Once upon a time there lived a calico cat named Patches who believed inside her skin that she was not a cat at all but a human just like the members of the family that she watched everyday through the window as she sat on the window ledge.

Patches was never allowed inside in case she dropped fur all over the human’s clothes or scratched the furniture. She felt very alone and separate from everybody.

Everyday Patches would dream about how it would be if she were one of them. “If only” she would say over and over again and lick her lips at the thought of sitting down to afternoon tea with those pretty cakes and the steaming liquid she saw them put into those pretty cups. She would tell herself that to make certain that you put in extra milk when she was pouring tea.

As she watched all that the family did together, singing along beside the piano, playing hide and go seek, throwing the ball, dressing up to go out, she longed more and more for that human that she was to get out from the cat body. She so wanted to belong and have fun too.

If only she would repeat over and over, if only they could see me as I really am.

One day when she saw the family go out leaving her all alone, she did something she had never done before…. she sneaked through an open window and got inside. Now she pretended that she was indeed human so she first decided to try and sit like they did. She sidled up to the chair hopped up as graciously as she could and tried ever so hard to sit like she had seen the family sit many times before.

She was so pleased with herself that it was so easy! Then she imagined that she was at her first tea party with all those pretty little cakes and that milky drink in those pretty little cups. Oh how good they tasted in her mind.

Then she felt she needed to be dressed up just like the family did for special occasions so she hopped off the chair made her way to the little girl’s bedroom and by good luck the wardrobe door was opened and she looked at all the dresses inside and fell in love with the long white dress. First I have to walk like a human she thought and so she stretched herself all the way up using the chair at first and when she was stretched as far up as she could go she took her first step and then another pretty soon she was walking on her two back legs like a human.

Next she tried on the long white dress and looked in the mirror, she was so proud to see not the old calico dress that she had always worn but this soft white linen and lace dress and looked just like the humans.

And because of that wish that had allowed her to find the courage to follow her heart she felt now brave enough to go walking. However as sh looked outside it was raining and the one thing Patches disliked most of all was being outside and getting wet.

She really disliked the water on her feet and back but most of all her fur could stink when it was wet. What to do she thought as now she didn’t want to get the lovely white dress wet either and yet…she longed to go walking in her new body.

Finally she turned around and spotted a tall vase near the front door that has a rainbow coloured umbrella in it. “Yes” she cried” that is exactly what I need, that’s how they do it”

As she stepped outside clutching the umbrella proudly step by step she disengaged with her cat body and cat thinking and walked towards her family knowing she was now one of them and would not be kept outside again

It was a bad night to be driving. Pot holes gape in the road, speed limits are never observed. The road asks for hot Holdens to wheel spin and drop black rubber as evidence of last night’s hoon attacks. Somebody once said this part of the world is where murderers would dump bodies. Everything is dumped here. There is a small greasy toy teddy bear holding onto the fence with its little sad paws halfway along the road. It was raining that night, the light was split into shafts of black and blinding white. Rainspots on the window, fork lightning cracking somewhere up in the hills.
Mates. there were always mates. Johnny had lots of mates. Mates for drinking, mates for drugging, mates for watching your back, mates for lining you up with women.
On this night it was the mates he went cruising with. They were all soldiers, good boys, they all loved their mothers. Just sometimes they did bad things.
It was the road. That fucking dirty, pot holed road in the middle of nowhere. The source for their inspiration.

I found a pair of shorts, a green t shirt a cigarette box and a beer can. All in a pile, like some poor soul has sat here, smoked, drank and taken off their clothes and left them here. Thistles grow around everywhere, the only bit of colour. Purple, the colour of hope and for God’s sake they need a truckload of it out here.

So Johnny what happened? Were you pushed or did you jump? Did that train slam you against those blue stones covered with bird shit and second rate graffiti. Or did you jump? You know if you jumped you couldn’t have killed yourself,it’s not high enough but who gives a fuck when it comes to suicide, just so long as you finish the job. And so here am I looking at you and your soldier boy uniform and thinking about you. You know what Johnny boy? I feel so sorry for you and your cross. And your dirty brass name plate. Sitting here amongst  the crumpled cigarette packets and cheap whiskey cans. And rotten weeds.  But you know there was someone who remembered you. Amongst all this shit.  They’ve made you a cross and planted a cypress tree.
All bets were off. Whoever could bottom out the car under the bridge and get around that impossible corner won. Sam and Jake all got through.
Johnny was last. He missed the corner. The bridge took him out.
He sleeps here now, amongst the dirt and rubbish with the stumpy cypress tree sitting beside him. Johnny boy, lest we forget.

