Narrator Magazine
Blue Mountains/Central Tablelands
Best of the Best 2011
Smashwords Edition
narrator MAGAZINE is published by MoshPit Publishing
Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779
MoshPit Publishing is an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd
P: 1300 644 680 ABN 48 126 885 309
http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/
http://www.narratormagazine.com.au/
Copyright Notice
The copyright for each item in this publication rests with the author of that piece. Please contact us at Narrator Magazine if you wish to contact any contributor featured herein.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other books by this publisher. Thank you for your support.
This year’s winners
Spring 2010 Blue Mountains
People’s choice judging
First prize—Zoya Kraus—Bright Spark
Second prize—Robyn Nance—The Liberation of Ted Farmer
Third prize (joint)—Elizabeth Diehl—Everything Seems to be Broken
Third prize (joint)—Greg North—Black Future
Summer 2010 Blue Mountains
Guest judge: Greg Bastian http://www.gregbastian.com.au/
First prize—Samantha Miller—Paris Match
Second prize—Joan Vaughan-Taylor—Fly a Kite
Third prize—Linda Yates—The Loaf of Bread
Highly Commended—Sue Artup—Daniel
Highly Commended—David Bowden—Opinions Vary
Autumn 2011 Blue Mountains
Guest judge: Diane O’Neill, owner Blue Dragon Books
First prize—Mary Krone—Scarred
Second prize—Aristidis Metaxas—Ticket
Third prize—Robyn Chaffey—The Wind at my Door
Highly Commended—Greg North—Stick It
Highly Commended—Christina Frost-Clayton—Knock ’n Roll
Winter 2011 Blue Mountains
Guest judge: David Berger, author, Letters from Paris
First prize—Aristidis Metaxas—Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure
Second prize—Cathy Tanaka—Spin Me Round Sky
Third prize—Michael Burge—A Quick Fix
Highly Commended—Brendan Doyle—Ode to Tony
Highly Commended—John Ross —The Stranger
Highly Commended—Adrian Johnstone—A Wedding
Spring 2011 Blue Mountains
Guest judge: Lis Bastian, CEO Varuna http://www.varuna.com.au/
First prize—Linda Yates—Endings
Second prize—Alan Lucas—Faustus
Third prize—David Bowden—The Man who Talked to Animals
Highly Commended—Tony Dwyer—Selling Green
Highly Commended—Sam Miller—Vide Grenier
Spring 2011 Central Tablelands
Guest judge: Jenny Barry, BooksPlus, Bathurst
First prize—Rebecca Wilson—Treasures
Second prize—JE Doherty—Always the Children
Third prize—JE Doherty—The Dancing Suit
From the Editor ...
It’s with an amazing amount of pride yet sadness that we bring you this first Narrator Magazine ‘Best of the Best’ collection.
The journey to this point has been fun, exciting, scary, revealing, but above all, rewarding. More importantly than that, though, we hope that it’s been rewarding for you, our readers and contributors.
What started as a little seed of thought on 10 July 2010 is now being developed into an Australia-wide competition between states, and that’s where part of the sadness comes. We have grown to know and love our regular contributors, and never cease to be amazed at the different works some of our contributors manage to come up with.
But at the end of the day, this was never meant to be a magazine for regular contributors. It is meant to be a showcase for lots of people, to help as many people as possible get a start in getting their writing careers going, and to present the best that we can in creative writing in Australia. And the only way to do that is to throw the doors open to a wider audience.
As you may have realised, the original plan was to release regional issues of Narrator, but in developing the Central Tablelands issue, we were sad to learn that this brought all sorts of administrative issues that we hadn’t anticipated, so by the time it was released, we had already started planning to ‘go national’. I thank all Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands contributors for their support, encouragement and understanding regarding the changeover.
We are very proud of the writings contained within this best of the best issue and we hope that we will see some of these authors again in the ‘2012 Best of the Best NSW/ACT’!
Jenny Mosher
December 2011
Caricature:
Jenny Mosher’s caricature (above) by local artist Todd Sharp. For more info, visit http://www.toddasharp.com/.
Cover: ‘Blue Mountains Welcome’ by Karen Maber
Karen Maber is an Aboriginal artist living in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Her artwork celebrates relationships between people, place, emotion and spirituality. Her passion for art and the creative process is to encourage journeys of healing and a better understanding of our connection to each other and to our natural world through one’s heart.
‘Blue Mountains Welcome’ was painted to welcome the many visitors to this land. ‘Welcome’ is much more than a word that is spoken – it is a word that is felt. Feeling welcome means we feel cared for and in return we trust that you care for this land.
For more about Karen, visit her website at: http://www.karenmaber.com.au/
Rebecca Wilson
Hill End
First Prize, Central Tablelands Spring 2011
‘Where d'ya hide the suitcases?’ Her back is rubbing gently on the gritty clay and bits of rock are falling with the movement. His jeans are down and her legs are wrapped around his hips. ‘I told you already,’ he says into her neck, ‘you don't need to know.’ A loud thud bangs the ground above their heads. Twice. Three times. They look up to the edge of the steep creek bed, above the exposed tree roots and pieces of corrugated iron that hold the bank together. Roo. Just a roo. They pull away from each other. A large canvas bag sits at the foot of an old peach tree that has grown in the middle of the creek bed. She picks the bag up and throws it over her shoulder and it hits her side softly. ‘Did you put the key back?’ They both scramble to the top of the bank but he moves quickly, so she can't see his face.
‘Did you put the bloody key back?’ She wants him to turn around and look at her.
‘I couldn't remember exactly where it was s'posed to go.’
‘What?’ He stops and turns to look at her, both of them angry with each other, for different reasons. He puts his face down to hers. Her voice is quivering and her face is red as she asks him slowly, ‘So, exactly where did you put it, Jonno?’
