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Writing Wife Life
My amazing writing Wifey, Kylie Eklund-Denman, wrote a blog about having a writing wife. Well that’ll be me, what a blast! So I had to share.
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Green Sky
Liam Michaels was crying in the staff restroom again, when the receptionist knocked hesitantly on the door, interrupting his weekly purge of guilt and emotion. Bonnie’s free hand held her nostrils closed against the smell of the men’s toilet.
“Mr Michaels? Mr Michaels are you in there? Are you OK?” Mr Rogers, the boss of Rogers’s Prestige Preloved Vehicles had demanded she go in and get Liam out. A potential client, would only kick tyres and slam doors for so long before leaving for the car lot next door.
Mr Rogers was a big man. Tall and wide, with a constant expression of pain on his large red face. Customers didn’t naturally warm to him, which is why he mostly stayed in his office and sent out the more affable Liam Michaels to greet the prospective clients.
But right now Mr Rogers thought he was inches away from closing a sale on a 1970 Mercedes Benz 280SL Pagoda Top. A classic beauty of a car that had sat high on a fibreglass display mountain at the front of the car yard for four years. Feeling so close to a sale made Rogers anxious, but it was the frog pond green sky, in the near distance, that really skyrocketed his blood pressure. Green sky only meant one thing. A thunderstorm with hail. And hail was the worst enemy of prestige pre-loved vehicles. A hail-storm could destroy a whole car yard in minutes.
“Mr Michaels?” Bonnie said in a nasal tone. “Mr Rogers wants you to serve a customer. He’s trying to sell that sports car on the mountain, and someone is interested in the Oldsmobile.”
Liam left the cubicle, red eyed and shaking. He splashed some cold water on his face and headed out to the lot.
“Come on Michaels, pull yourself together,” Mr Rogers had no idea why Liam broke down in the toilet at 3pm on a weekly basis. Nor did he care. He just needed the salesman to serve the client and put away the cars before the storm hit, and then he was going to fire him. He was trying to run a business here, not a psychiatric ward.
Conversely, Liam Michaels didn’t care to help Mr Rogers sell the sports car. Liam had been doing his best not to sell it for two years. Ever since Mrs Rogers had put her hand on his crotch, in the stationery room, and threatened to tell her husband they were having an affair, if the car ever sold. This was initially a total falsehood. But their proximity and Mrs Rogers’ delicate hand pressing against his pants had enticed Liam to kiss her ruby red lips. She responded with wild abandon, then feigned shock and ran down the corridor to her husband’s office.
The following week she returned, wearing a tight fitting dress that displayed her cleavage. He could smell her perfume from across the room, something flowery like jasmine or roses. She stared at Liam from under her long eyelashes until he couldn’t take it any longer and took off to the office toilet. When he emerged from the stall Mrs Rogers was in the washroom waiting for him.
“I suppose you think I’m bad.” She said this last word with conviction, making it in no way a question.
“No, Mrs Rogers, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please don’t tell Mr Rogers.”
“Hmm,” she narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to one side. “Well, I don’t know. Are you going to tell Mr Rogers about our affair?”
“But Mrs Rogers, there is no affair!”
“Oh, now don’t say that,” she drawled, and made sure that Liam understood there definitely was an affair.
From that day, for the next two years, Mrs Rogers met Liam once a week to remind him never to sell the Mercedes on the fake mountain at the front of the yard. Fearing being caught in the restrooms, Liam changed their rendezvous to various locations. One being a mustard and tan 1970 Oldsmobile wagon, in the furthest corner of the car yard. No one ever came to look at that car. Liam wondered why it was even there. It wasn’t a ‘prestige’ car like the others in the yard. In fact, it was one of the ugliest cars he’d ever seen. Which made it the ideal place to meet Mrs Rogers. The possibility of getting caught was low, but not zero, which added to the thrill. A thrill that had been missing from his own marriage for years. His wife was a good woman and mother. It wasn’t her fault that five babies had changed the once svelte figure into something more homely. He didn’t blame her that the challenge of making his meagre wage spread to feed seven, had left her not as fun as she was when they met. He was doing her a favour having the affair. It meant he got to keep his job, and his wife had lost interest in physical intimacy since their fifth baby was born.
So, what were the chances that both the Benz on the mountain, and the Oldsmobile in the far corner would sell on the same day?
“We’ve gotta get all these fucken cars under cover. That storm ain’t gunna do no-one no favours,” Rogers barked.
Liam internally winced at his boss’s use of language. Not that he thought he was superior or better educated, but he at least knew that Rogers’s Prestige Preloved Vehicles didn’t quite roll off the tongue. And he knew that being a Preloved Vehicle salesman was no more impressive than being a Used Car salesman. He also knew that the disregard he felt for his boss was equal to the high regard he had for Rogers’ wife.
Liam sniffed and took a deep breath, before heading to the back of the lot to see a thin angular man walking around the Oldsmobile, trying to open the doors and the tailgate.
“Fine looking car!” Liam hailed the customer. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Why d’you say it’s a fine lookin’ car?” The man’s gruff voice belied his gaunt appearance.
“Oh, I guess I have a soft spot for the Oldsmobile.” Was he blushing? “I’m sorry, I don’t want to rush you, but there’s a storm coming and I have to move the cars. Would you like to take her for a test drive? Or maybe come back tomorrow?”
“I want to look in the cargo area. See if it’s big enough. You have a key?”
Liam was confused, as the cargo area in the 1970 Oldsmobile was unusually large, with unusually large windows all around, giving it an appearance more like a hearse than a family car. Then he heard the rolling grumble of distant thunder.
“Mr Michaels, please report to the front desk immediately,” Bonnie’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
Liam tapped his sternum three times. “Sorry buddy, that’s me. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“Just give me the key,” the man said with an icy smile. “Not too much to ask is it?”
“I’d have to go back to the key register.” Liam pointed across the eighty yards toward the office, then looked pointedly at his watch. He felt uneasy. This guy gave him the creeps. He also wondered what Mr Rogers was doing with the Benz sports buyer. Nothing quite added up.
