by Alice Pung
Then Minh knelt down and gently guided my trembling hands. We lit it together, and it burst into a phantasmagoria of brilliance. As the sparks descended, twisting and twirling, and we all breathed a silent sigh of relief, I glanced at Minh in elation. But he had already turned away, occupied with helping little Jia light hers, and that moment of happiness was bitter. Time and detachment had distanced us. I could never completely enjoy his company again.
I flew over his body on the way to Australia. It brought back memories of the hardest years; rounds of gunfire, shrieks of women and wailing of wounded men were etched into my aural memory. Minh never saw the worst of it – he was showered with blessings as he boarded, empty-handed, a boat that would never reach the shores of Australia. Amid our grand fanfare, he didn’t notice how I clung tightly to his side and cried silent tears. I would soon be forgotten by him as well as my parents. Years later, my daughter would make the same journey, with my unneeded prayers. Completely unaware of my misery, they both departed my life as strangers, not family.
*
Finally, the green square reflected off my reading lens, and I touched it. It expanded into a grid with numbers. Flushed with pride from my achievement, I started by pushing the “3”.
The phone started ringing. She twisted around in horror.
“What did you – no! Don’t call Mum!”
She snatched it away too late – she spent the next ten minutes apologising to her mother for calling her when there wasn’t an emergency.
Perhaps my first lesson in technology hadn’t gone so well. My wrinkled hands trembled unconsciously from my terrible mistake. She hung up, then dialled the number and handed me the phone. But there was a stillness in her eyes that unnerved me; a hard, accusatory glance that passed as quickly as I noted it.
Then she turned her back to me. Just like everyone else had.
PANDORA’S PHOENIX
THE LESSON VERSION
Geena Mawby
I will keep this short because life is short.
My story has been opened, I see, but are your eyes open? A basic first lesson comes after we are born: to see. Later in life we learn the lesson to read. Words are not the only thing you can read. I’ve tried to learn to read people, too. Words we read but we also listen to them every day. But too many times, when it comes to hearing someone, I’ve watched the listener close the cover and put the book away. Everyone has a jangling battle being shaken around like a baby rattle within them. Not always are they going to write it down in words, their battle tale. They might keep it to themselves. But the lesson here is not to stick your big nose in; it’s to let your eyes do the work. It’s the power of seeing. So I’ve written down the story of one battle tale for you. You’ve opened this book, have a look and see what you can read – because in life, everybody is learning a lesson.
I guess fear always starts out like a white page. We script and write our fears into our lives, just as easy as I am writing this story now. They start off as just another blank white space, and then you develop a taste, mature with age and let them scribble over the page. We want to be clean of them. But I unlatched a silver lock and all my fears came crawling out of Pandora’s box. I thought for a while to myself that if I could bury my fears under something as sweet as a diary, then maybe the truth could stay hidden and the truth would stay forbidden. But the sweet smell couldn’t hide what I could tell.
My father was a man whose journey travelled just under the speed of fifty but he couldn’t change gears, so he was given his last year at forty-nine. It haunts me the way I thought when I stared at that saffron cancer poster on the wall and said, “Look on the bright side, it isn’t cancer.” Two hours later, I would finally learn the true feeling of being so wrong. There were no answers. There wasn’t a cure for him and in a year there wasn’t going to be any him for us. I didn’t even have to be told. I didn’t want to be told. All I can remember is thinking while I was walking to the car how strange it was that my dad couldn’t drive anymore. Only two days ago he drove my sister and me to Melbourne.
During those summer holidays, I grew pale under my own grey cloud. The cloud didn’t resemble any of the fluffy or woolly ones I wished I could have drawn into my life. No, what lingered over me was more of a human organ, dead and shrivelled up.
When my father was gone, death stayed. It smelled! Not of the dead bird I passed on the street. It didn’t smell of polluted water or of putrefying fish pancaked on the surface. It smelled of flowers and dirt, which, piled altogether, would have stood as tall as he had. That was sicker.
But once he was gone there was still fear. That I am instead crashing like an afterthought, because naturally with the strike of lightning needs to follow thunder and rain. So it grew dark and the clouds gained weight. I opened my arms wide for the perfect storm. I opened my mouth and drank, and let it get underneath my clothes. Daylight circled down me, like distant headlights. Then the sun drove straight into the storm. Together we rose to the surface, burning like a phoenix.
So now I rest in happiness and now my favourite colour is yellow.
TO COPE
Mia Cummins
As the coffin is lowered into the ground, I wonder how I’m going to live without him. No words will ever be enough to say the goodbye that he deserves, so I keep it simple: “Goodbye, Dad.” He was the only person who cared about me. Mum doesn’t. And she still won’t. I can hear her crying beside me but I don’t think it’s because of what’s happened; I think it’s because of what is going to happen and how she might actually have to get her life together so she can look after me now. I think she is crying because that seems almost impossible.
