Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

So…I have to write for five minutes without stopping, but I don’t know where to start.

I have always written in times of stress and times of angst…perhaps it’s a form of praying.  And it’s never meant for anybody else.

And right now there is so much stuff inside me and swirling around me that deciding where to start is impossible.  I think that I could write so much stuff about so many things…things that are massively important to me and that I find all-consuming…but in the end maybe it is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.  Everyone else here today seems so confident and experienced and know what they want to write and in what form.  They know why they are here…I’m not sure why I am.

I feel like I’d like to write …what? A novel, a blog, a short story?  I want to tell my story…but is it that interesting?  I want other women to hear me…there are some things that I want to shout from the rooftops.  But I don’t want my children to read this stuff…or if they do, I don’t want them to know it is me.  Yet, my children are the people that would learn the most…my children are the ones I most need to hear me.  But I am scared of their reactions, scared of how it would affect them, scared of how their father would use it to influence them…and like every other area of my life, my children and their well-being dominate my actions.

I could write about being married to an emotional and verbal bully.   I could write about how this bullying and manipulation is so insidious, so cunning, that you don’t even know you’re suffering.  I could write about how this marriage, this life, seemed perfect…but was so not!  I could write about how my life over the last four years has changed into something completely unrecognisable from the previous so-called perfect life.

I could write about my beautiful first-born child – my son – that blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub who is a man now, and is ashamed of me and barely speaks to me.  I could write about how that has broken my heart, but I cannot fix it.

I could write about the pain of watching my children suffer from their father’s bullying and manipulative  words, but being powerless to stop it, and unable to protect them any more. I could write about the tears I shed every second week when they leave me to be with him.  I could write about how even though I have found the courage to leave this man, two years later he still dominates my life, and I live in constant fear.  Not fear of violence, but fear of losing my children because of his influence and indoctrination of them.  Everything I do, everything I say is something to be used against me.

I could write about how I don’t know where I fit in, who I want to be, how I have changed my identity in a way…yet I am not sure what that new identity even is.

I want to warn other women about being emotionally blackmailed, financially controlled, and verbally bullied…so much is said at the moment about domestic violence, but there’s a whole range of other behaviour that women need to save themselves from…that they need to recognise.

I could write about how totally lost and demoralised I feel without a career, without an income, unable to support myself.  I could write about how angry I am with the system for not being able to protect me financially, and with my former husband for being a liar, a cheat, and a fraud and leaving me, the mother of his five children, with debt that is not mine, and with no house to live in or money to live on.

I could write about how much I hate living two lives…my kids’ week, and my partner’s week…and never the twain do meet.  Two years of this, and I can’t see it ending.

I could write about shame and guilt and letting down your children, and feeling as though you have tricked everybody.   I could write about trying to let go of 25 years of thinking one way, and how long that is taking me.  I could write about the overwhelming desire to just live how I want to…without my actions or way of life impacting on ANYBODY.

OR…I could write about love – real, perfect, beautiful, forever, can’t-live-without love – that I never knew existed.  I could write about the joy that I didn’t think was possible.  I could write about the trust that I have never given or received.  I could write about feeling cherished, and safe, and respected and protected.   I could write about how that love and joy and trust has turned my life upside down.  I could write about how a kind, GOOD man has changed my world.  I could write about how despite all the pain, I don’t regret finally choosing respect and kindness over control and criticism.  I could write about how, above all, I don’t regret choosing love over fear.

But the five minutes is up and I don’t know where to start.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Are you fucking kidding me? I thought it but I didn’t say it. I’m 37 and have never let out an expletive more severe than ‘shit’ in front of my parents.

Dad looks like he’ll cry. Mum looks down and my brother plays with his cutlery.
I look over at my husband. He’s known for a week.

I’ve stopped breathing.

I grew up in an Italian family, the typical southern European migrant story that starts with grandparents arriving with their kids on a boat in the mid 50’s and 60 years later we’re still holding onto the home made sauce making, gesticulating and yelling most communications and one remaining Nonna that speaks no English. Just as well I speak two dialects as well as ‘proper’ Italian better than my 28 other cousins so ‘Nons’ and I can hang.

