narratorAUSTRALIA Volume Two

by narrator AUSTRALIA

  ***Editor’s Pick***

  ‘Baffling’ Bill Letts was an average stage magician and illusionist. His best tricks and performing years were now well behind him. Constant touring around country shows and fairs, not to mention an above average consumption of grog, had taken its toll over the years. His long suffering partner and wife – ‘Fay the Fair’ – had endured his taunts above and beyond the call of sanity. Bill’s once mysterious charm had now vanished in the smoke that accompanied some of his more elaborate illusions; now, sadly, a dim memory also. Bill nowadays relied upon ‘sleight of hand’ tricks that were the magician’s stock in trade. His prowess in this area was also in the decline.

  Fay, (who was simply known as Fay Johnson when she first met Bill), was a crack shot, lasso artist and trick rider in her father’s small-time bush circus. Bill had joined the circus briefly and the gormless Fay was instantly captivated by Bill’s oily charm and his dark, hypnotic eyes. When Bill suggested they should join forces, run away and leave the circus, Fay promptly agreed. The only life she had known was with her father and the chances of finding a handsome, sophisticated partner like the swarthy magician were slim. Indeed, young Bill had looked remarkably like a young Bela Lugosi and affected the same dark, mysterious, manner. Bill, moreover, was of Eastern European origins, immigrating to Australia in 1948 from Latvia with the name Vilhelms Krūmiņš, aka ‘Wilhelm the Wizard’. This name proved to be ‘baffling’ to Australian audiences and so in a rare moment of inspiration, with a nostalgic reminder of his origins, Young Vilhelms became ‘Baffling’ Bill Letts.

  Bill had lost his family during the war and never got over it. Consequently, he came to rely upon alcohol, especially vodka, as the only means of escape. When Bill was drunk, he became particularly nasty and belligerent and the hapless Fay soon became the target of his scorn. As the years passed and Fay’s girth widened, she played less and less a part in Bill’s performances. Her once trim figure, from years of horse riding, had ensured that she was able to contort her body so as to perform the magician’s more elaborate illusions, such as ‘disappearing’ from locked cabinets or folding over double so as to appear being sawn in half or avoid swords pushed into her sequinned torso. Highly strung as she was, Fay resented the decline in her physical stature and paranoia gradually increased.

  ‘You iz not so fair now Fay; your rump is as vide as ze horses you once rode,’ Bill told her bluntly. ‘But you could still be ze plant ven I appear to read the minds,’ Bill justified Fay’s demotion. ‘It also means I do not need to pay some oaf whose billet I know in advance ... is good, no? You just keep your dumpy frame out of sight ’til Showtime and zen no-one vill suspect you are part of ze act.’

  Fay protested loudly that the other skills she brought to the act, like shooting a hole through an ace of spades or the bullet catch that would appear ‘magically’ in the magician’s fingers or mouth, brought excitement to the performance.

  ‘Zat time is now past,’ Bill declared. ‘Anyvay your aim iz now not so good!’ Bill, who had a couple of close calls during the war, had a healthy aversion to firearms anyway.

  Fay snorted in contempt. ‘He knows damn well that we use wax bullets,’ but did not voice this out loud. Instead, she said simply, ‘Alright Bill, I’ll be the plant – what would you like as the message on the billet?’

  The deception used in billet reading is known as the one-ahead method. The performer relies on knowing what is inside one of the envelopes ahead of time, and using that knowledge to stay (hopefully) one step ahead of the audience. The performer does this by having a plant in the audience insert a predetermined message as one of the billets, or by secretly opening one envelope. The performer subsequently pretends to read the contents of the first sealed envelope. Actually, the plant’s message is being recited and the performer must simultaneously commit the new message to memory. Bill now performed this trick as the end of his show. Alas, his memory was failing and he was having difficulty in recalling each message from one envelope to the next. His excessive vodka intake did not help.

  Bill tried to cover up his mistakes by emulating one of his ‘magical’ heroes – Tommy Cooper – by appearing to be drunk when he performed. Indeed, like Tommy, Bill frequently was drunk. Regrettably, Bill lacked Tommy’s panache and the refined comic timing to carry it off and consequently just seemed inept and pathetic. When Fay had suggested that perhaps they should just retire, Bill flew into a rage. ‘Never!’ he bellowed. ‘Ven my time comes, I vill die on stage just like Tommy!’ Fay, in a vain attempt to remain a more visible part of the act, had suggested that a billet could be secreted inside a cartridge with a wax bullet that she would fire from the rear of the audience. Bill actually considered this momentarily but then declared that the logistics were now more than he could handle. He turned her down again. Fay seethed.

  Fay endured the humiliation (as she saw it) of being the plant in the audience for a few months. Then they had a miraculous change of luck and Bill secured a booking in one of the bigger RSL clubs in Sydney. ‘My luck is changing at last,’ declared Bill. ‘Zay are oafs but ze money is good! I need a big finale!’

  Fay again suggested that she fire a wax bullet from the side of the auditorium. ‘Come on Bill, it’s your signature, your name – Baffling Bill’s Magic Billets. You just do a substitution and place the real bullet with the message – This is the end of the show! in your mouth when you pretend to fall down!’

  Bill’s vanity got the better of him and so he agreed, thinking that it might impress other clubs and he could always get a newer and more attractive assistant at a later time!

  At the Sydney RSL club the performance was going well and Bill, eschewing his customary vodka pick-me-up, was in fine form. He called on a few random people to write down various messages on pieces of paper ... the billets. Fay as usual was one of the random people and wrote her standard message – I really love horses – on the billet. This she placed into the discreetly marked envelope that Bill would recognise as hers and place it on the bottom of the stack. She then walked to the side of the auditorium, near the stage, and waited quietly with her hand in her hand bag grasping her pistol. Having collected all the various envelopes, Bill placed Fay’s envelope on the bottom by sleight of hand. He placed the top envelope against his forehead and after a dramatic pause called out, ‘Our first person says that he or she really loves horses – iz this the right message?’

  Fay acknowledged that it was and added ‘That’s amazing – how did you know?’

