by Lee Murray
She stepped back, toward the locker, pulling off the borrowed jersey and dropping it on the bed as she went.
‘Wait!’ Tsione said, standing and moving forward. ‘I don’t understand.’
The time stamp on the wall was working again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Beneath her feet, the water storage tank burbled an apology. ‘I can’t stay like this. But I’ll be here.’ She held Tsione’s gaze, desperate for her to understand. ‘I’ll be here.’
She pulled open the locker door.
Tsione stood a pace away, gaping. Bereft.
‘I’ll be here,’ she said a third time, and stepped backward into the locker.
She slammed the door as Tsione lunged, nails scrabbling against worn metal. Golden light spilled through the slanted grillwork.
Tsione opened the door. Her jacket lay crumpled in a mound on the floor.
Crop Rotation
David Stevens
Anxiety coursing. Sun up in three hours. The work that awaited him. The mess. Always making do. Nothing ever finished.
Then there was the thing the worrying was hiding. The thing that should be at the centre of his thoughts.
The bed sagged and creaked as he rolled, dragging his belly with him. Old traces of his wife – her face cream, roses and lanolin – lingered.
A distant banging. The noise came from inside the house. He lifted his head to hear from both ears, vertebrae grinding as he sat up. Carter jumped as a fox screamed nearby. He forced himself to relax. After the big storm, all those noises outside, him leaping each time, checking there was no one in the yard. Maggie yelling she couldn’t sleep with him carrying on, there was no one there, who would be out in the dark after weather like that? She couldn’t sleep.
The roaring dark over the forest that night, a dribble of green leaking over the distant mountains, and lightning flashing far away. The whole big sky black as secrets.
A week later, he was on the roof repairing the television antenna, listening to his wife yelling he was a fool at his age. He guessed he’d been a fool at any age. He couldn’t stand to hear a second longer how she was missing her soaps, and if he didn’t get up there and fix it, he didn’t know who would.
Useless effort. There was power but no signal, nothing but white hash on the screen. She said he’d put it up wrong, but they both knew that wasn’t it, otherwise she wouldn’t have stopped him when he tried to climb back up again.
She was taking a long time in the loo. Now he had to go. It would be a waste of time. He’d wait for ages, and maybe be rewarded with a tiny piddle.
Stuck here with these old man thoughts, these fag-end early morning bleats. He should be retired. Somewhere warm. Somewhere with human beings. Sitting in the shade, complaining about everything. Seen no one for weeks. Morning after the storm, Pearson’s ute had flown up the dirt road like an emu with a rocket up its arse. Nothing after that.
She still wasn’t back. If he didn’t sleep, how could he do a day’s work? Kitchen garden to be tended, though Maggie would do that. She was doing a lot more. Her hip had stopped playing up. Like that was some compensation. At that, he felt like a drink. He always felt like a drink. There was none on the place, not for a long time. That was the only way to fix that.
Silence solidified behind him. He was being stared at. Carter felt the eyes boring into his back. Something had settled back there in the dark, paused just outside the doorway, a chunk of the night settled on its haunches.
No movement. Perhaps he had been mistaken. Then came the long creak of the door being pushed open. The slow groan of hinges as it was closed again.
He’d meant to oil the door. Another job he’d failed to do.
Along his arms and legs, hairs rose.
Sniffing. Little gasps of air taken in, tasted. Coming closer, following his scent.
It hadn’t been a fox screaming. He knew what was there.
Tentative steps on the hardwood floor as it came closer. Maggie had always wanted carpet in here, but carpet costs, and it wasn’t him who polished the floors. Another way he had let her down.
It was nearer now. He felt it lean on the mattress, a deep breath through its nose. The pressure as a leg was raised, and a knee pressed down on the side of the bed. Weight shifted, something leaned forward onto the bed, and…
Don’t be stupid, it’s Maggie, it’s Maggie, it’s Maggie…
Carter had an image of a cat, poised and predatory, ready to pounce. Not the way he used to picture his wife.
The mass moved, falling forward, and Carter swung. As the body came down on the bed, using his hip as a pivot, he rolled out into the night. Looked across, saw his wife staring at him from the bed. Who else?
He shuffled out of the room, bad leg dragging. His bladder pressed with a false urgency.
Maggie had wanted an en-suite as well, but the house wasn’t built for such luxuries, and he had kept telling her he didn’t want to sleep in the same room where they shit. Don’t be ridiculous, she said, and she had been right, like she was about everything. He had grown up with an outhouse and, in the winter, a chamberpot tucked beneath his bed. Bringing the toilet inside the house in his lifetime was achievement enough.
The bathroom light blinded him. He was still standing there when his vision returned. No use looking down, a watched kettle never boils, and he wouldn’t be able to see his gear anyway, not with his belly hanging there. This is the bright future, and nothing is ever going to be as good as this again. When did the good old days end?
He let his pyjama pants fall, turned, sat down, and sighed yet again. What he would have copped if his old man had known he sat down to pee. Ya what? Ya sheila! The indignities the old bastard had avoided by having his last heart attack at 50. The benefits of a meat and beer diet.