‘Shit! Jenna, we don't have time for this now. The job's done and we need to meet that guy in half an hour. Where's the goddamn 'cruiser? And give me the keys.’
She pulls the keys from the back pocket of her jeans. Her brown crusty hands slam the keys into his as she cuts him with daggers from her eyes. ‘It's up near the old sale yards, like you friggin' told me.’
Silence. They walk separately, angrily, up the red road. Dust is picking up in the wind at the back of his heels and it blows back towards her as she storms behind him. He starts the car. The sun's reflection off the clay is alive with pink and purple that radiates indigo mist, they squint their eyes and lower their visors. He swings the 4WD around, stopping suddenly for the Eastern Greys that are heading to the empty grassy space that sits in the middle of the old mining town. They pass the pub and head out on the only road that takes anyone in or out.
He thinks carefully about where he put the key. 'They won't be onto me until at least next Tuesday anyway. Tom and Gail said they were definitely outta town 'til next Tuesday. And they won't go up to the cottage for a while, not 'til the next boofhead artist comes in anyway. They will notice the missing paintings though, it's just a matter of time.'
He looks sideways at Jenna and continues to think. 'We meet the guy, get the suitcases and make the deal. After that we're free. We'll be outta town before anyone notices a thing.' He lights a cigarette with one hand while the other holds the vehicle to the left as the sharp corner swoops and a sea of yellow and black arrows points the way around the tight bend at the top of the crest. And what about Tony? He'd better keep his end of the deal and keep his mouth shut.
‘So, how did it go?’ Jenna is calmer now, but not relaxed by any means. ‘Did you get the bloody paintings or not?’
‘Yes. They're in the suitcases.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘Would I be here driving the friggin' car if they had? For God's sake Jenna. I got the key, I got the paintings, they're in the suitcases and we're nearly at Sofala, so relax.’
They swing to the left in a hurry and he accelerates up the hill that looks down on the small village. He swerves off the road and behind the trees a red Mercedes waits with a pale, thin man at the wheel. Jonno walks over to the passenger seat and jumps in. They talk for a while and Jonno comes back to Jenna and whispers, ‘You've gotta get in the car with him.’
‘What?'‘
‘Get in the car with him, now.’
‘What the hell is going on Jonno?’
‘Jenna, just get in the car so I can go get the suitcases.’
‘No. I'm coming with you.’ The man in the car beeps the horn.
‘Jenna, what you don't know can't hurt you. Get in his car. And don't tell him a bloody thing.’
She walks over and thumps herself into the leather seat. They nod at each other.
Jonno drives quickly back onto the road and continues until he reaches a dirt track. He follows it until he has to stop to move the branches and rocks that he'd used to deter any visitors. He makes his way through the scrub, dodging trees in his Landcruiser until he reaches a small cleared area. Out of the car, he walks behind large rocks at the base of a hill, to an old mine shaft where he shuffles down the ladder. At the bottom, he uses his torch to recover the stashed suitcases. He pulls them up to the surface one by one, sweating. He chucks them in the back of the vehicle, under a blanket.
Jenna is leaning on the Mercedes, smoking a cigarette as Jonno pulls in swiftly, streaming light across her face from the high beams. Jenna walks over to him, her heart is racing. Jonno simply tells her to get into the driver's seat and keep the car running.
Jonno shows the man the contents of the suitcases and waits for the money. The driver indicates over his shoulder, where a small box sits on the back seat. ‘Put the paintings there and take the box.’ Jonno grabs the lid off and counts the cash. ‘You do realise what scandal will eventuate when they discover these have disappeared, don't you?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘These paintings are very well known, young man. They are considered national treasures, my friend. There will be a lot of heat on this, so lay low and don't do anything 'unusual', or they'll be onto you. I am offloading these this afternoon and washing my hands of the whole thing, you never saw me ... okay? Stick to the deal.’
Jonno tips the cash into the canvas bag and throws it behind him. He swings the suitcases onto the seat. The driver watches Jonno in the mirror, his hands on the steering wheel, poised to exit, fast. Jonno doesn't close the back door. The driver turns his head away from the mirror to see for himself what this man is up to. Before he can speak, silver cuffs have encircled his wrists and he is locked to the wheel. The pale man struggles and yells. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing? What's wrong with you, boy? The deal is done! You want to keep those paintings and try to sell them again to someone else? You are a fool. Someone will find me here and I will tell the police every detail I know about you, you little cretin.’
‘Don't worry grandpa, I just need to buy a little time. My mate will be along shortly to unlock you. Just don't over react and everything will be fine.’ Jonno turns the radio on for the driver and closes the door, walking to his car with the money and the paintings. ‘Drive woman, drive!’
***
Back in the old mining town, Tom and Gail have arrived early. Gail gets the dog some food while Tom talks to the guy from Sydney. She hasn't met him before. ‘Why was Tom so insistent that he invite this horrid man, “Roland”? We weren't supposed to come back here until next Tuesday. And that bloody BMW that he adores!'’
‘Something to drink, gentlemen?’ She pours them both a beer and says she needs to unpack and freshen up.
The men stay at the table.
‘So what do you think you can get for them?’ Tom asks.
‘The problem is being able to get rid of them. They are very well known, much harder to offload.’
‘If that's the case why the hell did I bring you here?’
‘Now, now, Tom. I didn't say impossible, just a more limited market, my dear. And besides, I need to see them before anything can happen. You know how it works.’
‘Let's go there now.’
‘Gail!’ he calls out, ‘we'll be back in a while, I'm taking Roland to the cottage.’ No reply.
At the cottage, Tom picks up the rock near the concrete path. Not there. ‘Strange.’ He picks up the next rock. ‘There.’ Relief. ‘Jenna must have moved the key.’
The men make their way to the front door of the cottage with walls that whisper stories of art history. Through the old kitchen and small hallway, into the lounge. ‘Holy shit, I don't believe it!’ He runs from room to room, looking at the empty walls.