  Bill replied, ‘Vell, you look ze horsy type!’ There was general laughter. Fay seethed.

  Bill dutifully went through the same routine with each envelope and read each billet in advance before solemnly declaring each message, feigning a little difficulty and basking in the applause when each person acknowledged that he had ‘divined’ their particular message. Having arrived at the bottom envelope, Bill intoned, ‘My dog has fleas’, as the last message, adding, ‘Dis person must have an unfortunate doggie ... or play ze ukulele!’ There was laughter and the usual expressed amazement. Bill tore open the envelope expecting to see Fay’s usual message – I really love horses.

  Bill looked up from the billet with a look of puzzlement. He turned in Fay’s direction but was unable to see as a spotlight was in his eyes. ‘Fay, wha ...’ A single shot rang out.

  A neat, red, black hole appeared on the magician’s forehead and he dropped to the floor, the billet fluttering from his hand. There was much confusion. People screamed. Some said it was just part of the act.

  Afterwards, the police recovered the billet from the stage. It read: The horse has bolted. Your last billet is a bullet. No wax this time, Wilhelm!

  Fay demonstrated conclusively that she had, in fact, lost none of her prowess as a crack shot. When asked by police why she had shot her husband, Fay answered with a vacant stare. When pressed again she replied, ‘He got his wish, he died on stage – just like Tommy.’

  Ed: Some stories are
just fascinating. While even a one-dimensional item can still be really entertaining if well written and the subject matter carefully chosen, this one has so much in it is was hard to pass up: humour, sadness, irony/sarcasm, apathy, desperation, depression, repression, Australian history and culture (our bush circuses and RSL circuits), world history (post-war European migration to Australia), education (how a certain magic trick can be performed – watch out James: you don’t want The Magic Circle after you!!), and a story that I had to work at to follow – not too difficult, but certainly couldn’t be just breezed over, unless you were a magician yourself and understood in advance how it was all going to pan out. All-in-all a lot to successfully pack into 1,466 words!!

  Friday 4 January 2013

  Solid Oak

  Marie York

  Glebe, NSW

  Autumn leaves can’t fall when you are around.

  The’re suffocated – thickened – blinded – by your eyes.

  Beneath the stem of each leaf, lies a backbone,

  So slightly bent the moment you acknowledge my existence.

  Melancholy in my state I lie, pursing my lips as though you fell upon them.

  Your petals fall unto another woman,

  Fall stubborn leaf unto another man,

  Real love should not bind you to an oak

  Fall stubborn leaf into the air I float

  Tight in her lair she guards you with her long stemmed rose.

  That to which I could never bloom.

  So, drop stubborn leaf, for you shall harden, fall and disintegrate soon enough,

  Eyes are but the ray of light that seeps through closed lids

  Bend stubborn backbone to those moments you neglected

  Whose love will not bind you to the oak, so rooted in its ways.

  Friday 4 January 2013 4 pm

  Waiting For Him

  Marilyn Linn

  Darlington, SA

  night after night

  she waited for him

  listened for him

  watched for him

  but he would not come

  he could not come

  he did not know

  she waited.

  emboldened the stars glittered

  the stars grew bolder

  the moon shone brighter

  clouds drifted softly

  sounds echoed

  through the nights

  until the moon became a sliver

  and the stars grew dim.

  her heart grew heavy

  her eyes gazed

  far into the distance.

  he would never come

  he had found a new love

  but still she waited

  in vain.

  Saturday 5 January 2013

  The Newcomer

  John Ross

  Blackheath, NSW

  The Royal Hotel was not only the biggest building in the town it was the only one built of sandstone blocks. Today, the twentieth day of the long hot spell of the summer of 1949, it was also the coolest place in town. Outside on the dusty main street two very dirty, battered four wheel drives and an even more decrepit ute stood at the kerb. The street was deserted apart from a blue cattle dog asleep under the shade of a drooping gum tree. Nothing moved except the slow beat of the dog’s tail as it dreamt of a bowl of icy cold water.

  Inside, three men: Bluey, Snowy and Mad Mick, sat on stools staring into their schooners of amber liquid. The barman, Angus Applethwaite Bertwhistle, otherwise known as Angry, was perched on a chair behind the bar reading the racing guide. The only sound was the loud buzz of a large blowfly as it beat itself senseless against the front window; soon to join dozens of its mates already dead on the window sill. The sound of a vehicle pulling up at the front of the pub stirred the men.

  Bluey noted the shiny new Ford motor car and remarked, ‘It’s the bloody Yank that bought old Smithy’s place. Bloody heck he’s cummin in ’ere. Been ’ere three bloody years and thinks he owns the bloody place.’ The three men returned to studying their drinks.

  The American, Eugene Antwerp, sometimes known by the locals as Twerpy, but more usually just as The Yank, strode up to the bar and addressed the barman: ‘I’m looking for Constable Jones.’ Silence. The barman continued to read and the three customers, in unison, took a long swig of their drinks. Eugene tried again, ‘Well! Is Constable Jones here?’

  The barman slowly put down his paper, looked slowly and pointedly at each of his three customers in turn and replied, ‘Nope.’ He then picked up his paper again and started to read.

  Eugene, with a tinge of anger in his voice now, ‘Well where is he? I need to report a theft. Some goddamn rustler has stolen twenty head of my sheep out of my holding paddock.’

  The barman slowly put down his paper and said, ‘Hospital. Cloncurry.’

  Eugene, backing off a little, ‘Why did he go there?’ To which the barman replied, ‘Snake bit him.’

  Turning to Snowy, Eugene, pointing at the barman, said sarcastically, ‘Is this man always this full of information?’

  Snowy thought for a few moments and then said, ‘Well he is usually a quiet bloke but he is right talkative this afternoon.’

  Now totally exasperated and losing his temper Eugene turned to Mad Mick, ‘I guess I will have to wait till he gets back. Any idea as to when that might be?’

  Mick, with a bit of a mischievous grin, replied, ‘You might have a bit of a wait.’

  There was a long drawn out silence before Eugene, now very visibly angry said, ‘Alright, alright I give in. Why?’

  Mick, now with a sad face replied, ‘He died this morning.’

