Angles – pastiche inspired by a photo of modern architecture
“Julian!” A slow drawl at first. But no response. No response except the crunching cascade of ice behind chrome doors and a tattered clatter of female tones on polished surface.
“Julian!” Sharper now. But still no response. A fly buzzed behind the grey horizontal lines strung by cord across the windows. Her eyeballs followed his whirling slams from one slat to the next.
“Julian!” An order now. Crisp. Loud. Exacting. But still the micro-climate rang silence in response.
She pushed back the sheets and padded across the Tasmanian oak, hand-cut, hand-laid, hand-polished. Lights heralded her entry into the creamy blankness of the bathroom. A cascade of water spurted. Vacuum suck expelled the whisper of steam.
Leather boots, white shirt, jeans. Hair pulled back. A curve of coffee-coloured lipstick. She strode out across the expanse of lustrous floor. Tat-tat. Tat-tat. Tat-tat. The gleam of the screen; a touchpad revelation – Julian already on his way to Heathrow; Julian had left earlier than normal today.
She perched on the black leather stool, lifted her chin and stared out an endless gaze. At nothing.
“Grieve” - A Short Story
The latch clicks shut behind me. The metal gate has scraped tiny abrasions along my fingertips. Memories of the softly mouldering five wooden bars that used to stand here play in my palms. The old timber gate – friend, climbing frame, castle and perch.
All morning, the sniping scorn of my wife has poured over me. This place beckoned, drew me here. Refuge.
And so, as I turn towards the pasture of my childhood, the arches of my feet flex, ready to curl around tufts of grass and moguls of river sand. But no. Instead the nugget crunch of concrete slides beneath my soles. I look up and my eyes narrow in the flint-grey glare. No flash of emerald grass. The creek bed has gone, embalmed in a precise bed of concrete.
My pupils draw staccato lines across the landscape in sudden, frantic search of familiar markers. No crown of gum above me. No mounds of lyrebird scratchings. An interloper, a sturdy hillock of rubble specked with weed sprouts, lies to my left. Even the blazened trunks of blackbutt that should have clustered to my right have been erased, as if some draughtsman has dragged his rubber across them, an inconvenience to the angles of his plans.
The breeze whirls up a slap of concrete dust which spatters my face, gritting my tongue. I toe-kick the ground. Solidity slams through my legs. Tiny red gumboots used to sink into muddy hollows here, tramping through pools of pennywort and kicking up rainbows in the puddles. Echoes of boyish chuckles ring in my ears.
Machinery, limp in bent repose, stands and waits. I begin to walk.
Out of - what? Habit? Respect? - I trace the lines of the creek bed. I zigzag disjointedly remembering long-ago leaps from peak to hollow. Deft as a hare, I once threaded my way through the rocks that lay here, shivering in terror of black cracks where tiny feet could slip and jam. I feel again the tendril spill of ancient lomandra against my shins. I walk until the concrete yields to loamy earth, until my neck involuntarily cranes to see the tumble of the river. But the muddy flow ahead gouges a slow, cynical leer through these meadowlands, baring two rows of white-toothed, angular rocks that eclipse the platypus-clawed furrows of the riverbanks. Beside me, a blackened timberpile denies the koala whisper on the breeze. A ragged plastic sack flaps hollowly. In response, the peep of a solitary moorhen carries across an unhearing, flattened land.
An animal howl wells as the moorhen’s lost offspring dreams thread spirals through me. I respond to the bird, to my land, to my country, to myself with a clotted, ragged sob.
First meeting – a short story told from one person’s perspective
“It was funny because I’d never talked to a black person before.” She laughs momentarily. “I mean, not directly. I’d seen black people. In the movies. What am I saying? Even across the street! But I hadn’t actually spoken to one before… But my teacher was very specific. He said to me “Go and ask Richard.” And I said “Who’s Richard?” And he said “There! Richard! With the hat on.” And I couldn’t really work out what he meant because all I could think was “What? The black man?””
She falls silent for a moment, her eyes in a mist of memories. “Yes… So, I walked across the room, elbowed my way through. He’s tall, you know? Richard?” She nudges him slightly, looks up at him, eyes spilling laughter. “He’s very tall. But that was a good thing, because it meant I didn’t lose sight of him in the crowd. And all I kept thinking all the way across was “My God! What would my father say?” Because I knew he wouldn’t approve of me talking to a black man. And here I was, about to do something that had always been totally off limits. Talking to a black man. Even talking about a black man! My father would have shushed me. He was a bit… traditional.” Her face crumples a smile. “And I just remember coming right up and standing directly in front of him, because I didn’t feel brave enough to touch him, even though he was wearing this sort of moleskin waistcoat and I really wanted to touch it, and I didn’t even feel brave enough to say anything either, so I just stood there – and my head only came up to about… mmm… here” – she places a flat palm next to Richard’s chest – “Yes – about here. And I stood there right in front of him and waited, staring up at his big black face and broad, strong lips and took him all in.” She laughs again, waves the thought away. “And finally he noticed me.” With this, she slips her hand under his. “Finally, he turned the big white orbs of his eyes down towards me and this great, wide smile erupted across his face. And right there and then, I sort of knew… Yes, I knew. That I was way down a path father wouldn’t approve of. Not one iota.”