Once upon a time, Fred was an earth loving, dreadlocked hippie.

He wore jeans with tears and frays, jandals and T shirts worn back to front.

For breakfast he took eight weetbix, smothered them with condensed milk and spoonfuls of tinned Ardmona sliced peaches. The milk curdled with the peach syrup and this reaction he particularly liked.

Everyday, he’d sit on his piece of sawn off salmon gum, and clean his bowl while he thought tree wizard thoughts, ever hopeful that he’d have a gumnut moment. He was desperate for a project.

One day, three weetbix in, with the sea glinting diamond sparkles, he was doing his sitting thing at which he was very expert. Just sitting, looking up to the pale moon in the new day before it turned it’s man face away, letting random thoughts pass from his right brain to his left brain.

Because of that, he’d sit and sit some more, leaves sometimes swirling downwards. He liked how they twisted and turned in perfect synchronisation. He needed this project brainchill to hit him fast.

His store of tinned peaches was getting low, his jeans hanging together by threads, His jandals were rubber thin and he was becoming a bore to himself.

Being a hippie was tiring and he’d meditated out his heart and head.

His Krishna Das song list was overdone and he needed a big hit of doof doof music to bump up the beat of his roughly sketched lyrics to songlines he wrote down – when he could be bothered.

And because of that, he was woken from his interminable monotony of being by a piercing stab of pain on his left ankle. He was alarmed!

He looked around him, a big black ant wondered off into the sands of time. No worries, he’d live.

He looked at the trees in which he’d built his tree house and noticed the long flexing tree roots which were hanging in the air. He thought back to his Grade four and five years, when he kinda could focus on school and find excitement in the routine.

The days when he’d tumble on to the red gym mat in PE class with the student PE teacher who was really into kids doing their thing and who didn’t get hung up on the what if’s and the fear of breaking bones.

He’d flip somersaults and flip handstands one after the other and scurry up ropes and turn himself upside down when he was half way up to the ceiling.

The other kids loved it and would give him high fives and feed his daring to be different.

He was happy and having a blast. The student teacher left and PE became a boring set of catching and throwing the ball and running around the footy pitch. He lost interest in school then and took himself into his imagination.

He dreamed of rocket ships and astral travel. He wrote a few poems and songs he might sing when he was a rock n roll singer when he grew up. He was drifting further away from the mainstream.

Fred was a pretty practical hippie. He could tie knots, build tree huts and had a great way with people. He hadn’t met the mermaid to match his merman passions – yet.

Until finally, Fred saw those hanging tree roots, and suddenly the gumnut moment came to him.

He emptied the Weetbix box, tore it inside out and grabbed the pencil from the empty wooden wine box bookshelf.

He drew pictures of how he could make the tree roots into aerial trapezes and the amazing sculpted outfit he’d design to catch the punters’ attention as he flipped in the air and climbed the tree ropes.

He’d call his mate from school who he’d heard was making outlandish costumes for burlesque performers hitting the straps across the American theatre landscapes. In Melbourne, his mate was providing new scripts to Melbourne ladies in need of something shocking to talk about around the bridge tables.

He liked how he was thinking. Tree wizardry was taking on whole new meanings.

Enthused, and knowing neither fear, nor boundaries, he jumped up and down on the spot for three minutes, ran along the shoreline for ten minutes, threw himself on to the forest floor and managed ten push ups.

He was pumped. Yes, he had his project. He was gunna create his own hippie tree circus act. He had it mapped out.

And he’d write moonstruck songs, find a drummer who could keep a beat and still have the headspace to check out the girls in the audience. Cos that what drummers do. He’d find his mermaid.

He had it mapped out. Yes, he could do this. And from that gumnut moment, Fred started to live happily ever after.

