on the up. He couldn't get out of his head the sound of 'Now'. It rang; it echoed, rattling off the interior wall of his empty skull. Suddenly he hearing something new as if listening to a distant debate, he heard a sound. Maybe this is one of those 'Concepts'. He knew being conceptual was no way to be a Buddha but maybe one wouldn't hurt and this one was 'Now'. Zen started sitting outside debates, Zen started being invited to sit inside debates and eventually Zen was invited to debate himself. Zen started winning debates finally becoming the Abbot of Mardan, the 'Man in Charge'. This is how he won it.

It was the Apex of debates; the previous Abbot had passed on. It was from this debate Zen's philosophy would eventually spread all the way to Japan and after sitting there for while eventually hop on ships headed across the Pacific Ocean to L.A, to become the popular religion of motorcycle mechanics we know today. At this debate, the debate of debates, for the Championship, for the Kingdom; Zen was asked a question. 'When you talk about the 'Now', do you mean the 'Now' that is happening 'Now' or do you mean the 'Now' that is happening 'Now'; will you tell me 'Now' and he clapped his hands. This was a tricky one for Zen, he thought about it for a minute and then suddenly produced a meat clever and shouted; 'Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!' and with the meat clever he had cropped off six of his fingers almost instantaneously and then clapped his trumps. Remember he had already lost one finger when he had arrived on the philosophy of the 'Now'. So now he had really become 'One Finger Zen'. Technically that's one finger and two thumbs but the questioner had refrained from his next question. He had them written them down on the inside of his sleeve. No he wasn't the Boy but another novice monk. The next question written was 'When you mean 'Now' aren't you talking about the experience of 'Time'; isn't 'Time' 'Now', tell me this time 'Now''. One of the original 'Orphans' had written the questions.

The other Monks got it; Zen meant that all the Now's are 'Now'. Each and every one of them was 'Now'. What commitment, what dedication to the cause they cheered. Never had anyone seen a debate won like this before, so convincing was Zen's rebuttal. They were sure this was a demonstration of a 'Siddhi', though they had heard of such things none of the monks had seen one before. 'Zen was a 'Sidha''; they whispered amongst themselves; a man of magic. How the hell was he able to cut off his last three fingers of one hand after cutting off all the fingers on his other hand? Zen had laid his cards on the table leaving himself an Ace and two Clubs; there was the proof. Six fingers and a meat clever, obviously Zen knew underlying 'Laws to Karma' that the others could only imagine, so they voted Zen Abbot.

The Cup Kicker

So after some years with the Sufis the Boy try's to return to the Monastery to end his exile from the Sangha; his friends. True enough nobody recognized him; he looked much older, older than his age and despite the fact that he had his finger back and could deny he was ever such a boy; when he looked into Zen eyes again after so many years he realized the boy was long forgotten. Still the Boy had taken precautions to disguise himself; he had dressed rich. All that time begging with that stump of a finger he had saved his coins and now he used them for this day. On his return to the Monastery, he had hired some of his begging friends to act as his entourage; they were surprised he had any money at all after regaining his finger. The Boy now a young adult had brought himself the best suit, the one that the lucky people wear; the people with good Karma and with money he had entered Zen's room for an interview.

Zen was pouring him a cup of tea. The Boy couldn't hold back, realizing that Zen didn't recognize him he blurted it all out. He really wanted to be a Buddhist. 'It's my Mother's religion'; he boasted. 'I was a Buddhist in a previous life'; this was the only way he could hide that he had meant his real mother it was her 'Will' that had him adopted into the Monastic Order and as Zen listened to the boy he kept pouring the tea. The Boy looked at the cup it was over flowing, tea started pouring onto the floor. The Boy thought maybe it's his physical handicap, what with only one finger and two thumbs he probably doesn't know he is doing it. Zen keep pouring even in the silence and a big river of tea was heading for the Boy's feet. The Boy jumped up and accidently kicked over the cup. Suddenly it was like the Abbot noticed him; he'd gained the attention of Zen and the first things that Zen said was. 'You are too full of yourself, like this cup you have to be empty. At this time it is not your Karma to be a monk but there is work in the Monasteries' kitchens, maybe there you might find the humility to even be an Abbot one day but only in the next life'. Lucky the Abbot didn't know it but he was referring to his lifetime. Well it was better than cleaning toilets the Boy thought. The Boy thought by kicking the cup over he had stuffed the interview and was lucky to get anything. The Boy said 'Yes'. Now the Boy was called the 'Cup Kicker' still he was caterer for 20,000 monks. He knew how much butter they each had in their tea. This is now the 'Epitaph'.

The Death of Zen

'When brushing teeth, just brushing teeth; not God brushing teeth, not Buddha brushing teeth; just brushing teeth'. The boys remembered 'One Finger Zen's' lectures with affection he was the only parent they had known and they loved him like a Father. Now that 'One Finger Zen' was Abbot the boys did well in the Monastery after all they were Zen's pupils; 'His boys'. Over time some even reached positions of authority and responsibility but the 'Cup Kicker' was never promoted. Zen was only getting older; he realized he was reaching death. 'Nearing Nirvana' was Zen's favourite euphemism and talk of succession was in the air. He decided to solve the problem of an heir with a debate of course, simple but ingenious; a debate about water.

All the prospective Abbots had turned up in Zen's private room. Zen was sitting on his bed; his death dead and in the middle of the room was a cup of water. Oddly enough it was the Boy who had filled the cup in the kitchen and had brought it up to Zen's room, placing it on the middle of the floor as instructed. 'Without kicking it over'; Zen reminded him, still Zen didn't know who the 'Cup Kicker' was. The other boys did; it was the Boy's sense of humour that had given him away. As for his non-existent/existent finger the proof was there for all to see. The boys had known for twenty years or more he was the boy whom Zen had chopped off a finger. The Boy was now middle aged, they were all middle-aged and many of his original friends; his Sangha were in the room. The Abbot asked the question, 'Without saying it's a cup of water tell me what it is'. Looking at the cup many of the boys had guessed; 'Half full' but somehow Zen had stumped such a response, it didn't fit the question being ask. 'I suppose you couldn't call it a block of wood'; one of the boys ventured to get the ball rolling and then 'The Cup Kicker' picked up the cup and poured it on old Zen's head and said 'It is wet; Zen Master'. Suddenly Zen remembered who the Boy was; he was speechless, a layman, his nemesis had won the Monastery and was now going to be Abbot. The others agreed 'The Cup Kicker' had certainly won the debate just as much as water is wet and they were happy about it, only Zen voted against the Boy.

Zen died of a cold a week later, obtaining nirvana but this story contains one more death. As time went on 'The Cup Kicker' came to be very old himself but when the Boy died the Monastery held a massive funeral for their most-beloved of Abbots. They dug a tunnel under the Stupa and buried the body at its centre thus returning Buddha's finger bone. The Stupa was whole, it had its heart again; it's relic and began to answer the prays of the pilgrims. The Stupa had become a 'Sidha' but still some prays it ignored. Those for the King and those for the Kingdom.

What the Hell Happened to Ghandhara?

'Ghandhara, Ghandhara; they say it is in India'. 'Monkey goes West'. A thinly disguised Hanuman does service to Buddha to bring back Buddhist scriptures from India to China. Even 'Marpa' the great Tibetan translator when he boasted to 'Millarepa'. 'I risked my life four times travelling to India and back to return these Sutras'. Well, he meant Mardan; two weeks by donkey or a month's trek at best is the distant between Tibet and Pakistan. Mardan was the warehouse of Buddhist scriptures. From this centre Buddhism was propagated; it was said of Ghandhara that both Hinniyana and Mahayana Buddhism was taught. It was as if from this centre they had divided the world amongst themselves like the Portuguese and Spanish but not East from West; North from South. Theravada; Buddha's minor vehicle toddled off South and then went East keeping the meridian to the left and Buddha's big vehicle charged North and then also East keeping the meridian to their right. If any books went west it was swallowed up by another scripture 'The Koran'.

By the time the Sufi missionaries had returned to the Stupa nothing was left of Ghandhara. The Stupa was in tack but it was no longer visited. The Monasteries were abandoned and Taxila was no more than a market amongst ruins. One or two century later when the first of the Muslim invaders, descendants of Genghis Khan saw the Stupa on their way to India proper; the Sultan must have believed that the Stupa was as old as the Pyramids and the people who built them; the Buddhist, belonged to the age of the ancient Egyptians. The locals could only confirmed Tamburlaine's assessment. These Buddha statues were as strange and unknown to them as they were to visiting foreigners; they had converted to Islam generations ago.

So a question could be asked 'What the Hell Happened to Ghandhara'. Little is known; like snippets from ancient decaying news reels; the last King committed suicide, the royal family was divided, brother took up arms against brother over the succession. The Kingdom was never invaded it plunged itself into a self-destructive Civil War. Like their Christian cousins of Constantinople the population divided itself into factions; red against Yellow, son against father, father against wife, mother against daughter; fratricide. The family traditions were destroyed.

There is a Zen Koan. 'If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?' No it doesn't, it makes a vibration that ears pick up but if the owners of the ears are asleep no sound is heard. Consciousness is the source of sound. Like an earthquake that happened yet was never felt at its centre, it ripples where felt elsewhere. A hidden Buddhist Town and Monastery built on a fortress like plateau behind the Pamir's; a place of escape and refuge, abandoned almost as soon as it was built. There is a cave complex in the west of China; it shows the whole history of Buddhism; from a Hundred Thousand Buddhas to Bodhisattvas. Around this time and no one knows why; maybe the 'Hun', they started burying scriptures. Think the 'Dead Sea Scrolls'; 'The Nag Hammandi Library'. In this one cave they found the world's first book, printed on paper, 100AD there about and it's illustrated too. 'The Diamond Sutra'; though now they say it's title means more like 'The Thunderbolt Sutra', diamonds being a cutting tool. What was threatening this isolated outpost, did they hear that the libraries of Mardan were burning and where there some Monks there who buried books in the surrounding hills of Mardan as well. Remember this was a Greek Buddhist Kingdom as well versed in Aristotle as they were in Eastern religions; amongst these scriptures maybe lost books of the ancient Greek philosophers, maybe even the complete works of Heraclitus. 'You can never step into the same river twice'.

'Bodhisattva in a Hell Realm'

W.W.Spont.Samadhi.

Bruce Nenke

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The Baptism – Alan E Lucas

He had seen the other kids do it, ploughing through the water like masters of the element. It was just a matter of moving your arms up and down and doing a few kicks, it should be easy to swim really. Even although his father was a superb swimmer, he had never bothered to teach Steve the fundamentals, let alone hold him up in the water until he had gained enough confidence to keep himself afloat. But then his father never took a lot of notice of him anyway, even when his dad was in a good mood. Steve had grown used to that, but the truth was that he had never learned to tread water. So he decided to surprise his father, and teach himself. He began by awkwardly splashing about in water up to his waist, kicking and moving his arms in an uncoordinated manner, making his mistakes, almost choking at times, and always panicking when he felt out of his depth. This often happened because he was so intent on learning he would drift into water over his head. That would cause him to desperately splash back to solid ground and drag himself out of the water, coughing up any that he had swallowed and panting for air like a dog on a hot day. People would look at him, but no one ever asked him if he was all right.

After a few weeks of this half drowning, half swimming process, Steve thought that he had the basics of staying afloat down pat, and so, on one very hot summer's day he went to the local bush pool for a swim. His mother didn't seem worried, and she didn't have time anyway to inquire as to whether he would be safe. Five children are a lot to keep tabs on over a holiday period, and in those days everyone let their kids run feral, that was after all the idea of a holiday in the bush, to have a break from the kids. Steve wandered off with his swimmers and a towel, heading for the well favoured natural rock pool, a kilometre or more down the track. The day was stifling hot, and the closer he got to the pool, the more anxious he was to plunge in. On arrival he was comforted by the amount of other swimmers present, thinking that if he got into deep water, someone would help him. He went into the men's section of the tin shed that served as a change room, put on his togs and headed straight to where three or four people were standing waist deep in water, either side of a set of carved rock steps. Thinking the water to be shallow, he moved off the last step straight into a ten foot deep hole. That was when he remembered that he still hadn't learned to tread water, and as he went down floundering, he looked up to see peoples legs moving above him and opened his mouth to call for help. In that instant he lost a third of the air in his lungs, watching the precious stuff escape to the surface in the form of bubbles. In sheer desperation he kicked his legs and floundered his arms enough to get back to the surface. This allowed him to get a gulp of air which he had intended to use to call for help, but went down again in the process, again gulping in water and again watching the air that should have contained his cry for assistance, rise to the surface. This time he thought of grabbing someone's leg as he sank past, but was afraid he might get kicked. Absolute panic once again forced him to the surface where once more he got a gulp of air before beginning to sink again, for the third time. It now crossed his mind that he was drowning. Going down, he noticed that one of the men standing near the steps gave him a quizzical look but made no attempt to grab at him. Steve had kept his eyes open through the whole sorry process. And noted, as he began to go down for probably the last time, that there was a ledge of rock within his grasp that if he could hold on to, would allow him to pull himself to the surface, hand over hand so to speak. This he did, and with the last bit of air in his lungs, managed to pull himself up and break the water's surface. This time he was on the bottom step again and slowly dragged himself up to the top of the pool, sitting and gasping for air. The man who had given him the strange look asked, 'are you orl right mate'? Steve couldn't answer but just nodded. He then got up and sat on the grassy bank for a good half hour, watching all the other children confidently diving and somersaulting into the water.

It was too much for him and he began to weep, great silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

Alan E Lucas

I Remember You – Mary Krone

Every time I speak to you

I remember

Your casual stupidity

The ease of your cruelty

I can't begin to imagine

Yet you make no attempt to try

I admire resilient people

They've gone through so much, they are so brave

This is code for

They're not battered by messy grief that makes me uncomfortable

The resilient are the lucky ones

Fortitude is a gift

They are blessed

And to be envied, not admired

Better to admire the defenceless

Those who struggle every day

Who crumble and cry

Short-changed in resourcefulness

Yet they must abide

Babies used to die all the time

People got on

Did they?

The simple ease of your cruelty

I remember you

Your daughter should think about third world infant mortality

The casualness of your stupidity

I remember you

From my (ex) doctor

Lucky he was only 9 weeks old, it would have been worse if he was older

The effortlessness of your crushing stupidity

Your casual brutality

I remember you.

Mary Krone

Unsolicited – Albany Dighton

I remember the mechanical purr blistering my ears as I broke from REM. The scent of filthy, acrid petrol permeated through my nasal cavity as my eyes peeled open to the raw panorama of a psychopath igniting a chainsaw. No caveat on Sundays. Act one, scene one, action.

I remember this unsolicited visitor, the violator of our Sunday dreams and corruptor of the dawn. The entry point no-one knows. Some have the gift of clandestine – admission is always free. Clad in a vivid uniform of flannel shirt; overalls; tarnished Wellington's; an Akubra and monumental gas mask, those beady, bloodthirsty, baneful eyes sent a convoy of adrenalin through my pulsating veins, numbing upon arrival at my waking brain.

I remember the paralysis. The milieu was a haze of horror. Oralie catapulted onto shrieking Kelly who was tangled in the lining of a prehistoric sleeping bag. Deb ceased her snoring to partake in the chorus of terror. I was comfortably subdued, pacified by my subconscious who voiced that I must not flee but checkmate those malevolent eyes, delve a little further into what lay beyond them. There is always more than meets the eye.

