Tide of Stone
Page 15
But did it cause an actual physical reaction? And could they then develop their own fantasies, or were they reliant on the information provided in the magazines?
Are men stimulated by the presence of sexual need? Does sexual need fade?
I’m looking out at the shore, and the children there. The innocence of them. One of them at least will be here in a few years; I hope the prisoners treat them well.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Nikki Curran
Nick Webster: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1996
I found their medical records. They were well out of date, but most of them had suffered obvious illnesses. The Traveling Salesman’s file noted, “Blinded by German Measles.” What would it be like not to see for hundreds of years? All the others caught up as their cataracts took hold. He would gain some power, being used to the darkness. His file didn’t note he’d been dangled out the window in 1908.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Nick Webster
Frances Webb: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1997
Could anything be more perfect? One year, unmolested by those who think noise important, to read and investigate the works of Dickens. There was a set of books out there, very old, which I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. But I wanted to take my own set, too, plus my notes.
Dickens does tragedy so well; I feel he understands me. We lost my older brother, didn’t we? We shouldn’t have. But we did. Trying to save him and destroying him in one.
You can’t do that to a loved one.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Frances Webb
Luke Harcourt: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1998
Put the lot of them in boxes and leave them there, I reckon. That way we wouldn’t have to look at them.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Luke Harcourt
Gary Lawrence: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1999
Geez, it’s dry out here. I’m playing music as loud as I can, and the booze helps, trying to lubricate, as they say. Lubricate.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Gary Lawrence
Jill Brooks: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2000
Gary Lawrence was the one who showed me around the Club. The place was murky and kind of unpleasant, bit like Gary himself. But at the same time there are benefits.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Jill Brooks
Kenny Campbell: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2001
$1315 PER DAY
$54 PER HOUR
90c PER MINUTE
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Kenny Campbell
Johnny De Feo: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2002
On the list of those who should be here: Jeffrey Dahmer. He’d be able to gnaw on a leg bone here, an arm bone there. He’d be right at home.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Johnny De Feo
Tracey Campbell: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2003
Don’t tell Mum, but I bonked my way through Perth. Don’t tell anyone! Not pregnant, though. Certain of that. It’s given me things to think about here, all alone. Why am I here?
I’m going to flag it.
I definitely am. Fuck the money.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Tracey Campbell
Lee Stewart: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2004
I’d say Rudolf Hess experienced something of what these creeps experience. Imprisoned in isolation for decades.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Lee Stewart
Michael Todd: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2005
I know, I’m an idiot. Conspiracy believer, fool, dummy. But I had to look, didn’t I? Just in case they were here, all the bad guys of history.
I didn’t find much. Some chittery little mouse noises down in the basement. Signs that maybe someone else comes in here, someone we don’t know about. That’s about it.
It was disappointing, but to be honest, the ones we’ve got here are evil enough.
I gave them all a turn in the box. Two at a time. Sometimes three.
They didn’t like that.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Michael Todd
Eric Peacock: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2006
Cutest thing; a kid on the shore as I left, taking photos like her life depended on it. I went to school with her brother Cameron. She’s a little cutey, all right. Not the brightest spark, our Phillipa, as Cameron used to say, but she’ll be a looker when she’s old enough.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Eric Peacock
Jake Staunton: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2007
The history of the tower, with all the prisoners eating each other, chilled me and reminded me of the island of Pulau Tengah, where three hundred dogs were dumped. They ate each other. The people who dumped them said they didn’t imagine the dogs would do such a thing, but dogs want to survive as much as humans do.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on wa
king and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Jake Staunton
Cameron Muskett: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2008
Phillipa spent every last minute with me before I left. She’s more obsessed with the tower than any of us. I’m like, “Sis, live your life until you get there! Don’t just wait around!”
There’s an innocence about her most people don’t have.
She loves all our lists, though. Our bizarre family tradition to list the monsters. Like Alfred Stroessner, who recorded the screams of torture victims to play to their families. The families of murdered “dissidents” had to pay to take the remains of their loved ones, if they wanted a proper burial.
Dad loves the lists, too. It’s like his greatest time was out there in the tower. I feel sorry for him, in a way. He never achieved the greatness his father thought he’d achieve. Failed medical school over and over again, year after year. I guess that’s why he turned to booze.
Loser.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Cameron Muskett
Nate Deeming: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2009
Kids are shits and always have been. Kids’ll tease you until your heart breaks and you wish you were dead.
They didn’t think I’d have to guts to come out here. I didn’t think I’d have the guts.
But here. I can feel something almost magic. Being amongst these prisoners, it’s like all they’ve ever known, all they’ve ever done, it’s going to help me be a better person.
Such a difference a bath makes.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Nate Deeming
Kate Hoff: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2010
I’d been warned about them. Desperate, creepy, incapable, frustrated. It was kinda fun, actually. Playing games you wouldn’t get away with on shore.