‘My dear Tom, someone has beaten you to it!’ Roland laughs arrogantly. ‘I suppose I shall just have to enjoy your hospitality for the evening and then be on my way,’ he says as Tom falls into the closest seat.
‘This is disastrous!’
‘I'll make my way back to tell your wife. Best that I'm not here when the police arrive.’
***
Gail sits on the couch in the cottage, holding her husband's hand while the constable asks a lot of questions. ‘Who has access to the cottage?’ The policeman tries to sound like he knows what he is doing.
Tom wonders to himself. Jenna? ‘Jenna knows where the key is, she cleans here every time an artist has finished their residency. But she's so sweet. Couldn't be her. She wouldn't know how to sell them anyway? No ... What was the name of that artist who stayed here last June, Gail? That man, the sculptor. You know the one that was screwing all those young wannabes?’
‘Oh … Jeffrey?! Don't be ridiculous, Tom! I think your jealousy is twisting your mind! Darling, who else knew where the key was?’ Gail asks her husband.
‘Really it's down to Jenna and any of the artists that have stayed here. But Jenna? I doubt it.’
‘Let's get her on the phone, get her over here, in case she saw anything suspicious.’
‘No answer.’ Gail sighs. ‘Try the pub, she might be up there.’ She dials and chats, hangs up. ‘No, Cara hasn't seen her since yesterday morning.’
‘Where the hell is she then? Try her mother's,’ he snaps at his wife.
Again she makes a call. ‘Rosie hasn't seen her tonight. Tom, that's not good. That's very unusual for her. I'm a bit worried now.’
***
Jenna drives flat out down the hill again. ‘Pull over. I'm gonna drive.’ Jonno gets in and heads the vehicle back to the small town from which they came.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Okay Jenna, here's the plan. We can drop these paintings back. No one will know they were ever taken and we can piss off and have a good life for a while. Start somewhere new. If we head back now, we haven't really done anything wrong. Kind of ...’
Jenna sits silently. ‘You've stuffed it all up. It's not what we planned, Jonno. We planned to sell them and skip. That guy will track us down or give us up to the cops and we'll be screwed.’
‘Jenna, if we go back now, put the paintings back up, no one will know. Tom and Gail won't be back yet. We can take this cash, it's heaps of money and we can disappear. What's that guy gonna say to the police? “Sir, they took the money I was using to buy stolen paintings?”’ Jenna sighs and silently nods her head.
***
The young constable of the town is quite excited by the case. ‘Things like this just don't happen ‘round here. This is a big case. This could be promotion material.’ The policeman bids goodnight to Tom and Gail. He gets in his car and drives out of town but slowly heads off the road and lowers his lights. He can see Tom and Gail's place from where he is placed. He will wait and watch.
The ambitious policeman sees the couple make their way up the drive and head into the house. ‘Who is the third person at the table through the window?’ He calls in the vehicle plates. ‘Dodgy. Roland Fischer. Never convicted but well known for “handling” things people need to “get rid of”. Surely that is too obvious, to call me in before he has even left with the goods. Possible, but so risky.’ The constable decides to stake the house out for the night. ‘These snobs from Sydney won't take the Mickey out of me. A bust like this could be very good for my career, very good.’
***
The town is covered in a blanket of black, there is no moon. At the cottage, in the dark, Jenna can’t find the key.’ It’s bloody gone Jonno, where the hell did you put it?’
‘Under that bloody rock is where I put it … shit! We’ll have to break in.’ Standing in the darkness he holds his jacket over the window and cracks it with a shifter. The glass makes high pitched clinks and he puts his hand through the window to open the lock. He jumps through the window and asks Jenna to pass the suitcases. ‘Shit! I don’t remember where any of these go, do you?’
‘God, Jonno, you and your bloody ideas! Let me in, you’ll have to turn the lights on so we can figure this mess out.’
‘No Jenna, someone will notice.’
‘Jonno, how the hell am I gonna put them back up in the dark?’
‘Ok, but just a lamp!’ They light a small lamp in the corner of the room and unpack the ‘treasures’.
***
The constable outside Tom and Gail’s is snoring in the driver’s seat. Tom creeps slowly around to the back of the vehicle and puts nails into the tyres. Well and truly drunk by now, Tom is outraged that the policeman has been watching him. ‘Son … bitch. Treat me .... criminal, bastard … teach him ...’
After committing his deed of revenge, Tom walks alone, stumbling over rocks and bumping into fences, lost in the dark, towards the cottage. Sobbing to himself, grieving over the money he intended to make, to get him out if the trouble he’s in. Bouncing through the back fence, he thinks he sees a light. And now a shadow, two shadows, moving in the cottage.
‘What the hell is this?’ He shuffles drunkenly to the verandah and tries to see through the window, not too close, he’s having trouble staying upright. He can’t make out who it is but decides that he must act quickly. But do what? Run back to the policeman whose vehicle is now defunct? ‘Shit! What have I done?’ As he stands in the cold, panicking, he can hear footsteps. He flops down just below the verandah and watches a man come around the corner to the window. The man has a balaclava over his head and he stands very close to the window, calling out someone’s name. Tom’s not sure what he said.
From inside the dimly lit cottage Jonno exclaims, ‘Shit! Tony! What the hell are you doing here?’
‘That goddamn guy you left in the car is dead.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me, man, dead.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘Your car is across the road, idiot!’
‘Awright, smardarse ...’
‘Man, I went to uncuff him just like you asked. You musta gave ‘im a heart attack. I’m not dealin’ with that on me own.’
‘So where is he?’
‘In his car, mate, where d’ya reckon?’
‘Jesus Christ!’
