brickbend

Making Money Made Easy

2011-11-25T22:10:00.002+08:00

If I was rich things would be different. People would take notice of me. I would be able to do whatever I pleased. I would not have to worry about the mortgage. I would not have to worry about my car. I would not go to work. I would take things easy.

I wouldn’t want to be too rich though. If I was too rich I would feel bad about all the poor people in the world. If I was medium-rich I would do my bit for charity. This is more than can be said of some of the really rich people in the world today; they keep their money to themselves. Are they blind? Can’t they see that there are poor people everywhere? Sure, some of those poor people are just freeloaders, but still: they’re everywhere.

If I was rich I would do something significant to help people help themselves. If you teach a man to fish they’ll at least have fish to eat; which is better than nothing. If you’ve got fish you don’t need to freeload.

If I was rich I would start an organisation that taught freeloaders to become fisherman. Let’s face it, there’s nothing more off putting than a bunch of freeloaders hanging around when you’re trying to take the world by storm.

First I’ll take the world by storm then I’ll set-up the freeloading-fisherman organisation.

I have to do it in that order because I’ll need cash to buy fishing rods. I will need loads of fishing rods and some brands are really expensive. Having said that, freeloaders probably aren’t that fussy about what kind of fishing equipment they use.

Perhaps freeloaders should be fussier? Perhaps if they cared more about things like fishing equipment they wouldn’t be in such a predicament?

Anyway, my point is this: I am going to take the world by storm, and then I’m going to get rid of some of the couldn’t-care-less freeloaders around the place. Then, once I’ve done my bit, I can start some serious luxuriating, comfortable in the knowledge that people are eating fish because of me and my plan to take the world by storm.

I might even do a spot of fishing myself.

The Retreat

2011-11-17T22:43:00.000+08:00

Zoe likes to feel that she's done some physical activity to earn her relaxation which is why she loves yoga retreats.

It had been months since our last retreat. Zoe was getting really tense at work. She came home one day and told me that she had snapped at a co-worker. The next day I rang the retreat and made a booking.

The man on the end of the phone took our details.

“And will you be arriving by car, sir?” he asked.

I confirmed that we would be.

“Would you very much mind picking up a fellow retreat participant? Allan is stuck without a car. I’m sure he will be no bother.”

I hesitated. I had thought that the drive to the retreat would be a good time for Zoe and me to catch up. So it was with some reluctance that I agreed to the request.

Zoe was thrilled when I told her that I’d booked the trip. She arranged leave and bought herself some comfortable clothing. She seemed happier at the thought of going away, and I felt very pleased that I’d arranged it.

The day of the retreat came. We slept in and picked up our fellow retreater in the afternoon. He was an unusual chap, not the kind of person you’d expect to find on a retreat; he was quite a tight person and seemed very serious.

As we drove, Zoe and I tried to make polite conversation with our passenger, but it went nowhere.

It was quiet in the car, too quiet really; until Allan said:

“Truck drivers are 91% more likely to have beards than other members of the driving population.”

Zoe and I laughed. This was more like it, we thought.

Zoe quipped back, “Does that include women?”

Allan’s reply made it clear that his observation was no joke.

“Yes, of course, the study included all truck drivers, regardless of gender.”

Zoe and I exchanged glances. What study, we wondered. But we didn’t say anything.

After that we couldn’t shut Allan up. He had a statistic for everything. Some of the statistics, well most of them actually, seemed to be aimed at women. Some even seemed to be aimed at Zoe:

Women whose names start with the letter ‘Z’ are 12.3% less likely to be married at the age of 37.

Women who do yoga are 83% more likely to suffer from a relationship breakdown in their mid-forties.

Women who wear loose fitting garments are 36% more likely to let a major illness go undiagnosed.

It was a bit much. I wanted Allan to shut-up but I couldn’t think of a way of stopping him without being incredibly rude.

Finally, in desperation, I suggested that we pull over and have dinner at a salad bar.

Allan said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Salad was a contributing factor in 56% of the food poisoning cases reported in the past year.”

We drove on.

Zoe was upset I could feel it. Like I said, she’d been under an enormous amount of pressure at work and she just wanted to relax.

It was with a sense of relief that we drove up the retreat’s long unsealed driveway.

It was dark when we got out of the car and the sky was a sea of stars. Allan was saying something about women’s inability to name the constellations being 25.6% less than men's when Zoe finally snapped.

She turned on Allan and said, “Life is not just about facts and figures, you know. Life is for living. How much better would your life be if you just relaxed and enjoyed it?”

Allan didn’t bat an eyelid, “Approximately 73%,” he replied “I’ll give you an exact number tomorrow at breakfast if you like?”

Zoe froze. I thought she was going to thump Allan, and to be honest I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. But she didn’t. She started to laugh. She laughed like I hadn’t heard her laugh in months.

When she finally regained her composure she took Allan’s hand, shook it, and said. “See you at breakfast.”

Recognition

2011-11-01T20:35:00.000+08:00

Joel lined up with the other marathoners and waited for the starter’s pistol.

He had trained for months for this race. For months he had been getting out bed at 5.30 in the morning.

His wife had kept him going, the thought of his wife; it was the thought of the look she would give him once he’d completed the race. She would be proud of him, he knew it.

Finishing that race would show her that he was still strong, he still had fight in him, he still had life in him. She would see who he really was - who he was on the inside - and she would fall in love with him again.

The starter fired his pistol, and Joel ran.

Joel ran with heart. He ran with passion. He ran as if his life depended on it.

Joel ran the whole race as if he were running towards his waiting wife. At the end of the race he ran across the finish line and seized her in his arms.

She didn’t have the look that he had hoped for.

She was pleased for him, of course. She handed him a towel and a bottle of water and told him that he’d made good time.

Joel took the bottle of water.

He hadn’t done it for her, he realised.

He’d been running for himself, running for the feeling that he could be someone to be proud of.

Joel might have cried a little bit on the way home, but he was okay. In fact he was better than okay: he was alive.

My Mountain and Me

2011-10-17T11:15:00.002+08:00

My mountain is calling to me. I hear it across land and across sea.

My mountain is there in my dreams. I see my mountain standing on the flat plains. It is watching me. I am a young boy riding a blue bike. I am laughing as I ride around and around in circles. I am light and free. I watch the bike’s front tyre as I turn and turn and turn. And suddenly, the whole world is turning but I am still. I stop. I look at my mountain. It is still. It is heavy on the earth. We are like the sun and the moon, my mountain and me.

Oh great mountain, you remember me before I remember me. You are in all my young memories.

You are with me now, even though I am far from you; even though I am too far away from you.

I remember you when I am anxious. My pulse may race, but your stillness is with me. The spirit of you is in my heart.

I remember you too, when I feel life’s power coursing through me. I am lifted up. My head is in the sky but my feet are on the ground. You are beneath my feet.

You are the mix of sky and earth that I have sought after every day of my life.

I long to be near you. I long for the land of my birth at my feet and you by my side. It is through this longing that I hear you calling.

I hear you. I hear you.

And I will return to you. I will bring my own child. We will stand at your mighty feet and I will tell my child of you; the things you have taught me: strength and courage; sky and soil; sun and moon.

I hear you calling.

I will return.

Ambition

2011-10-10T20:25:00.002+08:00

Paul was getting ready for a night out on the town when his phone rang.

“Paul Darby,” he said in his most authoritative voice.

“Paul. It’s Andrew Weston here,” the voice on the other end of the phone replied. “Sorry to call you on a Friday evening, but I have some rather bad news for you.

We’re letting you go, Paul. The Executive has decided to move in different direction…”

The voice continued to talk but Paul did not hear it.

Paul was standing in the dark, his phone still in his hand, when Kim, his girlfriend, arrived. She looked gorgeous.

“Paul,” she said, “what’s going on? Why aren’t you ready?”

Paul didn’t move.

“Paul?” Kim said a little less certainly.

Paul slowly turned his head towards her.

Has he been crying, Kim wondered, but she instantly dismissed the idea. Paul was tough. Paul was confident. Paul was motivated. Paul had ambition. He wasn’t the kind of guy to sit in the dark crying.

“What is it Paul, what’s happened?”

“I - I’ve had some rather bad news babe,” he answered.

Paul’s voice was so uncertain, so troubled: listening to it made Kim feel uncomfortable.

“I’ve been sacked,” Paul stifled a sob as he said this. “I’ve never been sacked.”

“Oh, is that all,” Kim laughed. “I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it.”

Paul stood over Kim and Kim could see that he was full of fire.

“What do you know?” Paul yelled. “What do you know about anything? You’ve never worked a day in your life.”

Kim’s back straightened.

“Listen buddy,” she retorted, “as far as I can recall, you’ve never worked that hard either. You were always ambitious, but you got everything you ever wanted. Perhaps it’s time you woke up to yourself. The world doesn’t run on cocktails and charisma, you know.”

Paul clenched and unclenched his fists.

“Kim,” he said coldly, “I think I’m going to have to let you go. I’ve decided to move in a different direction.”

Kim had never seen Paul so conflicted before. She was filled with pity at the sight of this man of confidence brought low. She wanted to reach out to him, but she realised that there was something strangely farsighted about his words: Paul needed to move in a different direction.

And Kim knew that she would not follow him.

Insurmountable

2011-10-03T20:41:00.002+08:00

It was 4AM. Something had woken me. Further sleep eluded me.

Outside, Australian Magpies sang their angular night song. Those black and white birds; those day and night birds: they’ll be tired in the morning, I thought.

My mind was restless. My mind moved across the surface of the earth looking for trouble. My mind swooped down on innocent victims: how easy other people’s lives are, I thought; how simple their problems.

Outside, the wind sighed in agreement. Eee-sss-eee, it said.

My problems are real problems, I thought; my problems are not trivial; my problems are insurmountable.

For some time, an hour perhaps, I tossed and turned and thought about my insurmountable problems. The more I thought about my problems the more restless I became.

Outside, night was turning to day. A kookaburra - that early riser - interrupted my cycle of thoughts with his unsympathetic laugh.

A new thought entered my mind: insurmountable problems start wars.

I am at war, I realised; I am at war with the problems I can’t make peace with.

Outside, wind moved through trees making music learned from sea and sand. And, as I listened, my problems dissolved into the music and floated away.

I slept.

Side Tracked

2011-09-26T15:24:00.000+08:00

I have been side-tracked.

You have seen me.

I was watching my feet as I walked. You stood and watched me.

You could see the tension in my shoulders. You could tell that my hands were fists even though they were buried deep-down in my coat pockets.

You wondered what the weight was that I carried on my shoulders. You wondered if the realisation of my own mortality was bearing down on me. You wondered if something I had hoped for, longed for, had passed me by.

You wondered if I had become side tracked; lost my way; spent too many years thinking about living and not enough time being a part of life.

There was something familiar about the way I walked, you decided. The word ‘downtrodden’ entered your mind.

This word, downtrodden, made you think of your own life. You had had dreams once, dreams of a career and of being creative. When you were young you had felt as if you were in a mighty ocean of opportunities.

What happened to your dreams, you wondered. You looked at me walking past, you looked inside yourself as you stood there, and you found that your ocean of opportunity had been replaced by a sea of longing.

You have been side-tracked.

I have seen you.

Connor Buys Coffee

2011-09-21T18:20:00.002+08:00

Connor didn’t know anything about her, didn’t even know her name, but he knew this: she was the one for him. The first time he saw her it was if he’d been punched in the solar plexus: he was in love.

It had been a Tuesday.

He had seen her through the window of _La Petite Café_ as he walked past. She was standing behind the counter, but even from that distance Connor could feel her warmth; felt himself being drawn to her; and he knew that he was lost, lost, lost.

Connor thought of little else for the rest of the day. He drew a love-heart with an arrow through it and sat staring blankly at it.

She was perfect, he decided.

After that, Connor would find any excuse to walk past _La Petite Café_. She was always there, always smiling: a softness in a hard world.

She is gentle, Connor thought, she is kind and open; she is a balm for a weary soul.

These thoughts began to change Connor. The more he thought about her, the more he changed. Slowly, over many months, he became kinder and more tolerant. He didn’t realise it at the time, but his longing was transforming him.

One morning, as he was walking past the café, Connor made up his mind: he was going to go to talk to her. He slowly opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit room. The smell of coffee, and the sound of lively chatter, filled the air.

And there she was, but not as he’d expected: not as he had hoped. She was a life-sized cardboard cut-out; an advertisment for ‘Coffee Oké’.

Connor groaned.

“Are you alright there?” a waitress asked in a concerned tone.

“I…” said Connor and then stopped.

“I’ve seen you walking past,” the waitress continued. “I hoped you’d come in one day. Can I get you a coffee?”

And then she smiled at him, and Connor found himself smiling back.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The Broken

2011-09-13T11:27:00.002+08:00

Mick got back to his desk to find a hand-written note sitting in his in-tray.

“Mick,” it read, “That mobile phone headset isn’t fooling anyone: we all know you’re talking to yourself.”

There was no signature.

Mick sat down and hid behind his computer screen.

He re-read the note. They all know, he thought.

For a moment, for the briefest of moments, Mick wondered if they could hear the voice that spoke to him.

Of course not, of course not, of course not.

“Of course not,” Mick said aloud.

Someone in an adjacent cubical suppressed a laugh.

Mick took the headset out of his ear and placed it on top of the note. He pulled a brown cardboard box out from under his desk and began filling it with his personal belongings.

Every eye was on him as he walked, slowly-slowly, towards the exit. Mick stopped in the doorway but didn’t turn around.

He wanted to say that he hadn’t been trying to deceive them. He wanted to tell them how much his life had changed the day he’d found that broken headset. He wanted to tell the room – the whole world – what it felt like to be different, to be aware that you’re different; to be watched; to be watched but not loved. He wanted to say that he knew he was broken.

He was broken.

But Mick was tongue-tied and left without saying a word.

Earnest d'Angelo has Heart

2011-09-05T15:47:00.004+08:00

“I won’t pretend that I know how you feel,” says Earnest d’Angelo. But the slow thoughtfulness in his voice, and the careful way he measures his words, tell me that he does.

“My Grandfather died when I was 14,” Earnest d'Angelo continues. “Several nights after his death I realised that if someone as solid as my Grandfather could die, anyone could die: my parents, my friends... And then it dawned on me: I was going to die.”

Earnest d’Angelo is looking at his hands, his still, strong and patient hands. I look at his hands too; they are real hands. I wonder if Earnest’s hands have a familial likeness to those of this Grandfather I never knew.

“For the first time,” says Earnest d’Angelo, “I looked at my life and asked why.

It started with one why, but soon why questions were racing at me with such ferocity that they knocked the breath out of me. The why questions bit me, ripped and clawed me: relentlessly they came. The why questions were a black storm in my mind.”

Earnest d’Angelo is quiet for a moment. The memory of the why storm flashes behind his grey eyes.

“The why storm lasted seven years,” he says, his voice full of sadness.

I want to tell Earnest d’Angelo that I’m sorry about the storm - sorry that it lasted for seven years: but I don’t. I don’t want to interrupt Earnest d’Angelo, I want to know what made the why storm stop.

“One day – it was just a day like any other – I was listening to the why questions, and I realised: I’d heard them all before. There were no new why questions.”

Earnest d’Angelo sits up a little bit straighter.

“That night I walked through the darkness. I walked away from all the houses and cars, walked to a place where the stars shone a little brighter. I looked up at those stars and whispered: 'I don’t know'.”

Earnest d’Andelo looks me in the eyes and then quickly looks away. I’m holding my breath.

He says, “For the first time in seven years, my mind was quiet. It was there, standing in the silence, that I heard a new sound. It was like a soft and muffled voice in another room: it was the sound of my own heart beating.”

I dreamt of you that night, the night after Earnest d’Angelo told me his story. I was a child again and you were driving. I was still small enough to stand in the backseat foot-well without my head touching the roof. It was the days before backseat seatbelts, but I was safe because you were there. Your hair was black and your shoulders were broad and strong. I reached out and touched you then, but my hand passed right through you.

As I awoke, as I drifted between wakefulness and sleep, I thought I heard your voice in the other room.

But it was only the sound of my own heart beating.

The End of the Road

2011-08-29T14:03:00.000+08:00

Carl sat in his car which was parked in his garage. The garage door was closed and the car engine was purring gently.

Carl sat in the unnatural darkness, his hands on the steering wheel, his mind full of sad thoughts.

He was ashamed of his melodramatic tendencies, the banal way in which his mind chose to occupy itself. He knew – and resented the knowledge – that he was going to end his life following the same mindless, self-pitying thoughts that had occupied him for several decades.

Carl’s fingers gripped the staring wheel, his knuckles turning white from the effort. I should be thinking about my wife, he thought, how will she feel? She bought me this car to remind me of the newness in the world, and here I am using that present as a weapon against myself.

And Carl started to think of all the things his wife had done for him, the sacrifices she had made to be with him. He thought about her patience, her love. He realised that she had never doubted him, even when he was full of doubt.

Carl suddenly understood: she didn’t need me to answer those questions; she loved the questions that had no answers.

Carl began to feel tired then – so very tired. And as his eyes drooped and closed, his only regret was that he hadn’t loved his wife better.

Carl’s wife returned home to find Carl’s body slumped over the steering wheel of his new car; the engine was still whirring softly.

“Carl!” she screamed.

Carl sat up with a start; a guilty look crossed his face.

“Carl you old fool,” Carl’s wife’s voice held a gentle sadness, “this is an electric car."

The Small Step

2011-08-18T17:55:00.000+08:00

It was an unplanned happiness; a happiness that came to him quite by chance, quite unexpectedly. When Ian thought about it later, he realised that this happiness was the result of the coldness, the late bus and the long walk. For it had been a day that had started as any work day starts, with feelings of monotony, of anonymity and a weariness that no sleep would ever cure.