  This was too much for Eugene, he was so taken aback that he was lost for words. Finally, in a rather strangled voice he managed to say, ‘So where do you suggest I go now?’

  Bluey muttered under his breath, ‘I could make a few suggestions.’

  Snowy quickly intervened and suggested he ring the police sergeant in Cloncurry.

  Eugene stormed out of the pub with a parting, ‘You goddamn Aussies; you would never make a go of it in the States with attitudes like that.’

  Mad Mick turned to Snowy and said, ‘With lots of blokes like him around why would I even want to live there? Snowy, you also forgot to tell him the Sarge in Cloncurry is on leave for a month.’

  The barman intoned, ‘Bloody Yank.’ They all nodded and returned to their drinks.

  After Eugene had driven off with a screech of tyres and flying gravel the pub settled down again. Outside, after opening one eye to watch Eugene’s departure the cattle dog slipped back to its dream. Inside Bluey, Snowy and Mad Mick started on another round; the blowfly finally gave up trying to escape and sank down to join its dead mates on the windowsill.

  After a while Bluey turned to Mad Mick and said, ‘You know you’re a lucky bastard. That copper dying lets you off the hook. You didn’t happen to steal his bloody sheep did you?’

  Mad Mick, looking offended, replied, ‘What me? Never. I just found them out on the bloody road, fence broken down and put them in one of the Yank’s adjacent paddocks. He will find them eventually.’

  Snowy asked, ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell the bastard?’

  Mad Mick grinned, ‘What? And spoil my reputation?’

  Sunday 6 January 2013

  Tales The Laundress Told

  Winsome Smith

  Lithgow NSW

  To call her merely the laundress was to deny about eighty percent of the woman’s character. She was Mrs Inman, raconteur extraordinaire, a wisp of a woman who came to our place every Tuesday afternoon to earn herself a few bob doing the ironing. A wisp of a woman, a whirlwind of a woman, one is tempted to call her birdlike but there never was a bird that could move as swiftly as Mrs Inman, nor talk as much.

  My mother too could be garrulous when the mood took her and the two women together on Tuesday afternoons could fill our kitchen with networks, cobwebs, interweavings of conversation and stories.

  My
mother, however, was not always there on Mrs Inman’s afternoons. The minister’s wife was supposed to be a help to the minister. She was expected to attend every gathering of church women and take the chair at women’s meetings. For true approval from the congregation she should do the flowers, teach Sunday School, sweep the church steps and sing in the choir, while breast-feeding her baby, and of course, with cheerful heart and gladsome mind.

  So it was that my mother, although she would have preferred it, could not always be in the cosy kitchen on Mrs Inman’s ironing day. As I worked shift work at the telephone exchange I was often home early on Tuesday afternoon so to me fell the duty of making Mrs Inman’s cup of tea (black with lemon) and listening to her tireless talk.

  She was supposed only to do the ironing, that was what she was paid for, but there was not one aspect of domestic life that escaped her attention and comment. ‘Stop!’ she cried in alarm as I was about to slice a cucumber. ‘Always run a fork down the sides of peeled cucumbers before you eat ’em. Let’s the poison out. I once knew a man died a terrible death because he et poison cucumbers.’

  I obligingly scored the sides of the cucumber although my Domestic Science teacher at school used to tell us that it was merely for decorative effect.

  For Mrs Inman there was no such thing as a taboo subject, highly unusual in an age when many things were never spoken of.

  ‘Gotcher monthlies,’ she told me with conviction one day when I said that I had stomach cramps and must have looked a bit pale. I did not know how to reply, never having heard periods or monthlies mentioned by a soul except my mother, and then in a hushed voice behind the closed bedroom door. But to Mrs Inman ‘women’s troubles’ were no more sacred than the latest political events.

  ‘Lie down for a half-hour with a hot water bottle on yer belly,’ she advised. This I refused to do as it would have been acknowledging the unmentionable. Instead I sat by the fuel stove and sewed the hem of a dress.

  ‘Thirty-two inches, that’s the right length for a dress. Mine are always thirty-two.’

  I ignored this. On tiny Mrs Inman a dress thirty-two inches long would have nearly reached the floor, but on leggy me it would have been short enough for my mother to call it indecent. It would have been unfashionable anyway because that year Christian Dior had created the New Look and other Paris designers had declared that skirts should be very long and very full. Oh yes, in our little town in country New South Wales we knew all about Paris fashion.

  Foolishly I mentioned to her that I was subject to another kind of cramping – leg cramps –which woke me up in the night. ‘Very common,’ announced Mrs Inman, her little hands flicking water over some starched tablecloths. ‘Tell yer what to do. Yer go down to the river and fetch some of them river stones, you know, them little white pebbles, all round and smooth, and put them in yer bed. Yer’ll never get leg cramps again.’

  She reflected for a while, working with long, smooth strokes. She stopped, touched the iron with a licked finger, switched the power off, then said, ‘Another good thing for cramps is a sheep’s knee bone but they’re a bit hard to come by, unless you do yer own slaughterin’.’

  While she was on the subject of beds, she added, ‘Camphor in the bed. Put some in the bottom of yer bed and yer’ll never get blood pressure.’

  Thinking of river stones and the smell of camphor, I wanted to add, ‘ – or much sleep,’ but didn’t as I could see that she wanted to speak again. ‘It’s all part of growing up. It’s part of being a woman, all them cramps and things.’

  ‘There’s another thing but,’ she said suddenly. ‘It might be yer bowels. Are yer bowels working? Do you go every day?’

  ‘Of course,’ I muttered into the sewing. I wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone, even if I’d been permanently clogged up. I did not wish for my bowels or my periods to be the subject of household, thence neighbourhood, discussion.

  ‘Well if they’re not working,’ she continued with grim foreboding, ‘if yer not going every day regular, you can get terrible sick. I used to have piles something awful. It’s because you keep putting off answering the call. I was always too busy to go when I wanted to, especially when I was running the boarding house. I’d say “I’ll just peel these here murphies, then I’ll go” or “I’ll just light the copper, then I’ll go”. You put it off and you put it off then when you do go you can’t do nothin’.’