Chubby tears roll out of the corners of his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter dad.. I don’t care.. Dad, please..”  I just want him to stop being upset and I want him to stop talking.  I’m tearing at him tearing.

Mums knuckles are white as she strangles her luncheon serviette.

“No.. please, daughter.. let me finish…” – throat clear, deep breath, long exhale.

“We tried for a few years to have children after we got married. When we realised we just couldn’t, we applied to adopt and we got you. You were 6 weeks old and you made us the happiest people ever by coming to live with us.”

My dad puts his arm around mum and I see two frightened people terrified by their secret given breath.

“Who else knows about this?”

“Everyone. Everyone has always known… you can’t just turn up with a 6 week old baby…and..”

“Even cousins?”

“Yes darling – they’ve always known too… we all just never wanted you feel like an outsider.. you are part of us… no one has ever loved you less… in fact we..”

I loose the ability to absorb sentences but take in ‘she was 15’,  ‘maybe Maltese’.

Everyone has always known…

I wait for the hidden camera crew to jump out or the anaesthetist to bring me back.
No one’s coming.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Once upon a time a young boy moved from the city to the country to live with his grandparents.  He had never been to the country before, and had no idea what to expect.  The hustle and bustle of the city streets were left behind, and was replaced by the tall gum trees and the orchards of fruit farms surrounding his new town.  The culture shock was palpable.  He knew nobody, and he knew nothing of country life.  He left behind his friends and cousins, and he was unhappy.

This poor child became a recluse.  He began to stay in his room rather than join his grandparents in front of the television, reading his grandmother’s and father’s old books instead. He refused to go to school, and he didn’t want to make new friends.  Not that he could anyway, the kids in the country thought him weird and gave him a hard time.  Then one day he woke up with a revelation.  He thought, if I can’t beat them, I’ll join them.

He rummaged through this father’s old box of clothes that he himself wore as a young boy and dressed in the frilliest shirt he could find, and attached braces to his breeches.  He was going to be a country boy, even for just one day.  In no way did he think this attire was abnormal.  As stated before, he knew nothing of country living.

He gathered his courage, swallowed his pride and followed his grandfather out to the farm.  “I’m going to be a farmer, just like you, Grandpa!”, he proudly declared.  He thought he looked like a real farmer’s boy, but his grandfather took one look and burst into giggles.  Crestfallen, the little boy looked down, and was almost defeated.  Little did he know his grandfather had laughed at the boy’s father thirty years earlier.  Dad just liked frilly shirts.

“Well, come on then.  Let’s tend to the chickens,” said Grandpa.  The little boy dutifully followed him, not knowing what was in store.

Out in the far corner of the field, the chicken pen was tucked into the corner.  Because of that, the little boy could not see what would await him until he reached the pen. He was too busy looking at his feet, anyway, fascinated by the way his heavy boots crunched the frosty grass in the early morning dew.  He heard the creak of the gate as his grandfather entered the chicken coup, and then he saw them.  Twenty, maybe even thirty, hungry hens gathered around his grandfather’s bucket.  Wow, they were bigger than he expected!  Wide eyed, he watched in horror as the hens clucked and clambered for their feed.

He did not realise just how scared he would be of these little creatures.  Well, to you and I they are little, but to the boy, they were monstrous.  Covered in fur, with spindly orange legs all scaley, with what he imagined were sharp claws scratching the dirt.  Their bright red combs flopped about underneath their imposing beaks as well as on the top of their heads, placed inbetween their beady little eyes.  He’s never thought he’d encounter anything quite as bizarre and prehistoric.  And because of that, his courage died in the arse and turned into blind terror.  One hen sensed this, and almost seemingly decided to take the piss out of his frilly collar.  That’s what the little boy perceived, anyway.  The hen just wanted the corn on the cob in his hand.  The little boy retreated, burrowing his frightened faced into the wall of the shed, while the hungry hen clucked and garbled until finally the little boy let out a blood curdling scream.

