Once upon a time there was a little ginger cat called Doris.

“Mi-yow?” she practiced as she questioned her reflection. What kind of feline are you? Come ON Doris!

“Mawwwww. Purrrhhhhhhhrrrr. Krrrrrrr.” Goddamnit. What the fuck was that?

Doris hissed at herself, flailing her paws in the air as she splayed across the chaise lounge. It’s hopeless. A cat who can speak, but can’t meow. I’m some kind of freak, maybe I should just join the circus!

Everyday, she endured the same morning routine. Get up, get dressed, then get undressed. Cats shouldn’t wear frocks or brush their hair. I mean, lick their paws. Gahhh! This isn’t meant to be so hard! Stop overthinking it, Doris. Just BE. Where are your instincts, woman?! Why can’t you be more CATTY.

Because of this inability to connect with her authentic feline nature, Doris often found herself despondent, and the only thing to raise her spirits was a tiny rainbow umbrella that she enjoyed twirling in her paws until the hypnotic rainbow swirl made her so dizzy she would have to retire to her boudoir for a cat nap (every little thing counted towards reaching cat-hood, she supposed). Doris’ recurring melodrama meant that she spent far too much time inside, rather than outside where she might actually meet ‘normal’ cats from whom she could learn something useful.

That is, until the day she met Chad—a sultry Burmese fella who Doris caught staring at her through sparkling chartreuse eyes at the open window.

All of a sudden “meeeee-OWW!!” lept from her throat. Whutttt? What IS this?

“Hrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhh” replied Chad. “Hrrrrrrhhhrhhhhhmmmm hmmmm”.

Well HELLO.

“I AM a cat after all!” Doris declared (but only to herself, for animals shouldn’t say such things out loud), purring solicitously as she nudged against  handsome Chad.

I fell into the perfect family the year I spent in Denmark. They were straight from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen: Far was the local lighthouse keeper; Mor was the local post mistress; the son was a royal guard at the Queen’s palace, complete with bearskin and sabre; and there were three blonde daughters to round it all out. There was a cat (indoors), a dog (outdoors) and a family of hedgehogs who shared the dog’s water bowl. Home in Melbourne, my stepmother liked to call me a cunt; my dad was either stoned or drunk on cask red; and I would go months at a time without seeing my mum. My stepmother’s four cats (indoors) regularly pissed in the house and no-one ever thought to clean it up.

The perfect family lived in a centuries-old farmhouse attached to a barn that a generation ago was a piggery. An orchard on the farm produced apples and a fresh Christmas tree every December, when the ground was covered in snow and the lake was frozen solid. The perfect family gave me a room of my own and 11-year-old Joan (pronounced Yo-ann) put yellow post-it notes all over house for me, each one written with the Danish word for whatever piece of furniture the note was stuck to. When I was Joan’s age, police had kicked our back door down and shone flashlights around my bedroom while I lay shaking under the covers, because dad was threatening suicide again.

20 years has passed since I saw my perfect family. Today I was asked what I would do if I only had six months to live, and why I hadn’t done that thing already. As well as publishing the memoir I am currently editing, the thing I would do is visit my perfect family. When I lived with them as an eager 15-year-old exchange student, Mor taught me how to make frikadeller; passing on the necessity of burning one’s hands with melted butter to ensure the meatballs formed the right shape, molded between the palm and a spoon. At home in Melbourne my stepmother, a cook for a living, gave my dad and I food poisoning on more than one occasion.

The reasons why I hadn’t been back to Denmark, to visit the perfect family who shared so much with me, are all the reasons I’m writing a memoir in the first place. How do I explain my dad’s three marriages to Mor and Far, who celebrated their silver wedding anniversary when I lived with them? Will Jesper, who bought the farmhouse for his own family when Mor and Far downsized, understand that until the age of 30 I’d never lived in one house for longer than 12 months at a time?

The things the perfect family gave me – togetherness, tradition, simplicity – both delighted and destroyed me. I hadn’t known families like that existed outside fairytales. It’s not surprising, really, that, despite being a lesbian, when I met the family of a boy who liked me, I jumped straight in and married him. His family offered me the same thing the perfect family had. They gave me my innocence back.

