Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time there was a man who fell in love with his cat. He was convinced that the cat was truly the soul of his dear departed and beloved wife reborn.

The tragic death of his true love had left him heart broken in the extreme and his mournful cries and moans had driven his fellow neighbours to distraction. It is not that they were uncaring. They could understand the depth of his emotions for a year. It was only after it had dragged on for the second year that they took action. The sounds of his haunted wailing as he woke from traumatic dreams interrupted their sleep. Many of the people had not experienced a peaceful slumber for many moons. After careful consideration the neighbours decided to speak to the Landlord and convince him to evict the man from his apartment.

The Landlord was a reasonable and kind hearted man and after much deliberation and argumentation with his wife, he evicted the man from his apartment but offered him the option to rent the Landlord’s remote hunting cabin high in the nearby mountains.

Every day the man would be so cold from the snow that he would welcome the relief of sleep and his body refused to wake up from his troubled dreams. On waking he would go to a nearby creek and crack through the ice with his bare hands to wash his face and his dreams away with the icy water. Soon it became a test of his physical pain threshold – to show how much cold and pain he could bare for the lost love of his heart. After six months had passed, he would wear only a thin shirt and his boots in the midst of the winter sleet, such was his devotion.

One day while performing his daily face washing ritual, he looked up to find two large green eyes staring unblinkingly from beneath the snow. A shadow of a kitten watched him with such hope and devotion that he was instantly convinced that it was his true love re-born.

Because of that, he and the kitten from that day forward could never be parted. When he had to chop wood, he would place the tiny kitten on top of his helmet so that the snow would not harm her. Everywhere he went, the kitten would be with him and day by day the bond between them grew as their hearts filled with their mutual love.

Because of that, the townspeople began to tell stories of the crazy man in the mountain who loved a cat more than any person. People could not understand why he would want to live by himself with only the love of a cat to keep him warm.

The man and the cat did not care what the townspeople thought. Soon it became impossible for them to live near the town, and the man decided that he no longer needed the shelter of a cabin. He and the cat walked off into the snowy mountain cold to start their new life together, away from the people of the world so that their love would never be judged again.

KV Perkin

kvperkin@gmail.com

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

“Welcome. Thanks for coming in today Tom” I said enthusiastically shaking the young boy’s hand and trying to make him comfortable cupping my hands around his. Tom’s lack of eye contact and his sweaty palms were an instant giveaway that this process was not going to be easy for him. Or for me.

“Thanks for the opportunity” Tom said with a passing glance as he perused the number of chairs around the table and pensively sat down directly across from me placing his hands on his thighs.

I smiled and gave him a few moments until we regained eye contact. “Can I get you a water Tom?”

“Ah, no thanks, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Well, let’s get straight into it then” I continued feeling the awkwardness and hearing the shallow breathing from the other side of the table as Tom pulled a lot of paperwork out of an envelope.

“Why would you like to work for Allan’s Music Store Tom? What is it about Allan’s that appeals to you?”

My inner critic kicked in. “Oh bugger, two questions. I shouldn’t have asked him two questions in a row like that.”

“I play the piano, cello and flute. I love music and I would really enjoy the opportunity to work part time with people like myself who know a lot about the industry,” he replied before moving his paperwork so that it lined up accurately with a join in the mahogany table.

“Do you listen to music a lot Tom?”

“Yes, I do” he replied. Again, our eyes met and he smoothed his right thumb along the edges of both paperwork and tabletop.

My inner critic again… “Note to self Soozey – no closed questions. Only open questions. What am I thinking?”

“Tom what is it that you enjoy so much about playing such a wonderful variety of instruments?”

Tom straightened up a little and looked up to the ceiling behind me for what seemed like at least 10 seconds. “To me, one note is one hundred words.” Tom paused for a moment and continued, “Music is an expression. It’s a story. It’s an experience. It’s everything.”

I felt a lump in my throat and I awkwardly looked away hoping that this young man didn’t see my eyes welling up with emotion. I took a moment to make a few interview notes writing his exact words so that I could Google them at my first possible opportunity.

“Wow, did he really just say that? Or, has he memorised a quote from Mozart or Bach in preparation for our mock interview?” were my immediate thoughts while making notes and trying to compose myself in preparation for the next question.

“So, you only have a few more years left at school Tom. What do you see yourself doing when you finish here?”