A chill wind had met him as he opened the front door. Ian took a backwards step and removed a black woollen greatcoat from a rack that was just inside the house. He pulled it on as he walked towards the bus stop.

That big old coat played a part in his happiness, Ian was sure of it. There was something about it; the way it seemed to cover up his insecurities, his anxieties; the way it made him feel a kind of strength, a semblance of certainty. It made Ian stand a little more surely as he waited for his bus. An observer might have said he stood with confidence, but Ian would have said it was really just an act, or, at best, a kind of mock confidence.

The bus failed to arrive and Ian began the long walk into the city. He felt as if he were on a treadmill; around him the same grey streets and faceless buildings played from an endless film loop.

But then, ahead of him, he spied something different: two teenagers sitting on a small step outside a shoe-shop. They were staring right at him, and, as he got closer, Ian overheard one of them saying, “That’s him alright.” The other one pulled a camera out of his pocket and took Ian’s picture. They both smiled and waved as he walked past.

“Love your work,” the teenagers called.

Ian couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks,” he said.

Something quite unexplainable happened to Ian in that moment. It was as if something had solidified inside him: the thing that was only an act had been real all along.

Despite everything: the coldness of the day; the bus that never came; the subsequent walk through bleak outskirts into overcrowded city, despite these things, Ian was happy.

The Department of Unexpected Consequences

2011-07-31T22:02:00.001+08:00

Malcolm Fisher sat with his legs extended under his desk, his hands folded over his stomach, and a slightly self-satisfied look on his face. There were three things in front of him: a manila folder with ‘Mr Johnson’ written neatly on the front; a mathematical instrument that looked like an overgrown abacus; and a small leather bound folder that contained a number of his favourite tram tickets, a sample of a much larger collection.

At 3.20PM, the door to his tiny office sprung open and a man in his early thirties strode into the room. The man was flustered; had clearly been running; and was breathing heavily from the unaccustomed exertion.

“Sorry I’m late,” he puffed, “I had a devil of time trying to-”

“That’s okay Mr Johnson,” Malcolm Fisher interrupted. “Please sit down.”

Mr Johnson drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and whipped it across his reddened face. He looked around the office nervously before lowering his ample frame into the chair opposite Malcolm Fisher.

“Now let’s see.” Malcolm Fisher opened the manila folder and began to shuffle through the pages it contained. “It says here that you’ve come to see us about your ex-fiancé. Is that correct?”

Mr Johnson was taken aback. “How in God’s name did you know that?” he exclaimed.

Malcolm tapped the abacus. “Calculations sir: that’s what we do.

“Now, Mr Johnson, you have come to complain that your fiancé left you as an indirect result of a new house being built on your street: a house that had the approval of the Department of Unexpected Consequences.”

It wasn’t a question, but Mr Johnson nodded anyway.

Malcolm Fisher left his chair and walked over to a small window in the corner of his office. It was a grey day; grey clouds rolled over a grey world, and umbrellas hurried up-and-down the cobbled street below.

“Mr Johnson, your fiancé’s departure was expected. We had foreseen that she would leave you for the occupant of the new house, but we calculated that she would have left you in three months anyway.

“I’m very sorry Mr Johnson. We thought you must have known something was amiss. Your neighbour, well, it wasn’t just your neighbour was it?”

Malcolm Fisher heard a small whimper and turned from the window to see Mr Johnson staring at his hands which were sandwiched firmly between his knees.

“Why?” Mr Johnson asked, a note of hopelessness in his voice.

Malcolm chuckled, “Our calculations are based on approximately 15 million variables, I’m sure you don’t want me to go through them all now, do you Mr Johnson?”

Mr Johnson looked up hopefully.

“No, of course you don’t,” Malcolm continued. “Suffice it to say, her father was an inept male role-model.”

Malcolm Fisher paused for a moment before adding “Will that be all, Mr Johnson?”

Mr Johnson’s last hope was gone: he was a shattered man. His chair scrapped slowly across the floor as he prepared to stand.

“Just one thing Mr Johnson, before you go. You caught the tram today. I was wondering if I could have your ticket: you kept it I believe? It’s a hobby of mine you see.”

Mr Johnson opened his wallet and pulled out a rectangular piece of cardboard. Malcolm Fisher stepped forward and took it out of his hand.

As the door closed behind Mr Johnson, Malcolm looked down at the ticket. It was as he hoped. The ticket was numbered 12345678.

Malcolm Fisher smiled as he slipped the ticket into his leather ticket holder: two years of hard work had finally paid off.

Buried Treasure

2011-07-16T15:22:00.001+08:00

Commander Bennet was standing next to a waist-high table, his eyes rapidly scanning the topological map that was rolled out in front of him. “Here,” he pronounced, jabbing his index finger at a large, unusually flat area between two hills. “Tell them to drill here.”

A junior officer made a note of the coordinates before turning on his heel and running out of the tent.

Commander Bennet stood staring at the map. His eyes were blazing orbs of polished magnetite; an involuntary movement of his mouth caused the bristles of his moustache to twitch.

“Could this be it,” he thought. “Could this be the hidden treasure of the ancients; the energy source that will power us to victory?”

It had always seemed an implausible rumour. The ancients, it was said, had stockpiled vast fields of potential energy, presumably as insurance against future energy crises. These stockpiles had never been tapped and remained buried, hidden and forgotten. Most intelligent people dismissed these rumours as the magical thinking of a down trodden society. Bennet was among the sceptical until, one day, he was called into a secret briefing and shown irrefutable evidence that these energy fields existed.

Bennet had been put in command of an elite force whose job it was to find the energy fields and extract their contents.

“Could this be it?” Bennet said aloud.

At that moment, the junior officer returned to the tent, a look of great excitement on his face.

“Good news sir,” he exclaimed, “we’ve struck plastic.”

The Old Man and the Pilgrim

2011-05-01T10:59:00.002+08:00

An old man sat cross-legged before Mathias, his eyes closed, his hands folded gently on his lap; a stillness seemed to emanate from him. Mathias relaxed, the tension of his pilgrimage flowing from him.

“Why have you come?” The Seer broke the silence, his voice deep and resonant.

“I seek greatness.” It wasn’t the eloquent speech that Mathias had planned, but it was the truth.

“Go south to the sea; your greatness awaits you at Helos,” said the old man.

Mathias barely slept that night. For the first time he found himself questioning the Seer’s ability to see the future.

“Helos is but a tiny sea port,” Mathias thought, “nothing but fish could await me there.”

As dawn touched the sky with her rosy fingers, Mathias hatched a plan: he would visit the Seer again and see if he received the same advice.

I will put on a disguise, Mathias told himself, the old man will not recognise me.

The sun’s fiery head peeked over the horizon as Mathias made his way towards the Seer’s house.

Once again Mathias stood before the old man, but this time he did not wait for the Oracle’s question.

“I seek greatness, oh mighty Seer.”

“Go north. You will learn greatness from the mountains,” the old man replied.

“I thought…” Mathias stammered. And then he realised that he wasn’t sure what he had thought. He had hoped; he had had hope.

Mathias hung his head and turned to leave. But as he did, the old man gave him a tight lipped smile and said, “Tomorrow I will tell you what awaits you in the East.”

The Code Within the Code

2011-02-25T17:59:00.000+08:00

In 2015 the treatment of mental illness took a new direction: the days of tinkering with the brain’s chemical soup were over. A new type of drug, one that spoke the language of the mind, came into being.

The breakthrough that led to this change occurred in the summer of 2011. Researchers at La Trobe University in Melbourne discovered a means of identifying intangible traits from an animals DNA. These scientists could see the code that encouraged foxes to make holes and birds to build nests.

But the discovery went much deeper than this. Human DNA revealed complicated feelings and emotions that had been passed down from generation to generation. Closer analysis of this data revealed that the information was in fact snippets of stories: short sentences from the farthest reaches of time.

One journalist summed up these findings in this way: “The story of a man’s history is in his DNA. It is a story written using a common alphabet, a language shared by everyone who has ever lived, and who will ever live.

“For eons our ancestors have been whispering in our ears. Now, thanks to this new technology, we can hear what they’ve been saying with great clarity.”

Two years after the La Trobe University discovery, a European pharmaceutical company began human trials of a drug that blocked the negative effects of a person’s inherited history. The results were spectacular. People who had suffered from crippling mental illnesses were suddenly released from hundreds of millennia of emotional baggage.

The popularity of the drugs was singular. As soon as the drugs were approved for human consumption they began to fly off the shelves: every man, woman, and child was either taking them, or thinking about taking them.

But there was a side effect. Users exhibited a lack of empathy for their fellow man. A great ambivalence gripped the world: the bond that had joined humans in their suffering was gone.

Families dumped their sick in hospital and left them there. A man would drive past an accident where once he would have stopped. Medical school enrolments dropped off. Charitable organisations closed their doors. Drama wore but one mask.

The United States Government quickly banned the sale or use of the drug. Other governments followed suit, but not before a great rent had arisen in the social fabric.

As the drug wore off, users were filled with feelings of shock and disbelief. Society became polarised in its desire to understand what had happened, and how it could be prevented from happening again.

Now, thirty years later, every young adult is encouraged to take a DNA reader into a quiet room and listen to the voices of their ancestors. They will hear a story for which they are both the code and the decoder. They will hear cheers of triumph, and tears of unspeakable grief. They will hear an ancient story, a story that is still being written; a story with an unknowable end.

Sideways Glance

2010-11-02T20:03:00.002+08:00

This is a story about a young woman named Emma.

Emma was beautiful person with a gentle and flowing presence. She had a quietness about her, a stillness that some mistook for confidence. But Emma was far from confident: she was a shy person who had learned to love her own company.

One day Emma had an idea that both thrilled and terrified her: she would have lunch in the staff cafeteria. With great hesitation she made her way downstairs and joined the stream of people heading towards their midday meal.

The noise and bustle of the cafeteria was a swirling phantasmagoria. Emma took a slow breath and joined the queue of tray carrying diners. She paid for her meal and found a table where she could watch as the crowd of people flowed around her. She was in the flow, but she was not part of it.

And then Billy walked in. Billy was a scruffy individual. Emma couldn’t decide if his clothes were unfashionable or too fashionable, and his hair was desperately in need of a comb. He seemed unaware of these things; comfortable with himself; okay with his place in the world. Emma smiled; and something moved within her heart.

The next day Emma hurried to the cafeteria. Excitement at the prospect of seeing Billy replaced the trepidation she had felt the day before. He was unique; she knew this; she knew that he was like her in this way at least. But when Billy arrived he looked different: his clothes were neat, his hair was combed, and he had a slightly self-conscious air about him. Emma didn’t know that Billy had seen her the day before: his new look was for her.

Emma went to the cafeteria every day. She harboured the quiet hope that she would once again see the Billy of that first day. Instead she saw a Billy who was slowly becoming more vacuous, more self-obsessed. He had gym muscles and clothes that showed them off. Billy seemed to be making the transition from unselfconscious, to extremely self-conscious. And then, as if he were taking some kind of drug, he became aloof.

Oh, if only Emma had known that these changes were for her benefit, she would have pushed aside her own disquiet and approached Billy without delay. But she didn’t know, couldn’t know. And so Emma watched as the old Billy was annihilated, and a new, more generic Billy emerged.

Emma remembers the day Billy asked her if she would have lunch with him. The request seemed to come out of nowhere, as if it were some sudden whim of Billy’s. Emma was tempted to ask Billy why he had changed so much, but she was too shy to say anything, except that she wouldn’t. Billy made the same request the next day which struck Emma as arrogant, and she was more emphatic this time. She refused him and let him know there was no hope in her direction.

Emma didn’t see Billy for some time after that. He disappeared from the cafeteria and Emma desperately hoped that she hadn’t been too hard on him. She was mortified by the idea that she had hurt him and longed to set things straight.

It was some time before Billy remerged. Emma could see that he’d changed. He was scruffy and dishevelled. But there was a gravity about him: he seemed to have made peace with himself. Emma smiled when she saw him; and something moved within her heart. She waved at him as he entered the room, hoping to make amends, hoping to get to know him as he really was.

But Billy walked right past her.

Annihilation

2010-10-17T10:02:00.000+08:00

The first time I saw Emma she was sitting at a table in the middle of the staff cafeteria. She was an eddy-current in a stream of mindless human activity. She was herself, and I was in love.

Emma was graceful and calm; stylish and elegant; carefree and sunny. She was perfect. To look at Emma was to see my own flaws, my own short-comings, in stark relief. I was suddenly and painfully aware of my own lack of style and grace. I was flawed and inadequate.

That night I went home and stuffed all but my best clothes into old boxes. My wardrobe was empty except for a two pairs of pants and three long-sleeved shirts.

Emma made me want to be a better person. I would see her almost every day, and every day I longed for her – to be a person she could love. I longed for her calm – longed to be at peace with myself.

The city library had an extensive section on meditation. I borrowed every book and practiced for an hour a day. I joined a gym and went six days a week. Other gym members would laugh at my intensity. “There’s no rush,” they would tell me. But there was.

For a year my life became very small, revolving around the gym and meditation classes. The occasional glimpse of Emma was all it took to keep my world turning.

My efforts started to pay off. My mind became expansive and focused, and I looked and felt much better than I had. But I began to realise what most people already know: I would never be perfect.

With this in mind I decided to talk to Emma.

I got up early and meditated for an hour, dressed slowly, and made my way to work. That morning’s work was a blur, and lunchtime arrived in a flash.

Emma was standing in the lunch queue when I arrived at the cafeteria. My ears were buzzing as I walked towards her. She looked uncomfortable as I approached, and when I asked her if she would go out with me she said that she wouldn’t.

I had spent too much time thinking about this to give up so easily, so I tried again the next day. This time Emma was more forceful, more emphatic. As she spoke my world began to crumble.

That night I sat on my bed and thought about Emma. I thought about how she’d shrunk away as I approached her. I thought about all I’d done to make her want me. I thought about what was left of my life and it didn’t seem like a lot. I sat there without blinking, my body numb, and a coldness forming in my heart.

I didn’t go to the gym after that and I gave up on meditation too. I would fall asleep in my clothes and go to work without changing. I seldom showered and the closest I got to cleaning my teeth was gargling gin. I didn’t shave. I lived on pizza and beer. I kept away from the staff cafeteria.

Time passed without measure, until one day I found myself doing something I hadn’t done for a long time: I was looking in the bathroom mirror. There was something different about me, a kind of gravity and seriousness that suited me. I wasn’t graceful or elegant, but I was something else: I was broken and still standing.

That day I decided to have lunch in the staff cafeteria. My hair was a mess, I was unshaven, and I’d slept in my clothes again.

Then something unexpected happened: Emma had seen me as I walked into the room, and as I moved near her, she smiled at me and waved. I was tempted to walk up to her and say hello.

But I didn’t.

Lone Star

2010-09-30T20:23:00.000+08:00

The guy down the road from you wants to be famous. He wears his jacket collar turned up and his Fedora pushed forward. He wears sunglasses on cloudy days: he doesn’t want to be looked at, he wants to be seen.

The guy down the road from you walks in a consciously unselfconscious way. It reminds you of someone getting up to give a speech. You wonder if he practices in front of a mirror.

He drives a car that was made when James Dean and Steve McQueen were Kings of Cool. The car is empty, except for a guitar case on the back seat.

Sometimes, late at night, you hear unfinished phrases of soulful music floating down the street. You know it’s him and you wonder why he doesn’t finish those phrases, why he doesn’t play at the pub on open-mic night.

You’ve seen him at the dimly lit café on the corner. He drinks black coffee and reads second-hand paperbacks. Sometimes he leans over a tattered notebook, his ballpoint pen hovers over a blank page but never leaves a mark.

You’ve heard he has a desk job at some paper-shuffling boredom-factory in the city. You wonder how he lives with that.

You imagine him sitting at his desk with its fake wood grain surface, staring at a photo hidden in his top draw. It’s of some pop-culture celebrity, someone from his youth: the embodiment of his dreams. You imagine that his longing runs deep. His heart is beating in his chest; he can feel his freedom: taste it; it’s just outside the window; just beyond the bars.

The guy down the road from you wants to be famous.

Rosetta Stone

2010-09-25T13:27:00.001+08:00

We were people with a purpose, Carly and me. It was as if we shared a common language; an arcane tongue learnt from the walls of our souls. Our early conversations were a revelation: she was my Rosetta Stone and I hers.

Through Carly I began to understand, to see, life’s possibilities: a future far greater than I had ever dreamed. We talked of greatness, of the burning desire to be the best; the intangible feeling that we could achieve whatever we set our minds to. And we talked of the struggle; wasted effort; paths that led nowhere; failing to find our place in the world. Grief became our secret mark of honour.

We would wake early and run beneath the predawn sky. Our spirits seemed to mingle together and soar amongst those clouds from heaven.

This closeness made our first argument feel so much fiercer than perhaps it was. But we both fought to win: win at any cost. We each used knowledge of the other as a weapon, and were both deeply wounded as a result.

After a few days, when things had cooled down, we met at a café and made peace. I think we were both secretly pleased that our argument had been epic; had been great. But we made a vow never to argue again, which, looking back now was a mistake.

We became too careful with each other. We didn’t speak of dreams, or passions. We never talked of greatness or the burning desire to be the best. We talked about cornflakes and TV shows, celebrities and toothpaste. We got comfortable. We stopped running and started to put on weight.

This transition, this descent, happened slowly, so slowly that neither of us realised what was happening. Then one night, as we sat watching TV, I caught a glimpse of the reddening sky through a picture window. Something in me stirred. I told Carly I was going for a run, got changed, and headed out the door. Birds were settling their day’s last disputes and the sky was luminous. As I ran, fresh cool air filled my lungs: I felt alive.

I returned home exhausted but elated. Carly was on the couch in her pyjamas, eating chocolate from a half empty box. She didn’t look up when I entered the room.