He looked up. The corner of the manhole was ajar. That’s what had taken her so long.
*
Carter had told her he would be out for the whole day. Drove off with that familiar gnawing, a rat chewing at his belly, matching the pulsing in his leg. He worked his way through his usual list of bills and delays and jobs undone, trying to identify the focus of his anxiety. In the end, he just braked halfway across a paddock and walked back, a slow aching trek with his gammy leg.
Maggie wasn’t at the house. He kept expecting to turn a corner and bump into her coming the other way, and he had a lie ready to blurt out about the flippin’ truck breaking down again.
It didn’t happen.
Not in the garden, nor in the shed. He circled wider and wider, searching, following his thoughts, not tracks, his mood darkening as the trees grew closer and blocked the sky. All this shit he had meant to clear away, finish the work his father started. It would never happen now. The bush was coming back, swallowing his land. It would be as though he never existed.
Finally, he glimpsed her before she disappeared into a clutch of she-oaks.
By the time he caught up, the ground was springier beneath his feet. Waste land, it all needed draining. Tea-coloured water seeped into her footprints, rising above her ankles. Everything else failing, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. Mosquitoes rose about her but she didn’t swat, didn’t wave her arms. She strode into the bog until she stood in the cleft between twin flooded gum trees. She leaned on one of them and stood in the humidity she hated so much, water up her shins.
Hanging back, Carter felt ridiculous. He should call to her. What was she doing out here? The only one who ever came out here was their son, long time ago. Bird-watching, he said. Bludging, more like. Gripping the tree, with her free hand Maggie bunched up the front of her dress. Carter slipped to the other side of the eucalypt he was hiding behind, to get a better look. Water flowed from the hem of her dress as Maggie dragged it out of the brackish water.
The dress rose up. She was not wearing support hose. Her legs were firmer t
han he remembered, less mottled. (Even just thinking it, he whispered that last word.) She crouched a little and pulled the dress higher. She was wearing nothing underneath.
Dementia, he thought and would have gone to her, would have broken cover and crossed over and held her, but then she spread her legs and crouched still lower. He heard the splash before he realised what he was seeing. From between her legs it pulsed, squirt after long squirt of white fluid, a flow like an elephant pissing, if an elephant pissed milky pus. The gunk flowed out of her at such a rate, he thought she should have been emptied, leaving the husk of her clinging to the tree like a cicada shell.
Run, his mind screamed, but he saw how it would play out. Turning, trying, making a few yards through the swamp before his crook leg gives way, and he splashes face down. She overtakes him with ease. Looks down on him half submerged, her head bent at an inquisitive angle. Her body lowers towards him and, just as she blocks the sun, something else breaks through the mask of her face, and he descends into darkness. So he stayed, his eyes closed to block out the image, as though that could somehow hide him.
Panting, he slid quietly into the shallow water, backing into the submerged roots of the river gum, forcing his backside into the mud. With his bad back and fat stomach he bent as much as he could, pressing into the shadow. Still he heard the noise, the thucking squirt, the thick splash. Gently, he submerged his hat, staining it wet before he replaced it, pulling the brim low to cover his face.
The splashing stopped. Holding his breath, he lowered himself as far as pain would allow. He heard the sluicing of water as she turned and began to retrace her steps.
There was not another person for a million miles around. Him and the trees and the insects, and whatever was passing for his wife. Her feet sloshing, step after step. He refused to look up. Beneath his hat, the sound of her movement was everything.
She walked past him.
Carter waited ages, eventually daring to lift his hat and look about. The sun had moved. The bog was silent but for the machine burr of insects. His leg was numb and he had to roll onto his knees and climb the trunk of the tree to raise his body from the water. Circulation returned slowly in sharp stabs and aches. He began the long limping journey to his truck, waiting for her to spring from behind each tree he passed.
He had not stopped waiting.
*
He wanted nothing more in life than to urinate and have this over with.
Maggie had been taken a few days after the storm, he guessed. Sitting on this very toilet seat, looking up and seeing a version of herself descend naked from the ceiling. Had she died from fright? Had they needed to finish her off? So long as it was quick. He remembered the night, not that he had recorded the date or anything. He had woken briefly as she left the room for the toilet. He must have nodded back off, for next thing he was being dragged from sleep, Maggie fumbling roughly at the front of his pyjamas, pulling him round from behind, mounting him, rocking back and forth in a way he couldn’t remember. First he was surprised that it was happening at all, and then more surprised that he managed to play his part.
It was hard to mourn when there was someone in the house who looked just like her, spoke like her, and seemed to have her memories. By now, he suspected she had been replaced several times, that they were a couple of generations along. Sitting in the truck in the paddock that day, waiting for his clothes to dry, he decided it was not in his best interests to reveal what he knew.
He had headed home. Where else could he go?
It didn’t take long to doubt himself, to deny the memory of that long afternoon. Life went on. If she had noticed him out in the swamp, she gave no sign.
Carter couldn’t leave it alone. Seeing she was busy with her chores, he tramped out through the bog, searching for evidence. There was nothing. He had imagined everything. He was right, it was dementia, but he was the sick one.