  I made what I hoped was a sympathetic noise.

  ‘Had to have an operation in the end,’ she said, with absolutely no intention of pun. ‘What they do is, they pull out the bowel and cut off the bit with the piles. They cut off yards of mine.’ She stood the iron on its end and extended her right arm several times as if measuring yards of fabric. From nose tip to fingertip was said to be one yard but for diminutive Mrs Inman it must have been so far short of a yard that she would have been cheated in the buying. She measured out several yards of invisible bowel then said, ‘I had no more trouble after that.’

  I wanted to say, ‘ – and not much bowel to give you trouble,’ but again refrained because it would have been making light of what was to her a very serious matter.

  Laundry and housework received a large part of her attention. She had been a farmer, a shop owner and proprietor of a boarding house during her lifetime but believed fervently that for a woman housework must come first. After all, if the woman of the house didn’t do it, who would?

  ‘Not expecting, are you?’ she exclaimed one day when she saw my mother vigorously turning the wringer while she fed wet towels through. A sound like a little motor starting up issued from my mother’s throat as she tried to suppress a giggle. ‘Not likely,’ she said.

  My mother listened politely as Mrs Inman continued. ‘I never turned the mangle when I was expecting. I always got someone to do it for me. All that turning can cause no end of trouble to the child. Knew a girl who always turned the mangle herself. She had an awful lot of washing to do and I warned her plenty of times but she never listened. Her baby was born with a wry neck. No, never turn that there wringer while yer carrying a child.’

  Every member of our family received her advice. She recommended a soap and sugar poultice for drawing splinters, paraffin oil for smooth operation of one’s innards, tomatoes for relieving the sting of sunburn, cucumbers for toning up the skin.

  Most of her remedies really did work, but I was going through my glamour stage and had no faith in anything that was not purchased at the chemist’s shop or the cosmetics counter. No tomatoes or cucumbers for my skin.

  Of all the day to day problems of human life it was women’s troubles that received most of her wisdom and folklore. She arrived one afternoon just as I was about to wash my hair. I had the enamel dish at one end of the kitchen table and was giving my hair a vigorous brushing. She glared at my bottle of shampoo as she spread out the ironing blanket at the other end of the table. ‘What’s that there?’ she asked.

  ‘Shampoo. My bottle of Halo Shampoo,’ I told her.

  She gave a disgusted snort. ‘Damn modern stuff! Do you know what’s the best thing for washing hair?’

  ‘Yes, Halo Shampoo,’ I said.

  She did not hear because, as usual, she just kept on talking. ‘Dog soap. Dog soap’s the best thing for hair. It’s especially made for a dog’s delegate skin. If it won’t hurt the dog’s skin, it won’t hurt the youman scalp. Better’n all that manufactured muck. You should use dog soap.’

  I wanted to say, ‘Should I go out and roll in the dust afterwards too?’ but was cut short by her next statement.

  ‘Haven’t gotcher monthlies, have yer?’

  ‘No, Mrs Inman, I haven’t,’ I assured her. I wouldn’t have told anyone, even if I had.

  ‘Good thing. Never wash yer ’air while you’ve gotcher monthlies. Sends yer mad.’

  I bent over the dish, wet my hair and gave it a hearty lathering with the Halo. I then went out to the laundry to rinse my hair with water from the tank tap. When I came back to the kitchen, Mrs
Inman had made a considerable reduction in the size of the bundle of damped and rolled-up clothes in the basket.

  As I towelled my hair and combed the tangles out she took up her story. ‘Knew a girl who always used to do that – wash her hair at the wrong time of the month. Sent her mad. They had to send her away to an asylum. She got worse and died there. She had a twin sister, y’know, and they didn’t dare tell the twin that her sister had died of madness. They thought the shock might kill her so they just said “Oh, she’s gorn away. She’s took a short trip”. O’course she never came back, so the twin fretted so much that she died too. Terrible sad it was. No, never wash yer hair while you’ve gotcher monthlies.’

  This was one piece of wisdom that I did heed but not in the way Mrs Inman expected. I had always found madness to be a topic of compelling fascination. There had recently been some publicity about a local woman reputed to be mad. She kept her blinds down and her curtains drawn all day, and blocked up the keyholes to protect herself from the enemies who were spying on her. On the rare occasions when she had to go out to the corner shop she wore a man’s overcoat and a hat and wrapped a scarf about her face so her enemies would not see her. When she encountered people in the street she told them she was Joan of Arc.

  The world was coming to a terrible end, she knew because she had kept every newspaper since they had dropped the atom bomb.

  I was enthralled. Human oddity was for me a constant interest. Perhaps that was why I listened so much to Mrs Inman and absorbed her stories; they were full of accounts of quirks and frailties.

  Having no way of plumbing the mysteries of human nature I decided to engage in scientific experiment by always carrying out the opposite of Mrs Inman’s advice. I put no pebbles or camphor in my bed. I never used a soap and sugar poultice nor took paraffin oil.

  Whenever I had a period I washed my hair with Halo Shampoo every day for its five-day duration and I analysed my own actions for any signs of madness.

  As I grew out of my teens I had no more cramps and I never suffered from blood pressure. I exuded vitality and rude health and my hair took on a glowing sheen. Furthermore, except for a penchant for falling in and out of love, I was not much madder than anybody else.

  With the passing of my teens and the eventual demise of Mrs Inman a richness went out of my life. Whenever I hear the gentle hiss of an iron gliding over damped-down linen I am taken back to that stove-warmed kitchen and the folklore that filled our Tuesday afternoons.

  But I think it is safe now to tell it. I never, ever slice up a cucumber without first scoring along its sides with a fork. You just never know.

  Monday 7 January 2013

  Brighton

  Miss Pippi

  Toowoomba, QLD

  The smell of saltwater hits your senses, so delightfully salty you can almost taste it. The sea itself is a lot like Brighton. Layers of unique pebble rocks giving you a sense of wonder.

  The smooth surface of a beautiful white pebble sits amongst the scratchy surface of a beach filled landscape. You can see the water lapping at the edges, inviting each small swell to join the water and rocks together on the beach.