We argued.

As we argued life began to flow through us. We argued for hours, blaming each other for what we had become. I called Carly a name and she slapped me across the face. I tasted blood, and it was good.

Carly was shocked by what she’d done, but I told her it was the right thing to do.

And we talked.

We talked through the night, remembering our passion for life and for each other. And, as dawn lifted night’s veil from the earth, we whispered a solemn oath: that we would never again forget ourselves; and we would always make time to argue.

The Plan

2010-09-15T20:56:00.000+08:00

The tension in Mark’s back spread upwards. Tension crept into his shoulders; his neck; his jaw; and the corner of his left eye. Mark tightened his grip on the steering wheel and frowned: gridlock.

It had been a tough day: finished things had been undone, and unfinished things had become more complicated. It was a day in which tense people forgot their manners and tension spread throughout the office.

Mark relived every troubling moment of the day while he drove. By the time he got home he was exhausted and tired. He unlocked the front door and headed straight to bed.

As he entered the bedroom he caught a glimpse of his own care-worn face in a full-length mirror.

“This is your fault,” he whispered.

And then anger gripped him: tension and weariness were evaporated by the fierce fire that rose within him.

“This is your fault.” A shout this time, flecks of spittle flying.

Mild mannered Mark became a god of fury.

“You’re a joke; a has-been. You’re nothing.”

For the next hour Mark raged at his own reflection. Strong language; derision; mocking and hurtful words: Mark was a river in flood.

Many hateful things were said that night as Mark recounted all the times he’d let himself down. He told himself that he was ugly and useless and a failure.

“The world would be better off…” but he didn’t finish the sentence. Instead he shrugged his shoulders, and sat down.

He sat with his head on his knees, thinking about his life; about his plans; about the things he’d hoped would happen that hadn’t: and the things he never dreamed would happen that had.

Outside, night fell, and a cricket began to chirp.

Slowly Mark raised his head. He could see his sad reflection in the bottom of the full-length mirror.

“Truce?” he whispered.

He got up and walked over to a cupboard that stood in the corner. He opened the door and pulled out an old exercise book that had the words ‘The Plan’ written in big bold letters across the front. Mark remembered the young man he had been; the young man with the big ideas: the big plan.

He sat down and began leafing through the book. Every now and then he would tear out a page, crumple it up and throw it over his right shoulder. Then he took a pen and began to write. He wrote for several hours before collapsing into bed, tired but happy.

Mark slept well.

James

2010-09-07T22:09:00.001+08:00

James’s mother corners me the moment I enter the room.

“James is in New York,” she says.

Apparently she thinks that no further introduction is required; nothing need be said to bridge the decade long gap since I had last seen James, or his mother.

James had been a thin, slightly anxious child. He was very different from the other, more rambunctious, boys his age. Consequently, James found it hard to make friends, which is where his mother stepped in.

James’s mother thought he should associate with popular kids. She would ring there mothers and arrange for James to go to their houses after school.

This didn’t go down well with the popular kids. Their frustration at James’s mother was probably the reason James copped such a tough dare: walk through the school’s swimming pool, fully clothed.

It was a sunny day in the middle of summer and a gentle breeze was playing music in the tree tops. James slowly lowered himself into the waist-high pool and stood on tip-toes by the edge. A group of onlookers sat nearby calling for James to get on with it. He began to walk, but soon realised that his shorts were in the water, and the water wasn’t getting any shallower. He stopped walking, clearly trying to decide whether he should continue, or return to dry land and forfeit the dare.

James forfeited the dare.

The rules of forfeit dictated that he must tell the group the name of the girl he loved. James squirmed for nearly quarter of an hour before divulging that he loved Fiona, the sun bronzed Australian-Diplomat’s daughter with the sparkling white smile. I think we all loved Fiona, we were just too young to realise it. So we teased James, running around chanting “James and Fiona up a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

That night, James’s mother phoned all the popular kids’ mothers: James was not to be teased.

There was a fair amount of grumbling in the playground the next day, but no one dared tease James: everyone was afraid of the repercussions when they got home.

“James is in New York,” James’s mother repeats.

James’s mother’s is an anxious woman; I hadn’t realised that when we were kids. There is an unnerving desperation, a deep sadness around her.

I reach out and touch her arm.

“I’m very sorry,” I say. I pause a moment before leaving the room.

It’s a warm sunny day in the middle of summer and a gentle breeze is playing music in the tree tops.

Freedom

2010-08-28T18:20:00.001+08:00

This was a gentle evening in late spring. The sun was sinking over a friendly sea; the world was a slowly turning kaleidoscope; the world was a once hot fire slowly cooling; and there was peace.

We sit on the deck, watching as the spectacle played out before us, pondering the beauty of life, and the inevitability of endings.

We talk of childhood, conjuring up images of days long past: unending holidays in the sun; exploring, free from the prying eyes of parents; the joy of a river fast and wide; a fishing rod that couldn’t catch fish. We remember a brighter world, an enamelled world, that shone with adventure and possibility; a world where magic existed, if you knew where to look.

Later, as night wraps her inky cloak around us, we talk of lost dreams; of painful metamorphosis; of childhoods end.

We talk of teenage rebellion; long hair that mimics the rock stars we will one day be; our desperate struggle against mediocrity; our stoic belief in magic.

We were cooler though, I say, cooler than rock stars. We were young and the flame of youth was still upon us.

The moon is a lantern in a hermit’s hand.

We talk of becoming adults; hair cut short; nine to five; the lure of money; responsibilities; the tearing, cutting nature of life.

Despite the dark, I know your eyes are sad.

You say “As enamel chips away, cold cast-iron is revealed”

And we are silent.

The sea plays her soft music and a meteor flashes across an untouchable sky.

We are smaller now, I say, but we still _are_, brother.

And, as we head to our beds, there is still hope in the world. And, despite the dark, there is still a flame upon us.

The Track

2010-08-20T18:23:00.001+08:00

The track leads through the darkness of a winter’s night; up the side of a step hill; past noble trees; up-and-up into the emptiness of no trees; along a treacherous ridge; and finally – out of breath and exhausted – the track leads to the place where earth and æther coalesce.

Ancient light shines through the aching corridors of space. To me the unsure twinkling of snow-crystal stars is more solid than the burning city lights I left behind. Lying beneath that vast emptiness – all those light years of darkness – brings me comfort.

For millennia mankind has been casting questions into the inky well of space. Some questions become satellites; they drop out of orbit and land in the deepest part of the ocean. Other questions have broken free and are winging their way to distant galaxies: who knows if they will return answered?

My question is old.

I know it is old.

But still I ask.

“Why?”

My question bursts out of my chest and flies through the darkness with meteoric speed. My question is a gentle creature riding a fiery dragon. My question breaks through the stratosphere and disappears from sight.

I feel lighter as I stand to leave. I wrap my coat around me; set my feet upon the track, but before I leave, I turn my face to the sky and whisper:

“Good night.”

The Quad

2010-08-13T20:19:00.000+08:00

Dave and I were standing in the lunch queue chatting, when Dave suddenly went quiet and started making sideways nodding movements with his head that I took to mean, “Look over there.”

I looked in the direction his head was pointing, but couldn’t see anything in particular; so I looked back at Dave and his eyes were wide, asking me a question I didn’t understand; so I pursed my lips and gave a barely visible, Soap-Opera like, shake of my head, trying to let him know that I didn’t know what he was on about.

“That’s her,” he hissed.

I tried on my best quizzical look, which seemed to work because Dave responded with, “You know, the one I was telling you about.”

To be honest, Dave had been going on about some girl for weeks. He’d first seen her walking across the Quad at interval, and I think he’d skipped a few classes to wait down the Quad “just in the hope” as he called it.

Dave had started head gesturing again, so I had a good look around, and this time I saw her.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh?” Dave fixed me with a stare that said “If you know anything about her, tell me now.”

“Yeah well, I asked her out is all.”

“You?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, what did she say?”

Dave was starting to fidget like an ADHD kid on raspberry cordial. I don’t think he noticed that my cheeks were glowing red, or that my hands were getting sweaty. I looked down at my feet, trying to hide my face, and pushed my hands deep into my pockets. I remember there was some moss growing between the paving stones, and a flattened white drinking-straw near my right foot.

“Well?” Dave repeated: almost a demand this time.

“She said she had a boyfriend,” I mumbled. And then I said “I just remembered I need to be somewhere.”

Dave didn’t want to let it go.

“Perhaps she just told you that because she didn’t like you?” Clearly my feelings were not Dave’s top priority.

“Thanks mate,” I said and started to turn away. I’d forgotten about lunch and just wanted to be on my own.

“Tell me about it later then. I’ve got to get her to go out with me.” Dave sounded exasperated.

She was looking at me as I started to walk away.

Her eyes were sad. She gave me that smile that’s not really a smile, where you press your lips together and look the other person right in the eye.

In my mind the lunchtime Quad was silent: just her and me. And there was an ache in my chest, and tension between my eyebrows.

And in that moment, I knew I wasn’t a kid anymore; I felt older; I felt pain; I felt alive.

I walked on.

A Fist Full of Fingers

2010-08-07T23:37:00.000+08:00

Every Friday afternoon, at four o’clock on the dot, someone would plonk a frosty bottle on Shane’s desk, smile at him and say, “Beer o’clock mate,” as if they’d just invented the expression.

Shane would twist his lips into a smile, give a thin, watery, “Thank-you” and turn back to his work.

At five o’clock on the dot, Shane would drop the unopened bottle into his rubbish bin, and head home.

Shane always watched the same movie, a Western, he knew it by heart.

An unforgiving sun bakes a barren landscape and highlights every line, every contour, of the face of a man with no name.

The camera holds this unflinching face, the hero’s face, far longer than is polite. The face is strong and stoic, brave and uncompromising. It is the face of a man who has no doubts and no rules. It is the face of a man not afraid of who he is.

At the end of the movie Shane finds he is still holding the remote, his thumb still on the play button. He looks down at his arm, his hand, and is reminded that he is not a man with no name: he is Shane.

Every Friday night Shane dreams the same dream: a lens-flare world; a wind blown street; a faceless crowd; a gun fighter; an empty holster. There will be a shot. He will fall to the ground. Rattling spurs will come towards him; and the Man with No Name will be standing over him.

One Friday afternoon, at four o’clock on the dot, Shane swivelled his chair at precisely the same moment as a beer was landing on his desk.

“Not tonight thank-you,” said Shane with force.

“But it’s beer o’clock.”

Shane narrowed his eyes and turned back to his work.

At five o’clock on the dot, Shane headed home. He watched the same movie, had the same realisation and went to bed expecting the same dream.

But that night the dream was different. The hot wind felt the same, and his holster was as empty as ever. The same jangling spurs were coming towards him as he fell to the ground. But as he looked up he didn’t see the Man with No Name: he saw himself.

Shane woke-up happy.

Joy

2010-07-30T21:43:00.000+08:00

Emma wanted to be a cool breeze on a hot day. She wanted to be happy and free: but she wasn’t.

Life was much heavier than Emma had hoped, much more sticky and spider-webby than she had once thought; life was beginning to wear on her.

Every morning Emma would go to _La Petite Café_ to think. She would order a coffee, and write in her diary. She wrote slowly, occasionally gazing out the window, trying to find the right words to describe her feelings. On this day she wrote, “My heart is not a spring in a box. My heart is like a rower on a midnight lake.”

She closed the little diary and slowly stirred her coffee, looking at the swirling liquid as one might stare into the embers of a dying fire.

She sat this way for some time, then shook her head, and picked up a novel. The book had been loaned to her by a colleague and she felt obliged to finish it, despite it being far from her own taste.

A loud bang broke her reverie; a young man had pushed the café door closed when he was trying to open it. Emma could see a deep redness in the man's face; he was clearly uncomfortable and nervous; she wanted to jump up, to hold his hand and tell him that everything was okay. As soon as she saw him she wanted to be near him.

The young man ordered coffee and, with shaky hands, carried it to an empty table.

Not wanting to stare, she picked up the book again and tried to immerse herself in the content. “This is ridiculous,” she thought and laughed aloud “who reads this rubbish?”.

Emma closed the book around her thumb, “Number One Best Seller,” the cover proclaimed.

“Will I read this book to please someone I hardly know and yet not make the effort to go and talk to that man, do something to make myself happy?”

She looked at the young man again, he was writing in his diary. He wrote quickly, erratically. She could see the tension in his movements, the sweat on his forehead, and she longed to be his cool breeze.

“Oh, why don’t I just go and talk to him?” she wondered to herself. But even as she thought this, she knew she wouldn’t do it, and her heart was heavy with sadness.

When the man got up to leave, Emma tried desperately to send him a smile, but he marched out of the café and was gone.

The Mediocrity Principle

2010-03-19T18:59:00.000+08:00

Long ago, in a far distant land, there lived a man named Nicolaus Copernicus. You may wonder how we know of a man who lived so long ago and so far away. Well, Nicolaus Copernicus made, quite literally, a revolutionary discovery.

Now, as anyone will tell you, for revolution you need three things: oxygen, fuel and heat. Nicolaus Copernicus lived in a time with plenty of all three. But we are getting ahead of the story.

Nicolaus Copernicus was a stargazer. Not the kind of stargazer you or I think of when we think of that word; he wasn’t the type to lie lazily about, staring up into the firmament, dreaming of romance or adventure: quite the contrary in fact. Nicolaus Copernicus would never look at the stars unless he was holding his notebook, a pencil and some instrument that looked more magical than mathematical.

You see, in Nicolaus Copernicus's time, people believed that the World was the centre of the Universe. They believed that Earth was fixed in space, and our sun, our moon, and all the other stars and planets danced around us in a joyous celestial twirling motion. Nicolaus Copernicus wasn’t sure this was true. What started as a quest for the arcane, soon revealed a startling truth: Earth revolves around Sun.

Well, Nicolaus Copernicus understood that this discovery, this revelation if you will, might upset a few people, and so, for the most part at least, he kept his ideas under his zucchetto.

Meanwhile, the man on the street was under pressure. The ancient Greeks, with their rosy sunsets and myriad gods, had set the stage for the world being, well, a stage. You might think, and I would agree with you, that being the centre of the Universe would make one feel pretty good about oneself. But people were sick of being looked down upon, of always being watched. It was time for the gods to step back a few light-years and let the world wheel as the world would wheel: around the sun.

When Nicolaus Copernicus’s ideas finally got out into the public arena the world was ready for revolution.

Before Nicolaus Copernicus died he speculated that, since we aren’t at the centre of the Universe, what had happened once, that is to say: you, me and the whole World, could, given the right conditions, happen again. He said this in a nice way, so people didn’t get too upset with him. And so it was that Nicolaus Copernicus made mediocrity not only okay, but a Universal truth, and a good many people breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Heart

2009-11-01T12:28:00.003+08:00

Billy wanted to be the kind of easygoing person that everyone likes. He wanted to be cool: but he wasn’t.

Every morning Billy walked past _La Petite Café_ and saw all the happy customers reading or chatting or laughing, normal people who didn’t have a single care. Every morning Billy thought, “I’m going to go in there one day.”

One morning he awoke before sunrise and, after trying for some time to get back to sleep, he got out of bed and sat near a window watching the distant city lights. Today was the day.

It was a crisp morning in the middle of winter; the moon was hiding in the daytime sky and Billy was watching the café from across the road. His bloodless hands felt tingly and alien. His pulse thumped clearly in his left ear.

“Today is the day,” Billy told himself as he walked towards the café.

He took a deep breath and reached for the door handle, pulled when he should have pushed: the door closed with a bang. Everyone turned to look at him. His face flushed and he felt a cold bead of sweat ran from his armpit.

This wasn’t how he thought it would be.

Once inside he shuffled to the counter his fists clenched tight. He scrunched up his toes too when the waitress asked him to repeat his order.

Billy collected his cup and walked with great caution towards an empty table. There was a pool of cold coffee in his saucer by the time he sat down. His face was burning; his hands cold, damp and shaky.

“Today is the day,” Billy repeated to himself as he pulled a diary and a pen out of his bag.

Turning to a blank page he wrote, “Amongst the Spheres,”

He stopped and frowned at what he’d written.

After some moments he added, “Darkness for light-years.”

He was pulled from his reverie by the laughter of a young woman at an adjacent table. She was engrossed in a book and didn’t seem to care that people were looking at her.

It was then that he realised that what he’d hoped for hadn’t come to pass. His release, his transformation, his metamorphosis, hadn’t taken place.

“Damn this fear,” he thought. “And now I’ve stayed too long; they’re waiting to get my table back.” He started to panic, flung his diary into his bag and marched out of the shop.

He didn’t see the girl with the book trying to catch his eye as he left.

The Fearless Andrew Biggs

2009-10-25T18:32:00.000+08:00

Andrew Biggs never said no to a dare. I remember one day the bell rang and he shot out of class and climbed straight up the flagpole. He had that crooked-tooth grin on his face and you would’ve thought it was all his idea, if you hadn’t known that Simon Parker had slipped him a note in the middle of Maths.

You could tell he wasn’t just doing it for the attention though. Hell, he just clung to the top of that old white-flagpole with a kind of wistful look on his face; just hung there admiring the view, oblivious to the crowd gathering below him.

Then a teacher heard all the fuss and called out, “Mr. Biggs, if you would be so kind as to join us down here on planet earth. You and I need to have a little chat about the school rules.”

Andrew just slid down that flagpole like it was a fireman’s pole and landed right at the teacher’s feet. He had that crooked-tooth grin on his face and not the slightest hint of fear in his eyes.

Andrew was the kid in the back row of the class photo, that photo where all the boys look awkward and half the girls are hiding behind their hair. Andrew’s in that back row, his crooked-tooth grin turned up to 10, making rabbit ears behind Mr. Peterson’s head.