When I came home from Denmark I lost all control. This time it was substance abuse, mental illness and abusive relationships I fell into. It took many years and a failed marriage I was convinced was going to save me, to regain some of that control. But I just couldn’t make it stick, and when I left my husband, his family and all that they represented, I went spinning once again. I wasn’t built for perfect family life. Innocence wasn’t mine to hold onto.

If I only had six months to live I might call the perfect family; but I won’t be visiting them any time soon. My family now is me, my girlfriend and our two dogs, and I am proud to call them my own.

Kelly’s memoir The Art of Corpulence and Forgetting is about losing innocence, and is currently in the ‘up draft’ phase. You can find her at @kayeebeee.

I seem to have spent all of my life committing to commitment.

This is the thing I have trained myself to be good at. This is the thing I made myself into, to prove them wrong.

As a child, people spent a lot of time telling me I didn’t commit – that I never finished anything. And I suppose it looked that way to them. Certainly, I believed them.

I started knitted scarves, only to undo them and start again, in a different colour or a different pattern or a different width.

I started uni courses.

I started jobs and friendships and art works and conversations.

I never finished any of them.

When I found a person to commit to, I never finished that relationship. This is the life I built, to prove them wrong.

If you asked me, now, what I am good at, I’d say I’m good at exploring. I’m good at wondering. I’m good at thinking. I’m good at introspection.

I’m good at knitting, too. I’m good at beginnings. Lacking commitment to finish gave me plenty of practice.

And I’m good at discovery.

But I recognise that the process of discovery looks a lot like lack of commitment. To me, the two things seem anathema.

While I was committed to a relationship, I lost, it seems, the ability to explore anything other than her.

I lost my curiosity about me.

When I began to write, I felt like myself for the first time in years. I began a novel. I finished it. I began a short story. I finished it.

Suddenly, I wanted to finish everything. In the pages, I discovered myself. I committed to myself. I had to finish what I started, so I could know who I was again.

And in making a commitment to myself, I lost my commitment to her.

I finished something.

I proved them wrong.

FIN

J-L Heylen has a series of lesbian science fiction books beginning with “Wisdom Beyond Her Years”; a steampunk series; and two short stories, all available as eBooks on Amazon, Smashwords, iBooks and other major electronic distribution channels.

She writes blog posts on writing, life, and science fiction at www.jlheylenauthor.com and can be found on facebook at www.facebook.com/jlheylen.

Once upon a time there was the father of a small boy. The boys name was Tom and he lived in a city famous for its industrial smoke and murders. The father was an employee of the local steel mill and daily sent miles of metal through heated machines in a window less factory.

The father and Tom Lived with Amy who was the fathers much younger wife. They leased a small property near the mill, there was no plumbing, and this meager plot of land and the father’s small wage supplemented an adequate life.

Everyday after cleaning the house, washing the food and tending the animals, Amy would routinely force herself to vomit in the bathroom. She was detached and lived in fear, for, every night her husband would beat and rape her.

Tom’s growth as part of this picture went unnoticed. He was a baby, then a child. As the years progressed the layers slid neatly in place and Tom grew, fathoming piece by piece what was happening to his mother. Toms resolve fortified and the dependent child made steel to save his mother.

Because of that steel, it allowed Tom; a very intelligent boy to hatch a plan that would see the end of the tyranny and Tom would get his mother back.

His plan to destroy his father depended on the completion of a project to make a bomb. Tom had all he needed, as leftovers from the war were not hard to find.

He inserted a bomb inside one of the chickens his father would have to kill.

On the planned evening, Toms father returned from work, and headed down the back, to fetch a sick chicken and ends its life.

Tom waited; smoking one of his dads cigarettes and watching with Joy as finally he appeared, chicken under arm.

Tom activated the bomb and bits of his father splattered over the lawn, the dogs promptly cleaned him up

The End

“Dear all,

The other day, while I was perusing an online dating site, I realised that I owed all of the important people in my life an apology.

Every New Year’s Eve my Auntie Maureen and Uncle Fred would have a great big party around the big kidney shaped swimming pool at their house. The ladies wore maxis and kaftans and the men safari suits. The end of one year and the start of the next was the best opportunity there was for a big celebration.