Thinking the boy was hurt or in serious trouble, the grandfather quickly fled the pen to find his young grandson, in breeches, braces and frilly shirt, clinging to the post of the shed while the hen clucked for her food.  His giggle from earlier returned, more raucously than before, and he bent over with laughter.

“She’s just hungry, that’s all!”  He managed to say through his rolls of laughter.  “Give her the corn!”

The boy threw the corn at the hen’s feet, and she hungrily began pecking.  Soon she was joined by other hungry hens.  Who can’t resist a good cob of corn!

“I thought she was attacking me,” the boy slobbered through thick tears.

“Don’t be silly!  They’re harmless! Look.”  Grandpa reached down to the eager little hen, and rubbed her back between her wings.  She instantly retreated, crouching down with wings oustretched

Fascinated, the boy stared.  “What is she doing?” he asked incredulously.

“That’s what I call the panic squat.  They do this if you pat them or touch them.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.  She’s just a bit scared.  Like you.”  He then picked her up and placed her back in the coup.

The young boy realised he had a lot to learn if he was going to be a country kid.  He also realised he was not the only one scared by the unknown.  These chickens could teaching him a thing or two, he decided, while he threw more corn cobs into the coup.

I have recently returned to Melbourne after spending nearly five years living in a small country community.  It took me a good 12 months or so to get over the culture shock of transitioning from city slicker to country bumkin, and it wasn’t until that stage that I thought, go with it, enjoy country life and embrace it.  I was surprised at how much this made a difference to my time there.  Initially I was resentful of my life being up ended, but when I decided to change my outlook, things got much better and less overwhelming.  The boy’s story is a simplified version of my own.

Katrina’s on twitter  @kat_71

More brilliant work from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

1. Untitled by Hils

I went to write a poem about you,
Not for you, but for me.
I thought if I could express how I was was feeling it would prove invaluable therapy.
But as I was shaking out my mental thesaurus waiting for the words to fall.
I realised that I could sum it up with just four. You. Are. A. Cunt.
That’s all.

2. Two Sides To Every Story – by Hils
Remind me not to go back to the north side of the river,
Those wankers need to put their latte fund towards a full length mirror.
Someone shoot the hairdresser who’s been styling in the dark,
Uncross your eyes and check your scissors ’cause something’s damn well missed the mark.
Since when did symmetry get too main stream and what’s with all the beards?
I feel like I’m surrounded by Ned Kelly’s, but I’m attracting glares like I’m the one who’s weird!
On the north side there’s never been a better time to own a shop that sells red lippy or specs,
But there’s never been a worse time to run a BP or Caltex
Because a vintage bicycle is the only way to get around the town
And there’s no chance you’ll get breathalised on your way home after throwing  several ciders down.
Us silly southsider’s in our motor cars listen to music on the charts
With no appreciation for hard rubbish or the arts.
Our bright new clothes hot off the Bangladesh iron press
Are no match for a salvos mustard coloured retro dress.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

What if there were no mistakes?  What if everything was right?  What if I wrote his name upon this page?

Aiden.

“Are you writing about me?”

“How can I be?  I don’t know you.  You are just a name and some dark brown eyes.”

Silence.

I look into these dark brown eyes.  He doesn’t know what to make of me.  But I know what to make of him.  Anything I like.

He comes back for his coffee cup.

“You just wrote me name again, didn’t you?” he accuses.

“No.”  I’m lying in a way, because I know what he means.  I’m getting off on a technicality.

“You did, you wrote my name.  I can feel it.  I can see it across your face.”

“No, I wrote ‘He comes back for his coffee cup.’” I confess.  I’ve always been a terrible liar.

He looks down at the coffee cup in his hands and wonders what the hell is going on.

“Why are you here?” he says to me.

“Same reason as you.  Where are you going with your coffee cup?”

“If I tell you are you going to write it down?”

I look down at my page and back at him,

“Probably.”

He turns with his coffee cup and walks into the kitchen.  He doesn’t say anything.  But I write it down anyway.  He doesn’t like me writing about him.  He thinks it’s strange.  What could I possibly have to say about him.  I only know his first name and that he is here with me and twenty-three other people.  Court Ordered Anger Management, enforced for the verbal abuse of a Traffic Control Officer.