Lindi Forde

www.lindiforde.com

I wonder what he’s doing right now? Well, really, I know. He’s sleeping as where he lives it’s now night-time. Has probably drunk a few palm wines or some other local hooch . Why the alcohol? There’s been a death in the family. When a family member dies, usually there is a substantial wake. A reason to break out, indulge, have a huge piss-up and mourn his passing.   Distant and not-so-distant family emerge from the bush and it’s Gil’s job to feed and accommodate them all. Fourth cousins thrice removed come to the family compound to acknowledge the passing of a distant uncle not seen by some for twenty years, where they sit under the mango trees, drink, eat, doze and catch up on the family micro-news. Women, babies, children, men young and old, never less than thirty at any one time. It’s his uncle, the chief of their encampement who has died after all so charcoal fires are lit, chickens killed and cooked, rice by the sackload bought from the market to feed the unending procession who arrive over the next week or two.

How did they know he’d died? It’s bush telegraph at its finest. Nothing happens in the smallest village without relatives in the city 700 kms away being aware within days of its occurrence. That, and the ubiquitous mobile phone that has revolutionised African bush communication. Not uncommon for one person to be carrying three or four, each one with a different service provider, in the event of the frequent failure of one of them.

This also is not the only funeral for the departed. This is merely “le petit funerale” – the village funeral. The “grande funerale” will be in two month’s time down in the city. That will be an even grander, boozier affair. Men wearing their impressive tribal garments, women with exquisitely braided hair and tight alluring national costumes. A competition for each to show the others how beautiful they are, how regal they look, how well off they have become. I suppose this is the equivalent to wearing Sunday Best for us. How important it is to look good. But also to show respect for the occasion.

Last but not least is the music. Wherever it is, whatever the occasion, always music. The thump, thump, thumpthumpthump of West Africa. Alpha Blondy reggae, the raw passion of Les Garagistes. Music blaring from massive loud speakers positioned for maximum effect, the bass vibrating to the very bone marrow. From early morning to early next morning, stopping only when intoxicated exhaustion has forced the last reveller to take rest.

I remember one time a funeral of a policeman being held in the street where I was living. A raucous affair but the music and noise failed to keep me awake. Then at midnight I was jolted from my slumber by the sound of fireworks in the street. Bang, bang, bang! Crack, crack and crack! I rolled over and nudged my man. “God what a bloody noise!” He patted my shoulder reassuringly and whispered “Reste tranquille, ma cherie. Seulement fusille.” What?? Bloody guns??? They’re shooting their guns into the air!   Sweet Jesus, what next?? The ensuing dark hours were spent with me lying rigid in bed, waiting for a barrage of drunken coppers to crash through the door, while my protector snored on serenely.

However, this is the way of farewelling the dead. Noise, dance, drink, food, family, occasional gunfire; sleep it off and start again next day until such time as money for food and grog has run out and all have left to return to their villages and farming life. A fitting send-off.

It looks like it’s going to be a nice morning, a really nice morning. It’s still warm, the temperature hasn’t really dropped overnight, the air is mild and the roughly mown grass just slightly damp with dew.  I can’t see the sun yet, but it’s on the rise, the sky doesn’t seem to be as navy as it was a minute ago, it’s definitely lightening to a deeper, lovelier blue. Today is going to be gorgeous, I can feel it in my bones.

I’m the first one up, I think, hold on….oh, no….I’m wrong. Goddamit Red! Here she comes. She’s old and doddery but still waltzes about, puffed up chest as if she just won a bloody Logie. She was on her own before I moved in. I know she lost her own family not too long ago, so it’s understandable that she’s super clingy.  Red seems to be able to sniff me out wherever I am. Can’t hardly blame her though, she obviously attracted to my youthful vitality. I know I should be grateful, I didn’t even have a home before I here, I was wandering the streets aimlessly, not sure where to go. I mean, I really love it here, but I just wish she’d leave me alone and give me some space. We hang out for a bit, observe the rising sun, ease into the morning, go for a lazy stroll.

Niceties done, can hardly call me rude, I’ve been civil enough. I know if I head to the garage, she wont follow me. She hates it in there, but I can’t get enough of it. That’s where it’s at, absolutely everything, it’s a veritable bounty of treasures and curios. I spend at least an hour in there each day. There’s a pool table up the back corner, its base is all bowed, the surface unplayable. An old workbench made out of railway sleepers occupies the length of the shed, tools haphazardly piled. There are boxes and boxes of stuff, never read books, kids toys, old school assignments that no one really cares about, six different types of tent for any and all camping occasions. There’s a motorbike in there, it’s old, the tank a dark blue with a slight sparkle to it. I don’t know what it is about it, but the bike intrigues me, it’s fascinating, despite the rust, the engine grime, the torn leather seat and the leaking oil. Every time I’m in here, I seem to end up filthy from messing around with it, all my whites turn to dirty, greasy grey.