“Liam!” a high voice sounded behind him, he turned to see Mrs Rogers looking more lovely and more alarmed than ever before. Her cheeks pink and her eyes like saucers, she was shaking her head slightly, as if she didn’t even know she was doing it. “Liam! The car!” she whimpered and collapsed into his arms.
The thin man looked at the two of them for a minute, disgust on his face, then made a run for it.
“That was a strange customer,” Liam breathed, struggling to hold Mrs Rogers up.
“That was Choppy Tyrone,” Mrs Rogers said.
“Who’s Choppy Tyrone? How do you know him? And how come you’re here? A storm is coming. You should stay undercover.” He made a little roof with the flat of his hand over his head to demonstrate.
“Choppy owns the yard. He won it from my stupid husband in a poker game. Every month he comes and deposits packages in the back of the Oldsmobile, then collects new packages the next day.”
“Why doesn’t he have his own key then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he gets the key from the office. It’s not usual for him to turn up during the day. He’s more of a silent partner.”
“So, the car yard doesn’t belong to Mr Rogers?”
“No, it did once, but now he’s just the manager. Choppy has given him a quota of cars to sell each month, to keep his job. But he fiddles the books to make your sales look like his, otherwise Choppy would…” her voice trailed off.
Liam struggled to keep up with this new information. “But what about the Benz, on the mountain? Why is it so important not to sell it?” He had a sick feeling in his gut. He’d blindly continued the affair with Mrs Rogers, conveniently not asking why she was with him, or why he had to stop the sale of the car.
The last two years he’d lived from week to week. Looking forward to the days that Mrs Rogers would visit the car yard. Then breaking down in tears of guilt after she left. He would trudge through the days in between. He went home to the chaos of five kids all in a different state of pre-bedtime crazy. A wan smile from an exhausted wife, sitting on the lumpy couch, happy that another adult was finally there to share the burden.
The weight of his guilt descended upon him. The secret of Mrs Rogers, bore into his integrity until only crumbs remained.
The green mass above moved quickly towards them. The wind whipped up dust and trash. Liam grabbed Mrs Rogers by the hand and ran toward the office, letting go when they could see the back of Mr Rogers watermelon head.
Bonnie was rearranging the cars in the glassed showroom, from angled spaciousness to a bumper to bumper car park. They had to put the most expensive vehicles under cover first, then the rest of them. The lemons that they couldn’t sell, were left outside to claim under insurance. Mr and Mrs Rogers didn’t acknowledge each other. Mr Rogers grabbed a few of the car keys and headed back to the lot, wheezing and turning more beetroot by the minute. Liam threw a set of keys to Mrs Rogers and pointed to a late model Porsche. Mrs Rogers flung them to the ground, ran to the key register and snatched up the keys to the Mercedes Benz on the mountain.
Liam chased after her. “Mrs Rogers, please be careful. It’s dangerous backing the car off the mountain!”
“Just leave the damned car!” another voice bellowed into the incoming storm. It was Mr Rogers. Fake owner of the yard. Unhappy cuckolded husband. And patsy to Choppy Tyrone.
Just as another clap of thunder sounded very close by, Mrs Rogers let out a blood-curdling scream.
Liam was surprised that a woman of Mrs Rogers resolution was afraid of thunder. But quickly saw what had caused the scream. The fibreglass mountain sat empty. The 1970 Mercedes Benz 280SL Pagoda Top was gone!
“Did you take it?” she whirled on her husband with crazy eyes. “Have you moved it somewhere already?” Another crack of thunder, and the first few plunks of hail falling.
Mrs Rogers ran to the office and scooped up the car keys Liam had thrown her and raced to the Porsche. Liam jumped into the passenger seat, pleading with her to just calm down. Mrs Rogers shot him a look, typical of all women across time, being told by a man to calm down. She whipped the Porsche out of the car yard, her eyes darting as she wove between the traffic, then turned onto the road gripping the cliff’s edge, winding up to the mansions on Lost Peak.
“What are you doing? Please tell me what’s going on Mrs Rogers.” Liam was beginning to fear for her sanity. And for his life. Visibility was low. Hail smashed against the windscreen, as she took the cliff top bends at an alarming speed. “What is so important about that car?”
Mrs Rogers gave Liam a look of pity, with a tinge of disdain. “It was a gift to me. From Choppy Tyrone’s twin brother, Niall. We were in love and Choppy found out about it. Niall was in an arranged marriage with the daughter of the gang boss. Choppy demanded we end the relationship or we would all end up dead.”
The car swerved suddenly when a blind corner appeared unannounced.
‘Where are you going? This is crazy!’ Liam clutched the door handle.
‘I’m going to the Tyrone mansion.’ She turned and looked at Liam with wide eyes, that he wished she would keep on the road. “The man I said was Choppy Tyrone, is actually Niall.”
Liam took a deep breath in, Mrs Rogers perfume pungent in his nostrils. How had he got this so wrong?
“Choppy discovered us in the car, at Bald Eagle Peak making out,” she rolled her eyes, as if to say it was more than making out. “He and Niall argued. I thought he was going to kill Niall, and.. well things happened, I can’t remember, but I accidentally killed Choppy.”
“Okay,” Liam tried to sound calm. “So you, accidentally killed Choppy…”
“And Niall took on Choppy’s persona. The car contains evidence. As long as it sat on that ridiculous plastic mountain in the car yard, I couldn’t be suspected of anything, and my children wouldn’t be taken away from me, and Niall wouldn’t go to prison, or worse, executed by the Irish Mafia.”
“So what am I in all this? Are you still in a relationship with Niall, Choppy, whoever?” Liam shouted above the deep grunt of the Porche’s exhaust and the sound of mandarin sized hail falling on the car. In the back of his mind he thinks, well here’s another write off.
“Oh, sweet Liam. Did you think you meant something to me? You were just another piece of insurance against the car being sold.”
“Let me out please Mrs Rogers!”