Less than a week later, he walked along the creek that fed the bog. The water was clear, slowly flowing. There they were, affixed to the rocks near the bank. He stopped, relieved and horrified. Clusters of translucent sacs, water gliding over them.
He checked every few days now. Always, there are a few on the margin, browning, breaking up, drifting off into deeper water, where the fish and yabbies will take care of them. He doesn’t worry about those failures. He focuses on the ones starting to ripen. He looks for the balding heads, the rounding (but not too round) stomach. There are a couple of half house-bricks he keeps there. It doesn’t take long. Once they’re ripe, the sacs are about to crack and fissure anyway. The skin tears easy, and it takes just a few hard whacks to crack the plate beneath. After that it’s a cinch to reduce the insides to a thick green paste. The first time, before he steeled himself to the task, he left it late. It had raised its forearms, waving them gently, a bug’s antennae testing the air. As he brought the brick down, a moan escaped.
Looking at the mess, before he pushed it out into the creek to dissolve, before he wiped the brick clean on the reeds, he taunted himself: ‘You’re fucking that ’. Green shit everywhere, shards like broken Bakelite poking through.
Push the bricks down into your trousers. Wade out into the creek. Don’t look back. Just walk out there. Clean and deep this time of year. Let it all wash away. Go under, take a deep breath…
The sky was frosty blue. The day was mild, and a cool breeze dappled the surface of the creek. Carter closed his eyes for the moment, felt the air brush over his face. Dragonflies danced and hovered, danced and hovered. Along the bank, wild flowers trailed in the water.
He was a farmer. He had traded in meat all his life. He had dealt with hernias and prolapsed uteruses and extruded bowels, done his fair share of butchering. What we’re all like underneath, most people were able to ignore that. There was no reason not to extend that deliberate ignorance to his own situation. Especially as he had no choice, not if he wanted to live.
Carter wiped the bricks, removing most of the muck, and put them back in their spot.
The stray thoughts had not stopped him coming down and culling the males every few days. He did not want to walk into the bathroom some night, and find his replacement waiting for him. It was hard enough to piss without worrying about what might come crawling down the manhole while he was sitting there.
He left the females alone.
In his reverie two or three drops squeezed out, barely disturbing the water in the toilet bowl. He pretended he felt better.
*
Where else could he go? Carter only knew his farm. Pearson had never returned. Everything beyond was a dark forest. Who knew what was going on out there? If he even camped out in another room, she would come hunting. He’d give himself away in an instant. So, stomach dragging him forward, he returned to the cave of his bedroom.
Carter ignored the cat’s-eye glow from the bed as he shuffled across the floor. He put out of his mind an image of a tapering chitinous limb reaching round him, a barbed tip tapping his shoulder.
Her embrace was eager. The newcomer must have won. That wasn’t always the way, but it was happening more often lately. The younger ones were breeding stronger.
The females would not suffer each other to live. Not while he was the only male, and he didn’t intend that to change. It was a pity, he thought as she pinned him beneath her. They were good workers, and there was so much he could do to the property with just a few of them.
Carter finished and she rolled off. Quicker than peeing. Breathing came easier, the late night thoughts pushed lower in the sponge of his mind. Gave him a moment to plan. Don’t adapt, you die.
That young couple, they’d bought Tennison’s block a few years back, upstream a couple of miles. Maybe that would work. Perhaps different types of females could get on, not registering each other as a threat. She’d been a good sort. Wore khaki shorts and a singlet. Carter always snuck a look. Long brown legs. Unmottled. Good arm
s.
He could drag the tinny to the creek, go and take a gander at what was happening up there. Back up through the forest. Set off early, so it was all in daylight. He’d kept control here, but the rest of the place might have descended into chaos without a firm hand. Always tricky, introducing new crops.
No one would even notice if he untethered one of the embryonic females, trailed the sac bobbing behind the boat as he set off back downstream. See how she’d fare transplanted.
They should appreciate it, him taking one off their hands. If they thought about it.
If they thought.
Narco
Michelle Child
Through smothering darkness, rain assaults me from all directions. Cars hiss by, headlights glaring. Shadows bend in the edges of my vision, distorting reality. The hood of my jacket crowds my face. I toss it back and wind claws at my hair. I can hardly keep my eyes open – more sleepy than usual.
Fucking narcolepsy.
Rounding the last corner to the train station, my pocket buzzes. My heart leaps. Mum?
Not Mum.
I stare at the flashing screen. It’s him. My pulse rises. I skim through a glossary of insults I’d love to throw at him, but I can’t risk an attack now. The battle within takes longer than it should.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and run, splashing through puddles.
Entering the sanctuary of Wellington Railway Station, I gasp for breath. My scarf’s way too tight. I yank it free with burning-cold hands and wipe my face dry.
Fuck, I hate winter.
I mill with the other post-peak-hour stragglers, dribbling through the foyer. I hadn’t meant to stay at work so late. My boss at the library had let me take my usual nap in the reserve section, but I’d lost track of time.
I head onto the Kapiti line platform.