I remember the grand finale. The closing scene hit the crescendo, and we, the amateur players prepared in helplessness for our fate. A bread knife could have sliced this intensifying tension. It was blood-curdling, debilitating, albeit a tad expected. I lay alone whilst the other girls partially fled, only to discover there was no exit from the stage. I was devoid of choice. I searched those listless eyes for an answer, a reason ... until they set upon mine ... and they fixed.

I remember when the unsolicited visitor began to peel away his gas mask. Slowly, deviously, knowing three of the four heart rates before him were exceeding any recorded calculation. He peeled away that haunting gas mask with absence of velocity, and I dimmed whilst time stood still, almost fainting at the vision before me.

From A Window – James Craib

In the early hours of the morn as we were borne by bus from London to Dover,

We gazed nonplussed from our window at the wide stretches of parkland and clover

Called 'Blackheath'. 'Good grief'! My old hometown named for this place

Where are buried countless victims of the 'Black Death'. But this green space

Is where county cricket is played watched by genteel folk sipping lemonade,

In Summer. Not daunted by the highwaymen who haunted the passing parade,

In the 17th century. Eventually, many dangled from gibbets 'til their bones bleached.

Later, other flibbertigibbets campaigned here for women's suffrage and free speech.

Other women, not as discriminating, gaze from their shop windows in Amsterdam.

They watch scornfully the punting 'mugs' and other thugs who damn

Their occupation. Gawking tourists, who stroll by the canal, marked by their banal

Comments and apparel, oblivious to the blandishments of hawkers in flannel.

We gazed upon the city of water; from the barge other sights caught our attention.

Anne Frank's Achterhuis where she hid with her family to avoid detection,

From the Nazis, who were particularly nasty; a poignant reminder of a dreadful war.

A happier sight is an ocean liner cruising towards our hotel, seen from the 14th floor.

Later on the Grand Canal, in total bliss, we glistened along by boat and gondola.

Venezia – the city of masks, the city of bridges, St. Mark's square and laguna.

One tries, in vain, to see the Bridge of Sighs, covered by hoardings, and yet a kiss...

To buttress our union as the legend say; hey! Lord Byron doesn't know what he missed!

Long colourful mooring poles poke up drunkenly, like oversize drinking straws

From the dank water. We saunter beside the canal, ordering white wine – 'per favore'.

Then pay homage to the 'Queen of the Adriatic' despite how aromatic she seems.

A decaying, erratic, erotic dream sinking slowly into the realm of the slipstream.

As we approached in our luxury coach, we gazed, amazed by the hills of Tuscany,

The medieval town of San Gimignano arose in fragrant musk. Any...

Chance we took to look for cappuccino in the gorgeous trattorias.

Paintings of Etruscan vases; a perpetual reminder of the long and glorious

Past history of this region, visions of the Roman legions heading north

To conquer Europe. Inhabitants of Gaul and Hispania also sallied forth.

To no avail, the endless tale of plundering armies assaulting the garrisons,

Alas, dear friends, our European adventure now pales in comparison.

From the window of the hospital I gazed, unfazed, upon the city of Lucerne.

The mountain ~ Pilatus stood in 'stark relief' and in silent grief I turned...

My mind to contemplate and renegotiate the unlikely status of my life.

In Florence, 'David' had looked odd; his upper body and head jaded, in strife.

And here was I just the same, or perhaps I lieth ... I am Goliath instead?

I could find no answer, and with nothing fancier to do, I lay in my bed.

To ponder Renaissance obsession with perfect harmony of form, ratio, expression.

I'll use other windows in the future to nurture my comprehension.

James Craib

### About James:

James is a retired former office manager who completed his Bachelor of Arts (Hons Eng) at UNE a couple of years ago. He is now a full-time dilettante, musician, trivia junkie, wine drinker and occasional radio plays actor. A self confessed pun-tificate, he is now also writing poetry and strumming ukulele ... daily!

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The Stranger – John Ross

I still remember to this day what he looked like. He was not tall, but then he was not short either. You could say that he was of medium height. His hair was light brown and he wore it short, like the men in old pictures of soldiers from the second war. His face and arms were a deep brown. The sort of brown that only years of work outside in the sun can give. In sharp contrast his eyes were the palest blue that I have ever seen.

I first noticed him when he was still a long way off. I had come down to the beach to be by myself. It was very early spring and there was still a sharp bite in the wind as it blew the tops off the waves and flung them back in a shower of spray that made a hissing sound as it hit the water. Some were flung so high that they caught the rays of the setting sun and for a brief moment the air was full of sparkling diamonds.

I had pulled on an old pair of ski pants and my warmest coat to keep out the chill. I probably would not have paid him much attention as even on a cold afternoon like this there were usually one or two people walking along the beach. As he came closer it was his clothes that drew my eyes back to him. A pair of tattered pants that had been torn off just above his knees. A shirt with the sleeves rolled up to above his elbows and an army slouched hat that hung down his back from a strap around his neck and which swung from side to side as he strode up the beach.

He appeared to be heading directly to where I was sitting. I looked away hoping that he would just keep on going and not stop to talk to me. I had come here to try to pull myself back from the edge of the deep black hole that was threatening to engulf me. My life at that time was in shattered pieces. No matter what I tried or where I turned it ended in grief or bitterness.

The sound of his footsteps in the sand stopped directly in front of me. Feeling a slight sense of alarm, as we were the only people on a long stretch of desolate beach I looked up at him.

The sun was shining full on his face and I knew immediately that I did not need to be afraid of him.

For a long moment he just stared at me and then gesturing behind him with one hand said, 'Beautiful isn't it?'

Then, unasked he sat down on the sand next to me. For many minutes we both just stared out at the ocean as the shadows reached out from the land and began to claim the sea.

He turned to look at me and said, 'Many years ago I waded ashore on a beach very similar to this. All around me was death and great suffering. It was early in the morning and no doubt it was as beautiful as this but I never saw that. All I saw was the chaos and destruction and all I felt was an overwhelming despair. I thought then that I would never recover from that and that my life would never be the same again.'

'Well my life did change after that day. But not in a bad way and not quickly.'

'Years later I went back to that same beach and sat looking out at the ocean just like you are here today. It was the same as on that earlier day, except this time there was no pain and no despair just peace and beauty. I realised that even at the darkest times these things exist. Look for them and be patient. They are there.'

I looked away from him and back at the sea. The last rays of the sun were just touching the tops of the waves. I felt my soul rejoice at the splendour of it.

I turned back to speak to him but he was gone.

John Ross

### About John:

A 64 year-old retired airline employee, John moved to the Mountains with his wife six years ago and enjoys writing short stories and science fiction.

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Cut Grass and Disco – Sam Miller

At the time I became aware of my surroundings in life we lived across the road from the cricket field. This was the social hub of village life throughout the summer. On the adjacent side of field was the pavilion accessible from a side road. Horseheath cricket club was very proud of its pavilion, a brick structure with changing rooms to one side a kitchen with a bar at the back and a largish front with tables set before a large picture window. The local people raised the funds and built it themselves (many of the cricketers seemed to be tradesmen).

Horseheath was a village of about 100 houses at this time. I know because when I was fourteen I took over the paper round. On a Wednesday the free weekly paper came out, a copy of which was delivered to every house. None of this chucking it out of a moving car in our village, thank you very much. My instructions were to push each paper firmly through the letter box in the door of each house to fall on the mat below. Any papers left sticking out would indicate that nobody was at home and therefore would be a security risk. That was a strange emphasis in a village where we never even locked our door.

The field across the road was always kept meticulously. Mowing and rolling took place weekly and each time, we were sent over by my parents to collect the grass cuttings to feed to our guinea pigs. The cricket field provided all the senses of summer; the smell of that cut grass was hanging in the air through the summer months, the sound of the ball on the bat and the cheers of the spectators lulled us through the season and during the summer night storms the lit-up field was the view from our front windows.

The club was very successful in the county cricket scene. So much so, that it had an A team and a B team, no mean feat for a small village. My dad was in the B team. Every weekend there would be games that seemed to last forever. All the kids knew where they could find each other at these times. Behind the pavilion to the right hand side was a raised hillock topped by a concrete drain cover. This made an excellent fort and even doubled as a stage for girls to sing to each other into their hairbrushes. We were forbidden the fields behind the pitch as a mean farmer had planted some man traps, one of which had caught our cat's leg. When we were older the ditches between the fields proved excellent locations for forbidden trysts without appearing to leave our parents supervision.

In the late mornings the mums were to be found inside the pavilion making sandwiches for the tea. Not my mum, though as she was a feminist and worked a lot. Later she was busy doing her degree. The other mums would give us sandwiches to eat if we helped fetch and carry and of course, if there was anything left from the tea, we could eat it. The sandwich fillings were exotic to my taste, as they were not the kind of thing found at our house and the fairy cakes were something to be savoured indeed, my family's diet ranging from 'how to feed five kids for not much money' to 'experiments in ethnic cooking'.

The evenings were the best, especially when we won. Derek Barker would get out his record deck and there would be a disco. The tea bar became a drinks bar and the mums put on their high fashion gear. Derek's unaccountably much more attractive brother Les would be there with his glamorous wife Margaret.

As early teen this was an education; watching the adults drink, flirt, dance and sing. It seems such a shame that karaoke was years away. The desperate hoarse tones of Errol Brown asking 'Where did you come from, Baby?', to the cringingly maudlin Charlene D'Angelo claiming 'I've never been to me'. Derek's record collection was a testament to the lack of subtlety involved in village flirtations. Songs I will forever associate with those days; 'Three times a Lady', 'Don't it make your Brown Eyes Blue' and 'You're so Vain' shaped my musical tastes in a completely different direction, but remain so tinted with nostalgia for me that they can hardly exist outside of that realm. An unexpected attack of some golden oldie radio station in a supermarket can fling me so forcefully back in time that I am convinced this is a condition afflicting many a person causing them to become catatonic in the dry goods isle and leading to a pile-up of shoppers.

One summer my dad arranged for a group of his journalist mates to come from London to play a friendly match against the village team. It had to be the most lopsided game ever, but a jolly good time was had by all both during and afterwards when a huge party took place at our house. It went all night and under the cover of the music no-one noticed my brothers and I slinking around sipping out of the grown-up drink glasses and generally spying on people. They were a decadent crowd, they always seemed to be with a new partner every time we kids met them and we soon learned not to ask such embarrassing questions as 'So, what happened to Barbara?'

I have an enduring memory from this party of one of the London friends stamping through the living room pumping his arm in the air to 'Jumping Jack Flash', no doubt assisted by the fug in the room, heavy with a smell I did not yet recognize.

Late that night all of us kids were rounded up and put to sleep in mum and dads room top to tail in their bed and on the floor. In the middle of the night one of my brothers sat bolt upright and shouted 'The Dogs!' Something that causes much hilarity even today.

The morning brought a houseful of people to breakfast at tables inside and outside. Bacon, eggs and toast were cooked in never ending batches and finally all the London journalists were dispatched back to their homes. As everyone had such a great time it was decided that it should be an annual event, but it never did happen again.

These days, I never watch cricket. I don't think I ever had much interest in the sport. I don't know any of the rules, but I do know that you should never walk around the outside of the pitch during play. I do know what a ball to head feels like.

Sam Miller

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The Sea Dog's Last – Stephen Studach

The old ship's captain,

anchor shed,

coughed his last

stranded fast

upon the shoal

of his neat bed;

mast sheets down,

his empty vessel

far-shore-bound.

Once strong bellows stretch

of his own billowed sails

folded, with finality, airless and slack

in last liquid gurgle

from that pilotless sack.

Fighter's scowl upon a brow

deep frowned,

with no compass point

the plimsol line drowned

the stars all gone black

the old sea dog shipped out

with a saltwater hack.

Hands catching at a seasoned wheel

pawed back from sea of memory,

crossed the bar with buried keel

upon his final, landlocked, scow

to the tilt-headed,

stare-eyed gaze

of his shipmate dog

there at the bow.

Locked in the Corridors of Hell – Karen Easton

In my young days I wore my auburn hair down to my waist with braids for school and out for best and when I became a married woman I wore it up. Now my short white hair is cut into a bob and is much easier to manage. I was agile and had a slender frame which made for a good athlete, I could out run and out swim the best of them. Once it was frowned on for girls to participate in sports but I loved it all. I still have my slender body but these days I do not walk or run fast and I don't remember the last time I went swimming; I am 92 years old and my back is bent and my legs wobble so I use a walking frame or I sit in a wheel chair and get pushed around when the others are in a hurry. I have seen and done many wonderful and not so wonderful things in my life. It's not so wonderful now. I have lived through the war and depression years and I have seen man walk on the moon. I have always said man's greatest achievement is the washing machine; it made washing days more bearable.

When I was not needed to help with the chores my favourite past time would be to go horse riding on our property. I would ride for hours and quench my thirst from the river; laying flat on my stomach I would scoop the water up in my cupped hands and splash it onto my face to cool down. As it passed my dry cracked lips and slipped down my parched throat I sighed and rolled over; soft velvet green grass felt cool and welcoming after the heat of the day on my back. I would watch the scattered white fluffy clouds moving swiftly and not so swiftly across otherwise clear blue sky.

On Saturday nights if the chores were done and our father was in a good mood we were allowed to squeeze into the old ford; 4 abreast in the front and 6 in the back and off we'd go into town to the local CWA hall for the dance. If you stood near a group of adults the talk was always on the weather and cattle prices; our parents loved to catch up with friends and discuss these same topics week after week.

Mum would make her famous sultana and nut cake for the refreshment table with homemade lemonade for those who did not drink. My brothers would push and shove each other as they shouted to their mates across the room and joined them in friendly banter and beer drinking. When they were all primed they would get their nerve up to ask the girls to dance but never before. Mum especially loved to wear her favourite pink frock with low heeled pump shoes and her pearl necklace. Even at home she wore her hair up; it showed off her long slender neck and the pearls perfectly; but mostly I remember my mother in a worn faded house dress with an apron over the top. She would wear low comfortable farm shoes and have a weary look on her face as she bent over the cement tub scrubbing dad's and my brothers overalls before they went into the copper.

At the dance we girls would giggle and pretend to be shy all the while silently praying the man of our dreams would ask us to dance. It will be forever etched in my mind the night my sister Ethel and I walked into the CWA hall all giggles with apprehension of what the night might bring. Ethel and I stood in the doorway scanning the room; she whispered into my ear and pointed; I looked in the direction of her finger and there leaning casually on the bar was the son of the Wilson family who had recently moved onto a property over the mountain from us; he was drinking a beer and talking to Ed from the local green grocers. He was tall, much taller than most of the local boys and rugged looking; huge hands and muscles in places I had never seen. My family were of average build and height so this man looked like a giant to me. His straight black hair fell down across his right eye and his forehead was white, like my fathers and brothers from wearing their akubra hats all day out in the relentless sun.