“Mrs Rogers! Ha! Do you even know my name Liam? You’ve been screwing me for two years. Do you even know my fucking name!” she roared the last sentence.
“Please, just stop and let me out. I don’t want to be part of this any longer. I want to go home.”
“You want to go home? We’ll all just forget this ever happened?”
The car abruptly braked to a stop. Mrs Rogers leant over to kiss Liam on the mouth. Her scarlet lips contorted into a facsimile of a smile. Liam recoiled and launched himself from the car. But the few seconds of relief he felt at escaping this ill-fated ride with a murderous madwoman, soon turned to disbelief as his feet scrambled on the loose stones at the edge of the cliff. As he felt himself free-falling, he wondered what his life would have been if he wasn’t a used car salesman. What would he do? He’ll find something else, maybe selling furniture. He imagined himself at home on the lumpy couch, with his homely wife and their five children. Yes, that’s where he’ll go now.
He thought these things just before his head smacked on the rocks, below the cliff.
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To Valhalla!
‘We can’t do it,’ says Roman, wiping his tears. ‘It’s too hard. I’m telling Mum.’
‘No! We promised Grandad,’ says his twin Rommy. ‘But, how can we get him down the stairs?’
‘The kayak,’ says cousin George.
‘We know about the kayak, …Ohhh!’ says Rommy, ‘we bring it here, and kayak him down the staircase!’
‘Everyone quiet! It’ll all be ruined if the olds wake-up’. George pokes a finger to where their parent’s are sleeping.
The extended family has gathered in their childhood home to farewell the Patriarch, or Grandad as the kids know him, before he dies, which he did, minutes ago, with the children by his side.
George curls a finger to Rommy to join him, before raising an arm above his head, and forward, commando-style.
‘Great,’ says Roman, pissy at being excluded, ‘not just body snatchers, we’re in the bloody army now.’
George points to Grandad, then waves his hands up and down his body.
‘Huh?’
‘Prepare him!’
‘Who died and made you king?’ mumbles Roman, as George and Rommy leave Grandad’s room.
‘Distasteful!’ Rommy pokes her head back around the door and glares at Roman before tiptoeing away. They avoid the creaky boards, ingrained in their memory from years of night-time raids in the old house.
Roman pulls a musty leather suitcase from under the bed thinking I’m not undressing him.
When the other two return carrying Grandad’s beloved kayak, they find he’s dressed for sea burial.
‘Geez, what the hell is that?’ whispers George.
‘That, the hell, is what he wants to wear,’ says Roman.
‘It’s a Ceremonial Viking Burial Suit,’ Rommy adds, ‘that’s a Viking headdress we made with him a year ago.’
‘It really isn’t,’ says George, ‘but, if that’s what he wants.’
They fashion a slide using the bedcover. But, instead of sliding on his back, Grandad rolls, face-planting both on and off the kayak.
‘Shitting fuck!’ says Roman.
‘Shh,’ says Rommy, ‘you wanna get us into trouble?’
‘Right! Like they’re gonna tells us off for swearing, and not notice the dead mardi gras queen we’re illegally dumping?’
‘Shut up you two!’ George straps Grandad to the kayak, using a selection of his belts, from the wardrobe. ‘And pull!’
The kayak slides across the threadbare carpet, but catches at the top of the stairs.
‘Soap!’ Rommy runs to the bathroom, and returns brandishing a can of shaving cream. ‘Better! It spurts, and it’s really slimy.’
With a spray and another push the kayak tips forward. Sliding down the staircase, it rolls to one side. There’s a series of sickening thuds as Grandad’s head contacts every baluster, removing the headdress and partially scalping him, leaving a trail of blood.
Horrified at the sight, the children race down the stairs and right the craft, dragging and pushing it out the double-doors to the deck, down the five steps, across the lawn, and onto the beach. Grandad’s headdress and part of his head dangling. Fearful of dawn joggers and dog walkers, adrenalin speeds them on.
At the shoreline, they straighten his headdress and launch the death-ship into the sea. It floats for three metres and returns on the tiny waves.
‘Shit! Oh my days! Shit!’ George looks about the beach, as the joggers, and worse, the dogs start to appear in the golden morning glow.
‘It’s ok!’ Rommy turns to the boys, with both hands splayed in front of her. ‘I will be the Valkyrie!’ she climbs onto grandad’s lap, and paddles out beyond the second break. When she turns back to the beach the boys give her a thumbs up. She rolls into the water, and gives the kayak another push out to sea, and swims back, finally collapsing onto the sand. Roman pats her back, and George gives more thumbs up, their time of grief to come. Rommy, her face wet with salty tears, raises her head and sputters, ‘To Valhalla!’
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Sibylla and the Skin Pockets
Sibylla stared at the pockets in her skin.
“I don’t remember those being there before,” she thought as she started patting them down, like a tradie looking for where she’d left her keys.
The pockets were neat and without any scar tissue. Some were voluminous with generous give. She imagined she could store a small kitten in the one on her belly. Most were small. It all depended on where they sat anatomically.
She found a button in one pocked on her left forearm, but couldn’t remember where it came from. There was one that held some peppermints and another with something gelatinous that made her gag.
“How gross!” She said out loud to no-one.
Then she found a piece of paper that had been folded sixteen times and snugly sat in the pocket on the outside of her right thigh.
Sibylla looked all around wishing for the answer to her questions to be written somewhere, or a wizard or faerie to appear to explain the meaning of it all. But walls held no messages and magical folk were not making themselves known.
With shaking hands she turned the folded note over and over and then started to unfold it, tentatively, as if something horrible was going to jump out from one of the folds.
“Spiders!” She thought with a shudder and another impulsive gag. “It better not have anything to do with spiders.” Even thinking of the word terrified her. She compulsively wiped her hair and checked her clothes for any lurking arachnids.
“What if they are hiding in my skin pockets? What if they are breeding in there?”
Sibylla took several long deep breaths and dropped the folded paper to the floor. Her trusty pair of Doc Martins stomped down seventeen time on the paper. Satisfied that no teeny weeny spiders would come scurrying out from the folds, she continued to unwrap the sheet of paper.