Us kids would stay up in the house most of the time, hanging in front of the television in the family room or playing games in the room next door. From there we could dart out to the kitchen where the maids were preparing the trays of food for the waiters to take out to the adults. We’d sneak a patty or vol-au-vent and beg for a glass of kool-aid. The maids would make a play at shooing us away but they were always good-natured and let us have whatever we wanted as long as there was a steady flow of trays making it out of the kitchen. Every now and then one of the waiters would bring a half empty tray back from the garden into the family room and we’d all greedily grab at whatever goodies were left on it. Even a cold patty was good when it was fancy cocktail size and you could eat heaps of them.

It was 1973 and I was 13 years old. This year, my mum and I had matching maxis. I was pretty excited about that because she was always so glamorous and getting to wear a long dress was an acknowledgment of my growing up. It felt like a real marker that I wasn’t just one of the little kids any more. Mum and I had chosen the style together from a magazine and she’d had her dressmaker recreate it especially for us. Loose and kaftan-y and ever so chic. The neckline and cuffs of mum’s were trimmed in three tones of blue. Mine in three tones of my then very favourite fashion colour: brown. I didn’t appreciate it then but now, in hindsight, I recognise it as the layers of a really good macchiato. You get the idea.

This year was different to all the others in so many ways. This year there was a boy I’d met for the first time just the week before. His family was out visiting auntie and uncle for the holidays. It was a big deal because they lived in America. But not just any America; they’d come from New York. I didn’t know hardly anything about New York, except it was some magical fantasy land that was somehow the most important and exciting place in the world. I knew that I really had no idea what it was about except that it was amazing and different to anything I’d ever known.

This year was different because I got to wear a maxi dress. Because at the party when I went down by the pool with the grown ups one of my uncles asked me to dance. It had never happened before. And when it did it was absolutely the single best and most important thing that had ever happened in my life. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was, well, not a grown up yet, clearly, but a person who was going to be a grown up. And that was thrilling. I felt I’d stepped into the foyer of the adult world and that beyond it was full of promise and new games and a new sense of being.

When another uncle asked me to dance, I knew that I had truly crossed a threshold and I would never be one of the kids again. Now I could boogie with the adults under the moonlight. I tossed my head and felt at once wild abandon and very serious responsibility.

And suddenly, as one track came to an end, at my shoulder was Jason and everything changed in ways I’d never even imagined before. His presence awakened in me something I’d had no concept of. Sure, I’d noticed boys before. But the guys my swim coach would have race against us girls to push us always seemed arrogant and obnoxious in their attempts to assert their physical superiority. And the older brothers of my brother’s friends were remote sporty or drama heroes.

Jason was real and close and interested in me. I’d never felt a boy interested in me before. That he was older and taller and handsome and New York-sophisticated made it all that more exciting.

We danced, apart, to a couple of whatever tracks were big that year. I don’t think I’ve ever remembered what they were. I was consumed by sensations of flying, tingling, excited confusion.

When a slower track started up, another uncle materialised beside us, asking me about school or something, pulling me into everyday reality. As I answered politely, I realised that Jason had slipped away.

We didn’t get close again that night. But as I crawled into bed I reflected on all the ways in which I’d grown up in the space of a few hours. I knew I was no longer the girl who had got dressed for the party. I knew this was the start of a new me. I fell asleep in awe of how different I felt and how full of full of promise this next stage of my life was. And of the excitement of Jason and his smile and his accent and the way he leaned forward when he talked to me.

Sometime in the early afternoon of the next day, my mum, dad, brother and I piled out of the car, back at auntie and uncle’s house. I’d fussed with deciding what to wear in a way I don’t think I ever had before. I’d chosen a favourite halter neck top and striped flares. I was quite sure I wasn’t carrying off the casual chic I was aiming for but I knew I had no idea what would be groovy in New York. I felt a bit of a try-hard klutz but I’d done the best I could with what I had and I was looking forward to seeing Jason.

We all wandered into the house, open as usual, through the entrance hall and into the big lounge room. Auntie and Uncle and a group of other adults were scattered around the room in animated conversations. I joined in the polite hellos as my parents settled in and then wandered outside as I usually did, always wanting to be near the pool.