Tom is terrified. He must get help. He is moving as quickly as he can but he is like a blind kangaroo, knocking into things, grunting and puffing. His head is swirling with alcohol and fear. Back to the sleeping constable he tries to find his way. Tom can’t see. His pulse is galloping, he thinks his heart will explode. He trips on rocks and his jacket gets caught on fence wire. He struggles, he’s rushing. He pulls himself out of his jacket and it hangs, lonely on the wire, ripped and abandoned. He feels that he has gone off course, he can’t get his bearings. He falls over and stays down. Tom is crawling now, so he can feel his way across the gravel, dirt and rocks.
***
Jenna, Jonno and Tony speed away from the cottage. The pictures are up on the walls. ‘Maybe not how they were, but close enough.’ Jenna thinks. They pull up at the red Mercedes. The two men pull and push the driver into the passenger’s seat and Jonno takes the wheel. Jenna follows behind.
Out through the winding roads and along steep cliff edges they weave their way. They pull over at a clearing where the road ahead has a sheer drop that no vehicle could return from. The body is strapped back into the driver’s seat, a heavy rock is placed on the accelerator. Jonno turns the key, releasing the brake as fast as he can and jumping away from the vehicle. The three of them watch as the car flies off the edge of the road and plummets through the air. They watch it destroy itself against the rocks until it ignites and booms.
***
The sleeping constable is nowhere to be found as Tom, on hands and knees, feels the earth disappear from underneath him. The missing ground is a shaft. He sails and bounces from edge to edge, too fast to even utter a whimper. The rock floor greets his body and the last air from his lungs is pushed with force and exits from the back of his throat with a grunting gush.
***
Gail is desperately worried about Tom. Lying in their bed, she knows he was drunk when he left but he should’ve been back by now. Looking out the window she can see part of the police vehicle from behind the trees. ‘He is still there, for goodness sake! What on earth does that young upstart think?’
***
Jenna and Jonno drop Tony back to his car. ‘Not a bloody word mate, to anyone, or we are all in deep shit.’
Jonno stares into Tony's eyes, Tony looks down, echoing his words, ‘… deep shit ...’
Jenna is at the wheel. ‘Jonno, let's get the hell outta here. C'mon, let's go.’
Jonno hands Tony a big wad of cash, ‘Tony, not a word mate.’
He nods. ‘Not a word, Jonno. Not a word.’
Rebecca Wilson
Hill End
Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure
Katoomba
First Prize, Blue Mountains Winter 2011
Once upon a time in fair France there lived a chookette named Henrietta, who, along with her girlfriends spent her daily and uneventful life in a large Free Range Barnyard Henament far out in the Country. Henrietta was an average French Hen, dressed in a modest brown feathery Blouse, fluffy brown Witches Britches, a little red bonnet and Aviator Goggles. Why Goggles you may ask, well, she was known among the henfolk as a rebel and adventurer, that’s why.
Her life, like the life of so many other chooks, consisted mainly of pecking corn, eating worms, laying eggs, running around the Barnyard like a mad ninnie, and occasionally going to the farmyard next door in order to socialise with the many handsome French roosters who would be hanging around all day playing cards and telling stories. At night they would fuss and argue as to who would sleep where and getting their hottie bottles ready in case there was a unexpected cold snap, even in high summer. Thus, a blissful life was lived free from worries or everyday concerns, with the occasional hen parties and the annual ‘Tour de Chook’ 1K endurance foot race around the barnyard, or perhaps the ever present floating anxiety of possibly being the next meal in the pot and avoiding being run over by Dolly the sheep.
One sunny day, it must have been late August, the daily ablutions were completed, all the girls had their dust bath, and it seemed the day would offer nothing more than the day before. Henrietta, feeling restless and bored witless, decided to explore the unknown territory, a place steeped in chicken lore since time immemorial, better known as ‘The World Beyond The Gate’, a space of the unknown and a land of mystery in the chicken universe ever since Henrietta was a little egg. The elders in the coop used to talk in hushed sotto voices about this land of the inexplicable and when pressed, utterly and totally refused to discuss the subject any further, which - Henrietta suspected, really meant that they knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about this place except that it was forbidden territory.
And so, with much trepidation but great determination, Henrietta set, (an act of complete heroism and an event to be recorded in the ‘Chook Chronicles’ for evermore), her right foot Outside-the-Gate. She paused momentarily, her left foot suspended in mid air ready to take the next step, (she was waiting for lighting to strike, or the great Purple Chicken from the sky to cast a thunderbolt at her and destroy her utterly and totally), but nothing happened. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, birds sang, and nothing-at-all-happened. So, encouraged with her action of complete anarchy, Henrietta proceeded, step by step, to reach the other side of this, to her eyes, black ‘Chickenland of utter voidness’, which to us humans is known as merely ‘Route 102’. As she was about to cross this vast expanse of black nothingness, there lurked, unbeknown to Henrietta, just a hundred yards down the road to her left, officer Marianne Le Clerc with her ever-ready and trusty radar gun in her sweaty hand, waiting for unsuspecting motorists to fall within the perimeter of the never sleeping eye of her aforementioned radar gun instant cash converter.
As Henrietta was about to cross-the-road, officer Le Clerc suddenly, due to an unfortunate lunch of bad Coq au Vin, developed an unexpected cramp in her right hand thereby contracting her trigger finger, and so releasing a torrential blast of radar beams down the road in the direction of our hen heroine. This blast, in itself completely harmless, was (due to the sweaty palm), supplemented by a temporary electrical malfunction in Marianne's radar gun, and therefore establishing a brief but effective link between her brain, the radar beam and the Henrietta’s consciousness and instantly transmitting pretty much all of the contents of Marianne’s accumulated knowledge into the mind of the chicken.
The blast caught poor Chookie right in the middle of her corpus callosum and instantly fused both halves of her brain together into one, everything went blue, black, green and purple, stars appeared in her inner vision, she experienced Satori and utter and complete N-O-T-H-I-N-G-N-E-S-SSSS enveloped her frail and gentle being. When she finally came to herself, Henrietta first checked that all her bits and pieces were still in place, and apart from the elastic having snapped in her Witches Britches everything seemed normal and yet, and yet
e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g was different.