The parchment was old. Some pages were stuck together and she had to carefully prize apart the folds. No spiders, but what she saw made her shake even more.
It was a love letter. Not any ordinary love letter between two strangers. It was a love letter from her future wife to her future self.
“I didn’t even know I was gay!” She thought with some surprise at her lack of self awareness. And then everything started to fall into place.
Sibylla was bought back to the present as the love letter from the future began to disintegrate in her hands. Quickly she reread it, to commit it to memory. She patted down her skin pockets again, hoping to find a mobile phone so she could snap a copy of the letter before it was completely dust.
Naturally, there’s nothing of any use in these pockets, she thinks.
The mysteries kept mounting. Where was she, in space and time? Why did she have an ancient letter from the future? Was she already dead? Did she miss her whole life with her future or past wife? And why the heck did she have pockets in her skin?
All the strangeness of the day began to take its toll on Sibylla. She sunk to the floor and broke down sobbing for her lost love, the wife she never knew, the happiness she had been deprived.
She felt a sensation in her large belly pocket and put her hands in to see what it was. Sibylla was surprised to find the pocket even bigger than she thought. Her hands reached down, further and further until she was totally inside the belly pocket. It was warm and for the first time today, Sibylla felt safe. The pocket, (“it’s rather like a kangaroo pouch,” she thought sleepily), began to gently pulse and soothe her.
Sleep and dreaming replaced the troubled thoughts and questions in Sibylla’s mind. In her dream she was a canary. There was another canary on the perch next to her. They were the same size. They tapped their beaks together and preened each other. She couldn’t recall much more from the dream, but knew it felt like destiny. She peacefully awaited her canary lover.
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Marinated Fairy Queen
I’ve never seen the streets of Paris so quiet, but then again, I’ve never been walking them at 4am on Christmas morning before.
I can tell from the quills of water vapour steaming from my mouth, it must be very cold, well below zero. Cold for a human that is. In my present form such things are not a concern.
A ragged shape lies still as a statue, resting on the flagstones of a recessed doorway. I sniff the blankets and get a bonk on my snout for my trouble. Hmm still alive then. I could fix that in one swift bite, but the stench coming from the ragged blankets puts me off. Werewolves have standards, you know.
Fog winds its way up the Seine sending misty tendrils spreading across the Left Bank. Good for me. It gives me cover but doesn’t impact my sight at all. I stalk, taking my time, sniffing the air, patiently waiting for my perfect Christmas breakfast to appear.
All the books with crazed, rabid looking wolves, thundering around insanely snarling and haphazardly taking bites from everything in their sight, is just not factual.
I like to choose wisely, and savour my dish. And nose to tail is my philosophy. No waste, and nothing left to see. Anyway, time marches on and there’s barely anyone outside on this morning. The usual early risers; bakers, fishmongers, flower sellers, have the day off. Even the exercise freaks are asleep. They’ve got all day to do their thing. Pity, I rather enjoy the chase sometimes.
Everyone all snuggled up in their beds waiting for Father Christmas to give them gifts, for doing nothing at all.
I turn towards to my favourite path by the Seine and then slip down the stairs to the quay walk at the very edge of the river.
The lamps on Pont Alexandre III glow through the mist and I can make out some of the details of nymphs and winged horses on the most beautiful bridge in Paris. Yes, this is the right place to come to find my special Christmas indulgence.
Ah, now. What is that aroma? A potpourri of marshmallows, vanilla, pine and … what’s that? …. oh yes, blood. Mmmm
And there she is, emerging beneath the bridge like a vision in a storybook. A fairy queen, walking hand in hand with a little elf. The bouquet of wine and whiskey joins the air. Mmm. I close my eyes and inhale, separating the smells like a chef discerning what herbs are in the cassoulet. The whiskey is easy. Woody, pungent and fruity with a cloud of caramel butter hanging over it. The wine. I inhale again. Mmm, the wine is complex, a special vintage I can tell. An orchestra of fruit, heavy with plum, steeped in oak, with chocolate, caramel and leather tones. Ooh, if my muzzle could dance it would be doing a jig right now. It’s almost as good as drinking it myself. The only thing better than drinking it though is … can you guess? I’ll give you a hint. I rather like my meat marinated.
The two young fools are gazing at each other, not watching where they are going. The fairy queen snags a pretty heel on the cobblestones. The elf man lurches forward too, and catches her. Then, turning her in his arms they kiss below a streetlamp. How romantic.
My nose twitches again as pheromones dance in the air. Ooh the smell of love. Or is it lust? Any other day of the month I’d seduce this fairy queen and take her to my pied-à-terre, where every night we’d make love, in this city of lights.
Fairy Queen, Fairy Queen, so tender and sweet. Shimmering in the moonlight with no idea what is to come. Pressing up closer to your little elf dressed man. Mmm, this is almost too good to stop watching. Two desires fighting within me, but the wolf always wins.
Silently crawling, pressed against the stone wall of the walk. Waiting, waiting until just the moment of their utmost pleasure. The full moon, my light, my muse, reveals herself from behind the clouds like a sign. Goodnight sweet girl.
A scream pierces the night, echoing in the empty streets. Little Elfy screams too, and runs for his life, back under the most beautiful bridge in Paris. So much for gallantry. But my attention is all on my delicious fairy queen.
“Appreciate every morsel,” my mother used to say. “Eating should be a meditation, not a blood bath.”
Yes mama, and like every time before, not a soupçon will be left to tell the tale.
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The Boat
A little wooden boat bobs restlessly in the inky sea. The starless sky offers no relief. Blackness descends and closes in.
A figure in the boat looks around fruitlessly. Her name is Vida.
There’s no sign of shore, no leading lights. She imagines the shore must be straight ahead of her, where the boat is facing. Then a grip of fear, as she swings around and looks over her shoulder again.
“But what if it’s that way? And I’m drifting further away from safety.”