He deserved it.

I don’t normally yell and I don’t know where it came from, the power behind the rage.  But once I started I couldn’t stop.  I was too scared to stop.  Scared to think what might happen when the yelling and adrenaline subsided and I had to look at what I’d done.  Shaking.

The Traffic Control Officer burst into tears.

He was a rotund, blonde man of about forty-five, but with the simple face of someone much younger.  He hadn’t cried in twenty-three years, when his childhood dog died.  He had loved that dog when he was a boy, but neglected it now that he was having sex with actual girls.  The dog stayed in the family home with his parents and died of a broken heart, realising that his soul-mate had moved on without a backward glance.

I’ve no idea if any of this is true, but this is the story I told myself as I watched a grown man in an unflattering grey uniform look me in the eye and cry messy, trying-not-to-cry tears.  Tears oozed from his eyes as snot bubbled from his nose.  Saliva escaped out of the corners of his mouth as he sucked in and spluttered out.  Noisy.  Undignified.

I stood and watched.  Impassive.  Feeling the adrenaline drop from my head, through my throat, heart and guts down to my feet like a lift with it’s cables cut.

I watched this soggy, sodden mess of a man with fear in his eyes as my heart rate gradually slowed.  It wasn’t me he was afraid of.  It was himself and the messy despair pouring out of his face from a place so deep it can’t be named.

I watched.  I thought of him and his dog.  And I wanted to slap him.  I wanted to hit him with an open palm right across his puff-muddy cheek.  Instead I took my open palm and laid it gently across my seven and a half months pregnant belly.

Are you shocked?  Do you think a pregnant woman should be full of love and light and never angry?  Or is that my own projection?  Love and light.  And anger.  Sure.  Why not?  Aren’t we all a mess of contradictions like this.

Especially in the face of a stout blonde man issuing an infringement in the time it took me to wade to the metre and put my money in it.  I told him, as he taped the infringement to my windscreen.

“I’ve just paid for two hours.” I said ungraciously, knowing what was coming and resenting it like crazy.

He said it was too late, the infringement had been issued and now it was on me to write a letter to appeal.  And that just seemed ridiculous and time consuming and unjust and can’t you see I’m fucking pregnant.

I wanted to shout at him, so I did.  And he dissolved into his own unspoken grief leaving just a murky puddle that I stepped over.  I wasn’t sorry.

I don’t know how anyone found out about it.  Perhaps witnesses reported it.  Or perhaps the puddle filed a report.  In any case I was ordered to attend an Anger Management program and there was Aiden.

“Did you just write my name again?” he said, peering over my shoulder.

“I did.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” his dark brown eyes pleading, but also a touch angry.

“Why are you here Aiden? And why are you wearing shorts with bare feet?  It’s freezing and the heating’s inadequate.  Is it that boy thing where, like preschoolers you just don’t feel the cold?

“It is.  And I like to feel the grass between my toes.”

We were standing face to face, so close my giant belly skimmed at his.  The room was fluorescent-lit with linoleum floors and plastic chairs.  Aiden was mad and I was in love.

“Why are you here?  What did you do?” I asked again with a conspiratorial tone.

I wanted to hear his story, to see his eyes sparkle as he told it.  To watch his toes tangled in the grass that wasn’t there.

“Nothing.” he said and sipped his coffee, the cup cradled between both hands warming them, his toes silently seeking grass in the linoleum.  He looked at me and sipped and swallowed.  And I looked at him

“Nothing?” I challenged.

“Nothing.” he glinted, “I like to come here and drink the coffee.”

The class resumed, the instructor returned, AGGRESSION he wrote on the white board and swiped an underline.  I took my seat behind Aiden and watched the back of his neck.  He turned and asked,

“Did you just write my name?”

I wasn’t sorry about the puddle and I wasn’t sorry about the father of the baby inside me.  Both had to disappear because with Aiden it was love.  The bare legged-boy and me with my giant soon-to-be-a-baby belly.

No fear, no doubt only this perfect, essential moment and a lifetime in which to write Aiden.