Well, it’s now three months later and Mum must have decided that keeping it together is too hard, because as I empty the bin another seven empty bottles fall out. I don’t even know where she is but I’m guessing she is in her room, numb from alcohol and free from her painful life. I just want to shake her and get her to wake up to herself, but if I do that I most likely won’t have a roof over my head. I’m trapped in her cycle of alcohol and I have no idea how to get out.
Going to the cemetery to see my dad is the only thing I do for enjoyment, and it really isn’t enjoyable at all. It just makes me miss him more every time. It does get me away, though, from the filth that is my house and the filth that is my mother. I decide to go up there, seeing as I don’t know where Mum is. When I get there I tell Dad about Mum and the alcohol and me and school, and how I’m struggling and how Mum is struggling. I wish I could tell him something happier but I have nothing. I just wish he was here.
When I get home there she is, sitting in the middle of the hallway with her legs crossed and a glass bottle in her hand. “Filthy child!” she screeches as I walk in. “I wish you’d died instead of your father.” I have heard these words more and more each day since the funeral. I just ignore her, walking past her and into the kitchen, but she is still screeching horrible threats and insults. I don’t feel safe around her. She is a psycho. I have nowhere else to go, though. “Useless child!” I hear her yell. As I lie on my bed I think about what she said: “I wish you’d died instead of your father.” Well, me too.
What I don’t understand is why she has to do it. I get that she is sad, but so am I and you don’t see me destroying everyone around me like she is. It’s impossible to keep her away from alcohol and she doesn’t want help. She needs it, though. Why can’t she understand that this isn’t how to deal with what happened? I’ve learned how to deal with it – why can’t she? I’ve learned how to deal with losing my dad and deal with her. I can handle anything now.
THE BROKEN FAIRYTALE
Genevieve Somerville
Like all good stories, mine starts off with a “Once Upon a Time …”
Once upon a time, a king and a queen had a little baby girl. They called her Princess Tessabelle. Princess Tess was born in a beautiful old castle, in the suburbs of Melbourne. She grew up happy, protected from the sadness and evil of the world by
her parents’ love.
But as she grew older, she learned that all was not as it seemed. The king was actually a dragon in disguise, but he only ever turned his ugly face towards the queen, so no one ever knew – except for Tess. Her tiara never shone as bright on those days.
“Mummy, why are you crying?” Princess Tess asked. She was only four at the time.
“Don’t worry, darling, Mummy just needs some time away,” the queen explained to the princess.
The queen had met the king at a ball, while wearing a gown so lovely it was as though it had been sewn by angels. At midnight, she left. A single slipper was the only clue to finding her. He found her all right – found her, and never let her go.
“Mummy, is he your Prince Charming, your true love?” Princess Tess asked.
The queen did not reply straightaway. “Oh, Mummy’s just being silly! Without him, we wouldn’t have you,” she said eventually, kissing her daughter on the nose.
It was in the summer of her twelfth year when Princess Tess first found out about the dragon that had being terrorising her mother for years.
“Raymond, please calm down,” the queen said, on the verge of tears.
The voice that replied still chills Tess’s bones even today.
“Georgie, I’m not an unreasonable guy. I just want to know if you have been seeing anyone.”
“I haven’t seen anyone, I swear to you.”
“I saw the way you were talking to the neighbour. You’re such a tease.”
This went on for hours. Princess Tess tried to cover her ears, but sometimes even that couldn’t block out the queen’s cries.
The dragon would come home from the pub, angry. He would start yelling and accusing the queen. She would beg, plead with him. Holding onto their dying marriage like a hungry dog with a bone.
There was nothing Princess Tess could do but watch, terror in her eyes.
The next day, the king would return and promise the queen that the dragon would never come back. “Please love me, it’s all my fault. If I just change …” he’d beg. The king would take the queen’s hand and tell how he loved her and had never meant for her to get hurt. He would bring gifts. “I’m sorry, I just can’t stand the thought of you being unfaithful … I love you.”
The queen would melt in his arms and feel guilty for ever having said a bad thing about him. And for a moment, it was as though the dragon had never existed. Their family was safe, happy and normal.
Princess Tess thought back to the time when the king and queen had taken her to the beach on a royal holiday. It would have been perfect, if the king hadn’t forbidden the queen from swimming. “I just love you so much, I want to keep you all to myself,” the king had explained.
Princess Tess never forgot the dragon. She was always wary of what she did, what she said and how she acted around the king. But Princess Tess loved the king and that made her feel guilty.
A few weeks later the dragon came back and left the queen bloody and broken. Princess Tess was sick all night.
The next morning the princess spied on the queen in the bath. Her mother’s back and chest were a putrid, angry purple colour. She had two bruises the shape of the king’s hands on her neck. But it couldn’t have been the king because he wasn’t there. It had to have been the dragon.
Things changed when the queen fell pregnant with another baby. Tess was fifteen at the time. The king started to get angry over anything and everything.