They knew before me, which is just…weird. I did not imagine for one second I could be pregnant, but there you go. Sucks. Well, not sucks. Sorry, sweetheart, if you’re ever a keeper and read this. I love you! I kept you!
But sucks because I only got six months in the tower.
Because I think there was more to know.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners did not require a bath. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Kate Hoff
Peter Mosse: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2011
There was always talk amongst the young ones about innocence and guilt. “Who’s to say what anyone deserves? Who’s to decide?”
I had no problem answering.
“The law decides. That’s who. That’s what it’s there for.”
As we approached, I could see that the walls were caked with sea creatures, sea plants, the splattered bodies of a million insects, the shit of ten thousand birds. It was craggy. Untended. Bleeding rust around the bolts.
I made myself some cheese on toast. Mum always made it for me. She’d make tiny little corners with perfect crispy cheese. I couldn’t make it that well. The prisoners thought it was hilarious.
“Who would eat in front of living corpses? What sort of man?”
The sort of man who’d record every noise they made.
I played back part of my recording. Mostly it was moaning; the men were in constant pain. I heard them complaining to each other, whining voices, each louder than the next.
They cried out, “He’s not going to help us. He’s like the others. He won’t help.”
“St Peter allowed St Agatha to die, a great release after her terrible tortures,” the priest said. “You have a blessed name. And yet you won’t help us.”
I fiddled with the controls to make music out of their voices. I was so thrilled by it, I couldn’t wait to play the results to them.
“That’s us! We didn’t sing but we’re singing!”
“He’s a bloody magician.”
“I’m just a musician.” I knew how fake the humility sounded, but I didn’t care. I played my guitar for them, the time passing so quickly it was more than an hour before I stood up.
“You know where there are wondrous sounds? The likes of which you’ll not find elsewhere? Up above. Up top. Spend a night up there and you’ll be surprised. Music of the gods. Of the stars. Music of the sea and of the dirt. Music of the air. You’ll hear words you thought long lost, hear notes never heard before.”
They wanted to help me, but I knew they were mostly trying to ingratiate themselves. It wouldn’t work. I wished I was recording the words, because they were the most poetic lyrics I’d heard.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Peter Mosse
Damian Muskett: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2012
We’ve always listed the monsters at our place. I don’t know if my parents thought this would make us immune to them? Or if they just like talking about it. Anyway. It gave Phillipa nightmares, but she always had nightmares. The sort she didn’t remember, but we all did. She’d scream the house down.
Course that meant it was easy to freak her out, too, and you can’t blame a brother, can you?
I figured out pretty quick the prisoners love the dirty details. I love the dirty details, too. I told them about Shipman, the doctor who killed hundreds. “Mercy killing!” they’re all like. “Good man, he’s a good man,” they say, because they love to judge, this lot. They’ll go through every keeper, good, bad, good, bad.
Don’t know what they’d call me. I wouldn’t let them know much.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Damian Muskett
Max Glover: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 2013
Mostly what I think about is women.
I’m too young to be here. I’ve told them that. I should be over on the mainland, enjoying myself. Instead, I’m here.
But it’s okay.
But my arm hurts. Fucken protestors cut me. Sliced my arm as if it’d stop me going out. The prisoners want me to show them. They haven’t seen a wound in a long, long time they reckon, but they do that side eye thing, where you know they’re keeping secrets.
Everyone keeps secrets. They’ve told me shit…just ridiculous shit about the keepers and all the people back in the town that make me understand nothing is real, nothing at all and you can’t trust a single soul.
Weird. I thought I saw Phillipa Muskett. Just her shadow. But I went downstairs and there was nothing, unless there was a disturbance in the dust, which there might have been.
I’m jumping at everything.
I never used to do that.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
; Max Glover
Phillipa Muskett: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s report, 2014
Goodbyes?
Hate them. So much fuss.
Someone handed me a velvet bag full of small parcels. All labelled, gifts for the prisoners. Many of them barely knew which family member was even out there. It was an inherited duty, something they did without thinking.
There was a tally kept. If no bad behavior was reported, a small present could be sent. Things like cigarettes, handmade blankets, small portraits. The town prided itself on ensuring all gifts reached them, even the bottles of rum, the money; the things other people may have stolen.
Max hugged me. Gave me a box of chocolates. “Don’t save them. Eat them all in one go. Indulge. Don’t worry, they’re not poisoned.” He had a bit of a thing about poisoning.
He helped me into the boat which bobbed at the end of the New Pier. It’s been here thirty years, but we still call it the new one.
The boatman took my hand, helped me to settle, then sorted out all my belongings.
“All set?” he said.
I faced the tower; already it seemed as if no one existed on the shore.
They cheered as we set off.
The boatman kept up a steady, blurred patter which I could barely distinguish from the sound of the waves.