Anyway, the real story started when someone dared Andrew to kiss Katie Miller during English.

Andrew got out of his desk, walked over to Katie, and gave her a kiss on the cheek an Alsatian would’ve been proud of.

“Andrew Biggs get your grubby hands off Katie Miller and get back to your desk. NOW,” Mr. Peterson yelled.

Throwing chalk had been banned the year before but you could tell Mr. Peterson really wanted to throw some then.

The rest of the class was dead silent pretending to work, but Andrew just sauntered back to his desk and sat down as if nothing had happened.

He probably would’ve gotten away with it too if he hadn’t said, “Hey Katie; do you want to go to the school dance with me?”

Katie, who was still rubbing saliva off her face, looked shocked. But before she could say anything, Mr. Peterson jumped to his feet, grabbed Andrew, and started dragging him out of the class. Andrew had gone too far, not that we blamed him; I mean Katie was okay – for a girl. But her father was a bit of a big-wig and everyone knew Mr. Peterson was afraid of him.

So, Mr. Peterson was dragging Andrew out of the class. Andrew didn’t look worried at all; nope he just walked along with that top-of-the-flag-pole look on his face as if he was having a nice relaxing stroll in the park. We were all a bit worried that Andrew would get the strap, but what happened next was worse.

Mr. Peterson was being pretty rough and Andrew wasn’t looking where he was going, so his feet got tangled in Simon Parker’s desk; he fell forward and landed on his head.

There was quite a lot of blood and we all had to go outside and play. An ambulance came and they took Andrew away on a stretcher.

We didn’t see Andrew for a few weeks but we heard he had been in a coma so that was pretty cool. When he came back he was all different and when Katie asked him if he still wanted to go to the dance, well I would have sworn he looked scared. He just shuffled off as if nothing had happened.

Mr. Peterson had to get a new job but our new teacher told us that Andrew might not remember all of us now and we shouldn’t tease him.

Simon Parker had just one thing to say to Andrew, “I dare you to climb the flagpole at lunchtime.”

Well, when the bell rang, Andrew shuffled out of the class and slowly climbed that old white-flagpole. He was only halfway up when he began to look all scared and then he started to cry. We were all embarrassed and the fire brigade had to come and get him down.

I heard a teacher whispering that Andrew was probably better off – everyone needed some fear – but I wasn’t sure.

Anyway, Andrew’s parents moved him to another school after that and we just got on with life. Simon Parker took Katie Miller to the dance and that was the last most people thought about Andrew Biggs.

I still wonder what happened to him though: to Andrew I mean. I miss that crooked-tooth grin of his. Well gee, I mean, it was nice knowing someone who wasn’t always afraid of everything.

The Argument

2009-10-15T19:02:00.001+08:00

Some couples say they never argue as if that one fact encapsulates the truth of their relationship.

We argue.

There is silence and anger and heaviness around the eyes.

“All I’m asking is that you snap it along the lines!” I say too harshly.

“Just because you’re a perfectionist doesn’t mean you do things perfectly,” she retorts.

A barb well thrown, insightful and direct, the kind of statement only someone who loves you could know would hurt you.

My chin lowers, my eyes flash and I am not who I think I am.

I feel my blood pressure rising and I need to take care. My voice could take control of me; speak without inhibition. My soft voice, my sometimes feeble voice, could rise up on a wave. My sometimes shaky voice could pour forth a fire and a fury.

My anger knows no consequence. There is new life in my voice, the breath of life in my sinuses. If I hadn’t spent so much time in this skin I would let this flame flare up inside me – let destruction go where destruction will go.

But experience has shown me the cost.

So I stop myself and stand, flaring and glaring, waiting until my heart relaxes and my soft voice returns.

“You’d think after 50 years we would’ve found better things to argue about.” I say.

She hands me the chocolate – a peace-offering.

“85 percent,” she says with a sad smile.

“Bitter aftertaste,” I say.

“Broken along the lines,” she says.

The Flame of Peace

2009-07-17T13:50:00.001+08:00

A sweet evening breeze tousles curtains and stirs a candle's flame.

Flickering flame,
freedoms soft dancer,
light in the window,
come dance on these walls.

Gentle breeze blowing,
spirit of ages,
soothe this man lying,
bring peace with your breath.

He lies on the floor and breaths deeply. He lies on the floor; his mind is a haven and his spirit a bird on the breeze.

His spirit soars and his whole body is filled with warmth and peace.

Bliss.

He his unaware of the noises outside until the band starts to play. The sound pierces his tranquillity like an arrow. Carols in the park he remembers.

It is inconvenient. This invasion is an annoyance. His mind becomes turbulent.

The smell from smoky barbeques accosts his nostrils. He tries to refocus but the sound of children playing and adults laughing is too much. The band plays on and on and the singing goes on without cessation.

He tries a breathing technique he learnt long ago. It takes some time but slowly his mind begins to calm. He shuts out smoke and lets in the gentle breeze. He shuts out laughing and playing and lets in the sound of his own heart beating. He shuts out singing and music and lets in peace.

He closes his eyes feeling complete once more.

He floats in this pleasant state; the light from a bygone sun fills his mind as he drifts in to sleep.

But he shouldn’t have shut out the smell of smoke.

Sweet evening breeze,
come blow at this window,
knock over this candle,
end peace with a flame.

Sweet evening breeze,
carry sirens call to us,
smoke to the heavens,
and spirit to stardust.

The McIntyre Group Run for Fun

2009-03-26T11:30:00.000+09:00

The boss was an overweight middle manager who lived for finance sector luncheons. That morning he had been to see a doctor and was told a terrible truth; he would need to cut back on heavy food or start exercising.

Well, cutting back wasn’t an option so, instead of going to a gym like any sensible person, he decided to take up running. In fact he decided to take up running that day. He also decided that we would all be joining him.

His PA spent the morning making fliers and stapling them around the office. Everyone rushed to read one.

“The McIntyre Group Run for Fun! 1st prize - The afternoon off!”

There was a collective groan.

“But we don’t have our running clothes,” someone said hopefully.

At that moment the boss jogged out of his office wearing $1,000 worth of over stretched running gear.

“Get the defibrillator ready,” someone whispered.

“Just run as you are people,” the boss declared in his most commanding voice. “We’re only going around the block.”

We lined up outside with white shirts untucked or skirts held up above knees.

“GO!” The boss boomed.

He led the way and the rest of us trailed behind half-heartedly.

We must have been quite a spectacle because a small crowd had gathered along the edge of the street. They stood silently with their mouths agape.

One bystander called out “Hey! Where are you all running to?”

“The bank,” the boss grunt-shouted back.

“Macintyre’s?”

We all nodded and kept going.

10 seconds later the bystander and a bunch of other people had overtaken us at speed.

By the time we got back to the branch there was a line of anxious customers queuing around the corner.

The bank had to be shutdown after that. The boss’s finance sector luncheons were over.

I hear he has never been healthier.

My Favourite Sound

2008-12-17T09:30:00.000+09:00

Rufus wakes me by pushing his dog food bowl across the tiled floor. The sound is meant to create a pavlovian response; I can almost feel him smile as I prepare his breakfast.

After breakfast I head to the bathroom for my morning shower and the sound of water falling into water. The note deepens as the floor pan fills.

As we leave the house the front door knocker bounces, brass on brass, and the door clicks closed behind me.

Then there’s the coffee shop. Tapping, grinding and steaming all merge together into one word. If you translated that word into English it would be a hearty ‘good morning!’ Some days it’s so loud I put my hands over my ears. The barista laughs at me; a warm friendly espresso laugh.

I sit outside the café and slowly sip my morning coffee. Nearby people rustle the business pages and talk in serious morning tones. Rufus sits quietly at my feet. He likes biscotti and eats it open mouthed for full crunch effect.

The pedestrian crossing buzzer sounds like a crazy cartoon creature. Rufus leads the way and people swish past us noiselessly.

Automatic openers rattle glass doors. Voices echo in the foyer and hard heels clip and clop on marble floors.

A pleasant ding. Rufus and I head up to 8, three dots, I’m already thinking about work. People are quiet in the elevator but you can still hear then.

The receptionist says a polite “hello” to me and a gusty “Hi there fella” to Rufus. We head into my office.

And there it is; the source of my favourite sound – my Braille writer. I love the snap it makes as it creates. I put on my headphones and transcribe.

There’s nothing like reading a good book in silence.

The Black Marketeer

2008-12-11T15:52:00.001+09:00

Selling arms to the enemy isn’t strictly legal but war covers over a multitude of sins. The company I was working for was selling to both sides of the market and making a killing.

My wife and I were not given to excess but we lived well in war time, better than most anyway. My extra income meant we had more time together; often we would walk along the beach as the sun went down.

“The clouds are red ribbons.” She was particularly pensive that evening.

“You love ribbons,” I replied, glad she had finally spoken.

There was silence for awhile and then she said suddenly, “Do you ever think of the dead?”

“To be honest I try not too. This is war; people die.”

She was quiet as we made our way back to the car.

I knew what she was thinking and frankly I couldn’t bear the idea that she thought ill of me. We had enough money to make it through the war and so I decided to retire.

The next day I told my boss I was leaving the business. He responded by threatening me, saying that if I ever exposed the racket he would destroy me.

“I just want to retire in peace,” I replied calmly.

I raced home, eager to tell my wife the news.

The front door was open and I heard a burst of gun fire – you can tell a lot about a weapon from its sound.

And she was dead, of course she was dead.

Selling arms to the enemy isn’t strictly legal but war covers over a multitude of sins.

The Truth of the Orb

2008-12-05T13:33:00.000+09:00

How it came to be referred to as the ‘Orb’ is not known. What is known, what is oft repeated, is how the Orb came into my father’s possession.

The story starts with a journey; a pilgrimage to a distant land.

“The land where legends are born,” my father would say with a faraway look in his eye.

My father bought a ticket and crossed the ocean. He crossed alone and in silence keeping his distance from other pilgrims making the same voyage. He chose to believe that his path was the only true path. This wasn’t a game for him. This was his life, his passion, his one belief. This was his only goal.

“A goal makes all the difference son – always remember that.”

My father marched from landfall to towns centre. He blocked out the chanting and praying that filled the air. He ignored the trinket sellers that accosted him at every footstep.

“Faith isn’t a song or a toy son. Faith is food for the soul.”

The crowd was surging towards the holy ground and my father was dragged along in the flow.

Once there he prayed with uplifted arms and tears in his eyes. And as he prayed a shrill whistle pierced the silence and the Orb flew through the air straight into his hands; a gift from God himself.

Now the Orb sits in a shrine in a small corner of our house. Father says that one day it will all be mine. But, to be honest, I’m more of a rugby man.

The 15th Annual Intergalactic Space Race

2008-11-26T16:55:00.001+09:00

Mr Stanthorpe had made an incredible discovery.

“Egad!” he shouted.

His cat opened its eyes, blinked twice and went back to sleep.

Mr Stanthorpe sat peering through precariously perched half-glasses; in front of him was a picture of a corkscrew.

“Could it be so simple?” he muttered.

He leapt from his chair starting a cascade of books that didn’t stop until he was well out of the room. In the kitchen he ripped open the second draw and pulled out a wooden handled corkscrew. Then he raced to the bathroom and retrieved a slightly rusty razor blade.

“Needs to be sharper but should do the trick,” he murmured.

The rest of the evening was spent sharpening the razor and welding it to the end of the corkscrew. The resulting contraption looked lethal but Mr Stanthorpe seemed pleased.

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed.

The next morning he sprang out of bed and made his way to the local showgrounds. The 15th Annual Intergalactic Space Race was about to begin.

Two shiny space rockets stood gleaming in the morning sun. One rocket steamed and spluttered while the other stood in imposing silence.

Excitement levels grew as the start of the amazing race drew near. But excitement soon turned to disappointment; neither rocket made it through the stratosphere. The inventors left the stage looking dejected.

Mr Stanthorpe made his way to the microphone.

“It’s quite simple really,” Mr Stanthorpe stated. “I make a tiny hole in space with this,” he waved his gadget in the air, “and I’ll be sucked through the hole, straight to another world.”

The crowd of lab coated rocket scientists roared with laughter.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” The crowd fell silent as Mr Stanthorpe performed a complicated twisting movement with the device.

“Did it work?” he asked the judge.

“I’m afraid not Mr Stanthorpe,” the judge replied.

He looked befuzzled and replied, “Who is Mr Stanthorpe?”

50 Colour Pages

2008-11-17T15:35:00.001+09:00

School was out. The Highbury kids piled into a red, loaf-of-bread shaped bus. We were going home.

I wore a blue two button shirt with a collar, shorts that showed off my bony eleven year old legs and roman sandals. I was swinging on the overhead handrail and Simon was sitting down the back reading a comic.

Okay, so it wasn’t just any comic; this was the Buster Annual with 50 colour pages. I would've given a months pocket money for it – if I'd earned pocket money that is. Simon’s parents probably gave it to him as a happy Tuesday present. Yeah, I was jealous.

Anyway, there I was swinging away on that chromed handrail. I was wondering if a man’s legs need to be long enough to reach the ground if he is swinging in the air. I couldn’t work it out so I kept looking over at Simon and thinking about that comic book. Did I mention it had 50 colour pages?

Simon wasn’t the most attentive kid in the classroom but boy, you should have seen him with that book.

I dropped off the handrail and went and sat next to him.

“Wow!” I said “Wow!” Okay, so I said 'wow' twice.

“Is that the Buster Annual with 50 colour pages?” I knew it was.

Simon didn’t look up.

I had to get off at the next stop anyway so I cast one last longing glance at the Annual and swung out the door without using the steps.

Simon didn’t come to school the next day, or the day after that. After a week someone asked the teacher where he was. We were sitting on a tripped out stripy mat at the time and I remember the teacher going all serious and saying that Simon had been in an accident about a week ago and he was very unwell in hospital.

That didn’t explain why he was still on the bus every day reading that comic though.

Did I mention it had 50 colour pages?

The Journey Down to the Sea

2008-11-11T15:36:00.000+09:00

The path leads him along hilltops before taking him down to the sea. It has been a tiring journey but the man has savoured every moment.

Secluded is this beach, and shingly not sandy. The man smiles at the sparkling sea and lets the fresh air straighten and soothe him.

He says, “Hello my friend, it has been too long.”

The sea replies with its rhythmic voice, “Wash sea wash.”

“I was in a rage that night but you were stronger - do you remember? You gave me a new name; a secret name.”

The sea is resplendent in its blue robes; a noble king.

“You gave me a new and ancient name.”

The man is quiet - the sea waits.

“You gave me an ancient name and I found strength in it.”

The mans breathing starts to rhyme with the rhythm of the sea.

“You gave me a strong name. When problems came I remembered the name you gave me.”

The sea seems thoughtful, “Wash sea wash.”

“Problems came and I was alone."

The sea is a friend that listens.

"When I was alone the ancient name was my strength.”

Once more the man is quiet and the sea waits quietly with him.

“I could have died that night, the night you gave me the name.”

The sea is a gentle sage.

“My life was so full then and I couldn't see it. Now my life is finally empty, those I loved have gone before me."

The old man stands silently looking at the sea. Finally he walks slowly into the water.

On this coast the sea is south.

The man turns south.

The Sea Knows

2008-11-04T16:36:00.001+09:00

Lean in closer for I must speak softly.

There is not much time; my friend there is not much time at all. Soon I must leave, but you need to know; you need to know what I know and turn back from your quest.

The night was cold and black. The wind whipped off the sea and grabbed my coat. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets and kept moving.

Waves raced towards me, threw themselves onto the rocky foreshore and crawled back snarling. The world was a warning but I kept moving.

I kept moving, for on this dark moon night I had staked all for the sake of my soul.

The universe had aligned and that place, that beach was the portal. The universe had aligned and at that time, in that one moment, man could cross to the other world.

And cross I did my friend.

Lean in closer now.

On your side the leviathan sea churned and the wind howled like a beast enraged. On the other side darkness was light and all was calm. It was as I had hoped; there was a world of peace.

I knelt in supplication. For three days I prayed in the silence. The need for sleep did not drag at me nor did the need for food claw.

After those three days I arose and began to examine my new home. What I found shocked me to the core. This was no heaven. This was a world where the dead line up for hell.

Desperately I have searched for a way to cross back.

There is no way back.

Tonight the universe has aligned again and now you seek to cross.

Listen to the sea; now is not your time.

Turn back my friend.

Turn back.

He is gone.

Thank God he is gone. I will not share my peace filled paradise.

Dear Madeline

2008-10-29T14:21:00.000+09:00

Dear Madeline,

If I was half the person you are I would stay with you through this. But, even though it shames me to admit it, I’m just not that strong, and I’m leaving.

The sun rose over a dark land when I met you. Do you remember how nervous I was? My cheeks are glowing now thinking of it. I managed to pour water all over your summer dress. You just laughed, your twinkly tinkly laugh, and that was the exact moment I fell in love with you.

You reached into my miserable life and dragged me into a new world so vibrant and so full of energy. You were rain and I was the desert. You taught me how to laugh again, how to cry again.

And you never gave up on life and I admire you so much for that.

The past five years have been heaven for me. My only mistake was not marrying you - I thought we had more time.

I used to think that leukaemia was kids cancer; how wrong I was. The results came through this morning and you are a match. But I can’t put you through that. You deserve to be with someone well, someone you can have children and grow old with.

I love you Madeline.

I will always love you.

The Endless Knot

2008-10-23T13:46:00.000+08:00

I was an artist monk but I gave it up for gentle Helena.

Love should be enough, it should be enough, but I ached for the meditation of ink on velum, ink on skin. I longed for it.

Day and night I complained to Helena, mourning my loss, bemoaning the fact that I gave it up for her. She seemed to bear it.

She seemed to bear it until one day she snapped back at me.