I felt like I had stopped breathing; my heart raced up into my throat and beads of perspiration ran down between my breasts. I clutched hold of my sister and whispered back that I might faint at the sight of such a good looking man. All she could do was giggle. I Maude Edwards who was afraid of nothing was glued to the spot; afraid to move yet afraid not to move, what if Mary Baker the local tart got to him first, no one stood a chance of getting a man if she set her sights on him. He looked like one of those famous screen idols Ethel and I admired so much. He had dark chocolate brown bedroom eyes with thick black lashes; a faint smile touched his full kissable lips as he tipped his head in acknowledgement and looked straight at me and that's when I felt my legs go weaker and Ethel taking me by the elbow, sitting me down on the nearest chair; all the while fanning me with her handkerchief and giggling. Her giggles were getting on my nerves and her hovering was making it hard for me to breathe. I was wishing she would just go away. Its right about then that he chose to stride over to me and without a word spoken he held out his hand. I put my small soft hand into his large rough hand and we moved onto the dance floor as if we were one; he held me firmly yet with such tenderness I felt faint all over again and as they say in the movies the rest is history.

We were married 6 months later and moved onto our own small but workable property down in the valley of Little Hartley and had a good life together. Alfred was the love of my life and my reason for living; not a day went by that I did not thank God and the angels for giving me such a wonderful man. Sunday's we went to church; and if the weather permitted we would take a picnic and go down by the river and eat home grown corned beef and pickle sandwiches made fresh that morning from my very own pantry. One of the local boys hung a rope off a branch; they would take turns to run and jump into the river. It was a lovely way to pass the afternoon until the day Tom Maxwell dived in and broke his neck; needless to say our picnics were never the same.

My life, my story is not a completely happy one, but mostly it was a good one. Now I sit here day after day with only memories locked in what I call 'the corridors of hell'. When I first arrived I thought; 'oh this is not too bad I can manage living here' and with many regular visitors life was bearable. But now very few come; one by one they stopped coming ages ago. Apparently the sight of me upsets them too much; and the smells offend their well appointed noses. So all day long I sit here and listen to the babbling of the other residents, that's what they like to call us; 'the residents'. The old and not so old; the sick and the dying all cohabit here locked in the corridors of hell; we eat and we shit together; but never sleep together. Once we were proud lively souls now we are like the living dead. It's almost like we are in the movie 'Ground Hog Day' doing the same thing over and over again, except here we might wake up and find an old darling down the hall has gone to meet their maker, lucky devil. Some days I feel like I have out stayed my welcome here; they keep us alive with more pills and potions that seem decent. They prod and poke us to make sure we are still alive and not just sleeping in our wheel chairs. Why do they insist on keeping us alive what is the point in it all? On the rare occasions a visitor comes to see me they cry and say, 'I miss you, please don't die on me' but they don't miss me enough to visit more often.

Don't they know how we all crave death that it would be a release from these corridors of hell? In here death is welcomed with open arms; some even pray for it, I know I do. We are at the mercy of the 'carers' and we don't like it very much but what can we do? The simple things in life have now become all too hard for some of us; many can't even toilet themselves and this is so degrading. We have buzzers to push for assistance; but it is always slow at coming; when I need to sit on the toilet they never come on time; I hear a sigh and they say 'not again Maude'. 'Yes again I think to myself; again you took too long to answer my buzzer' but I say nothing, I just stare at her with a blank look.

Who can blame you for taking so long; you have so many of us to toilet and feed all those beds to make and clothes to hang and endless paperwork; I can hear you complaining about it all the time. You think we don't understand because some have stepped out of their minds and gone elsewhere. We have our own thoughts and feelings but are too tired to share them with you; you never have the time or want listen to us; the old and feeble; so I personally have chosen to remain silent. My family put me in here when I dirtied myself once too often and was found out in the garden dribbling and babbling to myself. Didn't they know I was talking to my Alfred the love of my life? I was too exhausted from the fighting and crying to explain myself so I came here meek and mild thinking it would be better for them and me but how wrong I was.

I should have taken the quick easy plan and did a 'Thelma and Louise' off the cliff tops of Katoomba years ago before it became too late. I remember watching that movie with my grand daughter and wondered at the time what sort of person could do that, I know now I could. Here I am locked here in the corridors of hell and pray each day that 'God' will send for me and I can go home to my Alfred. He went many years ago of a heart attack, quick and easy; he was a wonderful caring man. I feel him around me and when I think no one is listening I talk to him and ask him 'when can I come to you'; and he says 'not yet my darling be patient a little longer my love'. We had a good strong marriage filled with love and laughter. Now that is something we do not hear much unless it is a hysterical laugh from one of us residents. The carers think we are dotty, but little do they know we just need to hear the sound of laughter and not cross words and sighs of dismay from them when one of us has vomited or dirtied ourselves.

People walk around whispering except when they talk to us, they shout in our ears and almost deafen us some more. Our hearing aids are turned up and the music is turned down. I loved to listen to 'The Glen Miller Band' with Alfred; we would waltz around the living room; holding each other with such tenderness and love. Alfred always kissed me lightly on the lips and would say 'that's my girl'. Oh how I miss music, dancing and the touch of my Alfred; or any touch for that matter. When I am being washed and fed is about the only time I feel touch now. The rare occasions one of my daughters or sons come in to see me they barely touch me. It's like I am a leper or one of the many unwashed. They wrinkle up their noses and I hear them whisper to each other how it smells like urine in my room; they open my window and I shiver with the cold. Their talk of how my room smells and the looks on their faces makes me feel dirty and degrades me even more if that is possible. Sometimes the grand children and great grandchildren come to visit but only stay a very short while and most of that time they are playing with those new confounded I pods or are on their mobile phones texting; I think that's what they call it. They bring me chocolates and eat the lot saying things like, 'you won't want these Grammy they are all hard centres'.

I sit there saying nothing but wondering all the while why they bothered to bring them in for me in the first place and yes I do like hard centres. I love nothing more than sucking the chocolate off them and feeling the sweet taste explode in my mouth. They bend over close to my ear and I think they are going to kiss me; but no it's then that they say 'nice to see you Grammy' and off they go without a backwards look or a wave. It makes me sad when they sit around my room talking amongst themselves as if I am not there. They never come alone, always in a small group, that way they can pretend to visit me and they can go home happy with themselves that they have done their duty by me. I used to wash most of their backsides and change their nappies; and I never complained but if I so much as break wind or spill my tea I am frowned at and deemed a nuisance; and to be left here locked in the corridors of hell. Alone and frightened I sit here most days wondering how did my life come to this?

Our men in the district went off to fight when the war broke out and promised to be home soon. Many did not return and when Alfred did he was never the same. We moved off the property into a small but comfortable house in Lithgow and got on with life as best we could. Alfred got a job working in the mines and provided for his family with a sturdy roof over our heads. We were a family of eight till the day tragedy struck us and little Henry was taken with consumption. From birth to the day the angels took Henry he had problems with his breathing. It took awhile for life to become normal after his death; we buried him in a small wooden box; some would say it was cheap. But we didn't have a lot of money in those days; what with the war and the depression years things were tight for everyone. Our children wore hand me downs and we grew our own vegetables; collected eggs from our bantam hens and had several fruit trees in the back garden. We used to save the string and brown paper off any parcel; we fed our kitchen scraps to the chickens and Alfred poured the contents of the toilet onto the vegetable beds and the passion fruit vine growing over the outback loo; I think my grand children would call it recycling. We saved up for our annual family holiday by the sea once a year if we were lucky. Life was simple and filled with pleasurable days and nights back then, not now.

Everything was made to last and last it did. On the day they brought me to live here I still had my original toaster much to the family's disgust. They thought I was too mean to spend my pennies on a new one, I still think in pounds shillings and pence. Little did they know that my Alfred had brought it with is first pay packet from the mines and it was our pride and joy; parting with it was like parting with Alfred all over again. The family came and cleaned up my house and took boxes of what they called rubbish away; those boxes contained my memories. What did they do with my toaster, I begged them to let me bring it with me; they laughed and said I was being rather silly.

Jean's in the room next to mine moaning and crying again, she cries out for someone to help her; but they are slow at coming because it is an everyday occurrence; 'ground hog day' all over again. She is going blind and is frightened because she does not understand why she is in these corridors of hell. I try to raise myself up to go to her to tell her it is alright, but my legs will not work and the strength in my arms is not what it used to be; so I stay on my bed and try to block her shouts for help out. Alfred was good at blocking out what he did not want to hear; I wish I was. This morning sitting in my room looking out the window and feeling the winter sun on my face; I was thinking what a lovely day it was outside when the two carers came in to change my bed. Totally ignoring me; they started talking about the shitty job they have to endure here.

I heard Lyn say to Carol, 'Hey, would you have taken this job if the position in the paper read:

Do you like being worked hard and on your feet for 6 to 8 hours, almost running the complete time

Do you like not having tea breaks; because when you do a buzzer or two rings and they need attention again

Do you enjoy being slapped or punched

Do you like being verbally abused day after day

Do you enjoy cleaning up old men's ball sacks, that look like old chicken necks

Carol was laughing so hard she had to sit on the edge of the bed and Lyn continued with her description of their job.

Do you enjoy feeding 84 year olds who spit their chewy bits into your face

Do you like changing shitty beds and dirty backsides

Do you love catching the diarrhoea and vomiting bug every winter

If you can imagine being screwed and paid a pittance for a wage then this is the job for you!

Then Carol added her thoughts on the job description

If you can imagine yourself in this wonderful environment please contact our admin staff

If you can stand the smell of urine and shit in your nostrils even when you go home then this is the job for you'.

Their sighs and laughter filled my room and yet still not one of them took any notice of me sitting by the window. How do they think all this talk makes me feel? I will tell you how it makes me feel; worthless and a nuisance and once again I wondered why I was still here if I was such a burden; why couldn't I go to heaven and lighten their load; why keep giving me more pills to keep me alive?

Lyn sighed and said, 'I have to work hard at staying sane in this loony bin'.

'I try to use humour but it's a bit hard day after day wiping up shit and dribble only to be abused for it,' laughed Carol.

My thoughts were on the exact same thing; how does one stay sane in these corridors of hell? Do they think we enjoy it; would we be here if we could get up and walk away from this hell? None of us like the food we are given to eat, it's like vomit resurrected with little lumps in it and it is usually cold. I can't remember the last time I was given a nice 'hot' cup of tea; it's always weak and barely warm so we won't burn ourselves.

Lyn put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I needed anything?

I looked up at her, smiled and said, 'Yes, let me out of these corridors of hell, or let me die'.

Carol looked shocked, laughed and said, 'I can't believe it, that's the first time I have heard Maude talk, she just sits there day after day, what an odd expression to use'. And with that she shook her head and walked out the door mumbling to herself; what a silly old bat Maude is.

Again she talked about me like I was not there.

Lyn looked at me with pity in her eyes and said, 'I'm sorry Maude not today, maybe tomorrow' and then she left me sitting there to my own thoughts. Alfred would say they were rude talking like that in front of me and I certainly would agree with him but who am I to judge when it's not me being slapped and spat at every day I come to work. Are some of us that bad, is it rebellion or is it anger that makes them do these things? A buzzer went off and a second buzzer and then I heard shouting from down the corridor and I knew; I just knew that some lucky old darling was moving out of the corridors of hell and going to meet their maker. After the ambulance had left and all the commotion settled down things became much quieter and eerie even. At dinner that night I heard them talking about old Fred; how it was best he had died because he was living in such pain. Didn't they know most of us here were in pain; physical and emotional; didn't they know we all wanted to die. The carers on the night shift sounded just like the morning ones. Complaining about us and how hard they had to work for such low wages. It was the beginning of 'Ground Hog Day' all over again. I heard their footsteps pass my room as I drifted asleep; they walk the corridors one last time checking on us before they go and sit and watch the television and drink hot tea.

In the depths of the night Alfred came to me and whispered in my ear, 'It's time my girl'. I did not hesitate to put my hand in his hand, and as we drifted up and out of the room I never looked back once. They found me the next morning, cold and lifeless with a smile on my face, another had escaped the corridors of hell, creating more paperwork. Oh what a shame.

Karen Easton

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Anna – Paris Portingale

The sun comes up

Anna comes out

The day begins

The seasons pass

And leaves fall to mark the page

And Anna walks on, and through, and over, and around and returns again

And the leaves grow back and the seasons pass and leaves fall again and again

This is in the time of the ringing phone

And things grow where they will and at their own pace

And each side asks God if they could please win

And Anna walks over and through and wins the game herself

And claims the day, for better or worse

And now the leaves fall in slow motion

And you can hold your breath and never see one settle

But Anna walks through and somehow they set on her  
And stay till the last frame

When they curl and are loosed

And as is the way with seasons, they pass and pass again without comment

If you hold your breath the sun is like a yoyo

And Anna's shadow flicks like a nervous tail

And if Anna could fly, she surely would, and shame the gulls

And rise perhaps above the seasons themselves

And see them fall away down there somewhere below

And how do you tell the winner that was not God's plan

As He hasn't got to that one yet

And then Anna's gone

But if you hold your breath again

And look down close

You can see the steps and smell the air

And if you close your eyes as well

While opening something else inside there

It's almost like—ever so almost like

She could still be there.

A Quick Fix – Michael Burge

TO: dadandmum1067@hotmail.com

FROM: libbyloo22@hotmail.com

RE: Hi from school

DATE: August 27th 2009

Dear Daddy,

This is going to be a really, really long email because I have so much to say after your email last week. I can hardly remember all my questions, there are just so many. It was so nice to see you and Mummy at school Family Day. Fiona and Becka think you look like an actor off an American TV show, one of the detective ones. They get to watch it in the school holidays. I just shrugged because I didn't know what they were talking about, but you can probably be flattered by the comparison and not at all offended, the way they were going on about it, okay?

I think I understand most of your email, and I am glad you wrote. You and mummy looked so sad (or something) before you left. I knew you'd had a bit of a shock because of Uncle Brian being there.

It was the school counsellor who suggested I invite Uncle Brian to Family Day. She also said I should tell you first, but I didn't, and I am truly sorry for that, but I hope you will understand that I knew you'd say no or get upset and I wouldn't get to see you and Mummy properly on that day either. It's such a long time until the end of term and we have all the exams before that and I wanted to see my Daddy and Mummy.

I don't want you to be angry at the school counsellor. She's not one of those ferals or anything. She's really nice, and I want you to go easy on her if you complain. I told her about Uncle Brian last year, because of something we'd been reading at school. I'm not going to tell you what it was so you can't complain about it, okay? But something in it made me think about what you and Mummy told us about Uncle Brian, and I asked the counsellor to help me understand it. She took me aside and we talked it through, and now I understand better than I did before about Uncle Brian.

She told me something similar to what you said last year, and I want you to know I understand what you say, but I still don't think that means we can't see Uncle Brian. It's not fair really. That's why I rang him and asked him to Family Day.

I didn't think he'd come. I didn't think he'd even want to talk to me. He was very calm. The counsellor said he might be angry and that he might hang up on me, or be rude and aggressive. But he was nothing like that. He said it was a pleasant surprise to hear from me, and asked how I was doing at school, and was glad to hear I was doing Special English because he liked English at school too. He asked me if we'd done 'Pride and Prejudice' yet and I told him we had and we laughed about Mr. D'Arcy and how the girls were all so silly about him. Uncle Brian said he always thought Mr. Wickham sounded like much more of a catch. I have to say that gave me a bit of a shock, but I just laughed. Uncle Brian laughed too. There was a bit of an awkward pause, then Uncle Brian asked me if you and mummy had told me about him and his lifestyle. I said yes, we knew about it. He asked me if it mattered that he was the kind of man who liked Mr. Wickham instead of Elizabeth Bennet, and I said that I didn't think it mattered much. Uncle Brian then asked me if I was sure I knew what you and Mummy meant. His voice was a bit wobbly, like he was getting a bit upset. I asked him if he was upset, and he just said he was relieved more than anything else.