My breath caught. Jason was in the water, face down, swimming intently. I wanted to wander away before he saw me. I wanted to stay and talk to him. Would it be awkward?

I watched as he got to the end of the pool, stretching out a muscled arm, then pulling his feet up under him and into standing position. He flicked his head and turned around, catching me eye.

I smiled. Nervous.

Languidly, seemingly with no effort at all, he swam over to just below me. He put his hands on the edge of the pool and pushed himself out of the water.

I remember now the rippling muscles in his arms, the droplets of water glistening in the midday sun. I bent down towards him as he pushed up towards me.

And I turned my head just as he pursed his lips. They brushed my burning cheeks just as uncle  called out “Happy New Year, young people” and materialised beside me, an outstretched hand proffering an icy glass of Kool-Aid.

Don’t think I don’t know. How dare you. Don’t think I can’t see what’s happening here. I know exactly what you’re all doing.

Monday. Every one of you mentioned the weekend. Little jabs. A dig here and there. All in on it together. Weekend this, weekend that. Pretending you’d all done separate activities. Avoiding each other’s stories and smiling with that dumb, open look on your faces. I know better than that – you think I can’t see through your lies?

Tuesday. Every single person wearing black shoes except me. Message received, loud and clear. Footstep by footstep. All fucking day. Pushing me around with your shiny fucking shoes.

Wednesday. You were all quiet. You knew I was on to you. You knew I was watching. You were all so fucking careful. But I got it! I saw. Café fucking lattes every single one of you, while offering to make me a cup of tea. Tea! As if.

Thursday. Or should I call it whisper-day. Hush hush. Eyes averted. Think I can’t hear you? Think I don’t know? I know exactly what you’re thinking. Exactly what you’re doing. Before you even mutter it to each other under your stinking fucking breath.

Friday. Today. My day. You’ll see. You’ll learn. You can’t shut me out like that. You can’t shut me up. I’ll give you something to gossip about. Not long now. Friday. My day.

Dee was shrieking at him again and he watched her face with a detached fascination at the rapid draining of beauty, followed by the suffusion of red fury and resentful wrinkles. He stood, square-on, facing her vitriolic outpouring, and wondered at his own calmness. Where was the smiling, vivacious, laughing woman he had met two years ago? Where was his own angry response?

He tilted his head a little to the side, like a curious bird. He realised that he had become more focussed on his own mental wonderings than on any of the accusations being spat at him through hard lips. Then, he registered vaguely that an extraordinary thing was occurring. She was getting smaller, smaller. Fading into the distance, her words becoming merely a series of sounds, high pitched, clanging, but fading. And she was receding further and further away…away. He reached up his arms, or at least tried to hold his hands out to her, but they seemed not to obey his wishes. He was falling, falling backwards…and a dimming darkness was closing in…He was dimly aware of a sudden silence and the perfect, silent O of her mouth. The back of his head hit the floor with a crack.

A floating, and a wonderful, welcome warmth spread through his limbs. So he felt no concern that he could not move. He drifted to another place and time. Was it real or imagined? He could no longer tell. Where was he? Dee was with him. He had his arm around her slim shoulders. He had his earphones on and was listening to This American Life. He was laughing quietly to himself.  Dee shifted a little and snuggled her face into his shoulder. He felt happy, warm and proud.

Sumatra…they were in a taxi in Sumatra. A momentary confusion caused his prone body to twitch violently, but he surrendered to his injury and once more he departed the reality of the cold kitchen floor, his bleeding head, and his panicking wife. They were back in the taxi, on the way from the volcanoes to Lake Toba. They had climbed one of the steaming mountains that morning. They had taken some hilarious photos up the mountains at the steaming vents. He had bent forward, bum out, arms spread like aeroplane wings, while Dee positioned herself with the camera so it looked, for all the world as if he was about to take off..driven by the power of his own steaming fart! They laughed. They loved each other and the world. He laughed at the memory and his eyes flickered open a fraction at the sound of a sob. His or hers? Impossible to tell. Eyes rolling backwards behind lids.

They had, since that day, imploded and exploded. Mount Sinabung had erupted, blowing out the side of the mountain in an enormous, destructive blast of fire and ash. And tonight, an eruption of his own, smaller, but just as destructive and full of burning, searing power as the volcano.