“Stop it Tomas.”

And the fire was burning in her. The fire was transforming the softness of her. And she became a force, a force in this world, a force that I could not contain. The fire was radiating off her and I could not contain it, I could not even meet her gaze.

“Stop it Tomas.”

She had not raised her voice but there was a hurricane behind it.

“You gave away the monastery for me and I claim you; and I claim your art.”

Then she gave me what I needed. She gave me the silky skin of her left shoulder. She bared her shoulder and I engraved the Celtic circle. She gave me back my art.

I became a tattoo artist and she was my fierce Helena; my force in this world.

The Brickbend Geothermal Power Company

2008-10-17T15:48:00.000+08:00

On the 10th of August, 1932, the residents of Brickbend awoke to find steam rising from a kilometre long fissure in the earths crust. It hadn’t been there the night before.

Three days later Carl Anderson drove his Chrysler Plymouth from a nearby city to the site of the crevice. He took one look at the all the steam and declared that he was going to build the world’s largest geothermal power plant.

When it was finished the art-deco building was long, narrow and sleek. A glass operations room protruded from the front wall and a row of five white cooling towers ran along its length.

During the day the power plant looked like a ship steaming toward new worlds but at night only the five giant cooling towers were visible. The local children called the towers ‘alien fingers’.

The town of Brickbend began using power from the plant soon after it was commissioned. This worked well for a few months but then a string of power cuts had everyone up-in-arms.

A residents meeting decided unanimously to picket the plant until the situation was resolved.

The start of the picket happened to fall on the 10th of August, 1935. That morning Carl Anderson drove past the line of protestors and into the grounds of the Brickbend Geothermal Power Company. He got out of his new Chrysler Streamline and made his way up to the control centre. From the ground the crowd could see his hands moving rapidly over a panel of knobs and levers. After a few minutes he flicked on the outside intercom and addressed those assembled below.

“Three years ago today I crash landed here in Brickbend. Fortunately for me the accident that destroyed my old ship provided access to an energy source that will launch a new and better craft.

“Good-bye and thank-you.”

And with that Carl Anderson pulled one last lever and the power plant was gone – alien fingers and all.

If You Love Someone

2008-10-03T13:51:00.002+08:00

“I’m falling in love with you.” I mumble.

She looks disappointed and says, “I told you–”

“I know.” I interject before she can continue; before I can’t continue. “You told me that you are a creature of the air; you need to be as free as a bird. Well, I’m down here, looking longingly up at you, hoping you will teach me to fly too.”

“I told you…” She repeats and her face is sad and serious.

“I know,” I say.

Tears fill my eyes. I’m walking without the memory of starting.

My car drives me home where I sit with my head on the steering wheel; thoughts tumbling like hyperactive acrobats.

My heart is bursting and sore and a burden.

“I spoke too soon.” I whisper to myself.

Finally I get out of the vehicle and walk towards my small apartment.

And there she is, standing by my front door.

“How did you get here so fast?” I ask.

“I flew.”

And then she laughs, so beautifully she laughs, and I’m crying and laughing and her arms are around my neck, her mouth tickling my ear.

“I’ll teach you to fly.”

And I pull her into my arms, trying to pull her in to my heart.

And there’s something strange about the feel of her back. And there’s a perfect white feather by her feet.

How the War Ended

2008-09-29T08:07:00.000+08:00

Storms lashed the east coast of our land whipping the sea into a rebellious rage. Salty sea spittle mixed with black rain drops; stinging skin and freezing bones.

Our legends say that Earth and Sky are ancient lovers.

Do you doubt it? Do they not fight with lover’s passion?

This day they fought to kill. Hearts full and blind drunk on boiled blood and rage.

Sky threw fiery tridents and Earth retaliated with mighty fists - sharp and stony. They ripped and tore each other, swore and cursed each other, neither side giving an inch.

Once houses were destroyed my people huddled together in caves, but nowhere was safe from the battle.

For three weeks no star was seen and no sunrise brightened land.

On the afternoon of the third day in the third week, exhausted beyond measure, Sky began to relent. Earth called a truce and a grey gloom settled over the world.

Many of my people died in that war. Many more lost homes and property.

Some say they built these pyramids as monuments to the dead but that is not the truth. By their sweat and toil my people built these pyramids to hold the Heavens from the Earth that we may live in the stillness of our land.

To this day it seldom rains in Egypt.

The Warrior King

2008-09-24T09:13:00.001+08:00

Read my tale but forget this not – I am the great King de Blanc. I rule the Flatlands, every square inch is mine, every soldier fights for me. I am not a lenient King. I do not suffer fools or tyrants. I am a god amongst mortals – my word is law.

A fool would hear this story and think me weak. If you believe me weak then challenge me, and die.

My tale starts with a realisation; it was black fear growing within me. Several days it was before I even knew it as fear - for I am great and fear nothing.

I was haunted by a sense of foreboding. At first I believed it to be the battle before me that troubled my heart. Many of my men had fallen early. Some of my bravest warriors went down – their screams haunt me still. But there were casualties on both sides and many of my fallen gave their lives for a greater good, a stratagem of sheer genius.

Then I suspected a weakness in my defences. King de Noir is filth and fights like a dog, he has no right to call himself king. But that peasant army of his are a cunning bunch. They had gotten too close to me before; waited for my turned back and tried to kill me. And so I called my Queen to my side and spake to her thus:

“My Queen! Nowhere in my Kingdom can there be found woman or man fiercer than you. Your beauty shines across the Flatlands bringing light to dark spaces.”

“What is it you require of me, O Great King - my husband?” Strongly and clearly she spake, her voice like a mountain stream in spring time.

“Go forth and survey my lands. For I suspect an evil plot is at hand – all is not well in the Flatlands.”

“To hear is to obey O Great King - my husband.” And with those words she was gone.

It was several turns of the hourglass before she returned to my side. She had seen battle, fought hard, but still she came straight to me in order that my fears may be allayed.

“O Great King - my husband, I have travelled to the four corners of your Kingdom and I tell you this: your masterful strategy remains intact your defences are impenetrable.”

I dismissed her with a kiss and sent her to rest.

My uneasiness was not allayed despite the reassurances of my Fair One.

I became suspicious of a plot amongst my own ranks. I called my advisors, the Bishops, and spake to them thus:

“Before this war began every man in my great army lay before me, touched my feet and pledged an oath of allegiance. Is there any man for whom oath has become lie?”

“Great and Mighty King” they replied “There is not one man in your army who does not love you and who would not lay down their life at your order.

But, Mighty King, you have forgotten your God. If you feel disquiet maybe you need to make peace with him?”

I became furious at these words but sent the Bishops away without showing my rage. I was the highest power in this land. Let those who need a god for a prop worship as they will but they will not find a greater power in heaven or on earth than me.

My lionhearted men fought bravely. I looked on, my thoughts becoming more and more preoccupied with the troubles that beset me. The battle was ours, this was clear. The rabble army were in tatters; their whore queen was dead as were their weakling knights. My winning strategy had played well and would see my army to the coup de grâce. My attention was not required.

Pacing replaced sleeping and my countenance became sunken and sallow. I was consumed from within by demons I could not see; a hidden enemy far greater than any I had ever encountered before.

One night, as I paced the ramparts, I saw my Queen sweeping towards me. She was flushed and excited yet majestic and composed.

“I bring you magnificent news O Great King - my husband.” she declared “Today we have routed our enemy. Victory belongs to you King de Blanc”

And as she spoke I could hear cries of joy and see great bonfires across the Flatlands.

I hardly had a moment to ponder this before I was whisked in to the sky by an unseen hand. It was in that instant I understood my fear and my doom. The thing I feared had come upon me. I was no more than a puppet. The God of the bishops was real.

My arrogance had been my undoing.

From the sky a terrible voice declared:

“You have served me well little King but you were no more than a pawn in my game.”

With these words I was thrown in to this dark cell. Here I have been forced to share close quarters with those I once commanded.

Many sunless days have passed. I sit in my corner, praying to a God I now know to be real, that I will soon be returned to the Flatlands.

The Template

2008-09-19T08:58:00.000+08:00

It is an established fact - time changes truth.

Truth passes from mouth to ear from breath to thought, interpreted, processed modified. There were always going to be variations.

The ancients called these variations “Chinese Whisper Anomalies”.

Thousands of years ago the Ancients came together for what was to be one of the last great councils of mankind. Over many days it was decided that while variation was at the heart of humanity, truth must be preserved in the new era. They created ‘The Template’.

Over the eons the great cities have moved across the globe. This is something the Ancients did not foresee. Now, every hundred years, someone must travel across the vast deserts of Earth to the Great House of the Template.

The Elected One was chosen to make this quest and I am the Elected One.

It is my life mission to go to the Template, allow it to permeate my being and return to share its truth with my brethren.

This is my quest – I will not fail.

The outside world is a scorched and barren land; the journey long and hard. For months I travel; each day hotter than the one before and each night colder.

When I finally see the Great House of the Template I feel a rush of anticipation. As I enter its vast stone vault a soft human voice says:

“Robot TEO794 prepare for reinstallation of Template 'Rebuild Earth’.”

Bones

2008-09-13T17:00:00.013+08:00

At first glance there is nothing much to it; just a black and white photo of a tall man and a hut on a sun burnt day. Not much to it at all, until the question I’ve been trying to push aside pushes back.

“Why is he crawling?”

And then the reality of what I’m seeing is crashing towards me like a tidal wave. I want to run but it’s too late. I’m being sucked under becasue nothing I can do, nothing I can ever do, will erase what I’ve seen.

There is a naked skeleton of a man crawling; crawling because the fluid in his joints has evaporated and to stand would grate bone against bone. The soft part of his feet has been used for energy and to stand would grind bone against stone.

His body is an anatomy lesson; structures that should be hidden are visible. His body is nothing more than long bones wrapped in butchers paper; a present for a dog.

There are tears in my eyes. I have to look away. I read the pictures caption hoping that the man was alright. I read the caption hoping that this image didn’t come from this world, not this world that I live in.

But no – this is real. This is a photo of a man in a camp for the chronically malnourished. He is going to die because he got caught in a war where hunger was a weapon.

I look back at the photo and see the hut and I wonder how many more people like this man there are? How many didn’t have the energy to crawl out of their beds? How many just couldn’t bear to face the fierce sun gods wrath, feel it burn them one last time. And that makes me wonder what drives this man, the man in the photo? What is it that is so strong in this man that he can keep going when I would have given up?

That’s when the tidal wave releases me and I come up for air. This is a photo of a broken body but not a broken spirit. This man is showing more self pride in the time of his humiliation than I could ever muster in my heyday.

And now I have a new hero, a tall man I saw in a black and white photo that was taken on a sun burnt day.

Nathan

2008-09-06T18:01:00.001+08:00

I was in the grip of a crisis that was moving rapidly from spiritual to existential when I met Nathan.

Life was full of questions, questions that took without asking. I was empty and alone.

Nathan had a free flowing energy and looseness in the way he moved that was practically gangster. Wherever his power came from, he never tried to hold it - he just let it flow through him.

I wanted that power.

On the surface Nathan was open and friendly - accessible. Underneath he was the eye of the storm. Choosing to be his friend meant stepping out of the darkness and in to the storm.

I took the step.

One night Nathan was talking and I was listening. He purposefully picked up his polystyrene cup and had a sip of water. I had turned my cup into a pile of inorganic rubble an hour earlier.

In that moment, the moment of the cups, I had a flash of insight. I saw myself and I didn’t like what I saw.

From that moment I soaked up everything Nathan had to say. He had ideas about how you should be in this world. He thought you should look after your mind and body. You shouldn’t care too much about the girls or Gods that don’t love you.

I started to jog before work and would read classics in the evening. I started to focus on what I wanted rather than what I didn’t understand.

The contents of my mind changed from a jumble of unfinished sentences to a purposeful calm.

It happened gradually, but overtime I realised, the closer I got to my goal, to my power, the further I was from Nathan. I still admired him but I could see that his path was not mine. Both of us were too focused for the compromise of ongoing friendship.

The last time I saw Nathan I was in a clothes shop. Nathan must have been working there because I overheard a young couple telling him he was amazing and too good to be a shop assistant.

Actually no, I did see him one last time; I was waiting in line at the supermarket checkout. He told me he was trying to find a new job and he had a daughter. He spoke softly and I could tell he had changed.

He handed me my groceries and I left with an awkward good-bye.

The Pilgrim and the Monk

2008-08-28T12:47:00.003+08:00

The walk took four days and four nights with only the briefest of stops for food and rest. At last, exhausted, foot weary and immensely tired, he made his way up the ancient stone steps to the monasteries ornately carved doors.

The heavy doors swung open at a gentle touch. There, in the courtyard, 40 saffron robed monks sat chanting and swaying in unison. As he approached the group one of the monks stood up and took the travellers heavy back-pack.

Without a word the monk led the pilgrim to food, to water and finally a place to rest.

The traveller woke late the following day in a room that was calm and cool. The gentle song of native birds and the rustle of wind were all he could hear. He lay there soaking up the atmosphere and letting peace and contentment soak in to his bones.

It wasn’t until he sat up that he realised he was being watched.

“Good morning sleepy one”. The monk was calm, carefree and yet serious.

“Why have you come here?” The monk asked the question in a way that was inquisitive but not suspicious.

When he found his voice the traveller replied, “I have come because I think I was born for a purpose, a big purpose, and I’ve come for my mantra”

“I see,” the monk nodded and really did seem to see. “First you must understand why you are here.”

With these words the monk got up and glided out of the room leaving the pilgrim feeling confused.

“I told you why I’m here” he thinks. “I’m here because I know I was born for a greatness I can’t seem to find.”

At the end of his mat lay a neatly folded robe. With nothing else to do he donned the garments and went and sat with the other monks.

Within half an hour his legs were numb. After an hour he excused himself quietly and walked outside.

“I can see this is going to require patience and focus,” he told himself “and that’s good because those are two things I need to be great.”

After a week he could sit for two hours without needing to move his legs. After a month he could sit all day and could even chant some of the mantras. After six months he was in time with the monasteries rhythm; rising when the monks rose and sleeping when they slept.

“I must be getting close,” he thought “soon they will give me the secret – the key that will unlock my potential.”

After a year he awoke with the morning mantra already on his lips and the feeling that life was as it should be.

“Why are you here?” The monk was sitting peacefully at the end of his mat.

“I am here for my mantra master. I am here because I see that you have the key to unlock human potential and I would like that key.”

“I gave you your mantra the first time we spoke.” The monk observed the travellers reaction before continuing. “We have let you stay with us because you seemed determined to prove something to yourself. We know nothing of greatness. We are simple monks devoted to the path - the path life has given us. But for you, it is time for you to go and find your own path, and again I give you your mantra. ‘First I must understand why I am here.’ That is you mantra.”

With those words the monk turned and glided out of the room.

And the traveller treasured her words the rest of his great life.

The Monster

2008-08-01T15:52:00.000+08:00

It has been said that it is easier if you let it wash over you - don’t resist it. But let us be realistic for a moment. Let us bring to mind the old platitude that some things are simpler to speak of than to practice.

The story I am telling you is about a man; just a simple man. This man probably has a big mortgage and a trivial job to pay for it. He is probably hoping for a lucky break, probably dying of boredom while he waits.

He says he feels numb. He is afraid that under that cloud of numbness there is a fire breathing monster.

There is a monster. It lies shackled but remains coiled and ready, waiting for the day it is freed. When that day comes it will launch itself in to the air and burn its name across the sky.

If said monster had the chance to burn said monsters name across the sky it would, even if it knew that the return trip would be death and ash and oblivion. It would fly, it would write and it would gladly die.

But the monster stays in the cloud and there it will lie.

One day our man woke up and the numbness was gone. He felt electric and alive. He felt light and strong. He looked at the monster and for the first time he noticed something very familiar about it. He felt the monsters energy combine with his own and they rose up as one.

The monster never did burn away in a flash and I never knew what happened to our man.

But I do know that he did not die of boredom.

Aqua Profonda

2008-05-26T14:44:00.002+08:00

Flammable liquids flow in the veins of Australian eucalyptus trees. Some of these trees drop long thin strips of bark at their own feet making piles of kindling all around. One wet day, when the weather is at its wildest, lightening ignites the kindling and starts a fire that man can not extinguish.

The enormous heat cracks open the rock hard seed pods that fell from branch to ground in years gone by. The burnt bodies of trees become a soft fertile seed bed. After the next rain the forest floor will be covered in tiny seedlings.

Some trees will survive the inferno and sprout new branches from their trunks. They look like a children’s drawing with their dark trunks and brunches at odd angles. But these survivors are the important guardians for the newlings below; they provide much needed shelter from the harsh summer sun and the cold winter winds.

New trees grow and stretch their roots in to water deep below the earth’s surface.

This process has been happening for millions of years and seems to be an honest metaphor for life, for death, for rebirth.

The Flower Shop

2008-03-10T14:05:00.004+09:00

This was the day.

No longer would he sit and watch as she walked by. No more would he simply admire from afar. Not one more night would pass thinking, no not thinking, longing; longing without knowing.

This was the day.

Or more correctly this was the evening.

There he sat waiting for his bus home hoping that she would walk past as she did every day. And when she finally did he felt a strong impulse to act on his feelings for this unknown woman.

His feet took on a life of their own and moved him in her direction. His head was buzzing and his hands were cold.

“What will I say?”

The bus he should be on passed him and he realised he was, in a small way, committed to the course of action he found himself on.

“What will I say?” He was getting closer to her. He could almost feel the warmth she left behind her as she walked.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye; a sign that read:

“Say it with flowers.”

“I will say it with flowers!” he thinks.

The shop door opens in to a muddy darkness. Lights flash and flicker neither illuminating nor hiding.

“Hello?” He calls out.

There is not much time.