I got his email address and we've been emailing a lot since, so when Family Day came up again this year I thought I'd ask him to come along. Please don't get angry reading this Daddy. Please take some time before you just get angry again.

The school counsellor said that Uncle Brian might have a special friend who might like to come too. I asked Uncle Brian and he said no, his special friend (James) was not going to come to Family Day. He might come next year, but Uncle Brian seemed to think it best if only he came along the first time. He said you and Mummy have never met James. Is that right Daddy?

Kylie dared me to ask if Uncle Brian and James were going in the Mardi Gras parade, but I didn't want to ask anything like that. Kylie has a cousin who's a woman who has a special friend who's a woman, and none of her family ever sees them. The only thing any of the family know about them is that they both have short hair. One of them works for the Council. Belinda said she probably drives trucks, but Belinda just likes to get the attention.

I tried to make it that you, Mummy and Uncle Brian weren't going to have to see much of each other on Family Day. That's why I asked you and Mummy to come at lunch and not earlier. I know you wondered why I asked you that, and I couldn't tell you why, but I never told you a lie about it, did I? I asked Uncle Brian to the morning tea and he thought that sounded splendid and that he'd wear his best tie. When I told him it was on a terrace he guessed there'd be wisteria or something, and I said the magnolias were coming into flower then. He said he'd get me to put one on his lapel. You saw it there, I know. I noticed you looking at it.

Daddy you weren't supposed to meet Uncle Brian on the terrace. I wanted you all to meet at the lunch when there were more people around and I could be sure you'd all behave yourselves. The counsellor agreed with me on that point. But when I saw you and Mummy walking up the front steps my heart sank, because I could see it was all going to be a disaster and that you hadn't listened to me when I needed you to. You didn't give me time to explain to you and Mummy in private about what was happening, and I am still a bit angry about that. I hope I will get over it soon though.

I thought Uncle Brian was very polite in the circumstances. He left us alone for a while and got us all a cup of tea and some of the nicest cakes, and talked with some of the other parents while we had our first talk about it. I'm glad you didn't blow your top Daddy, but I do think you might have shaken Uncle Brian's hand when he offered it to you. When you think about it, there was no-one on the terrace who could have told that Uncle Brian is a homosexual, just by looking. He was wearing a suit just like yours, and he was quite comfortable talking with the other adults. I saw him talk to the Headmistress for a long time and she seemed quite at ease with him, and Mr. and Mrs. Banks wanted him to sit with them at lunch because they found him so entertaining.

I suppose Uncle Brian should have taken them up on their offer because lunch with us was no fun for him. I didn't think it was fun either. You and Mummy didn't make much of an effort to ask about Uncle Brian, and I know the last time you saw him was at my christening. A lot can happen in fifteen years. To just sit there, ignoring his questions, was so embarrassing Daddy. Your face was very red and Mummy looked as though she was going to cry. Even when the Banks family came up with Fiona you still didn't lighten up. Can you blame Uncle Brian for excusing himself and having his coffee with them instead of us?

I saw Uncle Brian for a minute before he left. It was when I went to the toilet. I was crying and I could see he had been. He said perhaps we'd made a mistake, and gave me a little hug. Mrs. Taylor our English teacher was coming out of the ladies and I introduced her to Uncle Brian. She said it must be very nice to have my uncle here. I said yes, and had a little more of a cry, and he gave me another hug. Uncle Brian said to Mrs. Taylor we were having a few family problems, and that the school counsellor was aware of them, and that I was going to be okay in a little while, and I was. Mrs. Taylor patted Uncle Brian on the shoulder and said he was a very nice man to be so caring of his niece. He nodded, and he was gone in ten minutes, saying he thought it was best, and that he'd be in touch soon, and I wasn't to stay upset, but to have a great afternoon and he'd come and see me in another piece of drama another time. He didn't want me to be upset and forget my lines or anything.

He gave me a present then, and I am not giving it back. It's too lovely Daddy. I'm not telling you what it is. I'm doing this because I know you told me a lie when you said Uncle Brian couldn't even pay you and Mummy the courtesy of saying goodbye. You thought I was in the toilet, but I was watching you, and you were so angry you didn't even turn your back to say goodbye to Uncle Brian. Mummy looked at him and nodded, but you didn't say anything. I think he was crying a little when he left. The Banks family tried to get him to come with them. I think they could see why, but he very politely excused himself, saying he needed to be at work for the afternoon.

I had to go and get ready for Romeo and Juliet. I know you sent Mummy with me so you could go and get angry at the counsellor. But she's there so we can tell her things we need to tell her. Things that we can't say to other people, even our parents. She never said a word about what you'd said to her, just that I should try to understand your response too, and that is why I am writing, to let you know I am trying to understand.

Romeo and Juliet wasn't as fun as I'd hoped it would be, not after the lunch we'd had. Mummy was supposed to help me with my hair, but she had half an eye on where you'd got to and I needed to ask Mrs. Simms to put my hair up for me. Mummy made no secret of the fact that she wished I was in a dress and not dressed up as the apothecary. Mrs. Taylor could see how disappointed Mummy was about that, but Kylie played Macbeth last year and it was her turn to play one of the female parts and as Mrs. Taylor told us all at the last rehearsal that the apothecary plays a major role in the tragedy, being the one who gives Romeo the draught to make him sleep and appear dead.

And anyway all the roles were played by men when they were first performed, even in front of Kings and Queens of England, so there should be no problem for girls in our class to dress as men. It's a girls' school daddy, you know that.

I think Mummy was just not herself after seeing Uncle Brian. Uncle Brian said he thought it might have something to do with an idea you and Mummy might have about homosexual people dressing up like the opposite sex? I don't know. I was too upset by then to care and I fluffed most of my lines and you didn't see any of it anyway because you were busy with the counsellor and the day was pretty much over by then anyway.

When I said that I didn't want us to sit down with the counsellor that afternoon I meant it because I was too upset. You were angry and just wanted one of your quick fixes, but Daddy I honestly think, from the bottom of my heart, that this is something that cannot benefit from one of your quick fixes. I know you've had some success at Church with your quick fixes, but somehow I think it was best just to leave the day as it was and for you and Mummy to go home and for me to eat my dinner by myself so I could think. I know you were shocked when I said that so strongly, but I meant it. I gave you a kiss and a hug and I meant those too. I love you Daddy, you know that, but right then I was so stirred up I couldn't sit down anywhere.

I went for a long walk around the oval. Kylie found me when she'd said goodbye to her parents, and we walked and walked. She thought Uncle Brian was charming, and we made it like a scene out of Pride and Prejudice and that got my sense of humour back and I half hoped you and Mummy would still be there when we got back, but you'd gone and I don't blame you. I ate with my home room class, some of whom have no parents, or ones that couldn't come, and that made me feel very grateful to have a family at all.

A few days later I got your email. We don't get much time in the internet room, so it took me two sessions to read it and I had to get permission to print it out so I could look at it in my dorm. I can see you've thought very long and hard about it all, but as I said before I don't think one of your quick fixes will work in this situation Daddy, it's too complicated for just one of your talks and a session with the Bible. Without you here to guide me I had to set it all up for myself and read the section you're talking about, and that took me the rest of the week because we had a lot of homework and the exams coming up.

It's pretty clear from the bits you quoted from Leviticus that you think Uncle Brian is an abomination. I had to look that word up in the dictionary. In my dictionary, it says this - 'Something or someone that causes great revulsion or abhorrence.' I then had to look up the word abhorrence and found this - 'Disgusting, loathsome, repellant. In opposition; completely contrary.' I then had to look up the word contrary and found this 'Opposed, as in character or purpose; completely different.'

Please follow me on this Daddy, because I am trying to show you how I really, truly feel deep down about what you wrote. Yes, in Leviticus chapter 18, verse 22 it says 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.' I know you were worried that I would not understand what 'lie down with' means, but as Mummy told you we have had our sex education classes last year, and I kind of know what it all means. I think there is a lot more to know.

Anyway, back to the point, and that is this - by following the meaning of the words, from 'abomination' we get the meaning 'different,' and that is all. Do you see what I am getting at Daddy? Uncle Brian might lie down with a man, which is just different to what you might want to do, different in purpose. Do you see what I am getting at?

I read some of the other chapters of Leviticus, and looked it up on the internet. I asked permission for this from the internet room prefect and she watched me while I did it. Here is what I found interesting.

It says 'Leviticus contains laws and priestly rituals, but in a wider sense is about the working out of God's Covenant with Israel set out in Genesis and Exodus - what is seen in the Torah as the consequences of entering into a special relationship with God (specifically Yahweh). These consequences are set out in terms of community relationships and behaviour.'

And from this I see that Uncle Brian just does not want a special relationship with God. But this does not mean we shouldn't speak to him, or that I shouldn't have asked him to Family Day, or that you and Mummy shouldn't be civil to him if you see him somewhere, even unexpectedly. I would be very surprised Daddy if you said that was true, that you could sit me down in front of me and tell me that if Uncle Brian has a 'different purpose' to you that we shouldn't talk to him or know what he's up to in his life.

After all, Mummy didn't take a lamb to be sacrificed a year after I was born, did she? And you have shaved your sideburns off, and we all like seafood when we go to the coast, and if we stuck to what it says in Leviticus, we'd have to be doing all that, and you'd only have a right to take one slave girl, and no more. We don't have slaves Daddy.

Before you blame anyone for this you must blame Mummy first, because it was she who told me I even had an uncle. There was a photo of the two of you together in an album she got out one rainy day when we couldn't go to the zoo. You were both in your school uniforms (and you both had some pretty big sideburns!) and I asked who was that friend of yours you had your arm around, and didn't he look like Daddy? Mummy looked at the photo a bit closer. I think she was actually a bit confused about which of you was which. She said you were the one on the left and Uncle Brian was the one on the right.

I asked her who Uncle Brian was, and she said to ask you. You never would tell me, and Kylie found him on Facebook because she is allowed to use Facebook at home when she's on holidays.

Please forgive me Daddy, and try to understand. One more thing to help you, and I hope it is a quick fix. I found it in Leviticus 19 verse 17 - 'Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart.'

Lots of love,

Your Libby xoxoxox

PS. I am going to pray about all this in chapel, but I am going to pray for Uncle Brian as well as you and Mummy.

Michael Burge

### About Michael:

Michael has lived in the Blue Mountains for three decades. A NIDA graduate who has written for News Limited, Intermedia, Fairfax, United News & Media and Rural Press, he currently edits and writes for Blue Mountains Life Magazine.

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The Day I Skipped School – Robyn Chaffey

Living, as we did, on the very outskirts of Kingston, we walked precisely double the proverbial country mile to get to our one teacher school. We thought it a wonderful school! Our teacher was a middle aged man who lived next to the school with his wife. They were both so kind hearted! His wife taught us sewing and art, and she loved arranging special treats for us at Christmas and Easter ... really any time she thought she could make an occasion.

I don't think they had any children of their own. This always seemed to me such a shame as it was plain to all of us that they adored us, and we loved them and our school. It was a rare occurrence for any of us to play the fool.

I had several brothers and sisters and usually walked with them on strict orders from our father. However one day, for reasons I do not remember, I walked alone.

It was my habit, to sing in my loudest and best voice as I walked. We had a little concert coming up and so this solitary walk was an ideal opportunity to practice anyway. A farmer drove by, smiling and waving as he passed, and I returned his acknowledgement. I kicked at the stones on the road to see how far I could make them travel and which shapes and sizes worked the best. Surely I could win the kicking competition with my siblings the next day as we walked together.

Then I lost myself in the study of the new sprays of wattle and the silver-green foliage of the trees. I would have something to talk about next time we did nature study.

It was a lovely sunny day and the sky was mostly blue with only a patchy few pale grey, watery clouds. There was that faint sweet smell and muggy feel of possible rain but I was not worried. It felt good to walk alone on such a lovely morning. This was a rare luxury and one I was determined to savour every step of the way.

I was perhaps a third of the way along the pitted and corrugated road when I began to feel the cool, soft patter of drizzling rain on my skin. More in a happy daze than out of frustration, I looked heavenward, smiled and then glanced back to the road.

My eyes almost popped right out of my head! It was raining only on that side of the road on which I walked. The other side was still bathed in sunlight and I could see the dark line of the showers' edge right down the middle of the road.

I was gob-smacked! Still I walked on! Still I felt just so at peace and free on my rare lone walk. The little shower had seemed to change the hue of the greens and the earthen colours of the bush.

Suddenly the soothing sounds of running water, and the realisation that I was on the little wooden bridge I loved. We told each other such stories as we walked over that bridge - of trolls, fairies and leprechauns, and the stories led to the most wonderful games which seemed to shorten our walk day by day.

Like every day before, I was compelled to peer over the side of the bridge to see what magic it might reveal today.

Mesmerising light-plays on the water as the sun shone through the foliage and patterns formed as the water rippled and swirled its way around the rocks and debris making soapy-looking foam and kept my attention. I lost myself in wonderment at how the foam was formed.

Soon I spied some little fish and was drawn down into the gully to have a closer look. They glistened silver in the reflected green of the water and brought an impulsive smile to my face. Kneeling down in the cool mud and weeds I leaned forward to scoop at the water and watch as the fish darted in all directions, making me laugh out loud.

The water was so cool and inviting! It wasn't long before I had taken off my shoes and socks to sit on a good rock and dangle my feet.

I was still singing, smiling, lost in my own carefree world, tucked away under the bridge where I was out of sight and mind. I had played with the fairies, roused at the troll, talked back to the frogs ... then suddenly I became aware of the sounds of my siblings. They were making their return journey and questioning how I had managed to dupe our mother into allowing me a day off school.

Robyn Chaffey

The Cost of Doing Business – David Bowden

Big changes came in the wake of the crash of 2017. The state had to intervene in areas where the free market had failed. For a start there was a massive crackdown on fraud & organised crime. It was decided that identity theft was too big a problem to ignore. Common surnames were a major obstacle so a central registry was set up to issue everyone a unique code. It took some getting used to but after a few years people grew accustomed to the new way.

Secondly the government took over the entertainment industry. Thanks to the internet the recording business had been dying for years & the movie industry was going the same way. As soon as the investment opportunities shrank the bankers whose money had propelled these enterprises for years bailed out for less risky ventures. Everyone seemed to agree that the arts were valuable to the community but nobody wanted to foot the bill. The state saw a chance to achieve a number of key objectives & stepped in.

The first thing they did after taking over was an audit of musical tastes. The results showed a befuddling array of genres & sub-genres, most of which were catering to tiny minorities. An executive decision was made to confine production to the 10 or so core styles, after financial modeling demonstrated that 97% of the money was going to less than 10% of the music made. Pop & rock were retained, some singer songwriter balladry, 4/4 dance music, the less controversial forms of hip hop &, of course, country & blues. Classical music was also kept but with plans to stick with the more popular streams. Jazz was dropped as obsolete, as was anything experimental.

So into this world was born Steven GF174B in 2040, a child possessed of prodigious musical gifts. From an early age he was able to remember complex musical passages after hearing them once & could play them flawlessly back with embellishments. His composition & playing skills earned him prize after prize & it was with some pride that his parents watched him graduate from Talent School & take a junior position in the Music Division within the Bureau of Public Happiness at the age of 18.