I should go check on the babies, I need to be with them now. There’s two of them, but I’m really worried. I’m wary when I approach them, look cautiously, carefully, check every detail, look for signs. It seems there’s no change from yesterday, there’s no movement. I don’t understand, I can’t see what I’m doing wrong. All I can do is sit and wait and hope for the best. I’ve been through this before, it’s not easy, but I’m tough. I just don’t want anyone to take them away, I know I can do this. The day is starting to heat up, I’m uncomfortable, but it’s not about me right now, it’s about them.

I sit for what seems like hours. I can hear sounds in the distance, familiar voices. My heart starts to race, I know what’s coming. I can hear clanging, cupboard doors opening and shutting, I can hear water running, a metal spoon scrape a metal bowl. The security door rattles, I’m up and racing, running like an idiot, fat thighs circling comically, skinny legs dodging obstacles, before I even hear the words.

“Chook, chook chook chook. Here chook, chook, chook.”

I hop up the stairs and gaze up at the silver bowl. My stubby little wings wont get me very far, but they’ll get me where I want to be. I fly up and perch on the edge of the bowl and bury my beak into the warm mash, bits of oats sticking to my feathers. She walks while I balance capably, athletically. I can tell she’s impressed, she’s grinning. Red’s here as well, again, as always, but she couldn’t fly to save her life. She has to be content with waddling along after us. She puts both me and the bowl down, Red is right beside me and we feast as if we’ve never eaten before. I’m totally absorbed with the meal, too busy to notice what she’s doing. I look up, but it’s already too late…..

“Miss Prissy, two eggs today. How lovely, thank you!”

Noooooooooooo…………….

Oh what a day

A day of words is what we had

Most of them happy, some of them sad.

Writing and thinking the whole day through

And as for listening, there was that too.

Catherine let us in on some facts

Learning about her quirky acts.

Delineating time with her shower cap on

Get the words down, get feedback from none.

Sounds to listen to, some birdsong perhaps

The little secrets into which she taps.

Lunch was had and what a feast

Enough to fill a hearty beast.

So off we all went back to our homes

Eager to start on our personal tomes.

The day was so useful, so much to use

Thanks the ‘Deveny Rocket’ you were born to enthuse!

Five minutes of writing (1)

This is a strange room we are in. Black walls, black ceiling. Dark yet also filled with light from the many windows. When we first entered I overheard Catherine speaking to someone and just caught the word ‘funeral’. I immediately connected her words to the room, thinking the décor was the result of arrangements for some recent post-burial lunch party or a memorial dinner. A picture filled my head of men and women, smartly dressed in dark clothing, sitting around this very table. They are in earnest conversation about the deceased. Telling stories of the past about a person whose only future now was in those stories and the memories they conjured.

I later found out the reference to a funeral was in a totally different context so my imaginings were completely off course.   It’s still a strange room though. But this morning’s event has proved it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to dark moods or earnest conversations. Hopefully the only deaths to commemorate here today will be those of my procrastination, and of my fear of writing something that others don’t like.

Another five minutes of writing (2)

I am cycling and I cannot believe it! I am on a bike, right now! Three weeks ago I couldn’t even walk and yet here I am hurtling down St Kilda Road with the breeze in my face and the plaster pot on my fractured foot knocking against the bike frame as I peddle.

What on earth made me decide to throw the walking stick to one side and launch myself into the saddle I don’t know. I’m not even sure where I’m heading for. I know I’m heading down St Kilda Road, but I’ve no idea why. Am I going to St Kilda? I bloody hope not. I hate St Kilda.

The accident was a month ago to the day. Fourteen hours in a coma and eight days in hospital. It was only two days ago that my Wife felt able to leave me alone in the house. Except now I’m not in the house, I’m hurtling down St Kilda Road on a bike. I bet she’ll regret leaving me alone in the house now.

Not as much as I’ll regret leaving the house if I end up in bloody St Kilda. I hate St Kilda.

Once upon a time there was a dull girl with God disease. This meant all she could ever do, think, be was a slave to God. This made her scared. God was so all powerful and bossy with so many bloody rules that were impossible to follow. She needed a cure.