A shadowy mass approaches from above. A demon perhaps? Or Death? Has Death come to claim her?
The mass becomes brighter as it draws closer. It sheds a dim light over the little boat.
“Who are you?” asks Vida.
“A friend,” says a deep and melodious voice that bypasses her ears and speaks directly into her mind.
“Are you going to join me in the boat?” Vida asks the light.
“I will not join you, for then I too will be lost in the darkness.”
“Then why are you here? Why come to torment me? You have the power of light but you won’t share it! How do I find my way back to land?”
“You’ll find your way, when you stop looking for the closest shore. Maybe where you belong is not in front of you, maybe it’s behind, maybe it’s far, far away.”
“Can’t you save me? Can’t you at least tell me which way to go?”
“I cannot join you, I cannot save you. I cannot tell you which way to go. Rest in the darkness. Rest for as long as it takes for your eyes to see light again.”
“How did I get here?”
“You don’t remember? Your heart was broken too many times and your soul shut down your senses to try to save you. Your soul brought you to the darkness. The world was too bright for you. Too much noise, and light and movement.”
Vida notices that the sea has calmed and the boat has stopped moving. The temperature is completely neutral on her skin. There are no sounds other than the gentle voice of the being above her boat.
“Am I in a void?” She asks in a panic again.
“You ask too many questions,” the voice says kindly. “Sit with your darkness. Let your heart mourn until it can begin to heal. Only then will your eyes see the light that is all around you, and your soul can return.”
The being moves away, creating a strange vacuum in the air around Vida and the boat.
She closes her eyes to the darkness, and invites her soul to awaken.
Vida cries. At first silent tears, then a great wracking, keening howling emerge from deep within her. Lower than her solar plexus, lower than her stomach. The grief comes from below her belly button, her uterus. It’s her womb that mourns and weeps.
After three days the boat is half filled with her tears. The shock causes Vida to stop crying.
“I could stay here. I could stay, let the boat fill with my tears and then sink to the bottom of the blackness,” she thinks.
But Vida recalls the kind voice of the being and even in her despair she knows she wants to find a way out of here.
Vida closes her eyes again, but this time to sleep. Exhausted from her grief, she sleeps for six days.
When she wakes there’s a dim, grey light, on the water, like a winter’s dawn. She is buoyed to discover she is not in the ocean at all, but on a vast lake.
The shore doesn’t look too far away, and in her mind, she knows which way she should head. Even so, Vida knows it will take her quite some time to reach it. A time to begin healing enough to be able to leave her boat. And then more time to invite her soul to return and to restore her back to life.
Vida leans over the edge of the little wooden boat and dips her hand in the water. It feels cool and silky and warm all at the same time. She stays like this for a while, and for just a moment the slightest softening reaches her eyes.
Originally published on the website of my writing group Mountain Ash Chapter. To read more from published and emerging writers of the Dandenong Ranges head here www.mountainashchapter.com.au
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The Enclave
Maeve keeps her eyes down, looking for fallen branches and sticks. One hand grips tighter onto the knife as she slides a glance over her right shoulder toward the setting sun. She can’t see him, but he could be anywhere by now.
Soft flakes of snow replace the icy wind. She pushes her way through thick parts of the forest, collecting the firewood with her free hand and slinging them into an ancient shawl tied like a papoose on her back.
The dense forest provides some camouflage. The clearings are another matter, but she knows she’s the only one who can fetch the fuel. Her parents left on a journey six months ago and haven’t returned. Her brother and sister are both useless for different reasons.
Maeve makes a run for it across the clearing to the wooden cabin, now surrounded by snow. In the fading light she’s relieved to see a weak plume of smoke still feebly leaving the chimney.
With a strength that belies her tiny frame, she uses her backside to push open the heavy wooden door.
Inside the cabin she heaves a sigh and drops her heavy load onto the hearth. The fire is barely going and Maeve hopes that her fuel collection will be enough to last the night.
“I saw the wolf again,” says Maeve, sorting the wood and kindling.
“Did he look hungry?” asks Peter, rubbing his arm. He can’t help but feel guilty that his broken wrist has left him virtually useless for hunting and providing warmth and food for his sisters.
“Wolf, wolf!” cries Jinny from his lap.
“Very,” says Maeve, “as am I.”
“Woof woof woof woof,” Jinny takes off from Peter’s arms and crawls around the cabin barking.
“Jinny, this wolf isn’t like a nice doggy. You don’t want to pat him ok?” warns Maeve.
“Woof woof,” was Jinny’s reply. Not yet two years old, Jinny knew little of life in the outside world. Still a baby when their parents left, the siblings had unwittingly become carers responsible for her health and safety.
Thick smoke fills the room as Maeve adds some of the snow damp wood to the fire. “Is there anything to eat?” she asks.
Peter shrugs a little and points his chin toward the pot hanging over the fire.
“Soup,” he offers.
Maeve isn’t very hopeful of the nutrition to be gained by this soup. Most likely snow melt with some herbs thrown in, like the majority of their meals lately. But she’s pleased to find a few pieces of dried fish had been added to the soup.
“How did you get the fish? I thought we were all out?” Maeve asks her brother.
“Rachel swapped it for some milk.” Peter doesn’t meet Maeve’s eyes.
“Peter! Our milk is in very short supply! We can’t be swapping it for things!”
“I know Maeve, I know, really I do. But I’d like to see what you do when Rachel appears at the door with her baby sister in her arms, looking like a tiny corpse, and asks for some milk. And besides, how much longer can we go on without some proper food?”
Maeve doesn’t respond. She’s too busy dunking sweet potato bread into the soup, soaking up the last drops from her bowl.
“Did she have any news about the elders?” Maeve asks, after one more slice of bread.
Peter stifles a groan as launches his once lithe, but now slightly broken body out of the chair. Life has been harsh for him since his parents left. So much responsibility for a sixteen year old boy. And now so much guilt at his failures.
He scoops up Jinny with his good arm and returns to the fire place with a bowl of bush fruit they had collected earlier.