Although 'pop stars' as such had been virtual for some time when Steven joined the department it was still necessary to write fresh material to maintain the variety listeners liked. It was a dilemma - to make music which sounded familiar yet different. Innovation within the department was controlled under very strict guidelines & nothing was released to the public without being approved by a series of committees first. Avant Gardists were very quickly weeded out. Too many minor keys & your career could be over. Although it was never included in official documentation everyone knew the 2 second rule - atonality must be resolved within 2 seconds or your work would be rejected without further discussion. Everyone worked for wages, with a bonus system for 'hits', so there were no royalty payments as such. By paying a compulsory entertainment tax the public could access music & other arts freely, without the hassle of transactions.

Steven's first assignment was to 'fix' a troublesome middle eight on a new single proposed for Zammit Dooley, a simulated 18 year old male who had a huge following with teenage girls. Steven listened to the original arrangement of the song (called 'Baby You're My One & Only') & immediately suggested a new chord structure for this section, as well as a counter - melody for the final chorus which when adopted turned the song into Dooley's most requested work yet. Steven's star was on the rise.

In the 3 years which followed he had a stunning series of successes. Steven had a remarkable knack for delivering happiness in the form of perfect pop confection. His melodies were intoxicatingly joyous, played against harmonic progressions which were sophisticated without being too unnecessarily challenging. His peculiar skill was implying a faint shade of melancholy without actually depressing listeners. Like a wine which held a trace of bitterness almost buried beneath the rich sweetness, the audience found themselves craving a second helping without really understanding why. It was almost like the call of an ancestral feeling in which they shared an illicit pleasure, beneath a cheery cloak of frothy happiness.

As time went by he was able to maintain some diversity in his output by writing for different Sims. For example once he mastered the weepy teen ballads beloved of Zammit Dooley fans he moved into up-tempo tech pop, writing for artists like Snug Fit & the Very Nearlys, before trying his hand at the adult rock flavours of Drenched Rebellion & then graduating to become the primary songwriter for the most popular band of the modern era, International Love Magnet. Whatever style he attempted he quickly became a master of, conjuring a seemingly endless stream of variations sculpted from the same twelve notes.

Despite only being a wage earner like all other staff in the Bureau, Steven's bonuses became increasing frequent & generous so consequently he grew quite wealthy for someone of his age & despite his natural shyness became something of a celebrity. He wasn't a womaniser, nor a drug taker, not an adventurous traveler to foreign countries nor committed to any political cause, he only lived to write music & record it. Money was not interesting to him & what he earned he either spent wantonly on new sound tools or gave away to family & friends. His wealth was transient & the ease with which he had accumulated it immunised him from concern about the possibility of things ever not being so.

However, although humble by nature, he gradually realised that people would give him whatever he asked for. Not having to persuade, beg, cajole or negotiate seemed on the surface to be a wonderfully comfortable state within which to live one's life but after a while it grew tiring for Steven. He slowly began to cultivate contempt for those around him who never argued back & with an increasing frequency tested them by extending the scope of his demands into the realms of the blatantly unreasonable & yet the result was always the same, blind obeisance.

At first Steven merely applied these behavioural experiments to his fellow functionaries, still essentially remaining subservient to his departmental masters & churning out hit after hit. But like a disease once caught then impossible to conceal a touch more of this arrogance & cynicism began to creep into his writing. He composed songs which gently parodied those written by his songwriter colleagues, before beginning to quote his own works in a less than complementary manner. So in this way he challenged both his bosses & his audience in the same way he had his co-workers. And it was as though no one noticed. Blinded by success in the case of his masters & rendered almost incapable of critical analysis in the case of his listeners, by a lack of alternatives, they gratefully swallowed all that he served them.

So after these years of early glory Steven began to crave new challenges. He started to pester his bosses to write music with more substance. The teen candy he had been so good at felt hollow & stale to him. Manipulating pre-pubescent emotions was really too easy & the music of happiness bored him. He wasn't foolish enough to think he could simply walk away from it without some compromise so when after many refusals his department manager eventually agreed that he could take some time out to write a symphonic piece on the proviso that he continued to provide 5 hits a year he readily accepted.

And thus Steven began to compose his first serious classical work. It started as a fairly conventional piece, a little bit Prokofiev with a hint of Grieg, but after a while this too failed to satisfy him. He wanted to write something which went deeper than anything he had previously written. Prettiness was obviously within his repertoire but his initial attempts just sounded like a longer version of his pop tunes stitched together. It simply wasn't good enough.

This project became an obsession for Steven. He worked 14 hour days at it, week after week, month after month. At a painstaking rate the piece took shape but still something was lacking. Technically it was a masterpiece, with strong melodic content underpinned by complex contrasting counterpoint lines, with a well balanced structure of 3 movements sweeping from authoritative to tender & then to an emotive climax. But he thought it flat & was often heard by those around him discussing concepts like 'vertical sound' & 'molecular tonalities'. Everything should have worked but the more Steven put into it the more he hated it. And the more he hated it, the worse he treated those around him as well as, it should be added, himself. He couldn't sleep, wasn't eating well, grew perpetually irritable & was missing deadline after deadline.

Back at the Bureau, concerns were being raised. The latest batch of songs they launched were not proving a success with the audience & Steven had delivered only one of his promised five pop numbers. This too had been a relative failure by his standards. Entitled 'You Don't Love Me Like You Should' it was a thinly veiled attack on the Bureau & the listenership, carrying a note of strong censure for perceived persecution &/or abandonment, under the guise of a jilted love song. No, things were not working out.

Then, suddenly, Steven's father George died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Steven's last words to him were 'not now dad, I haven't got the time' & this fact haunted him far more than he would ever admit. After all of the support given & sacrifices his father had made it seemed a shabby way to say goodbye. That his father was proud & fully understood Steven's motivations did not occur to him, it suited him rather to magnify the significance of this ending as an illustration of his own character failings. Steven's mood darkened considerably & he began to believe that people blamed him for his father's death.

After months of depression & inertia he decided to re-write the symphony as a eulogy to his departed father. This meant diving into the minor keys, writing extended passages using dissonant intervals, basically divesting himself of all of the restrictions placed upon him by the Bureau. It was a whole new world of feeling which Steven had suspected existed but which he had been prohibited from experiencing, like a natural gourmet brought up only on sweets who finally discovers savouries. And someone with unfettered gifts like Steven could not resist indulging in the possibilities presented. It nearly sent him mad but through this process his symphony was totally transformed & the dimensions he had been seeking were at last realised.

Coincidentally as Steven reached the final stages of his symphonic masterwork the Bureau's Response Committee decided that his services were needed urgently. His boon period had driven audience expectations to levels that were difficult, if not impossible, to sustain. Other departments were quick to seize on the downward turn in the feedback results, usually to mask their own poor performances but also due to the fact that the very doubts investors used to express in the capitalist market when dealing in the arts were frequently also felt by their corresponding government sectors. Once an economic rationalist always an economic rationalist.

So with this in mind a member of the committee with whom Steven had many favourable dealings, Geoffrey BH33GJ was elected to approach him with a stern proposition - either he return to hit making or the funds dry up. However, given that Steven was a government employee on wages this was a rather toothless threat. If they sacked him or withdrew payment there would be a court case & given the absence of demonstrable warnings issued thus far the whole process could take some time. So Geoffrey was banking on Steven being intimidated by the threat of having his compositions suppressed.

Turning up at Steven's house Geoffrey was warmly received. Yet the two of them were at complete cross purposes. Geoffrey was there to beg Steven's return to a mindset he had now outgrown. Steven wanted him to hear a work which Geoffrey could not possibly fit into his department's release schedule. This was a meeting from which both could not expect to emerge fully happy.

After some preliminary discussions Steven finally played Geoffrey a recording of his symphony in the half lit studio room within which it had been conceived. Across from a blown up photo portrait of Steven aged 10 arm in arm with his smiling, loving father, Geoffrey was utterly transported by the sounds he heard. He was listening to a master composer at the peak of his creativity express himself fully within the art form he was born to inhabit. Where the music rode to lofty peaks the tremendous ecstacy he felt swept up in was palpable & where despair took over he could not help but weep. It was unlike anything else he had ever experienced.

Geoffrey sat in traumatised silence for ten minutes afterwards. There was no question of his asking Steven to return to cartoon music after hearing this. That request would have to come from another, less sensitive departmental missionary. Despite a heartfelt conviction that the world ought to be able to share in the wonder he had just witnessed he could not begin to believe that any more than 10 people in the world would ever be able to hear Steven's symphony. He sobbed quietly in the back of the taxi which anonymously deposited him outside his outer city suburban house. He barely comprehended the multifaceted layering of reasons why. He was not an intellectual. He just cried as though he had somehow been privy to an unerring forecast of disaster.

He was right. The following week the department sent out a less diplomatic functionary, one concerned primarily with delivering results to his demanding overlords. Steven rebuffed his oafish overtures & the situation descended into a standoff. The department was not to be bullied & thus nearly five years to the day since he joined Steven's time in the music business ended with a relatively modest payout, a terse unusable reference & no word of thanks.

Shortly afterwards a highly skilled composer was discovered in Talent School whose gifts strongly recommended him to a key position in the Music Division. He was good. Very good. But not great. However, given the range of emotions permitted expression by the Bureau of Happiness he proved more than adequate in providing material for public consumption on the level they were accustomed to. The feedback reports grew healthy, smiles were returned once again to the committee members, who could once again hold their heads high in departmental meetings. Confidence was restored.

Following a lean patch Steven eventually found employment in the service industry. He worked in a small restaurant in a town near to where he was born. On Saturday nights after work he would sometimes play the piano at his local pub, usually when very drunk & most often for short periods only. Since the publican usually objected to his atonal, unhummable, rambling explorations after a few years he simply stopped altogether.

And he never again listened to the radio or watched TV.

David Bowden

### About David:

David was born in Bowdon, United Kingdom. Raised by humans, educated by wolves & angels — touched by music now and then. David wrote this piece in two days.

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Mercury Rising – Albany Dighton

Mercury rising,

The desert jungle glitters.

Lights, Vegas, Action.

Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure – Aristidis

Once upon a time in fair France there lived a chookette named Henrietta, who, along with her girlfriends spent her daily and uneventful life in a large Free Range Barnyard Henament far out in the Country. Henrietta was an average French Hen, dressed in a modest brown feathery Blouse, fluffy brown Witches Britches, a little red bonnet and Aviator Goggles. Why Goggles you may ask, well, she was known among the henfolk as a rebel and adventurer, that's why.

Her life, like the life of so many other chooks, consisted mainly of pecking corn, eating worms, laying eggs, running around the Barnyard like a mad ninnie, and occasionally going to the farmyard next door in order to socialise with the many handsome French roosters who would be hanging around all day playing cards and telling stories. At night they would fuss and argue as to who would sleep where and getting their hottie bottles ready in case there was a unexpected cold snap, even in high summer. Thus, a blissful life was lived free from worries or everyday concerns, with the occasional hen parties and the annual 'Tour de Chook' 1K endurance foot race around the barnyard, or perhaps the ever present floating anxiety of possibly being the next meal in the pot and avoiding being run over by Dolly the sheep.

One sunny day, it must have been late August, the daily ablutions were completed, all the girls had their dust bath, and it seemed the day would offer nothing more than the day before. Henrietta, feeling restless and bored witless, decided to explore the unknown territory, a place steeped in chicken lore since time immemorial, better known as 'The World Beyond The Gate', a space of the unknown and a land of mystery in the chicken universe ever since Henrietta was a little egg. The elders in the coop used to talk in hushed sotto voices about this land of the inexplicable and when pressed, utterly and totally refused to discuss the subject any further, which - Henrietta suspected, really meant that they knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about this place except that it was forbidden territory.

And so, with much trepidation but great determination, Henrietta set, (an act of complete heroism and an event to be recorded in the 'Chook Chronicles' for evermore), her right foot Outside-the-Gate. She paused momentarily, her left foot suspended in mid air ready to take the next step, (she was waiting for lighting to strike, or the great Purple Chicken from the sky to cast a thunderbolt at her and destroy her utterly and totally), but nothing happened. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, birds sang, and nothing-at-all-happened. So, encouraged with her action of complete anarchy, Henrietta proceeded, step by step, to reach the other side of this, to her eyes, black 'Chickenland of utter voidness', which to us humans is known as merely 'Route 102'. As she was about to cross this vast expanse of black nothingness, there lurked, unbeknown to Henrietta, just a hundred yards down the road to her left, officer Marianne Le Clerc with her ever-ready and trusty radar gun in her sweaty hand, waiting for unsuspecting motorists to fall within the perimeter of the never sleeping eye of her aforementioned radar gun instant cash converter.

As Henrietta was about to cross-the-road, officer Le Clerc suddenly, due to an unfortunate lunch of bad Coq au Vin, developed an unexpected cramp in her right hand thereby contracting her trigger finger, and so releasing a torrential blast of radar beams down the road in the direction of our hen heroine. This blast, in itself completely harmless, was (due to the sweaty palm), supplemented by a temporary electrical malfunction in Marianne's radar gun, and therefore establishing a brief but effective link between her brain, the radar beam and the Henrietta's consciousness and instantly transmitting pretty much all of the contents of Marianne's accumulated knowledge into the mind of the chicken.

The blast caught poor Chookie right in the middle of her corpus callosum and instantly fused both halves of her brain together into one, everything went blue, black, green and purple, stars appeared in her inner vision, she experienced Satori and utter and complete N-O-T-H-I-N-G-N-E-S-SSSS enveloped her frail and gentle being. When she finally came to herself, Henrietta first checked that all her bits and pieces were still in place, and apart from the elastic having snapped in her Witches Britches everything seemed normal and yet, and yet

e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g was different.

As she returned home and stood outside the gate of her familiar nesting place called 'La Ferme', Henrietta suddenly, with a shock, understood that her mind, which had been until now been occupied with simple things like corn, eggs and survival of the fittest, presently realised that her world had become unfamiliar and w-i-d-e. Her mind was now filled with all kinds of insights, possibilities and knowing, things such as Vogue Magazine, shopping at Woolworths, Truffles, Abbey Road, Skiing at Aspen, Pantyhose, Plasma 3D TV's, Playstation 3, Oprah, where to get the best leg wax, Isosceles Triangles, Wikipedia, Bob Dylan, Google, how to apply mascara, decorating tips for Home renovators, Consumer Magazine, MasterChef, French Champagne, The Rolling Stones, Police Procedures, Pavlova recipes, Women's rights, Global Warming, Taser Maintenance, Chopin Nocturnes, volunteer work in Africa, who gave the best deals in frequent flyer points, save the Whales, when to rotate the tyres on your car, and all kinds of other wonderful and mysterious things than had been, until now, utterly and completely unknown to Henrietta.

Chooky was totally excited out of her wits (she even had notions of writing a book about her experience, she would call it 'Hen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and become fabulously wealthy and famous with a string of sexy Italian Rooster Boyfriends and living on the Amalfi Coast), she headlong rushed into the chook yard where her fellow hens were doing their usual daily hen stuff, stomped her right foot three times on the floor (and we all know how hard it is for a chicken to stomp her feet) and called out:

'Girlfriends, Girlfriends, listen to me, stop what you're doing, there is so much more to life than we know, there are wonderful things to explore, experience and to see, come, I have good news for you, I have seen more than you can imagine.'