As she returned home and stood outside the gate of her familiar nesting place called ‘La Ferme’, Henrietta suddenly, with a shock, understood that her mind, which had been until now been occupied with simple things like corn, eggs and survival of the fittest, presently realised that her world had become unfamiliar and w-i-d-e. Her mind was now filled with all kinds of insights, possibilities and knowing, things such as Vogue Magazine, shopping at Woolworths, Truffles, Abbey Road, Skiing at Aspen, Pantyhose, Plasma 3D TV’s, Playstation 3, Oprah, where to get the best leg wax, Isosceles Triangles, Wikipedia, Bob Dylan, Google, how to apply mascara, decorating tips for Home renovators, Consumer Magazine, MasterChef, French Champagne, The Rolling Stones, Police Procedures, Pavlova recipes, Women’s rights, Global Warming, Taser Maintenance, Chopin Nocturnes, volunteer work in Africa, who gave the best deals in frequent flyer points, save the Whales, when to rotate the tyres on your car, and all kinds of other wonderful and mysterious things than had been, until now, utterly and completely unknown to Henrietta.
Chooky was totally excited out of her wits (she even had notions of writing a book about her experience, she would call it ‘Hen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ and become fabulously wealthy and famous with a string of sexy Italian Rooster Boyfriends and living on the Amalfi Coast), she headlong rushed into the chook yard where her fellow hens were doing their usual daily hen stuff, stomped her right foot three times on the floor (and we all know how hard it is for a chicken to stomp her feet) and called out:
‘Girlfriends, Girlfriends, listen to me, stop what you’re doing, there is so much more to life than we know, there are wonderful things to explore, experience and to see, come, I have good news for you, I have seen more than you can imagine.’
Her fellow Hens stood dumbfounded, they listened to what she was trying to say, they clucked, but had no idea what on earth Henrietta was raving on about, none of it made any sense, they could not even comprehend what she was saying, their Hen minds had not been expanded to this new level of consciousness and it was all ‘too far out’.
Sadly, Henrietta quickly realised that all her talking would do no good, nobody else understood what she had experienced anyway, and how could they, they had not been exposed to this mysterious and mind expanding power that she, through sheer accident, had been subjected to. And besides, what were they going to do with all this new knowledge anyway, how was it of any use to them, after all who ever heard of a chicken shopping for Perfume at Printemps or Gucci with frequent flyer point Platinum Cards or wearing pantyhose or appearing on the Oprah show as a celebrity guest, or writing a novel or Blogging on Facebook?
So, she thought ‘twas a far better thing to keep her beak shut, her social life declined to absolute zero virtually overnight, days and months passed, the seasons changed, life returned to normal in the chicken yard, frogs croaked, birds sang, Henrietta was declared the resident nutter by consensus and someone to be avoided at all costs. Her fellow hens began whispering behind her back, young chicks with their fluff still on their heads would laugh at her and call her funny names, and so, Henrietta lived her life as an exile for a while, doing the best she could to be like the other chickens around her, but her life never was the same as before, no matter how she tried she couldn’t fake it, too much had happened and she knew that she couldn’t go back to the way things were. Not that she wanted to, not really, and the memory of her astounding experience of this other world and the feeling that something extraordinary had happened remained with her for the rest of her life. But just what it was, well, she sometimes cluckled to herself, it was her secret and she knew better than to talk about it ever again.
Henrietta eventually met and lived with a beautiful old Capricorn French rooster named Pierre the Philosopher who could quote Plato, had a wooden leg and was able to help her slowly come to terms with the mind blowing experience she had gone through. They both lived to a ripe old age, every Friday they would organize a soup kitchen for elderly crickets down on their luck and in the evenings, when sky was dark and clear, they would sit outside their little chook house that Pierre had built from an old discarded Apple crate, and watch the moon rise and the stars come out. Pierre would crow and Henrietta would sing ‘Alouette’.
And the moral of the story? Well, Henrietta had to learn the hard lesson that the difference between a wise hen and a mad chook is that the wise hen knows when to keep her beak shut. m
Aristidis Metaxas
Katoomba
Bright Spark
Blackheath
First Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011
Hello White Cockatoo
I’ve Been waiting for you.
My night was long, lonely and dark
Now here you are, Bright Spark.
I feel warm, joyful and light
When I see flashes of your yellow and white.
You have come to me every single day
Since the moment my sister passed away.
I KNOW you are her, she is you
That’s why I love you White Cockatoo.
One day her heart stopped beating
Her time with life was brief and fleeting.
I feel scared and sad, that’s the truth
But then show up and give me proof
A fallen feather, a mighty screech
A smile creeps in, you’re both in reach.
My sister is free and with you now
Look after her, look after me somehow.
Now that I can see her in you
I KNOW she lives on, White Cockatoo. m
Spin Me Round Sky
Blackheath
Second Prize, Blue Mountains Winter 2011
Spin me round sky
On my heels, arms flung high
Sketch my form in moonlit dyes
And spin me round, spin me round
Spin me round sky
Make my feet of clay and stones
My legs of craggy, weathered bones
My belly form of wooded splendor
My hair of breezes, keen yet tender
Stain my hands heath black with night
Reaching out for endless light
Bejewel my fingers, one by one
And press my nose to stars that hum
Though my heart in trepidation
Echoes ghostly excitations
For hurrying spirits tremble still
And long dead elders haunt your hills
Becalm my mind with dulcet breath
Through the teeth of rugged depths
And raise your arms of ragged trees
To issue expirations to appease
For constellations gathered here
With breathless glimmer beckon near
And trembling, lilting harmonies
Charge this restless joy in me
So, spin me round
Oh, spin me round sky
On my heels, arms flung high
Etch my soul with midnight sighs
And spin me round, spin me round
Spin me round sky
Vide Grenier
Faulconbridge
Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Spring 2011
Monsieur Farfalu was bored. His lover had left him last week and he had finished his vin ordinaire the previous night. He was loath to start on his good wine, so he must go out into the village to stock up.