The queen would cook a lovely dinner of spaghetti bolognaise. The king would throw it on the ground if he didn’t like it, and then storm out.
One night it was too much for Tess. She heard her mother’s scream and came running.
“Get to your room, Tess!” the king roared.
“Tessie, please, do as your father says!” her mother begged.
Tess firmly planted her feet in between her mother and father. Her mother sent her a pleading glance.
“Don’t you dare touch her, you monster,” Tess said, trying to act more confident than she felt.
“Out of my way, brat.”
Tess felt as helpless as a ragdoll as he threw her against the wall and then started on her mother. Tess screamed and tried to pull him off but he stepped on her hand. She then saw the glint of her mobile and grabbed it as though her life depended on it. It probably did.
Tess barely remembered dialling the numbers but a few minutes later, sirens and flashing lights were at the door.
Strangers came and took her father away. They were safe.
Tess held her mother’s hand on the way to the hospital. “Mum, I’m so sorry for never doing anything,” she said, sobbing.
“Tess, you saved my life and the baby’s life. Brave girl,” her mum said.
In the end, the king did teach Tess an important lesson. To love isn’t to control. To be angry isn’t to be violent. To be married isn’t to be a prisoner.
It wasn’t a king who hurt her mother, and it wasn’t a dragon either. It was her father.
Not every relationship will turn out like a fairytale, and some will turn out to be a nightmare. But find the courage within yourself to speak up. Everyone deserves to be safe in their own homes.
LESSONS
Jacinta Barnard
I guess one of the lessons I’ve learned is that life is short. Yes, I know, it’s a cliché and everyone knows it, but you never really understand it until you start to get older. I realise that sixteen isn’t that old, but it feels like just yesterday I was worrying about my first day of high school and who I was going to sit with.
Now I’m worrying about going into Year Eleven, wearing a white shirt and choosing subjects that are going to help with what I want to do when I leave school. I’ve been trying to figure out what university I want to go to and what I want to study. I know that I still have almost two years to decide, but that’s what I kept thinking when I went into Year Nine. I told myself I still had time and not to worry about my senior years until I actually have to. Now the time is here and I only have eight terms of school left.
I’m scared, I really am. I’m scared I won’t get a good enough ATAR for university. I’m scared that I will and my friends won’t, although that’s very unlikely. I’m scared about when I have to move out of home because my parents won’t be there with me to help, although sometimes it feels like they’re not really there anyway. They’re out a lot, whether it’s because they’re working or they’re just out at the pub.
I’d like to think they’re supportive but I know that my mum doesn’t really like the idea of me going to university. Both my older sisters have finished school and are working instead of studying. Mum thinks it’s a waste of time and money. As much as she may have a point, I still want to be able to make something of myself.
Life is short and sometimes people stay, sometimes people don’t. Even when you’re ten years old you lose friends and make new ones, except then you don’t really think much of it because you are only ten. I guess when you’re older and you’ve grown up a bit, things are different. You depend on your friends a bit more than you did when you were younger, and when you lose them it hurts. Whether you have an argument or you just drift apart, later on you realise how much you miss them. People have told me that when you get older and leave school, you lose a lot of people you never thought you would. I don’t have many close friends as it is, so the thought of losing most of them scares me.
My mum had my eldest sister when she was only sixteen. She always tells us that she regrets having us when she did, but she doesn’t regret us – if that makes sense? It sounded better in my head, trust me. I’m the youngest and my mum had me when she was twenty. In a way she never really got to live her life, she never got a chance to go to a lot of parties or travel and go on holidays because she spent her adolescent years looking after my two sisters and me.
I’ve always wanted to live, not just exist. I don’t want to be nobody; I want to be somebody. I don’t want to stay here. I want to travel. I want to
experience things that my mum and dad never got to. While I’m young I want to go to parties, have fun with friends and not worry about anything, but I’m already getting older and starting to have responsibilities, having to “grow up”. I don’t want to get older – what happens? Everyone does the same thing: wake up and go to work every day at a job they probably don’t like, just to pay bills and not live but simply exist. If that’s what “growing up” is, I don’t want to.
I don’t really know where I was going with this little story, and most of what I’ve talked about is off topic. Life is short – yes it sucks, but that’s just the way it is.
RED IN THE DARK WOODS
Sabira Hasanoff
Dear friend,
I think that people are like the moon. Even if it’s a full moon, there is still that other side that is completely hidden from the naked eye. A mystery. The person could just be showing you their ostensible cover – that seemingly shallow outer layer of human that looks as if it cares only about wealth and beauty. But life is so much more complicated than that. It’s an inextricable labyrinth in which people change and discover new things and then change again. This process happens mostly in a maze called “high school”. Teenagers discover their integrity and what they are capable of achieving, while going through many changes of their inner self. I learned this lesson throughout my time in high school. The Japanese say that you have three faces: the first face, you show to the world; the second face, to your close family and friends; and the third face, you never show to anyone. The third face is the truest reflection of who you are.