“Are you sure about this?  About having someone else’s baby?” I asked as I gripped his hand

A month and a half had passed since we had met at Anger Management.

The labour had started slowly, euphorically a few hours before.  I didn’t wake him.  This part of the journey was just between me and my baby.  In fact the entire birth-journey was.  Aiden would just be a spectator, thought he didn’t know that yet.  I mean, what can a partner do?  Watch, encourage, support and be confident in the knowledge that this is not about you.

I gripped his hand, squishing knuckles together, contracting and breathing and being transported.

“This child belongs to no-one.” he said by way of reply.

“But you’ll be the one she calls Dad?  And raise her to always be barefoot?”

“I will.”

It was as close to a vow as we ever got, non-traditionalists at heart

You can’t tie down man who is permanently barefoot.  And who would want to?

I took comfort in those dark brown eyes as the labour intensified.  I worked hard and enjoyed a knowing that I had found love and it had found me.

***

Kate McTernan writes weekly at onesmalllifeblog.blogspot.com.au and tweets @onesmalllife

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

A young girl sits on a grassy hill, feeling the sun on her skin.

There are scabs on her knees, and her hair is in pigtails.

Beside her is a round, tin.  Empty of chocolates, full of dollar notes.

There is a train in the distance, the whistle blows.

She tenses, knowing what is to come.

“Don’t tell”, he whispers.

His fingers hurt.

The train roars by, her head pounds.

They walk back to the house together; he’s carrying the chocolate tin.

Her fingers are wrapped around a crumpled dollar note.

Don’t tell, he whispered.

The rest, she made up on her own.

“Don’t tell, or your mum will hate you”.

“Don’t tell, or something terrible will happen”.

The nightmares come later.

A train whistle blows, the danger is close.

All the children, hiding in the kitchen cupboard.

She can’t stay quiet, a whimper escapes.

Danger comes, and kills her mum and dad, then sends parcels filled with pieces of them wrapped up in brown paper; ears and noses and fingers, bloody and terrifying.

She wakes, night after night, crying, terrified, and alone.

“Don’t tell”.  He whispered.

The rest she made up herself.

The words did more damage than his fingers.

She told, eventually, of that.

But the words stayed, and they stole her voice.

Now that girl is all grown up (apparently).

And she wants to be able to tell.

Simple things, about how she feels, and who she is.

She’ll start with a whisper, and keep whispering.

Until she learns to trust her voice again.

And then she will roar.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

I once lived in a very old flat in London. There was nothing charming or historical about this place. This building was of the pigeon infested decaying slum by the railway line variety. My tenure started with great hope and ended awkwardly with a horror week involving a shit volcano, a broken heart, angry acrobats and firemen, among other things.

Number 2 Bedford St was so decrepit that it didn’t have the plumbing to accommodate an upstairs toilet. Instead, it contained an electrical device which manually munched up all solids before sending them on their way down the water pipes. Every time I flushed the toilet, it emitted an unholy moan followed by the sort of metallic screech which evoked the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Nevertheless I was naively untroubled by this faecal processing setup and happy to simply get on with my life as a sassy and sophisticated lady of London.

How was I to know I was soon to be beset by a series escalating series of disasters in that dilapidated abode.

One evening I was settling back into the bath, ready to enjoy a can of Strongbow and a few fags when I heard a terrible wheezing moan. Next, three loud bangs. The source of these sounds was unmistakeable. This was a tiny bathroom and the toilet was extremely close to the bath, but before I could find the ashtray or drop my can, the contents of the bog burst forth like a Vesuvius of minced shit. I didn’t stand a chance…

I will gloss over the horrors of that night and move on to the part where my landlord refused to see the urgency of repairing the pooh muncher OR the bathroom carpet (which still bore the damp scars and smells of ‘the incident’). He felt that given there was a perfectly good toilet standing outside the front door of another tenant’s flat on the floor below, there was no need to rush me a new loo. Instead, I was to use this loo on the downstairs landing, shielded only by a piece of string and a frankly inadequate curtain. Without going into too much detail about the hot Austrian dude who lived in the flat I was expected to crap outside, I can proudly say I learned bladder and bowel control skills during that period which have stood me in good stead until this very day.