“My plan is to get into engineering at Melbourne”

“Oh?”

We sat in silence for a moment as I thought about a response, and then Tom fired up a little: “Well, my Dad’s an engineer. My grandfather was an engineer too. There’s just not the money in a music career.”

With a sense of relief, my inner critic started being much more sensible. “OK Soozey, stop the interview. Tom and I have such a short time together today. Use this opportunity for a real, vulnerable, heart-felt conversation. What’s there to lose? You know that this young man will end up as a 45 year old adult in a broken marriage, in a job he hates earning big money to buy a lifestyle he doesn’t need and stuff he doesn’t want if he keeps going down this path.”

“Hey Tom, would you mind if we stopped the interview right now so that I can give you some feedback?”

Tom’s first smile emerged and he took a deep breath and pushed himself into the back of his chair. “Absolutely, that would be great thank you,” he replied.

I went on to give Tom some feedback and we discussed some tips, strategies and responses for his upcoming interviews. Finally, we chatted about his future, his passion for music, his father’s expectations and the long life benefits of choosing what you love. “Tom, as an executive coach, I see supposedly highly successful people going to work each day to do a job to pay a mortgage. They are screaming inside.”

“So are you saying that I should continue with my music through my final years at school?”

“Tom, I’m not saying anything. I’m asking you to consider what makes you happy. To choose the subjects that you most enjoy. To further explore what lights you up.”

Tom looked at me with such intensity. No words were necessary. I could feel his relief as a quavering “thank you” emerged while he leaned forward to shake my hand. In that moment, there was such a confidence in him. The heaviness lifted.

As an executive coach I work with a lot of middle and senior managers who go to work to do a job for a wage. People who started their working lives on the path to achieving someone else’s goals. Only to find themselves working in a soulless business surrounded by many others like themselves doing a job with the primary motivation to pay for more stuff, more things, more crap that brings limited or no happiness?

Why do we put so much pressure on our children so young? Why is the question “What do you want to do when you grow up” part of so many adult child conversations? Why is it that the word ‘career’ still used in 2014? Why is the education system skewed towards subject choice, getting high marks, choosing a ‘career’ early, starting VCE in year 10, getting the right ATAR score so that you can get into the right degree at the right university?

Why not choose the one note, the one hundred words while the choice doesn’t involve starting over?

Soozey Johnstone is the author of the soon to be released book entitled “I am the Problem” – the “tell it like it is” real-world stories of why some businesses grow and prosper and others inevitably stumble and decline. 

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time, in the rural hamlet of Bunyip, a young lady named Betsy fell in love. Betsy worked in the Bunyip tobacco sheds, rolling and packing cigarettes as part of the war effort in order to provide support and comfort to the brave soldiers who were fighting on the frontline to protect us all.  Betsy dreamt what those soldiers looked like, their names and where they were from.  She hoped her efforts offered, albeit small relief to their fears when going into battle and during the long days and nights not knowing when they would have to face the enemy.

Betsy herself had faced one or two enemies during her time in the tobacco sheds.  She had dated a man named Bruce who had been declared unfit to fight in active service on account of his “deteriorating” eyesight.  Bruce was tall, handsome and strong and he hated the nips and the hun in general.  He talked with incessant fervour about what he would do if he was ever confronted by them.  At first this talk alarmed, but very quickly started to bore Betsy. Realising what life would be like if she settled down with someone who was both so hateful in the absence of any real experience alarmed her.

After Bruce, Betsy then met a man named Bobby.  Bobby was a gun shearer, but was considered too old to fight overseas.  He enlisted in the home guard to protect the home front, much of which seemed to be centred on the Bunyip tobacco sheds. Bobby was the sort of man who liked to have a long sit on the toilet every morning after a coffee and one of Betsy’s hand rolled cigarettes. Betsy thought it best not to encourage Bobby so she introduced him to her friend Beryl. Beryl had confessed her great admiration for the brave men in their home guard uniforms.  The Bunyip Tobacco Company hosted their wedding shortly after to Betsy’s relief and Beryl and Bobby’s great joy.

One day, while working in the tobacco shed, Betsy was thinking about the brave boys on the front line and she decided to write a message of hope and love on one of her freshly rolled cigarettes: “to whomever gets to enjoy this smoke, I hope you come home safely to your loved ones. Betsy, from Bunyip, Victoria, Australia”.