After stoking the fire, and studying a piece of the bitter fruit, Peter draws in a breath. But then sighs it out and stares into the fire again.
“Peter! Please tell me!”
“Alright, Rachel did have some things to say, but how are we to know if they are true? Since the happenings, this last year, there’ve been so many stories about the elders, I really don’t even want to waste much time thinking about more rumours.”
“Tell me what she said.”
“She said that her cousin Borguss had returned from the lowlands. He told his brothers and cousins that there was no sign of any elders in the capital or anywhere in the lowlands. Rachel said he had a strange story of a young verger giving Borguss a letter.”
“And, dear brother, what pray tell was in this verger’s letter?”
“Why don’t you read it for yourself?” says Peter, handing a well worn scrap of paper to his younger sister, who he was sad to admit, was the better reader.
It had been a long anxious wait for Maeve and Peter and the rest of the young folk on the mountain. She glances at Peter with a mix of fear and hope in her eyes. Could they finally be getting some answers to so many questions? Where were her parents? Why had all the adults in the area disappeared, until only the children remained?
But on opening the letter, Maeves heart sinks as she stares at the hieroglyphs written there. It’s not a language she recognises. Definitely not Barrian, the local dialect that she’d learnt from her mother.
Maeve stares at the symbols, willing them to tell her something, anything about where her parents could be.
“Woof, woof, woof!” barks Jinny pointing to the window of the cabin.
Maeve gasps to see the wolf on the other side of the window, looking almost longingly into the cabin.
No that’s silly, she tells herself. It’s a wild animal. It’s just longing to eat us most likely.
Peter’s protective instinct kicks in and he lunges for the fire poker and runs out the door with more grace and speed than he’s shown for weeks.
Jinny follows him outside, calling “woof woof.”
“No Jinny! Don’t try to pat the wolf! Peter! No! Leave him, he’s not wanting to harm us! Please Peter, come away!”
Maeve isn’t even sure why she feels so strongly about saving the wolf that has been watching her from the forest for weeks. But something makes her need to protect it. The wolf locks eyes with Maeve, ignoring Peter and Jinny.
“The letter isn’t for you,” she hears in her heart. Her eyes open wide but the darkness seems to only increase.
“The letter is not meant for the young folk. They will find out soon enough.”
“What is in the letter?” Maeve begged the wolf. “If you know something you must tell us! We are just children, we want our parents back.”
“We were to wait until your fourteenth birthday to tell you this. But I must speak now before other young folk put themselves in danger looking for answers.
“The elders have been returned to the Otherland. The land they once escaped from when they were children like you. You must all continue to live your lives here and not try to find them. They had a reason for leaving the Otherland. They want you to live in freedom and with nature. Their lives now are bound again to white walls, stale odours, no plants, animals, herbal medicine and no books.
“You, Maeve, daughter of Pehr Snowbound, are wise beyond your years, stronger than your meagre frame and more able to lead the young ones than you may know. You have been chosen by the High Priestess before her departure, to lead the enclave of young ones, and protect the community your elders built here.”
-
Carly
Carly is barely noticeable in a crowd. She’s of average height, has average shoulder-length brown hair. Her clothes do not induce anyone to comment on them. Jeans, t-shirt, runners, that kind of thing. Carly’s features are unremarkable as well. Her face is one of those that lead people to say “Have I met you before?” Or “You remind me of someone I know.”
Carly is more than happy to blend in, because there’s something about her that’s not ordinary at all. You see, Carly is an empath. The thoughts, dreams, and anguish of people around her, flood her mind whenever she engages with them.
She was born this way, and it took many years for her to come to the realisation that not everyone was the same. Many years of knowing exactly what her parents were thinking about her. The little disappointments they thought they were hiding.
From her father the biggest disappointment was her lack of athletic prowess. He’d been a professional footballer and went on to become a fitness coach of young men and women who excel in their chosen field. Carly didn’t have a chosen field. Although she liked to go into a field, sports field, horse field any field to get away from the voices in her head. When her father was present, the voice kept repeating, “why did I get a daughter that is so uncoordinated? No talent, nothing. I’m wasting my time.” Carly would look at her father, trying to concentrate on the words coming out of his mouth. How high to throw the tennis ball for a serve, watch the ball, keep your movements smooth, anticipate where the ball is returning to, MOOOVE Your Feet!
But still his thoughts came through, “I’m wasting my time.”
Carly’s mother tried. Tried to be accepting, tried to be loving, tried to find some way to connect with her daughter. But all Carly heard was “How can this child be mine? She’s nothing like me. She’s so quiet and dull, I can’t find one little thing I actually like about her.”
By the time Carly is eight years old she understands that what she has is a rare gift. She spends much of her school years learning ways to manage this gift to save herself from going mad.
She finds that if she holds her head down and doesn’t make eye contact, it keeps the random thoughts of the other students out of her head. But she struggles to stop their thoughts about her from passing through. It’s a cruel conundrum. The more reserved and withdrawn she is, the more other students and staff think unkind thoughts about her.
She procures an impressive collection of sunglasses, floppy hats, wigs and other disguises so as to remain anonymous.
“No-one can have any thoughts about me if they don’t know who I am,” she thinks. And so, she grows up as a stranger surrounded by people. Her outward plainness is an especially cultivated cover to protect her internal extroadinariness.
Anyone who’s ever wanted to be a fly on the wall should take a moment to think about Carly and her gift.
-
Sugar
Sugar tiptoes along the brick path at the side of her house. The light from her phone shining dully to check for any trip hazards.
“I hope that idiot dog next door isn’t out doing his business,” she thinks. “He should be minding his own business, not doing it, yeah.” Sugar almost chuckles at her lame joke. Exhaustion and a bit too much cider are making her easily amused.
But any amusement is immediately caught short by a deep “Whooo whoo whooo” from the other side of the fence.
“Fuck off you dumb ugly stupid dog,” she hisses through the fence. Unafraid of insults, the dumb dog keeps on barking.
Sugar speeds up along the dark path and reaches the side gate. She swears under her breath that somebody, i.e. Dad the Security Enforcer, has bolted it from the inside.