During this happy time, I had a neighbour in the flat next door. He was very cute, very young and very short. Imagine the small cute one in any boy band then shrink him to half his size again. That was Kris. Anyway, Kris and had been sleeping together. To be honest it just seemed handy to me at the time, but he was very keen. He was 20 I was about 40. Surprisingly I even felt comfortable being seen with him in public, because contrary to my embarrassment about our height difference, nobody looked twice at us. They seemed to accept us as a couple and I thanked Londoners yet again for their cosmopolitan inclusive acceptance.

The day after the shit shower one of the cleaners at work seemed more excited than usual to see me. He beckoned me over and said:

“I saw you and your young lad at the video shop on the weekend!”

“My young lad?”

“Yes, your boy, your little lad, your SON!”

The realisation hit me hard. Everyone in London assumes Kris is my bloody SON?  They don’t stare because they think he is a tiny child and I am his mother? They don’t imagine for a minute we are a couple? Goddammit why can’t a sexy older lady take a tiny young lover? Stereotyping  intolerant London bastards!

I decided it was time to act like an adult and end it with Kris. I didn’t do this. Instead, that night I slipped a note under his door saying this had to end. He did not take it well. When he got home he banged and banged on my door. I decided to hide and resolved to avoid him forever. Sadly this avoidance situation made the timing of toilet trips downstairs even more difficult to manage. Soon his love turned to hate and he demonstrated this daily by banging his tiny fists on my wall and shouting at me if I turned the TV on, or opened a window, or even opened a door or a can of Strongbow.  Kris and I were not in a good place. Literally or emotionally.

Days passed and life seemed to be getting less crazy, when one evening, the electricity in my flat went down. This wasn’t unusual and I was confident that as soon as the dripping electrical wire in the hall dried out, all would be back to normal. I just needed to get on with life until everything sorted itself out, so I decided to prepare a lovely hot bath, ignore the shit smell and enjoy a relaxing candlelit evening. I had a gas stove, so I put every pot and every pan on to boil water. I even put a casserole dish full of water in the oven.  I had constructed a system of duckboards over the crappy carpet and was systematically going back and forth filling the bath and refilling the pots.

All this water carrying was busy work and it took me a while to realise the smoke alarm in the hall was beeping. At the time, I had never lived in a house with a smoke alarm, so I didn’t know what to do. I ran out to the hall and was relieved to see some people running up from downstairs. Oddly, they, like Kris, were extremely small people.  There were three of them and they were dressed in what appeared to be acrobatic attire. This explained the loud bumps and grunts and maybe even the pan pipes I’d been hearing for months. I was living above the Peruvian acrobatic squad!

“Oh my god!!” I babbled excitedly as they came up the stairs towards me.

“I’m so glad you came up. It’s the smoke alarm! Do you think it’s a fire? Are the electrical wires on fire? What should we do? Can you smell smoke? I think I can smell smoke? Should we call the fire brigade?”

“Smoke” replied the Lead Acrobat, gesturing toward my flat, from whence clouds of steam were now wafting.

“No no, that’s just steam. For my bath”

“SMOKE” repeated the Leader gruffly, and walked inside. Then Acrobat Two stepped forward and with a contemptuous glare pushed past me into my flat.

Acrobat Three then stepped politely past, nodding gently in the direction of my flat and repeating softly and kindly: “Smoke”.

I followed them into my kitchen where they all stood, looking about them in amazement at the steamy situation they beheld. They all huddled and spoke rapid Spanish to each other. Then the leader announced:

“Not smoke” and they all filed grimly out. Acrobat Three gave me a slight apologetic shrug behind Boss Acrobat’s back, and they were gone.

I was on my own.

I now believed I really could smell smoke, so I decided to call the fire department and ask for their advice. I tried to stress that it was not an emergency, but of course all my talk about smoke alarms and smell of smoke was right up their alley. She announced that she would ‘Dispatch a Unit”.

I asked: “Does that mean firemen are coming?”