Her fellow Hens stood dumbfounded, they listened to what she was trying to say, they clucked, but had no idea what on earth Henrietta was raving on about, none of it made any sense, they could not even comprehend what she was saying, their Hen minds had not been expanded to this new level of consciousness and it was all 'too far out'.

Sadly, Henrietta quickly realised that all her talking would do no good, nobody else understood what she had experienced anyway, and how could they, they had not been exposed to this mysterious and mind expanding power that she, through sheer accident, had been subjected to. And besides, what were they going to do with all this new knowledge anyway, how was it of any use to them, after all who ever heard of a chicken shopping for Perfume at Printemps or Gucci with frequent flyer point Platinum Cards or wearing pantyhose or appearing on the Oprah show as a celebrity guest, or writing a novel or Blogging on Facebook?

So, she thought 'twas a far better thing to keep her beak shut, her social life declined to absolute zero virtually overnight, days and months passed, the seasons changed, life returned to normal in the chicken yard, frogs croaked, birds sang, Henrietta was declared the resident nutter by consensus and someone to be avoided at all costs. Her fellow hens began whispering behind her back, young chicks with their fluff still on their heads would laugh at her and call her funny names, and so, Henrietta lived her life as an exile for a while, doing the best she could to be like the other chickens around her, but her life never was the same as before, no matter how she tried she couldn't fake it, too much had happened and she knew that she couldn't go back to the way things were. Not that she wanted to, not really, and the memory of her astounding experience of this other world and the feeling that something extraordinary had happened remained with her for the rest of her life. But just what it was, well, she sometimes cluckled to herself, it was her secret and she knew better than to talk about it ever again.

Henrietta eventually met and lived with a beautiful old Capricorn French rooster named Pierre the Philosopher who could quote Plato, had a wooden leg and was able to help her slowly come to terms with the mind blowing experience she had gone through. They both lived to a ripe old age, every Friday they would organize a soup kitchen for elderly crickets down on their luck and in the evenings, when sky was dark and clear, they would sit outside their little chook house that Pierre had built from an old discarded Apple crate, and watch the moon rise and the stars come out. Pierre would crow and Henrietta would sing 'Alouette'.

And the moral of the story? Well, Henrietta had to learn the hard lesson that the difference between a wise hen and a mad chook is that the wise hen knows when to keep her beak shut.

Aristidis

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The Red Hart - Jordan Russo

A large deep blue bird stood upon a smooth orangey brown rock. The cool breeze slid through the clear azure sky rippling the bird's feathers. Beneath, a green-eyed girl gazed up at the bird with her telescope. She could see the feathers like scales, shiny and dark blue. She had wavy ebony hair and a pointy nose. She put one hand on her hip absently, as she gazed at the beautiful bird.

'No dawdling, Marion!' called a croaky, bitter voice. It sounded clunky to Marion's ears like when she had tripped over a rusted iron bucket and three wooden brooms in the shed the day before. Aunt Jasmine was an uncomfortable person to be around at the best of times. She would often mutter to herself about 'useless people'. Marion had heard names she knew and ones she did not. Marion would spend time looking at seemingly insignificant things like the cracks in the wood of old brooms, jars of water and people walking down the street. Men would often take it wrongly and wink or approach her. As Marion's interests lay elsewhere, it was fortunate for her that when they did approach, Aunt Jasmine would walk out the door and 'shoo' them off.

The bird opened its wings and flew away. Marion watched it flying away. As it became a dot in the distance she still watched.

'Marion!'

Marion looked back to the white mud brick home. The brown terracotta roof had a colourful garden bed edging it. No cobwebs or grime of any sort were staining the structure.

'Marion!'

She hurried away and opened the door. She stared across the red carpet to a counter. Numerous vases of all sizes and colours stood around the room. A path was formed by their absence through the middle of the room, leading straight to the counter.

'Marion, you lazy slug!'

Marion held her skirts and rushed down the room past blue vases with gold trim, red vases with yellow images, vases big, vases small. She slid past a big tan vase, moved past the counter and walked through a little door.

'Marion!'

Marion entered a storeroom packed high with shelves of salves and potions. Aunt Jasmine stood with her hands on her hips beside a simple wooden stool. She pointed at the shelves. 'We have cockroaches Marion, little rotten cockroaches. Get rid of them and dust the surfaces!' she said in a huff and walked off. 'Then you can tend to the chickens while I'm at the shops.'

Marion climbed the stool and gazed into the dusty edge against the wall. Gazing into it she lost focus, sinking into the swampy mire of her thoughts. As long as she got the job done, she had a bed to sleep in and a meal to eat, water to drink. What more was there then, after all? She knew from stories she was not the worst off in the world. So she rolled her sleeves up and went to fetch the cleaning materials. She vigorously skimmed her hand over the rough grainy wooden shelves.

Then one day she was walking back from the markets with a basket previously of eggs. She had dropped the eggs off at the market where Aunt Jasmine sold jams and eggs to rake in extra profit (Aunt liked to make as much money as possible). She stopped as she saw a bald man walk past with a small smile on his face and a big beautiful red hart on his forest green cloak. He smiled at her on his way. It was a warm smile and Marion smiled back without even thinking. She looked down at the ground, blushing. She gave out a heavy sigh as he walked past. The next day Marion was wiping the shop windows clean and Aunt Jasmine, as usual, kept telling Marion to hurry up. Marion would finish one window and head to the next without any hesitation. She finally finished all the windows and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. She turned around and saw the same bald man watching her. On another occasion in a raised section of the town she had simply happened upon him gazing over a fence and smiling (so it seemed). Again, she found herself smiling back. She thought he had very soft eyes when he smiled. The next day Marion was outside eating a piece of bread. She thought she saw a red hart bound up the town steps. When she looked around for it, it seemed to not exist. She went back to her work. When she stopped to wipe her brow, she saw the bald man again. This time he came down the hill toward her.

'I have been watching you a little the last few days. You caught me in the act **three times,** ' he said. Marion stared at him. The man held his hand out, 'My name is Paul.'

Marion did not move her hand to his but she did say, 'Mine is Marion'. The man took his hand away and laughed. Marion could not help but smile back at his infectiously warm and smiling face. His whole face seemed to be lit with the warmth of his smile. She felt warm and safe with him. He knelt down to level more with her height.

'I want you to know that I think you do very good window cleaning,' he said, '...and I see you are a very sensitive girl with a bright mind. I want to say something and I hope you'll think very carefully about it.'

Marion had her eyes as wide and round as her Aunt's good plates (very wide and very round). ' Things can be very subtle, like how your Aunt does not see who you are because she has too many thoughts about everything else from her point of view and then unfairly throws you into that, releasing her own unnoticed insecurities in the form of criticisms against you. If you cannot see into the future of other people, do not assume that you can see yours – it might be your emotions talking. Not knowing the future, to me, is hope. I had two friends once: we all went our separate ways but our connection forever remains. We all changed one at a time. One was Rob. He was an accountant – one day he was going for a walk through the city and as he was thinking about his life and other's lives and considering how weird he looked in the mirror, which he had always admitted was a strange thought. A sense of peace entered him that day, yet it had always been. He left the city and met me on the road one rainy day. The other friend was a woman, Mary. She realised she had never liked her life – she left her life as it was to live an ascetic one in a spiritual community. She then left the spiritual community and met Rob and I at a lake. We got along very well so the three of us travelled around for a few years. Then things changed. Rob died – fell off a mountain. We knew he was happy in the next place of existence. Mary met a man and settled into a life of partnership with him. But I kept travelling. I was a spiritual seeker for a long time and still am in many ways '

Paul clicked his fingers and a blue tulip appeared. 'I can teach you to do this.'

Marion still stood staring at him. Paul was still smiling. As she thought about what he'd said, she realised she did do pretty good work, she did see deep down the fear in herself, and deeper still, a desire to be better, a deep, deep desire to be more. That had to start with now.

Paul would often visit her over the coming years. Every time he left her feeling better and she would cry with hope. One day her Aunt was sick in bed. Marion cared for her, but when her Aunt was well, Marion left that same night. She met up with the man. She squinted; Paul was beginning to gray in the beard. But her smile had never been bigger as the two left town on a journey with no decided destination. Except for one, ' Marion, I have a friend I think you would really like. She lives over the mountain.'

Marion noticed a red hart preening itself on the path in front of them – it looked up at her for a moment, then bounded away. 'Did you see that red hart?' Marion asked Paul. Paul smiled 'No'.

Jordan Russo

Hanging Swamp – Alan E Lucas

We took the track

around the lake that gray day,

the chill of Autumn was in the air,

and I noted my mood,

and how everything looked flat,

silhouetted really.

Flat tree against flat shrub

leaf layered on leaf,

branch and twig against

each other, flattened.

We veered to the right, away

from the main track,

but spiders had spread their nets

across the path,

and we had to retreat.

Everything was layered

against the blue gray sky,

as flat as a stage set.

Voices floated from the lake,

yet we may have been lost

for all I knew.

Tracks went in all directions.

we sank to our boot tops

down by the lake's edge,

and tuned back again,

the prickle and spike of bushland

closing in.

Everything we touched

Or brushed against seemed to sting.

Small black insects clung to us,

golden bottle brush

was in its prime,

and the mountain devil flowers

were attracting Lewin Honey eaters,

but I could not shake the feeling

That I had been walking

for aeons,

In a silhouette world,.

On the small lake

A breeze turned the water white

In the intermittent sun light.

A dog's bark echoed

At a distance, and a man

Cried out in annoyance,

And everywhere I saw

An unfamiliar world.

It was a new way

of seeing that seemed to lay

the weight of worlds

on my shoulders, the feeling

of lives lived, endlessly

in silhouette.

Autumnal trees along the lake's edge

moved in a breeze

that stripped the leaves from branches,

floating them in sunlight

and spreading the grass

with colour.

Somewhere geese were honking,

then came into view,

paddling around an inlet,

they too were flat,

only I was three dimensional,

and I seemed to be moving

towards a strange de'noue'ment.

Yet the world was still beautiful,

this state, this thing I saw

was not despair,

rather a new way of seeing,

a different path with a new perspective.

This sack of bones,

this static electricity of mind,

seemed temporarily caught

in a cage of time,

and nothing more.

Alan E Lucas

Ode To Tony – Brendan Doyle

O Tony of TLC Auto Repairs,

may your business flourish ever more,

may the tooth fairy replace your top plate

with metallic finish white pearls.

O Tony, my heart stalled, I swear,

when the bloke at Waitara said

'I can see a thousand bucks there

just for the rust' and sent me

to the old Hungarian at Betta Batteries

who quoted me six hundred

for windscreen scratches,

welding and a brake pedal rubber.

But you, Tony, whom I had not seen for almost a summer,

welcomed me with your shiny smile:

'Is that door lock still working?'

and I knew your friendship had not wavered.

O Tony, when you handed over that pink slip

and said 'Eighteen dollars'

I wanted to win the lottery and give you half,

I wanted to replace all the seals on your Datsun ZX

and personally blacken the tyres,

but I just reached into my pocket

and gave you ten bucks 'for a beer'.

You'd made my day, my month, my year!

### About Brendan:

Brendan grew up in a house without books.

Now he's trying to build a house of poetry.

So You Think Your Truth Trumps Mine? – Karen Lane

You, who have worked in the same job you've hated for decades

You, who have stayed in the same loveless relationship for years

You, what is your truth?

What is the root of your unhappiness?

You don't know, do you?

You haven't got a clue!

Stuck in a mire of your own creation

Glued to the familiar

You know only one thing

Here, perhaps, you are safe

Yet, this year of 2011, has shown that no soul is safe on familiar ground

Waves of emotion have flooded lives in Queensland, New Zealand and Japan

Yet, you still don't know do you?

You still don't get it!

Do you need a tidal wave of emotion to untighten your emotional belt?

Or do you have the courage to untighten it yourself?

To fully feel the uncomfortableness of the life you've chosen

To feel WHAT you really need to do

To move WHERE you really need to be

To say WORDS you really need to say

Feeling your truth, saying your truth

Now that truth would be something I value.

### About Karen:

As I have yet to be published, I only recently felt comfortable enough to call myself 'a writer'. It was only when I stopped writing Letters to the Editor and started writing on a regular basis that I realised 'yes I am a writer, even if no one pays me'.

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Running Over a Chinaman

A tale about surviving in the Web of Trauma

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Heartbreak – Julitha De La Force

Every day my heart breaks

Life is one endless ache

When's my emotional torment

Ever going to end?

The man I loved broke up with me

Said he wanted to be friends but ...

He keeps tormenting me

His emotional cruelty is hard to bear

He plays mind games and doesn't care

One moment he's loving then ...

His verbal viciousness leaves me bare

Why's he doing this to me?

Why's he being so cruel to me?

Doesn't he care what it's doing to me?

Every day is torture for me

My emotional pain is so raw

I can't take this anymore

I wish he'd explain

His compulsive need

To cause me pain

I gave him my love

I gave him my heart

Now his cruelty is

Tearing me apart

A Wedding – Adrian Johnstone

Besides having to deal with the immensely hot sun bearing down atop of my sweltering head, the swirl of ultra atomic radiation curling its massive universal arms round in high five motion, congratulating itself upon its insipid harassment, the gelatinous mould making up the majority of my exotic Asian infused cuisine wobbling gently inside a plastic petrii dish would soon surely melt away to nothing. I needed to find a refrigerator fast or the shaving of American Scallop, Manuka and Brioche Glazed Walnuts mixed finely with Sautéed Capers and Gazpacho Roe Jelly would surely perish.

Before me, lined immaculately along the centre street - up along the harbour - ebbing tides and flows nipped slightly into the Chinese washroom area of the front steps. The entrance alcove of business shops were pristine and redefining the fashionable post-modern charismatic appeal that in the past could not be achieved by smudging red spots against sharp patches of black scagliola. And I, like the insurgent Afghan militia on perpetual stand-by, nearby, Tarquin - Proud and Gallant - customarily dining al fresco on the roof at The Pen on 39, one red hand on his mistress's thigh, keeps his steadfast inordinate guard on the Etruscans.

Glazed above their doorstep, like a rambling profusion of enraged debasement and pupal enlightenment, were the detailed and stately prose intricacies marked within time immemorial by Alighieri - the father of Italian. Having shifted away from the relative confines of orthodox passage and divine comedic poetry, the man of much too late had his endowment meddled and fornicated with, till nothing more of what scholars would recently decipher as 'Elogio Allah' filled their academic books with much consternation and delight.

The dribbling precipitation from the petrii dish was sliding down my fingers and arms.

It allured me only temporarily before I managed to duck another inept avaricious bastard. Unctuously obsequious posses committed to the Toque Blanche have been following me most observantly, exercising with a municipal argot of scintillating audacity the temperament of their tortured whim. With slicing blade and sharpened malice, congregations are planned and meddled over how best to beget me. I hurry my steps, over the pink flamingos swarming the grounds and under the hanging women fastened with garter belts and only wearing designer market Louis Vuitton stiletto heels. Their perspicuously tender hypertrophic genitalia dangling upside down, hanging from the hooks of industrial tower cranes, immaculately suspended by a trapeze of satin dental floss.

It didn't have to happen so quickly; I had only just gotten hold of Marionette yesterday and already this shit is happening. I was very amazed, even so much that my consternation, from their quick formation which had developed tremendously after such a short absence - of which I knew from what previous underestimated cynicism I had about the Three Legged Chair Formation Transformation Organization - would surely be nothing in comparison to their new-found pugnaciously barbaric proficiency.