Shortly before the war ended, Betsy was at work one day when a man appeared at the door to the shed.  He was a rugged little nugget of a man, with a split chin, three fingers missing, a mermaid tattoo and a slight limp in his left leg.  Betsy saw him speaking to Big Barb, the cutting and rolling supervisor while she was having a fag near at the entrance to the shed and sending him in her direction.  The nuggety man walked to Betsy, his blue Naval bellbottoms swaying as he limped. He stopped in front of Betsy, took out a cigarette tin and removed the cigarette with the message she had written 3 years earlier.

Their romance was short and sweet and the following year, Betsy gave birth to a beautiful baby boy that she named Bertie. Bertie was adorable in every sense. He was small, plump, happy and in every way lovable. He was the apple of Betsy’s adoring eye and the image of his fallen, but very brave father. Betsy felt like she was the most loved and loving woman in the world.

Julia Cusack (sandj123@hotmail.com)

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

The next day in between twisted ruin – scorched twigs and blackened trunks – a tiny green shoot began to sprout and the world began anew.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Beautiful writing on a subject of little or no importance.

 The hum of the train, still out of sight, lit up the station. Those huddling under the awning started to spread out across the long platform. Three minutes. The men with their briefcases and their three piece suits, armor that allows them to treat the rest of the world like dirt and walk straight as if nothing is in their path, forcing the rest of us, even the stationary people to the side.

The old Greek women sit on the bench together, three of them, this time every day. The train will stop and go and they’ll still be sitting there. There are no other routes on that line. The teens with their folders that seemingly look haphazardly decorated but I’m not so much older that I can’t remember the painstaking hours of work that went into making it look like that folder had been dragged through the bush backward stand in small groups, sometimes holding hands. Two young boys in Barker uniforms standing over the yellow line stare and snigger at a young girl in a Tempe High uniform. They make fun of her hair and start to act like monkeys. I’m tempted to bump into those boys, standing over the yellow line as the train pulls in.

The guys who look like they spend their weekends playing Dungeons and Dragons, with their long ponytails discussing which protein powder they used in their shake this morning and how they can bench press twice their weight in some odd dick measuring contest. Two minutes. The couple, who at first I thought were mother and son but if their morning tounging is anything to go by they aren’t stand in the middle of the walkway pashing. The old Greek ladies start to huff and I can only imagine what they’re whispering. The father with his baby in one of those weird looking baby carriers, one with a sun shade over the top stands near the old women talking on his phone, briefcase in hand while the baby eats his tie, possibly without his knowledge. The train pulls in and nobody gets off, not that they had a chance the crowds along the platform are huddled where the doors of the train land. I hustle onto the second last carriage, never the last, I’m convinced if there’s an accident the first and last carriages are the most dangerous although I have no idea why I think that, it’s just a superstition. The children sitting jump up to hurry to the middle of the train carriage to avoid being whacked by ‘accident’ with a bag attached to an angry adult who wants a seat, their seat. I sit in the first seat, the one that’s facing another seat, in theory it can seat six but really it’s three;

person, space, person,

space, person, space.

I pull out my book, it’ll stay in my lap while I flick back and forth between twitter and facebook, but it’s way too early only the mums will be on facebook with another photo of their kids eating breakfast in front of ABC for kids, in television merchandise pajamas. Bob the builder (is that guy still fixing shit?), Hoot, Peppa Pig (founder of the next wave of feminism), Ben Ten and the list of money makers goes on. There are only so many photos of a person I went to school with’s kid eating wheatbix I want to see and that would be none. I don’t want kids, I like them when they’ve come from other peoples bodies and they’ve been roused, dressed, fed by other people, people who will take them away after an hour or two to deal with tantrums and lolly induced rage. Children like the tie eater in the baby carrier whose dad is now busy typing on the phone tie dripping still unaware, children like the Barker boys’ gory pancakes in my head, the ones who spend hours painstakingly trashing their folders and not doing their maths homework, which they now do standing in the middle of the carriage in a circle calling out answers. The Tempe High girl with the enviable skill to ignore idiots. I don’t know these people but it seems like a ritual we do together every day on loop and with this realization the train pulls into St James and I merge with the crowd of suits up, up, up to daylight.