  Under the surface it’s full of more delightful discoveries, what you see could be something lost and have found its arrival point right under your feet, somewhat like a passion in your mind because of the space and wonderment of the vast opportunity in front of you. Sometimes it happens when a stranger passes by and takes notice of the same opportunity: a creation is born.

  Between the two souls a change in the energy flow brings about a rainbow in the clouds. Brighton is much like a rainbow, you see, embracing any of the colours you wish to believe in, from people to poetry to a journey within.

  Each person here has a lifetime to soak it all in. Whether you live by the water with pebbles under your feet or soak up the landscape and the people you meet, Brighton has a way of reaching deep into your soul, deep down in there, and it wishes for your peace your passion and everything which is whole.

  Tuesday 8 January 2013

  Love’s Destroyer

  Miss Concepcion

  The Ponds, ACT

  Her eyes widened dramatically, staring into the scrying glass. Their once vibrant, dainty cerulean color changed: it seemed as if the storm of the century was raging inside those now tempestuous, intense, indigo eyes. Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty and lust, slowly ground her teeth together in silent rage. Her eyes squeezed into tight little slits and her fingers curled into claws. She wanted, no needed, to urgently severely impair something or conceivably, someone.

  ‘She’s so beautiful, like a Goddess.’

  ‘Yes, she’s much more beautiful than Aphrodite and she’s right here for us to worship.’

  ‘Who needs Gods and Goddesses when we have someone like her right here with us?’

  ‘She should be the Goddess of Love and Beauty. Who needs old Aphrodite?’

  That was IT! The ornate mirror was hurled across the room with unsurprising swiftness and strength, the slow shattering sound bringing a fierce satisfaction to Aphrodite’s bitter heart. This is exactly what she was going to do to that cursed mortal: break her.

  ‘EROS!’ she screeched, the air around her glimmering with the electricity of untamed power.

  A gust of wind blew into the room, Eros appearing alongside. ‘Yeah Mom, way to yell, I was right in the middle of …’ He halted, staring unabashedly at her twitching eyebrows and expression of fury. A barely perceptible tremble went through him and he unsteadily juddered. ‘Whoa. What is it? What’s happened?’ he asked.

  Renowned for her playful and flirty qualities, no one be it mortal or god, had ever seen the love goddess truly angry. Unquestionable, they’d been on the receiving end of her irritation; however, she’d never been truly angry. Now, all the lightheartedness was gone, taking her blithe attitude with it. Currently, she was furious in full-fledged destructive goddess mode, crackling with power, eager for bloodshed. Putting it lightly, it wasn’t pretty.

  She flashed with power and her eyes grew darker, whirling with hidden storm clouds. Her hair whipped around her shoulders in almost wet-looking tendrils, writhing like snakes, waiting to strangle anyone that got too close. Her face was a mask of inhuman beauty, the goddess shining so completely through that any mortal that saw her would have been instantly incinerated. She was beautiful and terrible, embodying all of the darkness that love could be.

  Aphrodite raised her hand, a mirror appearing in her grasp. ‘The people in this town have turned their backs on the Goddess Aphrodite; so therefore, I turn my back on them.’ An image of the quaint town wavered and swam up to the surface of the mirror. ‘See how they live without the touch of Love and Beauty? As they worship another, all that they cherish will wither and die without my blessing.’

  She shook the mirror and the image changed to show a beautiful, dark haired girl standing on a hillside, surrounded by wildflowers; a lovely woven crown of purple blossoms sitting daintily above her head.

  The girl was laughing and talking with her friends. ‘Everyone says that I’m so pretty I should be the Goddess of Love. Aphrodite’s all old and stuff. People should just worship me.’ Her friends gasped at the scandalous blasphemy, but giggled along with her, a couple of them nodding their agreement. She was beautiful and none of them had ever seen the Goddess in real life.

  The mirror flew through the air impacting with the wall, the broken pieces falling to mix with the remnants of the last mirror.

  ‘Eros, you will kill her. It can be fast and clean, but she will die. Do you understand me?’ Aphrodite looked at her son with blazing eyes. The tension in the air seemed so thick; Eros could almost cut it with a knife.

  Eros swallowed hard and bobbed his head in a nod. ‘Yes, she will die.’

  ‘No mistakes, Eros. No falling onto your arrows. No blessed marriage and immortality for her. She dies today, whether by your hand or mine. And if I have to go down there and do it myself, she will not be the last t
o lose her life.’

  ‘Yes Mother.’ Eros flashed out in a twinkle of muted sparkles. He was only glad to escape from her unscathed; sighing with relief he continued on his journey to the mortal world. Never again did he want to see the picturesque expression of rage upon her face.

  Aphrodite leaned back on her throne, clasping her hands beneath her chin. The air of rage still hung around her, but she was carefully holding it in check. She had lived for centuries, more than enough time to learn how to control the darker aspects of her temper. Even though no one wanted to be on the receiving end of the bad side of love, it would have been hard to hold their worship if they ever saw how truly abysmal she could be.

  Within those previous moments, her family resemblance to the House of War had been readily apparent. She had appeared dangerous, almost evil, truly someone not to be crossed. There was very little of the more familiar Aphrodite to her right then, most had only ever seen the light-hearted exterior, not the blade within.

  Love and hate are two sides of the same coin and sometimes they melt together into one. The passions of jealousy and rage bubble up like unexpected guests; however, they are always hidden just beneath the surface of every romance, waiting for a spark to ignite them.

  Fully embodying her Godhood, Aphrodite held as much ugliness within her as she did beauty. Because without the smooth edge of everyday ugliness, how could anyone recognise the sharper edges of beauty peeking through?

  She was passion and grace, lust and glory, wrapped together in a gauzy pink dress, but there was hardness in her too, something that allowed her to survive the unruly emotions of mortals and the ferocity of the other gods.

  Beautiful and dangerous, as strong as she appeared fragile, with the power she held she could break the very Earth. Because without love and beauty there could be no war, no anger, no growth, no aspiration for anything better, because everything would be in thin shades of grey. No one would ever claw their way out of the darkness and into the light because the light itself would not exist.