From a small mason jar I quickly filled the lining of my tweed jacket with rhubarb relish, a recently discovered substance, not only once just a delicious gastronomical concoction, but now also, from rigorously intricate and meticulous scientific study conducted by the octogenarian, Hans Goldzimmer, at the Humboldt University of Berlin, founded by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt, in Germany, a unique and highly potent deterrent used against the rising vicious vulture population forming throughout the Southern hemisphere. No longer encircling the skies, waiting for that inevitable period when the prey plods its final, defeated step to the ground and awaits death till they strike - some don't even consider the flesh of a newly rotting carcass to be numero uno on their choice of delicacies - but poised fervently for the kill, they attack in large numbers, picking and tearing at the innocent victims on the ground below. If one is lucky enough, they flurry away victoriously with hunks of meat from still alive and kicking prey, retreating to the top of the wind blown skyscrapers after excreting corrosive uric acid on the bystanders below before settling down to nestle and feed their anabolic robotic young.

Warranting themselves bad enough and certainly horrific enough for us symbiotic xenophobic organisms, they are still no match for the ferocity of the vulture killing, one tonne giants: the lime green and violet mutated Chinese Panda Bears which infest, roam and tear through buildings during the night. If not from the constant plummet of Pandas accidentally tripping over their hydroponic bamboo leaves draping the sides of the abandoned buildings, crushing helpless victims into pickled garnishes, the relish should guard against what residing vultures there are and repulse them enough, if, for instance, the person were to survive a rush of greedy gastronomical vermin wielding Chinese pork blades, for the victim to maybe live yet another harrowing day.

The Toque Blanche shouted with endearment, praising the hydraulic blade that was passed to him. As the Sous chased him down from behind, pardoning himself most embarrassingly - begging mercy for his lateness - the Toque Blanche stripped down the traditional knotted cloth-button double breasted jacket and said most deliciously to pass him the oil-based lubricant.

'Are you certain that's wise, sir? It's only midday and you haven't had your Boudin Noir Skillet and Dried Potato-Chip on Fig Salad and Vin Ordinaire Borlotti Cassoulet with Double-Sweet Vouvray; how will you survive?' the doubtful Sous embrangled.

The Toque Blanche held the small plastic bottle of lubricant high over his head and, proclaiming with shaking might- as he sighed erotically into the bright day above - squeezed the contents over his gelatinous encumbered body. He moaned until the confluence of translucent slime curled and oozed around his black chest hairs and past his navel before dripping finally upon the tarmac at his feet. It was only when he shivered and convulsed with delight that a lone Anteater trailed by nonchalantly and licked clean the trapped ants held fast by its sticky substance.

'Damn it, Gunter, don't you see that this is the most tumultuous time for me to extend my influence? I have been aching oh so into the morning hour.'

'So sorry, Sir. Not to besmirch your great name. Do accept our most humble, sincere and gastronomical apologies.'

'And so you should ... infidel.'

Unto me the crumbling crack of vegetable flaked pastry, supporting an egg cream centre, undulates my nostrils. I lighten the exterior for the soft texture to ramify me with utmost daft; its simple pleasures— as Camus felt in the Algerian sun—I succumbed wholly to.

I tread in puddles of decrepitly ulcerous fermenting liquidations, curdling and thrusting with encroaching globules of air conditioned filtered water. Its vivific glisten entranced me only momentarily to see its putrid base purl over unwanted Styrofoam containers and Polyvinyl Chloride insulated electronic cables before rushing down into the sewer.

I recoiled.

Beside me, saturated in an chrome detailed vehicular edifice, pulsating rhythms of African Voodoo combos blare incessantly into my hip, inhibiting in me utter atrophy, excluding the swaying sensation of my bootilicious pelvis.

Solicit shouts curtailed from the other side of the street, over the flooding rainfall, and the circus clown, complete with slender flower tie and bright shots of pink on snow white, executes an elaborate technique of back flips over toward my side, narrowly missing traffic. He lands immaculately with a smoke already lit between his middle and index. With arms outstretched, his stern posture slowly sagged. He then dogged down a sausage filled doughnut handed to him by a dominatrix patrol officer in red latex sporting baby seal ugg boots. From flawless undisputed sources - microscopic surveillance cameras mounted directly around the purveying street - the lauding couch-potatoes were able to spot with every successive cycle of hands meeting upon the ground the nurtured seed to which the clown placed caressingly into after sowing the soil beneath the ravaged concrete.

Chrysanthemum Coronarium bloomed in his wake.

Walking up the enclosed street hand in hand, the chivalrous latex bound officer blows a thick cloud of smoke at the Toque Blanche as they pass by.

Quickly the puff of smoke reaches all remaining.

All white falls to the postulated metaphysical enterprise of the grey beneath in a heavy pensive assortment of Mishimaesque empirical reasoning.

'Did you ever expect that?'

'No. They may slide away but the options are just totally incomparable.'

I turned to the gal by my side.

She reformed herself by sticking a finger inside her left nostril. Afterwards, having removed from it a detailed piece of Victorian ivory embroidered patchwork - a small knitted number with minute letters, 'only to the waste end' - did she reinstate that which she so intently and most dramatically implored unto me years ago.

'Not to what the Platonic scholars had announced back in the Hellenic Parliament do I now feel the beautifully sequenced transmogrification that is about to unfold.'

Uh-huh, I replied. 'Yes, it too could do with a touch of work, most definitely.

Listen, doll...there's this thing I've gotta do. I'm needed back at the office, pronto. So, why don't we say we'll shake this leg later, eh?'

Gracefully, as when a butterfly carefully leaves it comforting cocoon, she lashed me with an intent look of tearful yet hopeful exasperation.

'Don't worry, baby, we'll be in each other's arms soon enough.'

A tear rushed from her eye and a shadow leered by, long enough for me to catch his Masonic reasoning. He disappeared when I glanced toward his vector.

But soon she spoke again and I was yet again cast down by her hypnotic harpoon. Her soft globulous mouth was poised for the moment and ventured forth even though it was chemically imbalanced.

'Yes, oh yes, dear...when the moonlit stars are far and wide, when Apollo speaks my name do the windmills of Evergreen fly high toward the plummeting bottom of the meteor crater, and when their insides spill from the gooey mess contained, I will then sense the touch of your warm vastitude. I will gaze far from the height of the eternal lighthouse.'

She stepped into a nearby store before we had the chance to express anymore.

Floundering through massive junctures, the rising water was levelling the city by the minute. Rushing to a nearby shopping vestibule, I was cornered off by deliberate shortcomings. The remaining entrance to the shop, and suddenly the district around me - arcades, promenades - had been conveniently replaced with an inseparable concrete edifice. Residing within the heavily adamant resilience of the concrete structure, reaching further than the eye could casually perceive, one exclusive accessible passage could be detected although it were only a passing route for those with a rule of thumb. Three identical segmented shapes were carved into the structure and coruscating neon lights aligned immaculately within the holes sprang vibrant agnostically induced temporalities into spiralling bombastic severities of mystically contorted cerebral fascinations.

I shaved hard. Harder than any man has done before, waxing intently my hard worn nipples until they became red raw, even at the splicing spasmodic consistency of the flashing blue lights.

Words and interpretations broke and popped open the pharmaceutical doppelganger upon a Nodachi Black forest pendulum.

I, as still, so became my ears, and then, once again, for they were the silent matter. It was only when I hunched down and took a step back momentarily that I noticed the three large holes carved into the wall were formed like an electrical socket.

Symmetrical and collectively rejecting art nouveau, pragmatically aligned dystopian temporality, a quasi-supernal figurehead cosmically contained, unconditional, mountainous, a delicate blossom of impressionist conceivability contemplating objective systematic unity by squashing its puny head against the path edge, swiping shattered teeth, pulverising them with fish into pungent little balls for the steaming nagging inconsolable pretentious children for their meandering and acquisitive monetary conversations confabulated disgustingly over simmering bowls of vegetable Seui Gau Mein before daily billion dollar realty auctions.

'I know you'd love it too, Agnus. How you'd love to see the confounding image. In all its resplendence, I could not but once confer to think triumphantly of your willing despondence. When that homicidal maniac tore loose through the pillage of broken homes, you, and you alone, were the only one who stood up to him, who stood up and fought for your wooden cuspidor. And, buckled head to toe in dazzling armoury you swung diligently and heroically the raving feral cat by the tail at your feigned assailant. But alas, he was too quick. Knocked about your head with a second inferior bucket that he left you with after he made his dashing exit, I remembered your saddened cry as you lay there with bucket to die.

Shit! You were absolutely covered in it. You had landed directly into the pile the neighbour had reposed upon your lawn, and I dared not waste my princely hands to yours of filth and muck. Might I digress?'

'Ok-ok...ok. Sure, we can do that.'

Samson's reply was as virulent as possible but none too desecrating for me to be persuaded otherwise.

We headed directly for the old swimming pool that day.

He later cracked his head open upon a splintered rock when diving from the highest region of the cascade.

The police hauled his body off with flashing red electrical tape to the premiere of his father's latest movie: 'Revenge of Turtle Neck'. The press reviews, although often too accommodating, were consistently mediocre and proving only to be mildly successful when compared to his other previous astounding blockbusters until one cleverly conceived article from the space times presented his father's film in dramatic new light. Not only did they uncover alluring circumstances pointing out some major inconsistencies regarding the hero's mane - Tom Selleck - film critics found something more politically sinister. A few months after its Blu-Ray release, and following the movie's increasing popularity - especially among the retro favoured anesthetised bohemians - due to an anonymous tip, several heavily armed government entrepreneurs wanted continuous press interviews and all exclusive coverage to be stricken from public access. Incriminating evidence had been filed against his father's name. Analysing several précis reports written by several undergraduate literary students, the police found massive, irrefutable evidence supporting the double lives of the Backstreet Boys, and their swindling internal power struggles for world domination, hidden subliminally within his father's movie. Quicker than a flash of lighting, not only were the Backstreet Boys - whose alluring and sexually enflamed timeless hits have flung Cupid arrows of pre-pubescent love to millions of heated teenagers frustrated with wanton desire - taken into a restricted access military operational containment facility stationed a hundred miles below the removed correctional facility at Treblinka, but also Samson's father. In these times, to speak of such atrocities is not only considered highly illegal and strictly classified but it's also ultimately forbidden; a sentence punishable by necrophilia slumber. To spend the rest of your waking life locked up, naked, with a late world leader of the jury's choice, to be forced to fornicate at irregular intervals or suffer a slow release of phosphoric nerve agents, which is to be later viewed on satellite television aimed at a substantial market for reasonably moderate prices.

Viewed beyond the sediment of pulsating vibrancy, fermented bean curds collected in a finely ornamented drinking vessel shaped like the firm rendering of a curvaceous bosom - electronically implemented with musical micro-chips - when tilted upwards 90degrees upon its flat axis sing the lamenting queenly woes 'Oooooh, I want some more' were slammed down onto the lacquered alpine business bench in outrage, bemusement and agreement.

I checked my side. The water level was softening my shoe and was now within the entrance of the building. The suited individuals indicate through articulated and formulated gesticulation a number the catastrophic events relating to the imminent problem of commercial housing, to which - displayed against a concrete wall - were the expenditures and hazards now inherent in relocating and constructing formidable living accommodation around the already rapidly growing infrastructure and population. To where do they place the ever exceeding population, expressed profoundly with tip-pointed markers attached to their shoulders? In any indication of referral, if needed to be exhibited to the other board members, must now - since infused with said elongated attachment - be expressed by placing one's hands against their hips to be then followed through with fluid torso twists accordingly from left to right. Generally, when conducting the aforementioned meeting, one must now address the other board members by facing northerly according to their easterly in practise with standard ergonomic regulations as outlined by the board members.

Nods of agreement prevailed against inconclusive arrangements.

Glasses clinked, coffee splattered, and violent red paint was thrown against walls and one another as tables flew high toward the ceiling in an abject display of financial sentiment. Later, when the dust had lifted from the oppressive dim canopy of the room, their bodies remained sparkling clean alongside and within the spectacle of chaotic artistic semblance.

'Ahoy there, me dear matey' came from afar.

Hysterically pronounced through serrated tongues, a distant man beyond the torrent, under his loquacious amused embodiment, hailed me down.

From this distance I couldn't quite make out the millinery of sporting goods he adorned. The baseball cap, his orange nylon tight singlet with self made tears mainly along the neck line and contrastingly matched with an unusually pair of baggy black white striped Adidas training pants only came to me upon further scrutiny. Not to mention the repulsive detail of his exposed pubic line popping up gently from atop his slowly sagging pants were only a few initial things that haunted my mind as I reluctantly crossed over. I could discern at closer range the slant in his eyes, and his Asian inheritance were not the primary cause of his excitement. And crooked teeth, to which he placed three already lit smokes surprisingly into his mouth. Two were to be later excluded importantly from his smacked gob to the outer protrusions constituting the soft flexible tissue above the sides of his jaw.

An industrial toxic waste disposal unit pulled up alongside his person. And for one ghastly moment his hysterical face retained the utmost ardent pride and seriousness as he flanked them down, shouted something in Cantonese, smiled, and then dismissed them.

They left as soon they came.

His face retained this searing pompous taut expression of austerity until the truck turned off left by the interstate sign after the five kilometre long stretch of motorway.

Enflamed by extreme hypertrophy that inflated his face of hot air, the man resumed his otherwise incredible hysterical ornamentation.

The man began to cry. He then started moaning in utter despair; yet remarkably thrust his arms outwardly at my cheek, tapping them in goodwill as if to hint to both I and he that all things will turn out okay. After a time, the man then transformed once again to his previous hysterical beastly behaviour. The flux of bifurcated personalities zigzagged and crossed paths quite spasmodically, yet was consistently marked by the consecutive sequence of laughter, pride and depression. It continued until nothing much of his face could be resembled as entirely normal and of which, in his penultimate stature, was nothing more than an ethereal Baconian blur.

It stopped, affix with a deathly smile. He spoke, not a word.

During his suffocating pitch-bended haemoptysis, spasmodic abnormal congenital agenesis was coughed up quite distinctly, and fortunately, I did however understand his particular plea - as was so ethnically portrayed through his foul language - and resorting to trusty measures - not to let suspicion escape from his otherwise private colic confession \- desultorily, I remained.

Dozens of leeches were sucking happily all round his torso. This came as quite a phenomenal shock as his hellacious Egyptian Iris break-dancing reciprocating formational routine abruptly halted by the zippering extension from top to bottom magically revealing his lacerated top and exposed body. As informed through his native tongue, a rare treat - to which any man could easily recognize - was nestled deep within his arm pit hair. Just grazing the swollen welts on his body, he managed to scrape away most of the cardboard biscuit without hindering its fragile complexity and smearing too much purulent blood.

He emphatically mouthed words.

'OK'.

Placing the small piece of cardboard under my tongue, like melting wax-works, the paper mache buildings began to slide away with the rushing current now torso deep.

Amusement overcame my senses.

I turned to the behaviourally transforming medically deformed Asian with innocent affection as one would like an infant exploring the new found world.

A gelatinous white mould formed his chocolate-chip ridden tummy. I prodded his tummy with curiosity.

He began to laugh as I did.

We laughed.

We heckled.

The water flooding the city eventually swept his melted face out into the ocean.