And before she could utter the‘s’ in ‘yes’ I’d slammed down the phone and was rushing into my bedroom to change into something fireman worthy and some lipstick.

Soon sirens could be heard approaching and then two fire engines appeared and blocked the street below. Six firemen in full regalia stomped up the stairs. They immediately stopped the fire alarm, and then we all stood in the hallway sniffing the air for any signs of smoke. It soon became apparent that there really WAS a smell of smoke, and it was coming from Kris’s flat! Before I could say: “Maybe I should call him?” they took a huge battering ram and with a one-two -three they knocked his door off his hinges.

We all crowded in. Firemen are highly trained in these matters and identified the source of the smell immediately. It was ten pairs of Kris’s child-sized underpants gently scorching on a drying rack in front of the heater. At that point they all sniggered and shook their heads, a fireman turned off the heater, and they all made to file out.

“Um…excuse me…what about my neighbour’s door?”  I rather nervously asked.

One of the fireman replied: “Oh we’ll put a card on the door and if he has any questions he can give us a call at the station”. They stuck up a cross of tape, and they were gone. I stood there in shock. How the hell was I going to explain this to Kris? He hates me already, and now I’ve had his door knocked down by the bloody fire brigade!

Then I decided to do the only thing I could. I walked calmly into my flat, locked the door, got into bed and put a pillow over my head so I couldn’t hear him arrive home.

I was going to deny all knowledge and keep out of sight until I could find another dump to call home.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Something was read to me today that sparked an intense emotion inside.

A piece of writing I was quite envious of…….Its 10 years since my Dad has passed and things remain the same.

I remember sitting in the funeral parlour looking at my dads coffin thinking, well Dad, like everything in life you left it up to them to organise this, I would have put on a cabaret for you, but you never did speak out, you never did live a life true to yourself. And I was always left in the background.

Well heres the God awful truth…. You lived your whole life as a lie. You were a gay man pretending to live the hetro dream. That’s your choice believe it or not! You were unaware of anything that was occurring in your own home. I don’t blame you for not seeing the sexual abuse from your son, that’s some sneaky shit….but you where there when we were all bullied by him. You didn’t leave because he told you not to!  Your wife, my mother, was and still is a cold woman. And you where much the same…fuck Dad , that’s not good enough. Ive always defended you but you don’t deserve it.

What you all did was not good enough.

And 10 years on everything remains the same. All of it, except me. ….I told the truth and no one speaks to me and that’s ok. The one thing I did learn from you is to always be true to yourself. …..This is your base. This where you set off from all of lifes journeys , you cant go wrong. I have a beautiful family, a loving partner and 4 divine children. I have all that I need. …I will continue on being true to me. And I’m sure I will continue to enjoy life.

Life is a cabaret you know Dad …you should have come joined the cabaret….. wanker……….

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer. 

Once upon a time, beneath a sky of velvet midnight blue, a girl stood alone outside in the cold crisp air, gazing upwards into the endless darkness. Her gaze was blank and without recognition, she had forgotten why she came.  She did not see nature’s night time canvas of the magnificent sky blanketed from horizon to horizon, or the milky way so brilliant it seemed within a hands grasp, or the silhouettes of dark hills in the north and the gum trees illumined in the fields by a clear reflection from the moon.

Her vision was so clouded by a shattered heart that she no longer admired in wonder at the array of constellations in the sky, or searched for the stars that glimmered more brightly than others. She no longer welcomed dusk – to go outside and seek the evening star upon which to count her blessings, then close her eyes and slowly breathe in the beautiful scent emanating from the earth, the plants, the trees, the air, from all of which nature gave.

She felt numb, not from the cold air, but from heartbreak. Her insides hurt, her heart felt like crumpled dry paper which gave paper cuts in her chest when she inhaled. She just keep bleeding inside.

One day, she had thought, this pain will leave.  But the pain was embedded so deep it was an insidious companion, a constant reminder of what was gone forever.  She had lost hope, had lost faith in her self and she did not know that she was dying from a broken heart.

Her vacant reverie was broken by a warm muzzle nudging at her calf, she looked down and sighed, then slowly went into the house to fetch the lead,  her dog trotted with anticipation close to her monotonous stride.