Her parents disagreed. They were scared of God too, but so scared they thought everything about God was good and right and must be followed to the letter. And there are so many letters in God’s bible.

Every day they would start with a prayer. Thank you God for our meals. But the dull girl knew their food was bought from the supermarket with money earned by her parents doing work they hated. Mum as a teacher. Dad in an office. It didn’t have anything to do with God!…well at least she was reasonably confident that was the case. This dull girl was hedging her bets a bit. Just in case.

And please help us to be good and kind as we go out into the world. Dull girl felt that was a bit much to ask, given she went out every day good and kind, only to be picked on mercilessly by the boy down the road.

One day, dull girl decided she would go on an expedition to see if she could find someone to cure her of God disease. Because of that her parents reported her to the police. Children it seems are not allowed to just wander off on expeditions seeking cures for ills. Parents and police, apparently, know best. So now, she not only had God disease, she was a fugitive. Which she was starting to feel ok about, because she suspected that being a fugitive meant she wasn’t perhaps as dull as she used to be.

And because of that, she started opening her eyes and mind wider, and meeting people who had not been struck down by God disease. She found there were many ways of thinking and being that didn’t make her feel so small. She even discovered it was ok for some people to have God disease if that helped them.

She journeyed far and wide until finally she gave herself up to the police, and they took her back to her parents in the back of a divvy van.

It took her parents quite a while to get over that, because Mrs Mulvany next door saw ‘not so dull anymore’ girl climbing out of the cop car, and made it her business to be sure that everyone in the street and at the local shops knew about it.

Overall though her parents were quite happy to have her back, and ‘on her way to being fascinating’ girl was now cured. Her parents weren’t. But that’s ok.

Helen Tobias

Writer | Editor | Facilitator

M 0407 345 373

E helsbels1204@gmail.com

She walked towards me. Slowly, purposefully, wending her way through the glittering crowd. Pausing to smile, exchange a greeting here, a laugh there. She never looks directly at me, but I feel her inexorably closing in. I have a sharp moment of feeling hunted. My mouth turns bitter with fear and excitement.  Halfway across the room she looks up and I hold her gaze, part curiosity, part challenge. She seems surprised, but in one brief flash I am sized, summed up, strategized about, and decided upon. Her slow deliberate path to me now, even more, seems an execution of a script I hadn’t read – but that she had been rehearsing for some time.

In the long minutes that pass until she, almost by accident, arrives by my side – I have time to watch her. To lose myself in red lips, bare shoulders and muscled thighs slipping in and out of green silk. She isn’t conventionally attractive, but something about her commands attention. What does she want of me? The target on my chest is oddly disconcerting. I resist the urge to flee. The sensation of being stalked exquisitely self-torturing. A little bit of anticipation goes a long way.

She is upon me. Inserting herself seamlessly into our conversation, she nails me with an outstretched hand and a crisp introduction. Her palms are soft. She holds my hand for a moment too long before wrapping those long fingers around a glass from the bar. She squares up and I feel like an audience before the curtain goes up at the ballet. Not sure if I’m already bored, or hoping this will truly be a Swan Lake like no other. Part of me laments she’s not a Russian ballerina – how exotic. My thoughts are derailed as she begins her well disguised pitch. A pitch for my money it seems. Chequebook trumps ego and neither are impressed. I toy briefly with letting her down fast. But I am starting to enjoy the dance. And so I too play – nicely.

We cover the usual topics, she flirts, I respond. I see the moment she relaxes, the almost imperceptible dropping of the shoulders, the first real sip of her champagne. Her confidence ratchets up a notch and she leans in closer. You’re very funny, she says. I know I am. But in that pat repartee I hear a faint gloating. Her work is done, another moth to the flame. No need to push to close this sale for I’m already packaged up. Bad move my little hunter.

I stay as I am, head to one side, taking her in. I push back a little, questioning a casual comment and I see her reassess. Her momentary panic is pungent. I breathe it in. She recovers well. I smile – all teeth and twinkling eyes. Oh what lovely teeth you have. I am momentarily heady at her hurried recalculations, tasting her fear. I reach out to reassure her.  She relaxes again. I run my finger slowly along her exposed collarbone. She closes her eyes briefly and I see flashes of the evening to come. Hold off on tying the ribbon sweetheart – I’m not that easy a prey. But you, …… you just might be.