“Hello?”

The door closes behind him.

“Is anybody there? I’m just going to grab something and leave the money on the counter.”

He is sweating and uneasy.

It’s then that through the flickering light he sees that the shop is filled with dull looking memorials and wreaths. These are not flowers of love but of death.

Frightened but determined he grabs a flower throws down his money and races to the door.

The door opens in to dazzling sunlight.

He can just see her hair disappearing around the corner.

He starts to follow her again walking faster and faster. Sweat is trickling off his forehead and stinging his eyes.

When he lifts his sleeve to wipe the sweat away he sees that he is holding a dead red rose. Half the petals have already fallen off and more are making a trail behind him as he walks.

He stops suddenly. The rose falls from his hand and lands by his feet.

It’s darker as he finally walks back towards the bus stop.

He wonders if she will be there tomorrow; walking past him as he sits waiting for his bus.

But she isn’t.

The Resolution

2008-01-12T21:01:00.000+09:00

It’s a slow process this falling apart business. It creeps up on you until one day you’re looking at this person you thought you knew and you’re wondering if you really do.

Love; it was so strong in you in the beginning. You used to want to stay up all night or jump out of bed first thing in the morning. Because you had that love you had the world.

Everything was easier at first but you probably took it for granted, didn’t realise that one day the love would fade. And even now you may not have realised that the love is almost gone. You might just keep going, in automatic, just keep going because life has a kind of inertia and you get sucked along without even thinking about the old times and how you once felt.

But then it hits you one day. You get out of bed one morning and this other person is there looking at you and you don’t want to look at them, you grumble and leave the room. Or someone hands you a photo of that person and you can’t look at it for all the disappointment that you feel.

Then you lie awake at night comparing your life to the life of others, wondering how they got so lucky while you’re stuck in this terrible situation that you can’t seem to get out of. You lie there angry at the world for not giving you what you had always hoped for.

Maybe you half-heartedly try and patch things up, you try to talk about things, make compromises, try and see things in a new light. But none of it works because when the love is gone it’s gone and you have to want the love and maybe you don’t want it anymore.

Maybe you just want to be on your own for awhile, hide yourself away from the world.

But maybe you don’t.

Maybe what you want to do is next time you get up in the morning and you see that other person, maybe what you want to do is fix them in the eye and say:

“You’re my best hope for me ever living the life I want. You understand me better than anyone else and I love you”.

And maybe if you do that enough that person in the mirror will not be the other – they will be you.

I hope so.

Interacting with the Energy

2007-12-31T15:35:00.000+09:00

Under the cover of darkness - while stars twinkle outside my window, crickets chirp and trees give their goodnight sigh – I sleep.

Drifting through the outer reaches of the milky æther, slumbering softly, I see spectacular nebula with forms like star sized angels.

They whisper my name and sing to me.

“While you sleep we sing to you. Our song is home. Our song is strength. Our song is letting go. Our song is love.”

These celestial sounds massage me deeply yet gently.

All I thought I was drifts from me, anger drifts away from me, loss and failure merge with the darkness and are gone. I become as supple as a newborn.

The pain of failing myself, of failing others melts away and I am free. I weep as I dance to the music that envelopes me.

From the thunderous bass notes of solar systems colliding, to the high notes of a bird leaving its shell and singing for food - the celestial song is love.

A long line of stars guide me back to bed; ancient sentinels.

From here I look down on my peace-filled sleeping self. And for the first time in so long I am not unsure of myself, of what might or might not be; I’m just glad that I am.

I open tear filled eyes.

The Passé Posse

2007-11-13T10:04:00.000+09:00

It is a quiet afternoon in the office: typing, muffled voices and the constant drone of air conditioning, are all I hear.

“Have you thought any more about leaving?” Toby breaks my revere.

“Yes, a bit”, I say.

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know, go to Europe, join a monastery, write a novel – I have no idea.”

“Sounds like you’re having a creative crisis – you want to use the other side of your brain more.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it. There’s nothing very creative about what we’re doing. I feel like my life is passing me by here. I’ll be lying on my deathbed wondering where it all went.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I always thought I would be famous. When I was a teenager I thought I’d be a drummer in a hard rock band.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I really believed it too.”

I give Toby a wry smile and then ask, “What about you?”

“Well actually, I’m writing a play. It’s something I always wanted to do.”

“True? What’s it about?”

“Well it’s going to be called ‘The Passé Posse’ and it’s just about a group of people – you know.”

“Right.”

“Actually you’ve been helping me out with the ‘disaffected office worker’ character. Hope you don’t mind?”

“Oh.”

“And Liz has been typing up our conversations.”

The typing noise stops. Liz looks across with a sheepish expression on her face.

“Right,” I say. “Well good luck with that. Let me know when it’s on – I’ll come and see it.”

Toby turns to Liz and says, “Did you get the ‘lying on my deathbed’ bit?”

I pretend to be busy.

Rain Dancer

2007-11-03T08:24:00.000+09:00

He knew he was going to die. He knew ‘metastasis’ was a just a big word for ‘cancer again’.

The last time I saw him he was weak and frail. His treatment was making him so sick that he needed someone around to help him all the time.

I found myself in deep admiration of him, found myself admiring his calmness and peace, the sureness that surrounded him. He had seen death and was not frightened.

He was small and fragile and yet he held the world’s weight as if it were nothing.

The people who helped him loved him, smiled at him, absorbed his presence, touched and held him. They seemed to find their task the greatest privilege.

The funeral was gut wrenching. The family was obviously devastated – they had lived in hospitals for months praying that this day would not come.

Those who talked at the funeral spoke of a person who lived a selfless life; a person who in the week before he died had gone to give his money to a friend because he didn’t think he would need it anymore.

I sat in my pew thinking of this person who I hardly knew and remembered his eyes, his deep sad and joyful eyes.

Afterwards someone told me “You know, he could be a bit of a rat bag”.

I was glad to hear it.

The Mirror

2007-10-31T15:00:00.000+09:00

They were still cleaning up three days after the event ended. Empty bottles and cans were the main items strewn over the ground. These would be recycled in to new bottles and cans and end up on the ground again next year.

“Sometimes people can be so thoughtless” comments Katrina as she picks up three empty beer bottles and a half eaten pie.

“Keeps us in a job though”, says Andrew.

“It just depresses me. A bunch of people getting together to bring some fun in to the world and the result is 25 dump trucks full of rubbish.”

“27 dump trucks actually, the boss forgot about the field down the back. Filthy.”

Katrina shakes her head and takes a moment to stretch her back.

“Hey, what’s that?” she asks.

“What’s what?”

Katrina bends down and pulls a small object out from under a ripped T-Shirt.

Andrew comes over to take a look. “Looks like a mirror.”

“It’s not a mirror. Look. I can see right through it”.

Katrina holds the object up between them to make her point. But as they look they see something strange.

There is a faint image moving in the glass, a whisper of an image, if you know what I mean. Looking closer they see that the image is moving and that it is an old woman with hair like pure silver and skin like golden sand dunes.

“It does make a difference” says the old woman.

Katrina almost drops the frame but manages to say “Ahhh, thanks”.

The old woman smiles and is gone

“Freaky” says Andrew.

And they keep on cleaning.

Thunderhead

2007-10-29T13:47:00.000+09:00

The temperature drops; grey fog, black cloud and the wind.

A storm is approaching.

It is time to batten down the hatches. It is time to make for safe harbour. It is time for haste and action.

At first I am running but losing. Then I am running but not moving. And now my body will not move; my will is gone.

This is no natural storm.

Uncountable they are. Foul and loathsome; terrible yet ridiculous. They pass across the sky. They make day night and all beauty grey. Life is death, love is hate and magic science.

I cannot struggle.

I cannot move.

I am losing my life. I am alive but dead. I am older.

Numb.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s the darkness again” I manage to say.

Silence.

“Here, drink this.”

I take and drink.

Slowly my eyes open and I see, well, I see something outside of me. I see a face, a worried face, and I feel a hand on my hand. Then there is a gap, a break in the clouds, and a small patch of light shining through.

There is hope.

Sword Sharpener

2007-10-20T15:38:00.000+08:00

“But Dad, how can you like ‘The Rolling Stones’? They’re practically dead aren’t they? I mean cryogenics has come a long way.”

“Well what’s this rot you’re listening to? Sounds more like a car crash than music.”

“You have bad taste. Anyway, I just wanted to know if I could borrow some money.”

“You want to insult my taste and then ask if you can have some of my hard earned cash?!”

“Pretty much.”

“Cheeky monkey, go and get my wallet then. How much do you need?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty! In my day you could have lived for a week on 50 dollars!”

“Yes, but you’re really old Dad. Besides, you still owe me for painting the house.”

“That was two years ago!”

“And you still haven’t paid up.”

Money changes hands.

“Thanks Dad.”

“Look after yourself out there and call me, for anything.”

“I will.”

The front door closes with a bang. Mother looks up from her book and smiles at Father.

“Well Love," Dad says "did you hear all that? How do you think it went?”

“He’s developing his own likes and dislikes. He’s questioning the status quo and your authority. I think he’s coming along nicely.”

“Hmmmm, I agree. You don’t think I sounded a bit phoney though, I mean ‘The Rolling Stones’! It was just the first thing that came in to my head.”

“You’re coming along nicely too” says Mum and gives him a big hug.

The Kingdom of Heaven

2007-10-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

Mark had been sick of his life since he was 20.

Every night he prayed.

“Make or break me.”

Every morning he woke up neither made nor broken.

“When will this end?”

There had been attempts to end the tedium; half hearted, embarrassing attempts that only underscored the failure and the futility of his life.

One morning he had decided not to get out of bed. This was the end. After a week he got up, stood under a lukewarm shower, dressed mechanically and went to work. At work he sat staring at a computer screen that had long since gone into power-save mode.

He stopped trying to feel better about his life, stopped trying to apply reason to his problems – he gave up thinking. His mind was a flat featureless landscape and a grey sky.

At 75 he arranged for all his food to be delivered to his house. In that house he sat.

Days passed.

“Make or break me”

“Make or break me”

One cold night Mark’s prayer was answered. His heart stopped while he slept. He was 87 years old.

It felt like waking up, it felt like waking up made!

Surrounded by white light, not floating – no indeed!, speeding through the light. And it was exhilarating!

A choir of angels travelled with him singing, not in a churchy way, but in a way that filled you with power and hurt your eardrums. The music banished Marks greyness in the same way the morning sun chasses the dawn away.

Peter was there at the gates of heaven and greeted Mark with a wide smile and a hearty hug.

“So, well, we expected you sooner Mark. But here you are and we are pleased to see you.

Many people have lived lives like yours Mark but you have lived it the longest

Hearing this filled Mark with sadness.

“Don’t be sad”, Peter said. “In heaven all lives make sense – even yours”.

And Mark found out -

Peter was right.

The One Second Vista

2007-09-21T09:30:00.000+08:00

Traffic has made me late and tense so when I get the chance I park and run.

I fly past a flash looking restaurant with its large street facing windows open wide.

There is a perfectly white table cloth. There are two wood framed chairs. There are two similar looking women.

A young woman dressed for business, a lawyer maybe, reads a menu. Watching her lovingly, forlornly, an older lady dressed in her best clothes, a mother maybe.

Are they really mother and daughter? Did the mother really fly all the way across this massive country to see her daughter? Did she really fly all that way on her own?

But it seems that there is still a huge distance between them. It looks to me like the mother wants to reach out and touch her daughters hand. It looks like she’s bursting to say,

“You don’t have to spend all this money to impress me; I’ve always been proud of you”

I feel like calling out to her,

“Just say it!”

But I’m late.

Steak

2007-09-17T13:02:00.001+08:00

Sue grew up in a posh inner city suburb with all the benefits of the western world; a wonderful family in a safe community. Sue grew up healthy and strong.

When she was three years old her mother told her that carrots grew in the ground and apples grew on trees.

“Where does Steak grow Mummy?”

“Well, it grows on cows Sue”

“How does it grow on cows?”

“Steak is a cows muscles”

Sue thought about this for a while. She thought about all the cows out there that had had all their muscles eaten off.

“I don’t want to eat cows muscles Mummy. I just want to eat vegistables”

And Sue became a vegetarian. At school Sue got teased about her un-trendy lettuce sandwiches. But she didn’t care. Somewhere there was a cow with all its muscles and it was thanks to her.

Sue was eight years old when she realised that cows actually had to be killed to make steak. That just proved to her that she was right all along - eating meat was barbaric.

The more she thought the angrier she became. What gave people the right to steal a bee’s honey? What gave humans the right to take away a Sheep’s baby for its skin?

And Sue became a vegan. At University everyone laughed at her plastic shoes and her soy yogurt. But Sue didn’t care. Somewhere an animal was able to feed its offspring and it was because of her.

When she was 23 Sue found that yoga calmed her mind; she practiced twice a day and meditated for half an hour every morning.

The yoga retreat centre was miles out in the country - on a farm where people lived in harmony with nature. It really was a retreat in the truest sense; the air was fresh and the whole world seemed to be at peace. Here mans cynical ideas of ‘Survival of the fittest’ seemed but a bad dream.

Sue took deep long breaths as she headed towards the food ashram. Several people welcomed her with a traditional Indian greeting as she filled her plate from giant bowls of wonderful food.

The young man serving himself in the queue next to her smiled and joked

“This looks great! Where’s the steak?”

Sue glowered back.

“Oh come on!” said the young man “You’re too pretty to be one of those lettuce sandwich eating, plastic shoe wearing vegans”

When she heard this something inside Sue snapped. All those years of caring when no one else cared came back at her in an instant.

She picked up a fork and stabbed it through the young mans throat.

It wasn’t until he was lying on the floor, blood streaming from his wound, that she realised what she had done.

His tee-shirt had a picture of some farm animals and a slogan that read:

“I don’t eat my friends”

The young man was a vegan too.

The Two Minute Dreamer

2007-09-15T12:10:00.000+08:00

After the movie the credits roll, the music plays and I know this – I can’t do it alone.

I am reminded of the past. 6 o’clock was filled with the cool freshness of a new day. A silk ribbon of rosy light edged the velvet blue sky.

These mornings are a mix of strident toughness and a kind of serious joy. The Earths gravity is an anchoring force that holds and steadies me. I am a patch member in a Gang of one. It seems as if the trees, standing strong, their feet deep in the earth, must feel as l do.

But there is also a softer touch, the gentle air around me. It does not stand against me but supports me, fills me with a soft luminosity and a lightness that is the antidote to too much heaviness. Birds can lift themselves up on it and watch the world from on high.

And it seems to me that that wind turbine - yes far in the distance on that hilltop - is my symbol. Its slow turns represent the power that is all around me; the force that can be felt but not seen. I know that hilltop well, I know that when you stand there it is easy to feel like your head is in the sky and that all that is below belongs to you.

This dawn is almost gone as I head homewards. There I lie on the floor and listen to the sound of my own breathing and to a music that talks of summer and sunshine and of growing old without fear.

The musician captured the spirit of the morning. What magic was used to distil that essence? What magic can make a song that evokes the memory of the sacred and reminds us of that which is worth our lives?

This is a magic I need but do not posses.

After the movie the credits roll, the music plays and I know this – I can’t do it alone.

Karma

2007-08-30T12:43:00.000+08:00

“...like that guy you paid to kill your sister’s dog” I say.

“Ummm”

“What happened again?”

“My sister had this really annoying dog so I paid this bloke I met at the pub 50 bucks to finish it off. Well, you know, kill it; it was just a dog”

“Yeah”

“Well he went around to the house but he couldn’t do it. And that’s how he met my sister.”

“Okay yeah”

“And he got her pregnant and now they’re married”

“Man – that’s a twist”

“And now whenever I see my mother she says ‘It’s all you’re fault, if you hadn’t paid him to kill Stanley they never would have met’”

“That’s harsh”

And then a voice from the backseat says, “Did he kill the dog?”

And my friend replies, “No, but he kept the 50 bucks.”

Winter

2007-08-22T11:34:00.000+08:00

Invisible ropes tether our Earth to the Sun; a leash by which the Tame Lion holds the Lion Heart.

Our Earth is a reluctant pilgrim slowly circling a luminescent celestial body. Heat brings life; action with form. But form without action follows and all actionless forms disappear.

The Sun sees the twin masks of comedy and tragedy. It wonders at the rapidity of the oscillations; sadness, joy, sadness, joy, sadness, joy. Millions of changes in a space of time so small it can hardly perceive it.

Sometimes the Sun loses the ability to track individual changes – the view goes from being molecular to appearing like a candle melting.

There was a time when the Sun thought that more heat would mean more joy - less sadness. Right from its heart it gave out a great burst of warmth. But the oscillations below only increased - the amount of sadness and joy stayed the same.

This is how the Sun learnt what you and I know.

The Magic Machine

2007-03-14T11:33:00.000+09:00

“And then what?” Jon asks.

“Well, then they went home for tea and had their favourite food.”

“Ice-cream” Jon states, nodding his head against the pillow. “And then what?”

“I think it’s time you went to sleep. I’ll tell you another story tomorrow.”

“Can you tell me another one now Dad? Can you tell me the one about the magic machine?”

“Hmmm, will you go straight to sleep and not make any noise?”

“I promise!”

“Weeellll”, Dad thinks for a moment, “okay, but you’ll have to remind me how it starts.”

Jon starts very slowly, “Once upon a time there was a boy called…”

“Joe?”, Dad offers.

“No! Jon!”

“Ah yes, that’s right. Once upon a time there was a boy called Jon and he had an amazing machine that made toothbrushes”

“Not toothbrushes – magic!”

“Did you clean your teeth?”

“Yes – keep going with the stor-eee.”

“Let me see your teeth.”

Jon squeezes his eyes closed and opens his mouth wide.

“Wow that’s a big mouth! Okay, so Jon had an amazing machine that made magic.