“What’s with the intense security here?” she thinks, not for the first time. Her dad is obsessed with locking doors, gates, windows and anything that could be locked. “As if we have anything worth stealing.”
Strengthened by an urgency to get inside before being discovered, she hauls herself onto the high gate. She looks for a soft landing to break her fall and avoid the sound of her boots hitting the path and takes aim for the flower garden.
This is her first mistake. No, that’s not true, it’s just one of the many mistakes she’s made that night. The night that is quickly turning into morning and an almost certain bellowing and “conse-fuckin-quences” from her father.
She crawls out of “The Euphorbia Bed”, as her mother insists on calling it, with a bad posh English accent. A bit panicked because she realises she has trashed the ever so special “Euphorbia Bed”, she tries to tidy up the broken plants and hides some of the stems and flower heads under her shirt. “What the hell! I thought they looked soft, not snappy and breaky. Stupid plants!”
Thankfully, Mr Security hadn’t noticed the sliding door leading to the nothing room that is ridiculously known as The Den. “Not a den,” Sugar thinks as she slides the door across, quietly grateful for the stupid forgotten room, that she had left unlocked when she snuck out earlier that night.
Without changing her clothes, she pulls off her boots and quickly hops into bed and falls fast asleep.
“Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, Shoooo Garrrrr!” She wonders how many times her younger sister had been calling her name. She feels a bit delirious but puts it down to lack of sleep.
“What is it Penny? Can’t it wait, I’m really tired.”
“We’re going to Aunty Jen’s remember! Come on, everyone’s ready except you. Mom said get your bathers and towel and hurry up!”
Sugar strips off her clothes from last night and the flowers and stems of the euphorbia fall to the floor. She almost screams out loud when she sees the thick red welts all over her chest and abdomen.
The minute she sees the swelling, she feels the pain and the itching.
“What the actual hell!” She cries out loud. “What the?”
Vague memories of her mother talking endlessly about “The Euphorbia Bed” start to trickle back to her mushy brain.
“Don’t ever pick these, ok? Be really careful not to get the sap on you. As lovely as these Euphorbias are, they have a nasty toxic sap inside.”
The itching intensifies again as Sugar realises what she has done. Looking in the mirror she sees it’s not just her torso, but arms, legs, hands and neck all have angry itchy red welts and blisters on them from her exploits in The Euphorbia Bed.
“Are you ready yet?” squeaks Penny from the other side of her door. “What are you yelling about? Can’t you find your bathers?”
Bathers? Oh shitty shit shit! Far out! Why today? I can’t wear bathers today? I can’t go swimming in Aunty Jen’s new pool like this.
Sugar moves from her bather drawer to her sports drawer. Pulls out a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeved top. Checking the mirror again, she sees a blurry image of herself with bright red stripes around her neck. She grabs a silk scarf to wrap around her neck.
“Farrrr… out!” She screams involuntarily as she runs into the side of her bed, banging her shin on the metal frame and stubbing three toes on the wooden leg. “Geez I must be more hungover than I thought,” she thinks. “I can barely see where I’m going!”
She looks back to the mirror and is horrified to see her eyes puffy and red, with tiny slits where her eyeballs used to be. “Good god! Oh my god, oh my god, what the actual?”
“Sugar? Are you ok?” It’s her damned little sister again.
“Fuck off Penny!” She hisses.
“Awwww. I’m telling mum! No. I’m telling DAD!”
“No! Penny, Pen, no. I’m sorry. I lost my temper. Sorry munchkin.”
“What’s going on Sugar?” Penny wiggles the door handle, and bangs on the door. “Let me in you idiot!”
“No!”
“Let me in!”
“No, farrr… go away pleeeeease.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you let me in!”
Sugar scratches her arms, chest and face. Her eyes are really stinging. She wipes away tears, even though she doesn’t remember crying.
Sighing heavily she unlocks her bedroom door. Putting her finger up to her lips, she quickly pulls Penny into the room.
Looking at the puffy red face of her older sister, “Oh,” was all Penny could say.
“Yes, OH!”
“What happened to you?”
“I accidentally fell into mum’s “Euphorbia Bed”. Despite her pain, Sugar manages to pull off a good imitation of her mother’s exaggerated English accent.
“Don’t you know that is toxic?” Penny’s eyes are wide as she slowly shakes her head.
“Yeah, well I do now, obviously, Britney!” Sugar spits out from increasingly swelling lips.
“Glasses, you need sunglasses. The bigger the better. And you definitely don’t need any lip gloss,” Penny offers.
“Girls! What’s the hold up? We need to go. Aunty Jen wants us there early because the boys have to go to a basketball party in the afternoon,” Mum yells from down the passage.
One last look in the mirror and Sugar dons sunglasses and a floppy hat, and in a token gesture, grabs a towel from the cupboard in the hallway.
“Oh hello Marta Hari.” Says mum, with a smile on her face.
“I don’t know what you are talking about old woman.”
“No need to be like that. I was just making a joke. Marta Hari was a famous spy from the war.”
“I’m not a spy!”
“No. Of course not.” Mum sighs. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
From the driveway Dad beeps the horn.
They all pile into the car in a tumble of bags, towels, spare bags, spare towels, floaty toys, umbrellas and more bags of sunscreen, water and snacks.
“Maree, I’m sure your sister has water if we need it,” says Dad calmly, giving Mum a pat on the knee and a wink.
“I know. It’s just for the car ride,” says Mum, shrugging her shoulders.
After final inventory is called they set off for the forty minute drive to Aunty Jen’s house.
In the back seat of the car, Penny nudges Sugar every time she starts to scratch herself.
Dad stretches his neck as he looks in the mirror, wanting to see what’s going on in the back seat, rather than behind the car.
“Are you two ok?”
“Yep.”
“Yep.”
Come quick replies from the back.
“You’re as red as a beetroot Sugar! Why are you wearing so many clothes if you’re hot?”