  She was powerful, but few ever saw her like that. They looked at her and only knew foolish, beautiful love. She hid her darkness, but it was always there, always waiting and she used it more often than anyone would ever suspect. In every relationship she put together, bubbling beneath the surface was her hatred, making everything sweeter, although it was unnoticed and undetected.

  Wednesday 9 January

  List Of What’s Left

  Les Wicks

  Mortdale, NSW

  Take the colour, the drum

  shiny little satellites

  garish empty eyes.

  I will have your hands

  as they loosely collate my hair

  a walk in stormed sunshine where

  our aspirations are stone rings,

  sick air-conditioning plants

  in the winter of our mall.

  We have left the cotton behind and all our colour

  is made from petroleum.

  We are birds who buy their feathers

  watch chirping on TV.

  To be better.

  New shoots are always deep

  within a clamour of litter.

  Even though the fruit as blood upon the verges.

  Even if it kills us.

  Return with an almost empty plate,

  we could not possibly eat more.

  Thursday 10 January 2013

  Caveman

  Hazel Girolamo

  Ulverstone, TAS

  In the beginning was the word, or so says the good book. But that word had first to be spoken. Way back before Noah begot and begat and began, primitive man, bored with sitting, shivering and sheltering in his dark dank draughty cave, ventured out and looked in wonder upon the sunrise and sunset and lightning storms. New life teemed all around as man took his first steps into this new world. Primitive man has never been particularly lauded for his intellect but surely some form of sound must have emitted from him, imitating the animal and nature sounds he heard around him.

  Running hysterically from big hairy brown things could not be adequately conveyed a in mindless diatribe such as ‘Eeh, Arr, Urr’ and so primitive man discovered an early warning cry all his own. He also, presumably, developed some kind of sign language to augment his meagre vocabulary, perhaps used even as much as it is today, when words and emotions can be expressed so eloquently with one gesture of a finger.

  The much admired cave paintings and drawings may have been some kind of early blackboard daily special menu planner, where other members of the tribe could point out their preferences for dinner with each member taking a part: one to draw the menu plan, one to make the costumes, one to be the bait or the lure or lunch – if they proved unlucky or slow on their feet.

  Primitive man would also need to name things, mainly to distinguish who belongs to which and what of Og, Mog, Gog, Migog and to eventually meld into the more recognisable OMG, perhaps with an exclamation mark or three.

  Primitive man may have a limited vocabulary, for example ‘Ug, Urg and Eegods’ which can be roughly translated as ‘Big brown hairy thing coming up behind you!’ but even he could deduce that two clubs beats all comers – even big hairy things with brown teeth and claws.

  But primitive man and his friends would have relaxed around the campfire after a hard day chipping flint axe heads and fashioning clubs out of old antlers telling tall tales of how ‘my big hairy brown thing was bigger than your big brown hairy thing’ and ‘that’s nothing, you should have seen the one that let me get away’.

  When Primitive man got the bright idea of using animals to warm himself and somebody else got the brighter idea of skinning them first, and an early Martha Stewart type snagged the head for a dandy cave decoration, sewing animal skins together with animal sinews and fishbone needles may have been the catalyst for a few choice swear words to be added to his vocabulary as he slowly evolved from a hunter gatherer to that of a more settled way of life, tired of carrion and fighting off crows and vultures and scaring off other beasts, finally realising that fresh is best. He gathered his seed and when his spelt got spilt and saw it sprout, decided that he was onto a good thing but, as all gardeners know, nothing goes easy in a new venture and he is sure to have been left scratching the many hairs on his head and declaring that if that big hairy mammoth tramples my seedling again I’ll give him what for!

  Early man’s language was probably not unlike our own: constantly evolving, tweeting here and there to make sense of his surroundings and situations. His words may be lost to us today but his etchings carved on mammoth bones, and the cave paintings he left behind, transfer some of his labour to make sense of the world he found himself in.

  When we marvel at these works of art, drawn in the darkness of time, far underground, perfectly preserved is his memory to us and we have no need of words.

  Friday 11 January 2013

  The Daughter Of Durga

  Kari McKern

  Ashfield, NSW

  The Demi urge of dentistry has the hands of Parvarti but Saraswati’s talents.

  Daughter of Durga, her dexterity flows like the Ganges.

  She sculpts her art with stuff indistinguishable from magic.

  Her Dental Dharma is virtuous and unstained,

  like porcelain, and refined like her dark flawless beauty.

  In a white sari, using high magnification,

  she gives mouths moska and her clients karma.

 

  She is not of this world but sealed away,

  behind full bio-protection, a golden goddess in a gown,

  who uses four arms, is kind to Buddhists and

  resting on a lotus, India incarnate.

  Friday 11 January 4 pm

  Big Mumma

  Nicole James

  Narrandera, NSW

  I was sitting with my daughter,

  Just having a little chat,

  When suddenly she asked,

  Mum why are you so fat?

  No
w it’s not often that I’m speechless,

  And let it be understood,

  I’m not easily taken aback,

  But this time she got me good.

  After some consideration,

  I decided exactly what to say,

  I went to bed skinny one night,

  And woke up fat the very next day.

  I could see her mind ticking over,

  Then in her attempt to do a good deed,

  She said mum I’ve got it sorted,

  Jenny Craig is what you need.

  I told her that’s a great idea,

  Hoping she left it there,

  Instead she made me start doing sit ups,

  And watched from her comfy chair.

  Before too long I was buggered,

  And had worked up a decent sweat,

  She said don’t even think of stopping,

  You’re still not skinny yet.

  I’m a usually patient person,

  But I wasn’t this day you see,

  And I told her she might just grow up,

  Twice as fat as me.

  She looked worried for a moment,

  And even a little queezy,

  Then with her hands on her hips she announced,

  That she will go to Lite and Easy.

  This is a random little story,

  Only partly true at that,

  But my daughter really asked me,

  Why was I so fat?

  Children are brutally honest,

  They say it as they see,

  I always laugh whenever she says

  She won’t be fat like me!!!!

  Nicole says this poem was inspired by her youngest daughter. She had uploaded it to an ebook app with 24 other poems as part of achieving her dream of being published, but the poem was reported and removed as it was deemed politically incorrect. Apparently Nicole’s use of the word ‘fat’ was offensive. She is now looking at other ways to publish her works.