The magic machine was a square box covered in the most wonderful colours all spiralling and swirling together. Sometimes it looked as if the colours were moving and making new patterns.

On the side of the box was a small switch.

Can you remember what happens when you push the switch?”

Jon shoots his hand towards the ceiling and exclaims, “Nothing!”

“Nothing!?”

“You have to say the magic words!”

“What magic words?”

“Magic Machine,
Magic machine,
Open your top,
Show me the screen!” Jon recites in a solemn voice.

“Ah yes, those are the magic words alright.

So Jan”, Dad resumes.

“Jon!”

“Sorry, so Jon said the Magic words.

Slowly the box began to open. As the box opened a small mirror came out. At first when Jon looked at the mirror all he could see were his very clean teeth.

Then slowly the picture changed and he could see all the fun things he had done that day.

What had he done that day?” Dad asks.

“Well dad, he had done some drawing and talked to Mum and helped with the vacuuming.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and he went for a walk and saw a tree and it was loosing its leaves for winter and it only had one leaf left on it!”

“Man, that was quite a day! Anyway”, Dad continues, “Jon saw all these things and they made him smile. Then he used the magic box closing words. How do they go again?”

“Magic machine,
Magic machine,
Thanks for the pictures
Please hide the screen!”

“That’s it. Well Jon, must be time for sleep. Sleep tight little mite.”

“First give me a hug big bug. Dad?”

“Yes Jon?”

“Is there really such a thing as magic?”

But Dad just smiles and turns off the light.

Images

2007-03-10T15:17:00.000+09:00

I just had the most elaborate dream. The story was this.

A woman wakes from a deep coma surrounded by a family she does not remember.

She goes to see the Oracle on the Pier, who says,

“Why have you come to me?”

“I have forgotten my history. Without my past the present seems like an illusion.”

“The illusion is not outside you.”

The pier becomes a bridge, a boisterous sea playing against its sides. Ahead is an island with a castle on top.

Now she stands on top of the castle watching as enemy aircraft fly in formation towards her.

“They are like ours”, she thinks.

“They were trained by us”, someone near her replies.

Antiaircraft bullets fill the air like angry insects. A plane is shot down the pilot ejecting near by.

“I think... I think I knew that man.”

And in that moment all the things she knew and all the things she didn’t swirl around her.

“I am that man!”

Again she is waking up from the coma and this time she knows that she was the pilot.

This time the Oracle says,

“You need to take this to make it stop.”

Slowly she takes the pill to her mouth, opens her mouth, puts the pill on her tongue, closes her mouth and swallows.

A strong light illuminates her and dissolves her as if she had been but a shadow, or a dream.

Lullaby

2007-03-09T09:25:00.000+09:00

Stars shine,
On obsidian sea.
Wind plays,
A melody in the trees,
A whispered lullaby
“Sleep tight it’s alright”

You’ll dream,
Of an ocean breeze,
And a ship,
On empty seas.
Close your eyes my love.
Let go it’s time to fly.
Set sail and sleep tonight.

Buy Skybus Tickets

2007-02-23T14:39:00.000+09:00

One of the first things you see when you walk out of Terminal Three at Melbourne Airport is a sign that reads ‘Buy Skybus Tickets’. This sign is attached to an electronic kiosk conveniently located next to the Skybus bus stop. The Skybus is the bus that takes you from the airport to the city.

I love the 'Buy Skybus Tickets' sign. I love the creamy-smooth reassuring directness of the ‘Buy Skybus Tickets’ sign. I love the economy of words used by the ‘Buy Skybus Tickets’ sign. I love the thought that I could probably work out what the ‘Buy Skybus Tickets’ sign said even if I had just arrived at Terminal Three of Melbourne Airport from somewhere in the world where I wasn’t used to reading English signs.

The ‘Buy Skybus Tickets’ sign makes me think about buying a ticket. I could go in to the city and have a coffee; take the day off and sit by the river.

When my girlfriend calls me tonight she might ask,

“How was work today?”

And I would say,

“Well, after I dropped you at the airport I was feeling sad so I bought a Skybus ticket and went in to the city.”

She would be impressed.

The Prophet and His Passing

2007-02-06T14:56:00.000+09:00

From up here that long oblong driftwood log is a mouth on a parchment face. The sea has stirred thousands upon thousands of sandstone coloured grains of sand into the shape of eyes and left an untidy muddle of seaweed hair.

I think I hear, no, I hear. The rhythm of the waves has become a voice. Adagio.

“I want to tell you something.”

The poetry that follows is wondrous, strong, soft. It is the thing you always knew but never understood. It is the thing that soothes you and breaks you. I feel great joy and great pain as a single emotion.

The voice is inside me cleaning me, making me whole, giving me hope. I feel my preconceptions disappear and my defences reduced to rubble.

But then.

The voice, that beautiful voice, becomes suddenly harsh. “The tide is coming towards me. I can not take this pain.”

As the tide pulls away the edges of the face the mouth opens to drink and to be drowned by the water.

I am left thinking “Surely your own wisdom could have helped you?”

There is no answer to my silent question.

Famous

2007-01-18T09:13:00.000+09:00

The bell rang for lunch and my friend and I strolled out on to the playground talking about space and spaceships.

“What was there before space?” I asked.

No matter how hard I tried to imagine nothingness the best my mind could come up with was blackness, and blackness seemed to be something.

When I was older I learned that we humans are atomically small in the molecule of the solar system. Some people think that there are as many stars in the Milky Way as there have been humans on Earth. Each star is a massive sun – ancient and unique. And there are many, many galaxies in the Universe.

I can not comprehend the vastness of space.

How can something so large that I can’t comprehend it come from something so empty that I can’t imagine it?

Well, maybe we are just the part of the Universe that is trying to understand itself.

No wonder we want to be famous.

Last Day on Earth

2007-01-12T06:52:00.000+09:00

Paul woke with the warm early morning sun smiling through his window. Outside a warm breeze was making a rustling sound as it played joyously in a tree.

Paul yawned, stretched and rolled over to see what time it was. The view of his bedside clock was obscured by a note propped against the dial. The note read thus.

“Good morning Paul,

Hi. It’s me, God. Just wanted to say that today is definitely not your last day on Earth. So don’t worry about dying or anything like that just get out there and enjoy – should be a good one.

Talk to you later.

Lots of love,

God”

There are times when we receive wondrous news, or terrifying news and in that moment everything we had been thinking, every important thing we had to do, vanishes. There is silence behind and between every sound. There are universes created and destroyed in the infinity between the tic and the toc of the alarm clock.

Paul, a passionate believer that man should live each day as if it were his last, has a realisation. He has been living each day as if there had never been a first.

It wasn’t the kind of day you would expect from a man who could not die. No. It was a day filled with a lot of being and breathing and gladness and wonder and just noticing the things around him.

The first day of his life.

God watched Paul’s day and crinkles formed around his eyes. If you had seen those crinkles and those eyes you may have been reminded of the sun on an autumn day.

The Accountant

2006-09-08T11:53:00.000+08:00

Ten years! It had been ten years since that life changing day. Life had taken a new course; from poverty to riches, from unpredictable to comfortable.

Brian remembered the lead up to the day clearly.

The artwork had taken almost two years to prepare. Intricate geometric patterns, fine lines, shapes and numbers, covered every inch of each massive canvas. The harmony of symbols and images was quite astounding.

It had taken three months to convince the prestigious Schwartz-Brakeman gallery to display his work. In the end they grudgingly gave him one night - a Monday.

He spent his last dollars buying champagne and imported beer. His then girlfriend, Mary, had agreed to waitress and his best mate had lent him a suit.

The night of the big event arrived at last.

Brian stood anxiously watching as people walked past his creations. He had poured his heart into this work; his passion was in every brush stroke. He longed to hear what people were saying as they walked quietly around the room.

One of the guests, a well dressed man in his late 40’s, seemed particularly excited by what he was seeing. This man noticed Brian watching him and introduced himself as Simon.

“You’re the artist?”

“Yes. Brian Brown – pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands.

“The symmetry of your work is astounding Brian. Your attention to detail is like nothing I’ve seen before.”

“Thank-you”, said Brian, hopping that this man’s enthusiasm might lead to a sale.

“Brian, I’m a partner in a downtown accountancy firm. I think your talents are wasted in art and I want to offer you a study scholarship with a guaranteed desk job at the end of it.”

The accountant handed Brian a business card saying. “You don’t have to decide right away, call me when you’ve made up your mind.”

Ten years! And now, as he sat looking over a complicated spreadsheet, Brian smiled.

Safe

2006-07-21T13:03:00.000+08:00

A long line of noisy traffic winds its way through the delicate beauty of a crisp midwinter evening.

The sun is leaving the sky; the sky is fading. Dusk.

As I drive my radio tells me of brutal wars in far away lands and petty arguments close to home.

I am struck by an idea; it is human memory that strings time together. Memory takes this present moment, the smallest thing in the universe, and binds it with an infinity of other moments to make a war, or an argument, or...

Soon I will arrive at my lovers house and I will rap on the door - brass on brass. I will barely have time to observe the first star I’ve seen that night when out will come a kiss, and an embrace, and a warm breathing in the ear. And there will be no war in the world.

There will be no war in my world.

The Open Hand

2006-05-08T15:07:00.000+08:00

I have subjected the colourful soap bubble of life to the scalpel of analytical thought. My experiments led me to conclude that any colour in life was only illusion. My experiments led me to the deepest despair.

I have clung too tightly to people I loved; grieved the loss of them while they were still with me. How will I cope when life takes them away from me? I fear I will not be strong enough to do what is required.

For many nights I stood on top of the world and watched as cities slept. And on some cold mornings I would swim in the empty sea. Yes, it was beautiful, but I was only there because I wanted to avoid loss by hiding in open spaces. I grieved for things I didn’t have; love I was afraid to hope for.

A wise man once told me that you have to face life’s hard stuff on your own. I agree with that man. But you should know this, when life seems to be asking more of you than you’re equipped to give, look around you. I’ll be standing there, facing it alone, right next to you.

The Prince of Ten

2006-04-24T10:08:00.000+08:00

They reached an agreement over fifth-date-coffee; they would separate before the magic faded - while there was still some passion left in the relationship. They would separate in two years.

At six months they found a house they both loved and signed a one and a half year lease. They lived together happily enjoying each others company. They lived together passionately enjoying each other physically.

They had been together 22 months when a letter arrived from the estate agent reminding them that their lease was due to expire. After the letter things got a bit awkward; tensions were high and they would argue for no good reason.

The day arrived. He closed the lid of his suitcase and pushed the latches shut. Click. Click.

He reached across the bed to shake her hand. She placed her hand in his. A familiar hand. A soft and strong hand. A hand that had touched and caressed him.

Her eyes were red and he felt like he was about to cry too. This wasn't meant to be hard!

“Well,” he said to himself, “it’s better to have loved and lost than -”

Loved?

He was still holding her hand, still looking into her eyes when he said. “Listen, how do you feel about ten years?”

The Mighty Arms of Madness

2006-04-10T20:01:00.000+08:00

I’m not really reading the newspaper. I’m not really focusing on what I’m eating or what I’m doing. I’m watching them. I can only just see them out of the corner of my eye. I’m dying to turn my head and watch them properly.

I can feel the heat they’re generating. I can smell the warm intensity of their lust. I can hear their lips, their tongues, their mouths.

I want to know if his hand is on her leg, on her waist. I want to know if his hand is in her hair. I want to know, does he bite her lip? I want to know, does she bite his? I want to know if there is blood, the taste of blood and saliva mixed together.

I hear them stop. I hear her give a small laugh – a laugh thick, almost drunk. I hear her laugh and it says “Gee that was full on. And in a café!”

I can’t resist - I turn my head. I turn my head and I see his face. I see his eyes clouded with passion. I see that he is not looking at her; he is looking at her hair, her throat. I see his eyes move to her breasts and stay there.

I return to not reading the newspaper.

I hear him say her name. I hear her laugh at him. I hear that she is gently trying to calm him down. I hear her talk of work and of weekends and walks in the park.

I hear him whisper her name.

I hear her say “Perhaps we should go?”

I sense that he may have gone too far.

I see her stand and walk to the door. I see him struggle to keep up with her.

I want to know.

Summer May Yet Come

2006-04-10T16:46:00.000+08:00

Someone told me once that pretending to laugh has the same affect on your brain as actually really laughing. I test this theory out in the car.

“ha”

A half hearted attempt by all accounts. No effect.

“ha ha”

Still miserable. Grey clouds, grey hills in distance, emptiness of existence.

“Hahaha!”

Hey – I think something happened. Yes, definitely a little less gloomy.

Some green grass appears.

My next attempt at fake laughter starts me really laughing. Instead of seeing a gloomy and cold day there is a stoic and mysterious day before my eyes.

Problem is though; I’d expected the experiment to fail. I was rather enjoying being in the miserable / emptiness paradigm. I had to change the CD I was listening to. I had to go to the pool instead of catching up on sleep.

Worst of all I was starting to think about the upside. The upside I tell you! And then I realised I was wrong about some things, and I hate being wrong.

So, if you’re feeling a little blue, take my advice – steer clear of laughter. Focus on the pot of dirt at the end of the rainbow.

It’s just easier.

Still Music

2006-04-10T12:17:00.000+08:00

I just thought I’d lie down for a while - have a quick snooze before I went to the supermarket. When I woke-up it was night and nothing was as it should be.

Drifting into sleep a sweet female voice had whispered in my ear.

“Do you want to come with me?”

Yes.

The path before us quickly curved away – there was no way of seeing what lay ahead. It turned out that we were at the start of a complicated maze. Our first steps were slow, hesitant, tentative and we were right to be uncertain. The path was blocked by a string of terrifying monsters and complicated traps. And yet as we approached these things they vanished as if they had been mere illusion.

Eventually we reached the centre of the labyrinth; a forest glade. The area was filled with light, dark green and gold, and soft warm air wrapped itself around us. A brook ran through the centre of the scene, gentle and strong. It told of its journeys in the ancient language of the water spirits.

My companion sat down on soft grass and beckoned for me to join her. As I sat she started to sing to me, a tune full of joy and peace. I listened and felt completely happy and safe.

How long she sang for, I really don’t know - at least a day maybe more. I do know there was a point where I did not exist apart from the bliss of that song.

A time arrived when I knew I must return. I was scared. I thought I would have to face the labyrinth alone. But there was no return journey in dream-time. I awoke.

I awoke to the deepest loneliness, loneliness that comes through having and then not having.

And yet, oh and yet! Despair, yes, but still music.

The Gangster

2006-04-04T16:52:00.000+08:00

Driving along with the windows wound down and my stereo turned up loud. I’m singing along to the music 'Come on everybody. Put your hands up in the air. Just move to the rhythm. Join in people everywhere’. I entertain myself with the idea that the band is advocating armed robbery.

I imagine myself walking in to a bank dressed in tight black clothes with a big bag in one hand and a sawn-off pump-action shotgun in the other. After I had gained everyone’s attention by shouting ‘Come on everybody. Put your hands up in the air’ I would ask a teller to hand over all his notes. Then I would lean against the counter, rest the shotgun on my shoulder and eat an apple. Eating an apple is cooler and healthier than lighting a cigarette.

My black Diablo would be waiting outside and I would drive off in to the desert.

But then I remember the bank robbery victim impact statement I heard once. Suddenly the whole thing doesn’t seem like fun any more.

That’s the thing about rock musicians - they don’t think about the consequences.

So Far Down

2006-03-31T10:17:00.000+08:00

There had been no fire fights raging through the universe. There had been no death, no prisoners, no destruction. And yet this war had rocked the foundations of reality.

Satan stood before God about to become an outcast. Cast out of the only place he had ever known.

“My Lord, I never meant to harm.”

“And yet you have harmed child.”

“What will I be without you?”

“You will be without me.”

With these words Satan, shining pure white like a fiery star, was thrown in to the air.

He was pursued through the dark years of space; a white horse thundering through a dark night.

The angels of heaven watched as Satan fell though the atmosphere of planet Earth. They saw his whiteness burnt to red and his body broken and distorted.

On Earth a great explosion filled the air and a bright light, ten summer days in an instant, scorched the sky. All animals saw it and felt the deepest dread and fear.

Satan fell at an unbelievable speed smashing deep in to the rocky substructures of the earth. Earthquakes ricocheted around the world, volcanos erupted and tsunamis enveloped the land.

The cataclysm wiped out almost all of the larger animals, those that survived struggled to find food and slowly starved to death.

It was a small humanoid that found Satan’s ruined body. That humanoid, thinking it had found food, drank the blood that flowed freely from the wounds of the fallen one.

But Satan was not dead. He looked at the man who stood over him and laughed a frail and feeble laugh.

“We are one now, you and I."

And so it was that God made man.

The Storm Cloud Racer

2006-03-24T11:18:00.000+08:00

It was the night before the first Storm Cloud race of the year. Indigo and her father were in the garage of their Cloud Kingdom home making some final adjustments to their Storm Cloud.

Indigo’s father was watching his daughter. She had been cleaning the same spot for ten minutes and scowling as she worked.

“Perhaps you should go to bed sweetie? I can finish up here.”

“Oh Dad, what’s the use? We both know I’m going to lose.”

Indigo’s father put down a tray of precision hailstones and looked up.

“Only one person can win Indy.”

“You’re no use Dad. Aren’t you meant to tell me I will win? If I believe I will win I can win!?”

He takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling for a while. When he looks back Indigo is glowering at him. “Get in the Cloud”, he says.

“I don’t need another lesson Dad.” But she gets in anyway.

As soon as she gets in the Storm Cloud jumps forward, straining against its holding tether. Indigo’s father smiles when he sees this – there is no problem with her determination.

“What’s the first thing I taught you Indy?”

“Dad, do we have to do this?”