“Beetroots are more of a maroon colour,” answers Sugar, hoping to deflect the conversation.
“Hmm. Now that you mention it, you are a kind of maroon colour.”
Mum swings around from the passenger seat and has a proper look at Sugar.
“Take off those glasses!” She demands. Sugar slowly removes the oversized sunnies to reveal her swollen red eyes. Alarm shows on her mother’s face, as she looks from one daughter to the other. Then fixes on Penny’s eyes enquiringly knowing the younger girl would be the first to break.
“Sugar accidentally fell into the euphorbia bed and now she’s covered in red blisters and her eyes are red and she’s really itchy and I think she needs to go to the doctor because euphorbia are really toxic, and she might even go BLIND!”
Penny heaves a massive sigh, letting out the anxiety she’d been holding onto in a state of cognitive dissonance. If she only knew what that meant it would make a whole lot of sense of the confusion she was feeling right now.
Dad looks into the mirror again, but this time to check the road behind. He swerves across three lanes of traffic and leaves the freeway to head to the nearest hospital.
Mum tells Penny to put some towels on Sugar’s lap and to help her flush her eyes using the water bottles. Mum can’t help sneaking a sideways glance at Dad, who returns a worried smile and pats Mum on the knee again.
Luckily, triage in the Emergency Department is relatively swift. Being mid morning, enough time has passed after the Friday night overdoses and fights, and too early for the Saturday sporting injuries. Sugar is led panting and scratching into a shower room. By now she can’t see more than vague shapes directly in front of her face. The water on her body feels like pin pricks from a thousand hedgehogs. Sugar lets the nurse irrigate her eyes, for way longer than she thinks necessary, without complaining. Her usual cockiness has been severely reined in with the realisation of how close she’s come to more serious injury.
Aunty Jen’s inaugural pool party is postponed and finally Sugar is released from the emergency room.
“She’s a very silly girl. But a lucky one,” says the scowling nurse, as she gives instructions to Mum on further care.
On the way home no-one says a word for a good fifteen minutes. Just as they turn down their street, Mum can’t hold back any longer.
“Sugar, what the hell! Why didn’t you tell me darling? Why were you trying to hide this? Don’t you know you could’ve been permanently blinded by euphorbia sap? Wh… wh… why? Whoo oh, oh, why didn’t you tell me?” Then she breaks down and sobs uncontrollably as she tries to hold Sugar’s hand from her seat at the front.
“I thought you’d be mad that I ruined your plants,” says Sugar quietly.
“You mean the You-For-Bee-Ahhhh Bed,” Penny pipes up dramatically.
They all throw Penny glowering looks, until they see her beaming face and the car erupts in relieved laughter.
-
Reading, Writing, Reading Some More
Now that I’m full swing into writing my novel with the Faber Writing Academy, I’m even busier than ever reading.
One of my favourite books about writing is Stephen King’s On Writing, where he says:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
Stephen KingAnd whilst I’ve always been a keen reader, things have really ramped up now.
There’s always at least four different books on the go, and I’ve noticed that my subject matter falls into one of four different categories.
First up, no great surprise, are the books about writing. I’ve just finished listening to Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, on Audible. Next up, is one I bought today, Dreyer’s English, An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, by the utterly brilliant Benjamin Dreyer, long time copy chief of Random House.
Category 2 is like my pleasure zone (not that I don’t enjoy the other books I’m reading) But there’s a special joy in reading novels by amazing Australian authors. And the slightly embarrassing and not at all stalky fan girl in me loves it when I’ve got an author signed book to read. If I may clarify this by saying, that if I have a signed book, it’s usually because I’ve been to an author talk and been entertained, intrigued and engaged by the writer and their story. Also, I love how it takes me out of my regular zone and introduces me to new writers, local writers and genres that I don’t usually read.
Recent favourites include, but are not exclusive to, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, Someone Else’s Child by Kylie Orr, Returning to Adelaide by Anne Freeman, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland, and of course two of my absolute favourites from last year, The Dictionary of Lost Words, and The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams. I’m sure there are a heap I’ve left out. I’m currently engrossed in Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne. A book I started to read a while ago that was interrupted, but am so glad I’ve gone back to. In fact, even as I write this, I’m itching to go to bed and read more. And the great thing about newly published authors is that there’s usually a second book that follows very soon. Kerryn Mayne’s latest release is Joy Moody is Out of Time, and Kylie Orr is having great success with The Eleventh Floor.
Then there appears to be a category of classics. Which could be something that I’ve always meant to read but somehow missed, for instance Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – brilliant! Or books that are important to me that I’m rereading, currently Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, which is equal parts completely nuts and incredibly insightful.
So that leaves Category 4. What should I call it? Booktok? Current bestsellers? What is everyone talking about? Hmmm. This is the most tricky category of all. Sometimes the What is Everyone Talking About category can be extremely disappointing, even painful in a literary sense. Like the time I thought I should read a CoHo book because “people” were saying it’s the best thing they have ever read. Obediently I read It Ends With Us by the TikTok sweetheart Colleen Hoover. OK, no, that’s not my jam. Awful, seriously dreadful. But I’m sure Ms Hoover has absolutely no concerns of my review as she laughs all the way to the big old Amazon bank. And I could list a whole lot of other “Best Sellers” that have left me wondering, and wanting.
But instead I’ll give you two beautifully crafted pieces of literary art. Babel by R.F. Kuang, which I found way more engrossing than her trending novel Yellowface. And the other is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, who’s probably more well known for the recent Netflix adaptation of his book All the Light We Cannot See.
And that brings me to Category 5. Wait, what? You said there were four categories. And so I thought. But it turns out, when you are studying writing, there is a whole other sub category of amazing, beautiful writing that you’ve never heard of. Scribble that one down, oh and who was that? Ok scribble that down too. And on and on it goes. So many amazing books, written in so many different styles. So much to read, so much to learn, I cannot list them all, but may do in a separate blog.
Oops, did I mention my love of YA and middle school books?
Have you loved any of these books? What are you reading now?
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Amanda Gambas Author 