  Ed: We have published Nicole’s poem because we felt that if Nicole is able to have a laugh at her own expense, then how can that be deemed offensive? Would we consider the ground-breaking work of comedians such as Nick Giannopoulos and Akmal Saleh offensive when they make jokes about ‘wogs’ and Middle Easterners respectively? Once we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves … I shudder to think.

  Saturday 12 January 2013 8 pm

  The Maiden, The Mother And The Crone

  Jenny Kathopoulis

  Wodonga, VIC

  The maiden looks into the mirror

  Her eyes are innocent, her mouth lush

  Her body ripe and untouched

  She is pert breasts, firm skin, strong muscle

  Her heart is naïve and earnest

  Full of hope and never been broken

  The mother looks into the mirror

  Her eyes are knowing, her mouth wide

  Her body soft and yielding

  She is swollen breasts, glowing skin, stretching muscle

  Her heart is full and content

  Full of love and near bursting

  The crone looks into the mirror

  Her eyes are watery, her mouth thin

  Her body hunched and decrepit

  She is sagging breasts, loose skin, wasted muscle

  Her heart is bitter and sad

  Full of despair at the cruelty of time

  Sunday 13 January 2013

  The Exercise Book

  Davidvee

  Glen Waverley, VIC

  It’s a quiet place, a place where I feel peaceful and safe; as if I was in a nest hidden in thick branches or a cosy cave underground. It is my secret place.

  These words were on the first page of an old exercise book. We had just found the tattered book under the floorboards of the derelict cottage we were renovating in the South Gippsland hills. The pale blue letters had faded to pale yellow and appeared to have been written in ink – not a ball-point but the ink one dipped a pen into. The few pages of the book had been damp at some stage and were bleached and brittle. The front cover had been torn off but the word ‘Betty’ was written at the top right hand corner of the first page.

  We wondered about this ‘Betty’. The handwriting appeared to be that of an older child, carefully formed but spidery. Using a magnifying glass we saw ‘Caxton, 1934’ printed on the back cover. We read on, having to guess at words occasionally:

  I often go to my secret place. It is nice there and I can’t hear mother and father fighting; they fight a lot now. Father lost his job at the meatworks and is at home all day. Mother says it’s because of the Great Depression; people in England don’t have money to buy our meat.

  I love being down beside the old river gums near the creek. The four big trees and the bushes along the creek make a sort of a small room – a room with blackberry bushes and tree trunks for walls and branches for a roof. I pretend the grass floor with little daisies all around is my carpet. No-one can see me there unless someone crawls through the little tunnel between the bushes and a gumtree. If I’m very quiet I see rabbits nibble grass. There are lots of birds and one day I found a baby sugar glider that must have fallen from its home in the trees. Once, when I stayed out late, I saw an owl come out of a hole high in the gum tree. All the trees have holes in them, some quite large. It is my own place where I talk to imaginary people who are nice and happy and have lots of money for books and toys.

  Anyway I must write down what happened there today so that I don’t forget. It is the most exciting thing that has ever happened. I was sitting there in the evening reading the magazine that Mum got from the barber’s shop when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a sort of flat silvery bird fly straight into a big hole halfway up the trunk of the largest gum tree. I have never seen a bird like it though lots of wattle birds, robins, magpies and even currawongs often come here. I stayed very, very quiet and watched the hole for a long time but nothing came out. Then I heard Mum calling me for supper and ran home.

  We turned the page – little cracks like cobwebs appeared as we did so we carefully placed it flat on the table and read on:

  Today, six days later, I saw it again. It isn’t a bird, it is something very strange. It seems to be made of silver or glass covered with something like cobwebs. The thing is about the size and shape of Mother’s soup tureen. It’s silvery around its edge and has some holes around it on the outside. It came from high up in the sky, flying very fast, it wobbled as it ducked into the big hole in the rivergum. I waited quietly for a long time but it didn’t come out again. It flew like a sugar glider, silently but much faster. That’s what I will call it, the ‘Silver Glider’.

  I climbed up and put my hand into the hole – it seems to go down an awful long way – but couldn’t feel or see anything. Then, after I climbed down and sat under the big gumtree branch, I suddenly realised everything was quiet – the birds that normally sang and fought up in the trees and around the creek were silent, nothing was making a noise. Perhaps they were frightened of the Silver Glider. I told Mother and Father what I had seen as soon as I went home for supper. Father burst out laughing and said it must have been a white cockatoo or a corella and would not listen when I told him it was silver, not white. He then went on about wasting my time down by the creek when I should be helping Mother with the work around the house. He wouldn’t come to my secret spot with me to see it. Mother didn’t believe me either and said I must have been asleep and dreamt it. I wasn’t dreaming, I know I saw it and it was nothing like a bird except that it flew. No one will believe me – I will find out what this thing is and show everyone.

  I haven’t seen the Silver Glider for a whole week now – I wish it wasn’t holidays and I could tell Miss Murdoch about it. Perhaps she will come and see it when school starts.

  I saw it again today, it flew down but this time it didn’t go into the hole in the tree, it sort of hung in the air over the creek and put a little silver tube down into the water. I suppose that’s how it drinks. I wonder if it is
alive? Perhaps it has a creature inside, a tiny creature that got thirsty. Gosh, that would be exciting, the creature may look like an elf. No, fairies and elves are not real, but there must be something inside or why else would it need water? Perhaps these creatures are like leprechauns and came here with settlers from Ireland. No, maybe the silver thing itself runs on water, like Mr Roberts’ steam truck.

  When it got its water it didn’t go down its hole in the tree but flew straight up into the sky.

  Mother didn’t want to hear about it, she told me that things were difficult enough without having to worry about silver birds. Father has gone away looking for work and we don’t know when he will be back.