Taking his moto¹ from his back garden he putted into the local town to have a look around and buy much needed produce. As he drove along he noticed vide grenier² taking place outside the house of one of the mushrooms of foreigners that had been popping up in the last twenty years. He grunted as he passed taking in the two women at the stall.
Marina and Veronika had been at their stall since 6am sipping coffee and exchanging the desultory conversation of friends who know they will spend a whole day together and so are in no rush to make a gossip deadline. The stall was actually all Veronika’s with Marina (a sporadic local) being drafted in to help and keep company. The coffee was good, the weather was fine and it looked like being a lovely day for it.
Being a Saturday all the locals were out in force. M. et Madame LeClare stopped to chat and snoop, but didn’t really want anything. Some English people on holiday recognising a possible compatriot came over for advice on and directions to the local sights. A man approached looking at a set of four wooden folding chairs and asked to purchase them. He would check his house for the size and would phone Veronika to see if they were still available.
M. Farfalu backtracked on his moto, leaned it against a wall and approached the stall. Like the previous local, his eye was on the set of four folding wooden chairs and he was about to have a little fun. After not much thought Veronika had set a price of four euros each for the chairs with a combined price of €14 for taking all of them. M. Farfalu asked for one chair for only €3.
‘If I’m to break up the set, I want my €4’, said Veronika staunchly.
‘Pah!’ said M. Farfalu, getting into his stride, ‘It isn’t worth it for me.’
‘So, don’t buy it,’ Veronika stuck to her guns.
M. Farfalu bargained back and forth enjoying himself immensely, but Veronika wouldn’t budge. So off went M.Farfalu to do his shopping.
When Veronika was ready for lunch, she and Marina agreed to take turns for a break. M. Farfalu was in the area and saw his chance. He thought Marina was a fine looking woman and he was in need of a woman himself.
Sure enough, the coast being clear M. Farfalu wandered across to her and sat in the chair vacated by Veronika. Smiling his best smile and exuding the fumes of his time at the village bar, he offered her five euros for two of the chairs. Leaning a little back from him, Marina explains that they are not hers to sell and perhaps they are already sold anyway.
Disappointment etched on his face, M. Farfalu scans the stall. ‘Do you have anything to drink?’ he asks.
Mystified by this turn of events, Marina replies, ‘No, this is a vide grenier stall, not a bar.’
‘Ah,’ he then says as if he has won a major point, ‘then come to the village bar with me.’
With Marina declining this kind offer, M. Farfalu takes himself off to the village bar, humming to himself.
On Veronika’s return, they discuss their recurrent visitor and decide that if he tries again for the chairs the price will be €4 for one chair, but he can have two chairs for €6.
M. Farfalu is down, but not out. Fortified by his next trip to the bar, he is ready to return to the fray.
‘Two chairs for €5’ he cries. ‘You can bring them to my house, it’s not far.’
‘Of course, not,’ Veronika says. ‘This is a vide Grenier, not a shop.’ She smiles and waves her arms dramatically at the items left on the stall. ‘The price is €6 for the two chairs and you must take them yourself.’
‘But Madam, I am on my moto. What would you have me do?’ He pleads with a gleam in his eye, belying his attempts to look pathetic. ‘How will you feel tomorrow, when you take up your newspaper to find I am dead by the roadside with the two chairs wrapped about my neck?’ He gestures dramatically. ‘Will you not then feel guilty and wish you had delivered the chairs?’ Though M. Farfalu was very pleased with this visual, it didn’t have the desired effect with both women stoutly declaring their lack of any finer feelings with regards to his safety in the matter.
The wind knocked out of his sails, M. Farfalu slumped a little, before sadly telling the women that he could get his van, but he really didn’t feel like riding home and then driving back to pick up the chairs.
‘What do you think is in it for me to drive to your village just to deliver two chairs for €6?’ Veronika asked. ‘It costs more than that in petrol and I won’t be getting the chairs.’
M. Farfalu has another try.
‘Oh, but I will give you a nice drink on my boat.’
‘I don’t want a drink,’ Veronika replies.
‘Cake then. I have just bought a lovely cake,’ he offers.
‘And how much did you pay for the cake?’ Marina asks.
On finding the cost of the cake was the difference of the offer and the cost of the chairs, the two women fall about laughing.
‘If you hadn’t bought the cake you are offering us you could have paid for the chairs,’ they say.
At that M. Farfalu perked up. An idea had so obviously implanted itself in his mind that Marina felt as though a light bulb should appear above his messy salt and pepper coiffure.
‘It’s too late now,’ he says ‘those chairs won’t sell this time in the afternoon. You should just let me have them for €5 and deliver them to my house, or you will just have them left on your hands,’ he warns.
Well, Veronika doesn’t mind keeping the chairs and so after all this time, no bargain is struck at all.
M. Farfalu is pleased with his day. He has stocked up his supplies, had a nice drink and renewed his appreciation of the females of the world. He leaves with Veronika’s address in case the chairs will fit under the shelf in his boat.
He smiles as he weaves away on his moto, Veronika’s parting shot reverberating in his ears.
‘Don’t bother driving over if you aren’t prepared to pay the €6.’ m
¹A low cc motorbike or moped
²A vide grenier is a garage sale, as charming direct translation being ‘empty attic’.
Samantha Miller
Faulconbridge
With thanks to my mother Marina for the original material that became this story.
Opinions Vary
Medlow Bath
Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Summer 2010
sun divulges
afternoon expectations
brute anxieties
blur
into birdsong
distant dog bark
sucked into the
sculpted spaces
of the valley
too much beauty
for sky to contain
molecules
hammer against true silence
clouds swivel
& cavort
your tears
mean nothing
to the gumtrees
Faustus
Katoomba
Second Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011
Doctor, you know
the way I am,
on this level, all things
are possible.