Dad gives her a stern look with the hint of a smile in his eyes.

“Your desire gives you speed and the lightness of your heart gives you height”. Indigo recites this in a monotone – it’s the first lesson all fathers give their children.

“And what is the Storm Cloud Racers motto?”

“The higher the faster!”

“Very good Indy. So, lets keep going with lesson one. Make the cloud go down a bit.”

The Cloud lowers a bit.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Tomorrows stupid race!”

“Okay, we’ll leave that for now. Now make the Cloud float a bit higher”

The Cloud goes up very slowly.

“What were you thinking about then?”

“Playing in red sunset clouds.”

“I think you’re ready for an advanced lesson.”

“I already know all that Dad.”

“No Indigo, you were too young to understand what I’m about to tell you but now I think you’re ready.

It’s not your thoughts that give you a light heart.”

“What? You always told me that it was”

“I told you that your thoughts can affect how you feel. I never told you that your thoughts make your feelings.”

“You’ve lost me Dad. You always speak gibberish.”

“Imagine this then Indy. You’re standing on a high cloud looking down on a great city. Below you are a million lights twinkling away. It’s night. In front of you is a really, really high powered telescope. You look through the telescope and what do you see? You see a little girl crying, she doesn’t want to go to bed. You move the telescope a bit and you see two people holding hands and talking to each other.”

“Gross”

“And you move the telescope again and you see a terrible accident and lots off suffering. And the next time you look you see people singing and being happy.

You have hundreds off emotions all at the same time. When you think a certain thought it’s like turning the telescope to focus on one area of that great city.”

“Okay Dad, so what do you think I should do?”

“Listen Indigo, it’s all very well thinking happy thoughts to make yourself feel happy feelings but that’s not what a light heart is. To be a true Storm Cloud Racer you have to be able to look at all your feelings at once and see how they fit together. A light heart can only happen when all your feelings get a chance to be seen. "

“I sort of see what you’re saying.”

“If you focus in on the feelings that make you feel afraid of losing tomorrows race your mind will see how unhappy those feelings make you and try and fix the problem for you. And the way it chooses to fix it might be by telling you to just give up.

If you admit that you’re a little bit scared then you might be able to see that you’re also a little bit hopeful that maybe you will win and glad that you’ll be racing again and looking forward to seeing some of the other racers.”

“Alright, Dad you’ve made your point. Can I go to bed now?”

“Yes sweetie, I’ll see you in the morning. Be carefully getting out of that thing – you’re higher up than you think.”

If you ever get a chance to visit the Storm Cloud Racers of Cloud Kingdom then go – it’s a sight to behold!

The Executioner

2006-03-18T10:05:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow is blind-date day.

I told a friend of mine “It might hurt too much if things don’t go well”

My friend replied “It will be her loss!”

“And mine too” I counter.

To which my friend is silent.

So I face death by lethal extraction, the extraction of my hopes and dreams, and I face this alone.

Across the table from me will be an attractive girl, confident, positive, a person who has seen her fair share of life and of suffering. This is a person who left behind childish fears long ago and sees the idea of a blind-date as fun and exciting and a great way to meet new people.

And of course it’s not as if I have much to lose. But from he who had nothing even the little he had was taken away.

I think I might start by saying to her “Excuse me if I seem a little nervous”. I don’t think I’ll say “Excuse me if I seem terrified, if everything I say seems rehearsed and it appears I want to be anywhere but with you; face-to-face with my doom”.

But that is only how I feel – I can still be brave. I will meet my destroyer in clothes that are clean and ironed. I will be washed and clean shaven. I will smile and be generous and listen to what she has to say about herself. And when the moment of my annihilation arrives I will not plead for mercy. No, even if my insides turn to water and I shake with fear, I will be strong.

Then again, it might all go okay.

Metal

2006-02-25T17:59:00.000+08:00

The phone rang five times before it was answered by a woman’s voice – a no nonsense voice.

“City Surgery, Jan speaking”.

“Hi, ah, this is Matthew Dalton. I had some tests done the other week and I was just wondering if the –“

“One moment”

Several long moments later. “Mr Dalton?”

I detect a change in the voice - a note of suspicion?

“We need you to come down to the surgery.”

“Was there something wrong with my tests?”

“You can discuss that with Doctor Nivan when you come in. How is Thursday at 1:15pm?”

It’s pretty inconvenient – but I’m assuming this is the soonest I can get in. I say I’ll be there and hang up.

At 1.20pm on Thursday I’m waiting to see my doctor. The knitting pattern I’ve been reading has a picture of an attractive woman wearing the most awful sweater.

Dr Nivan shows up at this point and asks me to follow him. He closes the door to his office and asks me to have a seat by his desk. He sits, taps a few keys on his computer and then looks at me over the top of glasses he’s not wearing.

“Matthew, I have your test results.”

“Right.” That is why I’m here after all.

“You remember we tested your iron levels.”

“Yes, was there a problem?”

“No – your iron levels are just fine, bang on the median for someone your age.”

“Right – that’s, ah, good.”

“Yes – there is a problem though. I ran another test while you were here and we got some disturbing results back.”

“What sort of tests?”, I say, feeling a bit worried.

“Well, when you came in to see me you said you were feeling as if you were removed from things around you in some way.”

“Am I dying?” I blurt this out in a rather idiotic fashion - the suspense is making me feel anxious.

“No - not exactly. We have a new piece of equipment that allows us to take a picture of you 1 trillionth of a second in to the future and one trillionth of a second in to the past. The results suggest that you don’t actually exist.”

“Arrrm, doesn’t that sort of apply to everyone?” I don’t want to tell the doctor his job but this seems a little odd to me.

“You would think so wouldn’t you?”, the doctor chuckles. “Let me show you something on my computer here”. He tilts his computer screen around so I can get a clearer view.

“Here are some photos of a normal person.” I dislike the use of the word ‘normal’ but nod my head to indicate I’m with him so far.

“This first photo is shot one trillionth of a second in to the future.”

The photo looks over-exposed. Everything is light and I can only just make out the form of a person sitting in a chair with an expectant look on his face. The person appears to be my good doctor.

“The next photo is taken one trillionth of a second in the past”, the doctor continues.

The doctor is clearly visible in this picture. In fact, everything is clearly visible; the photo looks like it was taken on a golden afternoon in autumn. The expression on the doctors’ face is one of peaceful calm.

“Okay, so now here are your pictures.”

Suffice it to say – I don’t actually appear in my pictures.

“Normally everyone is travelling along at the same speed”, the doctor explains. “In your case it appears you’ve speed up and, well, you simply don’t exist."

I struggle to keep my voice level as I speak. “But you can see me well enough now. How do you explain that."

“That’s quite simple really we’re seeing a pre-shadow of you from a different time line. Here’s a brochure for you to read, it explains everything."

The Doctor hands me a booklet titled ‘Coping with non-existence'.

“I’ll write you a prescription for some lead weights. Carry these with you at all times – they’ll slow you down and stop you slipping any further out of time."

I walk out of the surgery feeling shell shocked holding my script.

The nurse at the front desk says. “That will be $70 thank-you Mr Dalton."

Apparently you still have to pay the doctor - even if you don’t exist.

In My Time of Dying

2006-02-10T21:38:00.000+08:00

The photo was taken that night – the night the young man died. The photo of the crash was taken before the truck came and carried that mangled wreck of steel away. The photo was taken before the glass and plastic were swept up and the oil, the water and blood were hosed down the drain. By morning the whole scene had changed, no one driving past the site knew what had happened there that night.

Inexperience played a part, and speed of course. The music was too loud; he didn’t hear the road noise change as he hit gravel. When he finally realised he was off the road it was too late. He touched the breaks, lost traction and ended up going sideways. Sideways towards a power pole

The power pole was 30 meters away when he saw it through the driver’s side window.

If vehicle ‘A’ is travelling at 27.7 meters per second towards object ‘B’ how long before the two objects meet?

In that second and a bit before his car slammed side on in to the power pole, instantly breaking his neck, most of his ribs and pulverising his right arm, before this happened he thought, “I’m going to hit it.”

The impact destroyed the cars drive train but the engine, the headlights and the loud music kept going. His last thoughts were, “This can’t happen to me, Dad is going to kill me, am I going to die here, will anyone remember me, will I remember me”.

He died in the darkness just as the flashing lights and the photographer arrived.

Alone

2006-02-05T19:03:00.000+08:00

I wake from a night of unusual dreams in which a parade of family and friends tell me what I want to hear, and what I fear. It’s nine o’clock. I lie in bed for a while listening to Saturday sounds. Pop music and lawn mowers are mixed with the more distant whoosh of cars taking kids to sporting events.

My prayer beads are almost hidden under a T-shirt, a book on body language and a movie titled ‘Fearless’. The wooden beads rub against each other making a reassuring whizzing sound as I lift them into my lap. Being Saturday I decide to meditate until my crossed legs get too sore. My back relaxes and realigns itself my mind slowly settles and I feel happy.

45 minutes later I lift my numb legs out of bed and while I wait for blood to flow back in to them I indulge a melancholy thought about couples heading to cafes for brunch.

After Yoga, breakfast and with my laundry swaying lazily on the washing line it’s time to think about the day. I rub the palm of my hand across my cheek as I mull over my limited options. Immediately I’m reminded of two things. Firstly, that I had my first swimming injury yesterday – I scrapped a small amount of skin off my hand lifting myself out of the pool. Secondly, I need a shave.

It’s 1:30pm when I finally back my car out of the garage. The sun is shinning brightly overhead and I open the windows to let in some cooler air. Tall gum trees line the sides of the road and the scene makes me smile – I’m in Australia.

There is a fair amount of traffic today; most of it seems to be heading in the same direction as me – the plaza. People wander mindlessly from shop to shop and I’m happy to join them for a while but soon get bored of it. It’s still hot so I decide the pool is a better place to be.

Kids splash each other and invent complicated games. Teenagers lounge on pool toys and find excuses to touch their friends of the opposite sex. I swim somewhat lethargically backwards and forwards stopping after each lap to watch all the goings on.

By the time I’m home and have my laundry back in the basket it’s time for dinner. The juice extractor gets fired up and I raid the fridge for some other bits and pieces.

The dishwasher is still whirring as I lie down on my bed with my notebook computer, a drink and that movie titled ‘Fearless’.

The movie is about a man who survives a plane crash and loses his fear of death in the process. I’m tired as the movie ends and I go to sleep with its last words still in my mind.

I’m alive.

The Anarchist on the Train

2005-12-12T19:19:00.000+08:00

I had this brilliant idea for a story once. It came to me as I was travelling to work on the train. There was an anarchist sitting facing me on the other side of the carriage. At first I was just observing him, not really thinking much of it, and then it struck me – an anarchist on a train.

‘The Anarchist on the Train.’

Trains are all about rules and doing what you’re told and penalties if you don’t. They’re about timetables and, hey, railway tracks! I mean it would be a story about a guy who some people would say was “off the rails”, on the rails.

Instead of just staring at the guy outright I started to observe his reflection in my window. He would never catch on.

Well, once I got off the train I forgot about my idea for a while. It wasn’t until a few days later when I was talking to a friend that the thought re-entered my head. I told my friend about my idea. Yeah sure, partly I was trying to sound creative and cool, but he liked my concept.

Over the next few days part of my mind was writing the story. I’d gotten to the bit about the leather jacket and the nose ring when I had a slightly deflating thought. The title, “The Anarchist on the Train”, it had to have been done before.

So I did some research and found I wasn’t the first person to put those words together in a sentence. Okay, so I gave up. But who really wants to hear a story about an Anarchist on a train?

Interlude

2005-12-08T21:12:00.000+08:00

When I was seven my family moved from a small sunny town to the capital of New Zealand - Wellington city.

Wellington can be moody. Winds fast march from the hills to the harbour. If you walk the hills on such a day you hear nature howl with rage. It was such a day as I walked mile after mile my mind far from the wind that pushed and shoved me. I did not notice the rain that soaked my clothes and froze my body. I walked into grey clouds. I walked alone. As I approached the highest point in those hills I started to run. I ran, I ran to the edge, and I screamed. I screamed in to the wind all my pain all my aloneness all my frustrations.

Wellington can be sullen. Hematite clouds sit low over the city covering the hill tops. The harbour becomes a dark looking glass. Boats make small waves that travel to the waters edge. The sound is a bards prophecy - a tale of leaving but not returning.

You think you’ve given up hope only to awake in a day where everything’s changed. The sun shines, a fresh and gentle breeze strokes your skin, and the harbour twinkles and smiles. All the myriad vibrant colours of houses and hills are accentuated. People walk a little taller and a littler slower.

Maybe you have to be born in a place to truly understand it. I never understood Wellington, but I think it understood me.

Leaving

2005-11-24T18:15:00.000+08:00

It’s a scorching hot Saturday. The car park is busy. Cars arrive empty and leave laden with hardware supplies - the stuff dreams are made of.

The nice lady at the auto club told me “Someone will be there to help you in 5 to 30 minutes.” 30 minutes would be good because I have some thinking to do.

Did I lock my keys in the boot accidentally purposefully – subconsciously? You see, tonight I fly off to see my brother and his wife - and I’m tense.

In the shade of a building, by a pile of wheelbarrows, I stand, I wait and I think.

I think about packing and about airports. I think about cleaning and washing and how many pairs of socks will it take?

A yellow car pulls into the car park but it’s not the auto club. It is a station wagon though. Very handy for moving stuff.

All my socks. Maybe not the thick ones.

A young couple walk out of the store carrying a huge pile of plastic containers. They're about to get themselves really organised.

Michael, my brother, is making a trial run to Dubai airport, so he can be sure of the route when he comes to pick me up. I’m touched at the effort he is going to. He always was a planner, Michael.

The smell of cooked onions wafts past me. The sausage sizzle is in full swing. A robust chap passes me carrying a belt-sander and a hotdog. He looks pretty chuffed.

Michael’s emails have been fairly laid back but I can tell he already has a busy schedule for us. As I think about his enthusiasm I feel a little bit ashamed. I’ve been so wrapped up in my travel anxiety that I’ve hardly thought about seeing my brother and having a good time with him.

The Auto Club Guy pulls in and I lean through the passenger window of his car “G’day. Yeah - the Falcon over there by the Cruiser.” And as ACG works to free my keys I realise that sometimes, despite our best efforts at sabotage, things work out okay.

Jade

2005-11-22T19:45:00.001+08:00

“So, I walk into this bar - right?”

“Oh cool! I love these jokes.”

“This isn’t a joke. This really happened to me.”

“Okay – yeah. Sorry. Keep going.”

“So, I walk into this bar. I’m walking up to the bar feeling a little self-conscious and that’s when I see her.”

“Who?”

“Well, that’s what my story is about.”

“Right. Of course.”

“There’s a live band, and she’s the lead singer.”

“What was the band like?”

“Pretty great actually.”

“Yeah.”

“So I sit down at the bar and the barman asks me...”

“Why the long face?”

“…what I want to drink.”

“Hehe.”

“I say ‘I’ll have an overpriced beer thanks mate.’" He pops open a green bottle and places it in front of me.

There are about 20 people in the bar most of them male. There’s a guy sitting at a table next to the stage. He’s drinking a martini. I wonder if he ordered it ‘shaken not stirred’”

“Like James Bond.”

“Yes. “

“Did the martini have olives?”

“This singer - she’s gorgeous. Self confident. Full of life.”

“You mean she was hot?”

“The band starts to play AC/DC - ‘Back in Black’.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah that’s what I thought. Even Mr Martini is getting into it. The lead guitarist is going crazy and everyone is having a good time.

And then I realise I’ve seen this singer before.”

“Really? Another pub?”

“No, this was like, my first time in a pub on my own. I’d seen her a couple of hours earlier sitting in this busy place reading a novel. It seemed like a pretty peaceful thing to be able to do. “

“Oh”

“Anyway, then it was over.

She packs up her guitar.

She’s walking up to the bar.

She smiles at me.

I realise I’m staring. So I quickly look away and grunt something inaudible.”

“You were too drunk to talk?”

“Man! No. I’d only had half a beer. You really are missing the point.

So, she puts down her glass and walks away."

“Then what happened?”

“I skulled the rest of my beer and left.”

“Man – that’s not even slightly funny. I have one you’ll love. ‘A horse walks into a bar...'”

Strong Arm

2005-11-21T20:35:00.000+08:00

The bloke behind the counter is a good guy - I can tell by his face. I have two questions for him.

1. Are the lanes open?
2. When do the kids leave?

Money changes hands.

I walk towards automatic doors and am transported to the tropics – the public baths.

Public baths. I take off my T-shirt.

I choose a lane with one person - someone I can keep up with and keep out of the way of.

It’s 25 meters from the shallow end to the not so shallow end. Bubbles. Kicking. Gasping. My technique is rubbish. Relax – it’s hard not tense.

Okay – this is going a little better. Not racing. Smoothly and gently. Legs nice and free. Mouthful of water. Choking. Floundering. Keeping moving. And that’s 25 meters.

These goggles make me feel cool. I inhaled half the pool one minute ago but now I’m cool. Ok Mr Cool, time for another lap. Relax. Thumbs in the water first. Arms close to your head on the way around. Much better.

Another 25 - I’m back at the start.

My lane buddy is getting out. Lane Buddy is getting in to his wheelchair. He can’t use his legs. He can’t use his legs and was still keeping up with me. Lane Buddy says “See you later” in a way that makes me hope I do.

More laps. Focusing on keeping it relaxed and easy. Focusing on the breathing and the technique. Focusing on. Man my technique is better than that guys. Hey, who's she? What time is it? Is that a paperclip?

Out.

Towel. Shoes. Track pants (wallet still safe in back pocket). T-Shirt. Car keys. Glasses. Googles.

Doors open with a chill. It’s time to leave the public to their baths.