  It came again today and I am still scared about what I saw. It flew into my secret place just as I was going home and hung in the air just above the grass. Suddenly a magpie swooped down on the Silver Glider. This magpie had a nest in the gum tree and it had dived on me too. The magpie landed beside it and looked at it with its head on one side. The Silver Glider tried to fly away but the bird followed it, flying up and pecking at it. Suddenly there was a flash, a puff of smoke and the magpie seemed to disappear for an instant and then I saw it on the grass, limp and still. It happened so fast. The Silver Glider flew off and all there was left was smoke in the air and a smell like burning kerosene. I picked up the dead bird and saw the feathers on its breast were burnt. I took it down to the creek, put it on a piece of bark with some daisies and watched it float away like the Viking funeral that Miss Murdoch told us about.

  I was frightened, actually shivering, and ran as fast as I could all the way home. That creature is not like a leprechaun, they would never kill birds. I felt very frightened about what had happened. I must make Mother believe me because this is important. Perhaps she will tell the Police?

  We turned over the last page of the exercise book. It only had a few lines on it:

  Mother doesn’t believe there is really a Silver Glider, she says she is too busy to play games what with Father away. But I have an idea, I will get Father’s rabbit nets and catch it and then they will have to believe me. I will set the nets over the hole in the tree. When I catch it, I will put the Silver Glider into the old water tank. Then we will all be famous and go to Melbourne and show it to the government people. I wish Father was here, he might help me to catch it but he won’t be back for a while.

  That was all. We searched under the remaining floorboards but there were no more scraps of paper.

  We now spend our weekends and a large part of our holidays in the two roomed cottage. We have about a hectare of land going down to the creek though there isn’t any water in it in these drought years. We think we have found the remains of the clearing that ‘Betty’ referred to. There are stumps of what must have been four enormous red river gums near the creek; they look as if they were cut down a long time ago.

  This morning, at the farmers’ market they hold every month in the nearby town, we met a local farmer and his wife and sat with them and ate our lunch of pies and a beer. He remembered hearing about the family who lived in our cottage before the war. He was too young to have met them, of course, but his mother knew of them. She was here, sitting in the CWA tent. Did we want to meet her? Soon we were sitting with a dear old lady, well into her eighties, trying to get our words heard through her rather inadequate hearing aid.

  Yes, she remembered the family quite well. Name of O’Rourke, she thought. She then went on to say:

  ‘The husband worked at various jobs including the local farms at fruit picking time. The woman was nice enough, passed the time of day with her occasionally. She was a bit of a quiet one, mostly kept to herself, and after that dreadful tragedy she hardly ever came into town.

  ‘What dreadful tragedy? Oh, a shocking thing happened to that poor family. They had a girl, 12 or 13 years old, Elizabeth, I think her name was. According to the teacher at the local school she was a bright one. Well, one day in the early spring they lost her. It happened on a clear day, not a cloud in the sky, very strange it was. Her father was away and the mother found her down by the creek. The poor child was found with torn rabbit nets in her hands – probably trying to help out by doing a bit of trapping, I guess. Things were hard in those days, the depression, you know.

  ‘I will never forget that poor woman at the funeral. She kept saying it was all her fault, she should have gone with her daughter. She was heartbroken, probably never recovered.

  ‘How did she die? Oh, sorry, didn’t I say? She was struck by lightning, poor child; there were scorch marks on her clothes.’

  Monday 14 January 2013

  Summer

  Emma-Lee Scott

  Callaghan, NSW

  An endless whirring fan,

  A door flung open,

  Cold creaming soda can,

  This is Summer unspoken.

  Shoulders branded red,

  Bushfire updates,

  No blankets on the bed,

  While it snows in the States.

  The shimmering road,

  The dash too hot to touch,

  Cicadas singing in code,

  The heat seems to corrode.

  Burning pavement,

  Snakes on walkabout,

  Under the sun’s enslavement,

  This is Summer’s route.

  Monday 14 January 2013 4 pm

  Damaged

  Athena Zaknic

  West Beach, SA

  Escape is not possible

  the inner soul edged in

  is unwilling to be implicated

  drawn into the labyrinth

  it hears the crashing of a psyche

  against an unrelenting hard core

  unable to interfere. Condemned it lies

  until a thrust ejected by the sun

  pierces the doomed totality

  restoring a semblance of normality.

  Soon the mental cogs restart their wheel

  reinstating the eternal uncertainty.

  Tuesday 15 January 2013

  The Landscape Of New England

  Phillip A. Ellis

  Tweed Heads South, NSW

  The bare bones that rub against the sky,

  the exclamation marks of trees reaching

  like stubble defying the razor-blade,

  and the animals that pass the bus –

  all are as blurs that mark the passing

  moments that coalesce into travel,

  across the northern tablelands

  of the eyes, like fleeting songs static-blurred.

  And yet, as the night shaves over here,

  and away from the scattered townships,

  light reaches up towards the stars, and it mocks

  the pretensions of country houses:

  they stand the last stand, the valiant fight

  in their bones eroded like boulders

  barking up from the earth, lean-ribbed kelpies

  stiff-haired in overwhelming winter.

  Wednesday 16 January 2013

  Shoreline

  Paul Humphreys

  Oxley, ACT

  As Mary alighted from the train at Tarago station her face was ashen white. The smile acknowledging Eric and his mother waiting on the platform did not have enough intensity to dilute the worried look that reflected in the furrows on her forehead. She was a small-framed young woman wearing a simple floral dress, a grey cardigan and flat-heeled shoes.

  Eric’s mum moved forward slowly and a little hesitantly, hugged her in a manner that reflected a casual lukewarm greeting founded primarily on duty and responsibility rather than deep felt caring. It was an anxious moment of dread and anticipation for all. All Eric knew from his Mum was Mary was to stay with them for a while. ‘Needed a break’, was the reason given. He could not put into his mind how another person would be able to share the confines of their shack without someone being put out in some way.

  ‘Eric, grab Mary’s bag,’ she said, reaching for it so that she could pass it across to Er
ic. ‘Did you have a good trip Mary?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Aunty Violet, I was a tiny bit sick at the beginning just as we left Central,’ Mary whispered in a weak, strained voice that Eric had difficulty in hearing properly.

  ‘To be expected,’ Eric’s mum said without an ounce of sympathy in her statement. ‘You should call me Vie, most people do.’