I will, as you have, always take
the underground,
and when we arrive Cerberus
will sniff at Hades gates
for our mortal sins.
Doctor, you also understand
how ancient images
are reimposed by modern
incredulity,
strangers are not met
for any particular reason,
and situations occur
within a similar context.
We know that Santos Vega
will always show up
for his contest with the devil.
The Christ was likewise tempted,
‘ask for anything’, he was told.
He refused, we do not.
Ode to Tony
Wentworth Falls
Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Winter 2011
O Tony of TLC Auto Repairs,
may your business flourish ever more,
may the tooth fairy replace your top plate
with metallic finish white pearls.
O Tony, my heart stalled, I swear,
when the bloke at Waitara said
‘I can see a thousand bucks there
just for the rust’ and sent me
to the old Hungarian at Betta Batteries
who quoted me six hundred
for windscreen scratches,
welding and a brake pedal rubber.
But you, Tony, whom I had not seen for almost a summer,
welcomed me with your shiny smile:
‘Is that door lock still working?’
and I knew your friendship had not wavered.
O Tony, when you handed over that pink slip
and said ‘Eighteen dollars’
I wanted to win the lottery and give you half,
I wanted to replace all the seals on your Datsun ZX
and personally blacken the tyres,
but I just reached into my pocket
and gave you ten bucks ‘for a beer’.
You’d made my day, my month, my year.
The Dancing Suit
Eglinton
Third Prize, Central Tablelands Spring 2011
As Robert Benfield removed the lid of the old cardboard box, the card slipped out onto the bed covers.
Deceased Estate of Rupert Maxwell
$50.00
Robert didn’t know why he was doing this. He had two left feet. He loathed dancing. As a matter of fact, he hated socialising. Beckett had talked him around again. How did he always manage it?
Robert glanced at the seven faces printed on the sheet of yellowing newspaper. They were all raven haired girls, similarly attractive, but definitely not his type. Blondes? In a pinch. No, Robert’s tastes ran more to the classic Irish beauty, flaming red hair and a spattering of freckles. The mental image of Mary Willis made his cheeks burn.
‘Perfect,’ he said, laying the newspaper aside.
He fingered the suit lapel. Black tails complete with silk shirt—so white it shone blue under the harsh fluorescent lights of the New Haven apartment—a silk bow tie, vest and tastefully chunky cufflinks of onyx and gold. The suit had a slight musty smell and an almost invisible brown stain in the right sleeve of the coat but it fit like it was tailor made. He thought the tie would cause him some problems but to his surprise, as he looked in the mirror, he couldn’t find any fault with the bow. Strange …
His confidence soared. At nine o’clock this morning, he was ready to call Beckett and cancel but now, Robert couldn’t stop smiling.
He smoothed back his sandy hair at the temples.
‘To die for!’
***
Beckett stopped in mid conversation as Robert entered the hall. There was no sign of his usual hesitance; all the clumsiness was gone, replaced by a slow, confident glide. His shoulders were square, no customary slouch, his chin high.
‘Well, well,’ said Beckett. ‘I hope you don’t change into a pumpkin at midnight.’
Robert spun about, trailing a toe, sliding into a Fred Astaire pose. ‘Not a chance, pal.’
‘Where on earth did that come from?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’ Robert didn’t know if Beckett meant the ‘pal’ or the dance move. Either way, the answer was the same.
The string quartet took the stage and gave their instruments a final cat-screech tuning. For someone who hated dancing, Robert couldn’t wait to get on the dance floor. He strode up to the first vacant girl he could find.
‘Would you care to dance?’ He asked with charm that surprised even himself.
‘Why not.’
The cello sighed a slow bass as they took the floor. The viola and violins joined as Robert’s hand slipped around the girl’s slightly pudgy waist. They almost skated around the dancefloor; their steps were so smooth, gliding between the other couples like phantoms. Pachabel’s ‘Canon in D’ built toward a crescendo of twirling satin on silk, ending in an extravagant dip with the final fading note. The girl was breathless but Robert touched his lips to her hand and was off to look for his next partner.
‘Seriously,’ Beckett said, ‘Rob’s got it for you, bad.’
‘He’s never even spoken to me,’ Mary Willis replied.
‘That’s because he’s shy.’
‘Yeah, right!’
They both looked to the dance floor where Robert lorded with yet another partner.
‘Around you, at least.’
‘He hasn’t stopped.’ Mary sighed.
‘Well, he’s usually shy. I don’t know what has gotten into him tonight. He hates dancing.’
When Robert saw Mary, a flush spread across his cheeks and he almost stumbled as he approached.
‘Now, that’s the Rob we’ve come to know and love,’ Beckett drawled.
Robert’s cheeks reddened even more. He was slipping further into his customary, insecure self. The cast of his eyes dropped and his shoulders began to stoop.
‘H … hi.’
Mary’s quirky smile brought Robert’s head back up. Her teeth were slightly crooked, but that small imperfection only heightened her appeal. Robert couldn’t force his mouth to work.
‘Told you he was shy,’ Beckett laughed, slapping Robert’s back.
‘Would you like to dance?’ Mary finally asked him.
At that, something clicked in Robert. He bowed with a flourish of hands.
‘It would be my pleasure, Mary.’
‘I thought you didn’t like to dance?’ Beckett joked.
‘It’s the suit,’ Robert replied. ‘I can’t seem to stop.’
He took Mary’s arm with confidence.
There are green eyes, and there are green eyes. Most were misty, more grey than green. Clarity was the best word Robert could find to describe Mary’s eyes. They were sharp, gem-bright and clear. Robert was lost and he had never been happier. They danced and the music played on.