I've gotta find a refrigerator.

Adrian Johnstone

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Where is the Female Tolstoy? – Natalie Muller

Where is the female Tolstoy? Is a question that has plagued women's writing for decades. Usually this question is asked with the sneer of derision, as men and the establishment seek to devalue the contribution of women's writing. The female Tolstoy is as elusive a creature as the African Tolstoy. Taken from this angle the question is used to reinforce male intellectual superiority and to make genius a quality exclusive to men.

Ask the question again; where is the female Tolstoy? And by that I mean why among all the many brilliant women writers have none gained the space in the literary cannon anywhere equal to their male contemporaries?

This is a difficult question to answer. For female novelists of the 19th century who have been admitted to the literary cannon, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, and perhaps most interestingly of all Jane Austen, society and prejudice hung heavy on them and on their literary activities. George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte were initially published under male pseudonyms. Jane Austen was merely published as 'a lady'. Opportunities to publish and the possible damage to reputation forced such compromises from women writers. Yet these are writers of genius whose work was initially accepted as the work of men, giving a lie to the notion that genius is a particular trait of those endowed with an XY chromosome pair. Of the three Jane Austen is perhaps the most interesting in terms of her legacy in the 21st century.

In her essay A room of one's own. Virginia Woolf describes Jane Austen as a writer who wrote 'without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching.' (68) She wrote according to Woolf the way Shakespeare wrote, so fully consumed by the work that they efface all trace of themselves. The great tragedy of Jane Austen is that today she has been dragged unwillingly out from behind her novels, which she so carefully wrote herself out of. Jane Austen has become a cottage industry with films, seminars, spin offs and the romanticising of Regency England. She, like Shakespeare before her, has become a national icon in Britain, and most of the English-speaking world. The downside of this is the fact that the work itself loses its meaning and its impact. Pride and Prejudice is not a pretty Regency romance, in fact it is as far from the romantic tradition as you could hope to get. Pride and Prejudice is a satirical and scathing novel about the importance of marrying money. It is about the calculations, and jockeying for position that women had to engage in to succeed in the marriage market. Mr Darcy is neither described, nor given much character development. He doesn't need it! His place in the story is to be a desirable object to be fought over by the women. To reduce Jane Austen to a romance writer, like a genteel precursor to Mills and Boon novels, is to rob her of her dignity and her genius as a writer.

If trivialising the work of women is one way to silence their claims to genius, another is to declare them mad. This is the fate that has unfortunately befallen Virginia Woolf. Yes, it is an undisputable fact that Virginia Woolf suffered from a reoccurring mental illness, which ultimately claimed her life. Virginia Woolf also wrote some of the most brilliant modernist fiction in the 20th century, including Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and my personal favourite Flush, a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel. Here was a woman who wrote without fear or favour, she had the freedom to write what she wanted, without having compromise it for the dictates of market forces. And yet say the name Virginia Woolf and the first reaction by many, no doubt influenced by the film The Hours, is that she was 'mad'. To be declared mad is to be disenfranchised, a thing Virginia new well. The wealth of correspondence and diaries left by Woolf has become for many, more important than her works of fiction. Just as Jane Austen has lost her genius to the heritage and tourism industry, so Virginia Woolf has lost hers to the medical fraternity.

Posthumous reduction of women's writing is one thing that has prevented the birth of a female Tolstoy, but in this so called enlightened modern age, what now prevents women from assuming this mantle? Many traditional, as well as some new factors discriminate against women's writing in the 21st century.

Many women, even in the privileged West still do not have a room of their own, and certainly not a private income to support it. Economic necessity drives women into the labour market, where unless they are highly skilled and can afford work part time, end up in jobs, which allow little time or energy for writing. Society still expects that women will enter a relationship and bear children, and to place writing, or indeed any career, ahead of these traditional roles can be seen as selfish. A woman who is a wife and mother will find that the room of her own is unattainable; or at least unattainable without a large serving of guilt, which will ultimately mar her writing.

The reduction of women's writing to autobiography is a new factor, which has discriminated against women's writing in recent decades. Women's writing has for the main part been marginal. Women are heavily represented in children's fiction, romance fiction, and chick-lit, all genres considered beneath the attention of male writers. Just as teaching and nursing have become the domain of women professionals, while men aspire to higher paid and more prestigious roles as academics and doctors. When women's writing does not constrain itself with the genre fiction assigned to it, but aspires to write literary fiction, women find that the goal posts are constantly being moved. For many women, attempting to write 'literary fiction' usually involves the use of the self as subject, especially if the writer is young and inexperienced. Young writers are often advised to write about what they know, to write from experience. What at first glance sounds like an innocuous and reasonable statement, is too often taken literally by the aspiring woman writer, and she proceeds to write about her own life. The reduction of women's creative power to the recreation of the world in which, they live is a more sure constraint on women's genius than all the posthumous tinkering. If women censor their own writing to the level of experience then no matter how well written their work is it will never have the universal transcendence that marks a true work of art.

This reduction to autobiography is possibly most obviously felt in the writing of Jeanette Winterson, who's first novel Oranges are not the only fruit has been read as autobiography by naive readers for the past twenty odd years. Winterson herself is adamant that her work is not autobiographical, and nor should it be read as such. She makes it very clear that like all writers she uses the experiences of her life to create her work, but that this scavenging of ones own past for material does not constitute biography. When Charles Dickens uses early life experiences to write David Copperfield the reader does not automatically assume that the author and character are one and the same. Men are gifted with the resource of imagination and women, through the insistence on autobiography are denied it.

Finally the different content of men and women's writing also works against the female Tolstoy. Male writers dominate the cannon of world literature, thus the reasoning here would argue, what men have to say is more important. Men write about grand world changing events, they write about topics that will be of interest to men. Which at this time usually means world politics, crime and war, all told in a rational and objective manner. Women write about love, especially romantic love, and human relationships. They write in an emotional and subjective manner. In theory women would have to write like men to be valued in the same way as a man. In theory all a woman has to do is write about what men feel is important in a rational and objective manner and she will be their equal. This theory unfortunately does not hold up to fact. Just as careers become devalued in the eyes of men when women enter them in large numbers, so too do intellectual positions. Prior to the late 18th century, emotion and fine sensibilities were the dominion of men. Women were regarded to have a highly inferior emotional life, one that centred mainly on the bearing of children. Women were lusty, beautiful, silly creatures, who had to be protected from themselves like children. With the advent of the enlightenment and the rise of science, emotion and sentiment were cast off as manly virtues in favour of reason and objectivity. Women were, and are, now silly, emotional beings who cannot view the world in a rational manner. Women thus play catch up with the men, who just as we grasp their coat tails they sip it off and into a new one.

What is needed is not a female Tolstoy, but rather a valuing of women's writing and female experience in it's own right. A woman may not be able to write War and Peace, but nor would she want to. She could perhaps write Anna Karenina, though. However a woman's Anna may not slip under the wheels.

Natalie Muller

Untitled – Christina Frost Clayton

The lack of ability

To cre ate some st il

a b it Y

Concludes my brevity

On pending IN sa N it Y...

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Phyllis – Paris Portingale

Phyllis. Lumpen named Phyllis. Phyllis with the lumpen leg; swinging thing, left wrong by a childhood illness. Phyllis the cripple, made strange by her difference. Phyllis with the wide mouth and the downward looking eyes, brown and sad, weathered by distain and indifference. The Phyllis whose name was sometimes an abuse in the yard amongst less kind souls without limps. Among the peer-souls, all started together but somehow over the spin of time from then till now, made better; more right and whole and strong-legged. A Phyllis whom it could be easily imagined possessed no soul at all. Soul exchanged for a leaden name and a swinging leg and downward eyes and a flat chest and a back, even at sixteen, already hunched as to fold herself in and down, perhaps small and tight enough to fold herself entirely away. And it all stretched on and out into her own personal infinity. On without change. The dull pain of being, glowing a faint dull line into a distance to be travelled with the ache of a soul that knows itself to be quite alone.

And then there was Lucy. Finger fucked Lucy. Finger fucked by pretty much all the boys whose balls had dropped. Lucy who wore make-up and a perfume from the bargain shop that scented her like a slut and drove the ball-dropped boys to explosive, wicked, shameful self abuse in the school toilet blocks. 'Why don't you just die, Phyllis?' Lucy would whisper from the seat behind, and it was in its own way a genuine question and one which Phyllis would often invite for discussion. And in the discussions, passionless and steered by a suffering-burdened logic, it was never made clear why she should hang on. Suffer the cancer-pain of an undeserved fortune, passed down by a casual universe, so much a doodle created and discarded by an indifferent God.

But it's not always that easy to let go, and that's the cruel trick of it. It's not always that simple to bypass the fail-safe mechanisms. The fear of death. The terror of an eternity in which you no longer exist, because eternity goes on beyond forever so it's a hard bond to break, the tenuous connection between being and not being, when not being is so frighteningly permanent. And death is not the sleep the poets describe. You don't wake up from not being. You don't die, to later rise and stretch and make a cup of coffee and plan a new day. So even in the pain there is a knot, a Gordian entanglement that holds us back when we stand on the edge of extinction and look over the lip and down and feel the pull that would draw us into itself.

So Phyllis, lumpen, limping Phyllis, and her solitary soul limped on and ignored or absorbed the abuse, depending on the circumstances or her state of mind. But the thing is with souls, even the most trampled, demeaned, abuse-scoured of them can hold within themselves an ember of something. A glow, infinitely small, somehow cheating the extinguishing pall of life's cold breaths. And the glow had a focus and the focus was filtered through meshes of hope and despair, and guiding it was a longing and an aching that would sometimes stop her heart and leave her in a vacuum that would suck to pull out her soul.

So then there was Stefan. Stefan also existed on the periphery, but by choice. Stefan was different, but in a different way, and his difference was quietly accepted, and while no-one clapped his back or joke-tackled him in the corridors, no-one asked from the seat behind why he didn't just kill himself. He was dark and his voice had the edge of central Europe but you couldn't quite put your finger on where, and if you asked, he would purposely reply in Romanian, or possibly Polish, or Russian, and sometimes it would be a single word and sometimes a sentence, but never with any deference to the questioner.

And it came to be Stefan who drew the focus of Phyllis' tiny ember. He spoke to her once when they were in a queue and he was behind her and he said, 'You are Phyllis,' and she turned and slightly raised her head and then her gaze so she saw first his chin, then mouth, then eyes to see he was looking at her gravely. The sentence was a statement and no reply would come and she turned back and the queue advanced, and then they were all inside and when she thought of, 'And you are Stefan,' he was on the other side of the room and doing something with his bag, and what could she do? Limp somehow across the separating abyss to stand flat-chested and shapeless grey before him and say, 'And you are Stefan?'

But it's funny how a single, 'You are Phyllis,' can start something and impart to it such a force and intensity it possesses a momentum generated by nothing but itself and builds without the consent or wish or involvement of the receiver. Three words that somehow held a universe of meaning, 'You are Phyllis,' a silly, obvious statement of self-evidence that carried with it a terrible yet wonderful hidden baggage, to be opened time and again and inspected afresh with each new exposure.

And it came that in the evenings, at her desk in a small pool of lamplight in her darkened bedroom, Phyllis would write in her special book and it was as though she were speaking straight to him, and while the name Stefan was never put to the paper, it was all to him. And her quiet self would become alight and her virgin parts grow damp and the turmoil of the pleasure and pain would swirl and engulf her and she would have no lumpen leg or downcast frown and she would cross the room's abyss and stand before him on proper legs and say, 'And you are Stefan.'

And when she found herself filling with him she wrote him poetry, in secret, on sheets of yellow paper, and in the night her special books filled and filled and spilled to form a library, and the tiny ember of light became fanned and glowed brighter.

And she wrote in her book, 'Tonight I'm dancing with you and as I've never danced before you gently lead me with your body. You have an arm about my waist to hold me, and as you dance me against you I gain confidence and twirl and spin and I rise on my toes which have never been risen upon before. My head is rested on your shoulder and I fill with your scent as we spin and turn on a chequered floor that stretches bare and away to the four infinities and we are as alone together as no two souls have ever been in all of time.'

And she wrote on her yellow paper,

'I would be your carrion goose,

Fallen down from the skies and laid before you.

And lying there I would open as your white wings flap above me,

And you would pick at my flesh and pluck at my organs,

And I would reach a terrible and trembling orgasm,

Flapping and twisting beneath you,

While my own wings reach to embrace you,

Now, once, in the final moment.'

And the poem was tucked inside a special book which she hugged to herself before tucking it away and undressing and turning out the lamp and getting into bed, perhaps, in her mind, to nuzzle his cheek through the last moments before sleep.

And as sometimes happens, perhaps not entirely by accident and perhaps not entirely by conscious design, something slipped. Through a dreary class on the faded history of a far-past war she felt the familiar stir of something inside and on a yellow page she wrote two stanzas and, having finished, moved to tuck the paper away. But it slipped from her hand and, catching the air, slid away and behind her and it was noticed by Lucy in the seat behind who trod it to the floor with a quick foot, and picked it up. Of course she read it and she knew the focus of the thing and she found it funny because it was a piece of lumpen Phyllis' soul bared before her and she laughed out loud, both for Phyllis and herself, causing Mr Atchison from his desk at the front to ask what was so funny, Lucy Wills. Phyllis, being who she was, and knowing who she was, was powerless in the situation and she sat, rigidly facing front as Lucy, leaning forward, read whispered lines in a way that tore the verses, ripped and abraded them with a laughing mockery.

When school ended for the day, amid the exodus, Phyllis saw across the concrete yard Lucy approaching Stefan, and when Lucy was sure Phyllis was looking and noting, she took a folded yellow page from her pocket and, pointing at Phyllis, she handed it to him with a laugh. Phyllis saw Lucy skip away and Stefan open the page and she felt herself redden and burn and she turned and, more than ever conscious of her dragging limp, strode her awkward way towards another gate on far side of the yard and once free of the crowd and alone she stopped and beat her fists against her so flat chest and cried and the sobs tore so deep as to stop her breath entirely.

She didn't write that night. There was nothing to tell her special books. She had around her a dark, aching emptiness and she floated lost in waters so far beyond rescue and from which all hope had been torn.

And that night, in his room, Stefan unfolded the yellow page and read again the verses Phyllis had lost.

'I am just here and you are all around me

I sense you in the air and you burst me aflame

I am here and feel your soul as it slides beside me

To nudge and nuzzle as it circles and entwines

To finally enter me so I explode in wrenching spasms of pleasure.

And my dampness is on you

And we are still, but for the gentle panting

And there is nothing else, no universe, no pain,

No taunting doubts,

And for once the torment's open welts are closed and healed,

And I'm happy here, with and in you, in the gentle moment.'

And the next day, after they'd queued into the morning class, Stefan, from across the room, caught Phyllis' downward eyes and he raised them to his and when they locked he took from his pocket the yellow page and held it out to show her, then, with their eyes still caught together, he stepped out and beyond the abyss and crossed the room and, standing face to face, they said each other's name.

Paris Portingale

***

Narrator Magazine began in the Blue Mountains in 2010 as an opportunity for local writers - amateurs and professionals alike - to exhibit their works. It's free to submit to, affordable to advertise in, and encourages friendly competition with a secret judge and a People's Choice prize.

Find out more about Narrator Magazine at

<http://www.narratormagazine.com.au/>

Published by MoshPit Publishing

www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/