There was one star in the sky in which an angel lived.  All the angels have people to watch over and this angel knew of the girl’s heartfelt love of nature and her evening contemplations of gratitude, he knew of her softness.  The angel also knew how much she had endured in her life and had kept a vigilant watch as the girl had rallied, strengthened and recovered in previous times.  However, the angel now felt acutely the depth of her sadness and wept tears of compassion.  Because of that, the angel chose to invoke a power to help this girl.

The moon was so bright this night the dog decided to walk the girl.  She obligingly attached the lead to his collar and he impatiently dragged her back outside to walk the tracks in the fields close by.  The dog had been walked less and less in recent times, the girl’s demeanour touched him also.   From above, it did not appear to be a walk of reciprocal enjoyment, the dog was continually lunging forward and tugging against a lead which was not keeping up with his excited pace, the girl at the other end did not share his enthusiasm.  The abundant scents overtook any skerrick of restraint the dog may have had and one tug met with no resistance – his collar had snapped and he was off!

And because of that, the girl had to run, chasing the sound of the barking dog into lightly falling snow, ascending an unfamiliar path, each breath of cold air punctuating sharp pains into her chest.  Her anxiety increased as in the distance the dog’s barking became fainter and fainter.  She strained to listen and follow his barking, now panicking that he may have fallen into any of the unused mine shafts in the hills and gullies nearby.  Her climb became more laborious and agonising, but she must find him, to lose her little dog too would be unbearable.

She called out the dog’s name again and again, and kept running, the path becoming narrower and rocky. She reached the top of the incline and though she had been running, she now stood shivering in the coldness.   She looked around and noticed that the moonlight illumined the snow on the ground around her.  Suddenly a bark pierced the air from close by and she stumbled in its direction, but tripping upon a rock hidden beneath the snow she fell heavily, collapsing, her head hit something hard on the ground.  She called out the dog’s name, then could not stop her mind from drifting, snow falling softly and prettily – yet cold upon her face as she lost consciousness.

Something warm, but rough upon her cheek, and again, on her nose, cheeks, eyes – yuk what is that? Go away! The dog kept licking her face, trying to rouse her until eventually she slowly opened her eyes and began to sit up.  Her movements halted as her eyes regained focus and she struggled to make out what stood nearby.  The dog did not leave her side and was clearly unperturbed but the unusual presence of another.

The angel stood far enough away not to frighten.  He was actually quite smug at his ability to manifest as human, but clearly this ability did not apply to his dress sense.

Though slightly disorientated, she felt no danger and her clarity returned.  It was still cold, snow no longer fell and what looked to be a timber outdoor toilet was near some bare trees.  The man smiled warmly at her, the peace and safety he radiated was palpable.  But, he was so inappropriately dressed for the weather – this she could not understand.  He wore leather boots which came up to his bare knees.  A short sleeved, long t-shirt came down to his middle thighs, which were also bare, a leather belt buckled at his waist.  Around his neck on thin strips of leather hung a drink flask and a coiled trumpet, similar to that which you would see in pictures of angels.  He held something in each hand, maybe a torch, and could that really be a grenade in the other?  He wore a pith helmet, atop the helmet sat a small black cat and it too was looking at her.

The angel smiled with knowingness – his attire was purposely chosen.  The girl stared, the unexpected sight was beyond comprehension. No words exchanged, then she realised – sometimes things happen in life that, no matter how hard she tried to understand – they were beyond any reasoning or logic, and thus needed to remain not understood.  The more effort she had applied in trying to understand the choice of another gave no resolution, just more sadness.  The dog sat patiently by her side, she gave him a hug, grateful that he was ok.  She glanced around to acknowledge the strangely dressed man – but he was nowhere to be seen.  Her gaze turned skyward – the clouds were shifting and stars appeared.

Gathering herself up she reattached collar and lead to the dog.  Now ready for home she looked around, sighed a big sigh, smiled, then slowly inhaled, breathing deeply the beautiful clean fresh air.  The sky was clear, her heart no longer hurt.