Robert caught a flash of dark hair for the corner of his eye. Mary was talking but he couldn’t seem to focus on her words. He turned as the dancers reeled about him, his eyes following the girl with the long black hair and white carnation threaded above her left ear. His arm slid away from Mary and the tide of dancing swept them apart.
Something was nagging at the edge of his mind, but everything dissolved, the music, the crowd, Mary …
A ball of anger and desire welled up from the pit of Robert’s stomach. He cut through the dance floor like a shark. His face was serene, charming but a glint like shattered ice, hard and sharp, edged his eyes.
Mary stood with Beckett. They both looked on in disbelief as Robert and the dark haired girl with the white carnation and satin blue dress left the hall.
The girl was raven haired … similarly attractive … And something inside Robert burned.
***
Mrs Benford was annoyed. She was always telling Robert to turn off his light when he left the room. He didn’t pay the bills. She saw the scattering of clothes on the floor and the box and papers strewn over the bed. If it wasn’t for her, her son would be living in a pig sty. She scooped up the clothes and began stuffing the papers in the box.
One sheet caught her eye …
Another body found
When will the killer strike again?
Under the pictures of the seven dead girls, the story detailed the atrocities they were subjected to before they died.
Mrs Benford shivered as she closed the lid on the box.
JE Doherty
Eglinton
The Loaf of Bread
Katoomba
Third Prize, Blue Mountains Summer 2010
Melinda forged her way into the shop. People parted for her, instinctively moving aside, confounded perhaps by the contradiction she presented. She had the daintiness of delicate fine china about her and this sat at odds with the expression of blazing ferocity on her face. Usually meticulously put together, this morning she looked slightly awry, like a child who had stumbled into her mother’s dress up clothes, teetering precariously, as she did now, on her high heels. Her red hair flared out behind her, which, to her, was just another source of irritation in what was looking like a ruin of a day, for she had not had time to perfect it before she left the house. Bad enough that she had to have that meeting with the senior partner in the law firm where she worked, guessing that she was about to be taken to task for some of her more questionable attitudes and actions, and, now this outrage.
The fragile order of her day, so necessary for her survival, already lay in tatters.
Keith, the shopkeeper, saw her approach. Sensing the oncoming storm, he recoiled slightly and braced himself. A placid and even-tempered soul, he was used to handling difficult customers. It was why he was so good at his job. He was not a highly educated man, but he was a reflective one and he liked to puzzle out why people did the things they did. His mother thought him a bit of a fool and a dreamer, with his head always buried in books, but he had a gift for seeing value and opportunity where others saw none.
He had served Melinda many times before and thought her beautiful, despite the down- turned lines beginning to etch themselves permanently around her mouth and a certain hard edge to her features. He thought she needed something to soften her a little. Children? Love? Could it be that simple? He had even wondered if he might be able to do some of that softening, for he could see a vulnerability hidden in that brittleness. It occurred to him that she might be difficult and high maintenance and might test his patience to the limit, judging by the way she sometimes spoke to people. His mother wouldn’t like her. That much he knew. She would think him a mug or doormat and Melinda a bitch, and up herself. But, when she spoke to him, she was often funny and smart and he liked the way her eyes lit up when they smiled into his. It sometimes seemed to Keith that she was more like one of the people in those books he loved to read than anyone else he had met in everyday life. She had a shimmering luminosity about her. He’d read that word in a book once and looked it up. Luminous. The word rolled around on his tongue like some smooth precious stone. And it seemed to him that she had this rare gift, but that it was lost to her most of the time, or that it had been taken away from her somehow, perhaps by those who, not possessing it, wished to destroy it in others. People could be funny like that. And cruel. He was filled with a great desire to help her find a way back to it or restore it to her and maybe, if he were lucky, bask with her there in the grace of it. Or was this just another of what his mother called his fanciful notions?
But there was nothing smiling or funny or luminous about her this morning, as she slammed the loaf of bread down on the counter. She was all incandescent rage, seething contempt, and oozing venom. And was he imagining that she was swaying a little, her speech slightly slurred? Good Lord. Could she be tipsy? Keith felt a sudden snaking fear that his mother might be right.
‘It is mouldy,’ she hissed. ‘How could even you manage to sell something in this condition?’ She could hear the unreasonableness in her own voice as it hovered on the edge of hysteria and felt the familiar sting of humiliation that always accompanied one of her outbursts.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Keith, ‘it must have been a mistake.’
‘It must have been your incompetence, you mean. And now I am paying for it,’ she snapped.
‘You can have a refund, of course, or a replacement.’ Keith's voice faltered.
‘The refund won’t fill my empty stomach, which needed filling an hour ago.’
People were staring, but Melinda was too far gone to regain control. She knew they would think, Keith would think, her reaction out of all proportion to the event. It had been happening all her remembered life. First they would look at her in bewilderment, then anger, then move away in rejection, abandoning her to her flood of overwhelming feelings, leaving her to struggle alone, engulfed and drowning in the tidal wave of her own unravelling. When she was a child she heard them muttering ‘spoilt brat’ under their breath, sometimes even bailing her mother up with comments like ‘I can’t stand people who don’t discipline their kids’. And even when they didn’t say it, she could read it in their eyes. Judgements and assumptions without ever wanting to know the why. And any explanation given, always seen as an excuse anyway.
Melinda snatched the new loaf of bread from Keith’s hands and left quickly before people could see her start to jitter and make judgements about that, too. She needed to eat before it was too late. She could feel her blood sugars jaggedly out of kilter and her thoughts descending into chaos, her own body turning traitor as if in confluence with the rest of the world. Today was one of those days when she could be tempted to slide so easily into the embrace of that final, fatal coma that beckoned always, slyly, from the shadows, as soft and seductive as a lover's caress, more constant and true a companion in its ever faithful, watchful presence, than any other she had known. She sat in the car and ploughed into the bread, hoping it would raise her blood sugars in time.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-30 show above.)