"You discover your boss is involved in illegal activity. Tell the story using dialogue as much as possible."
It had started out as my dream job come true. The Braunstein Cosmetic Clinic was the biggest, most expensive and most prestigious plastic surgery company in the Asia Pacific region. They did everything from rhinoplasty to breast implants and boasted clients from around the world, all of them rich and famous. I had started my career as an accountant for a small Sydney firm and over the next 20 years I jumped from position to position always advancing my reputation and salary. At 43 I remained a confirmed bachelor. My career was my life. My proudest achievement took place 6 months ago when Sid Braunstein himself had welcomed me to the company as Chief Financial Officer.
It was the memory of that greeting that prompted me to give a little more, to dig in and explore got me into the predicament that I now face. Here I sit in Dr. Braunstein’s reception waiting for the appointment that could ruin my career and my life.
At precisely 10 a.m. the secretary led me into Dr. Braunstein’s office.
“Oliver, come in. Can I offer you anything to drink? Coffee, tea, maybe something stronger? Please have a seat.”
“A black coffee would be perfect Dr. Braunstein, thanks,” I replied, thinking that a caffeine hit would help right now.
“Make that two black coffees Harriet and how about a platter of those short bread biscuits? And Oliver, as CFO you’re my right hand man. Let’s make it Sid.”
Harriet set out the snacks and coffees and then slipped out of the office.
“So Oliver, we haven’t had a word together lately except at board meetings. How has life at Braunstein Cosmetic Clinic been for you?”
“Well Dr. Br…, Sid, working here has been the realization of my life’s dream. Your generosity has been exceptional. I never thought that I would receive a profit share as part of my package. And the information management system that I am in control of is a real world beater. I have access to everything that a CFO needs to do his job and then some.
“And Sid, that’s the reason that I’m here to talk to you. I’ve made it my business to know everything about BCC. After all that’s what I’m being paid for. And in doing my research I discovered that some of the security in our computer system is, shall I say, weak. One evening when I stayed back reviewing our breast implant P&L’s I was flipping back and forth between spreadsheets when I accidentally pressed Alt-Q instead of Alt-Tab. Suddenly a window popped up on my monitor asking me if I wished to look at the transplant data. Having no idea what transplant data was and being curious I replied Yes and when asked for the password simply hit Enter. I was then taken to another screen where the most amazing set of figures came up.”
Sid looked at me with what I felt was a non-committal stare. “Go on,” he said.
“There were over 70 entries in the data summary and at the top was the heading ‘Kidney Transplants’. Well to get right to the point, I dug deeper into the data all night and discovered that BCC has been buying kidneys and performing transplant operations. Sid, buying kidneys is illegal and this is what we have to talk about.”
“Oliver there’s not much to talk about. We have been doing kidney transplants for about 3 years now. It’s easily the most profitable arm of the business.”
My first reaction to this was shock. I had expected Sid to deny everything, perhaps even be ignorant of it all. “Sid you can’t be serious. I know that we clear a million dollars on every kidney operation but it’s still illegal. We can’t do it.”
Sid was calm as he continued, “We not only can do it, we will continue to do it. I see it all as a victimless crime anyway. All of our bought kidneys come from very healthy young men and women who can spare a kidney and love the $10,000 we give them for it. Surely you know that we can all function on one kidney perfectly so long as it’s healthy. And they are making it possible for another human being to go on living. What could be wrong with that?”
“Sid I’m neither a lawyer nor an ethicist. I just know that what we are doing is illegal and now that I know about it, I’m afraid I must report this to the authorities. I just felt compelled to talk to you first.”
“Well I’m sorry to hear you talk that way,” Sid replied. “I’ll have to ask you to leave my office.”
With that we both rose and walked towards the door. I must admit I thought he was taking it rather calmly. He put his arm on my shoulder as he opened the door and everything went black.
When I awoke, I found myself flat on my back in what seemed to be a hospital bed. Sid Braunstein stood beside the bed looking at a chart.
“What have you done to me?” I asked groggily. “Where am I?” I felt a twinge of pain in my lower left back.
“Well according to my documentation, you’ve just had a kidney transplant. It says here that you’ve approved the operation and agreed to the purchase of a kidney from one Mr. Raj Patel from Bombay, India. Congratulations. The operation was a stunning success. And oh, I have to remind you not to tell anyone. What you did was highly illegal.”
In spite of the pain I sputtered, “You can’t be serious. You could have killed me.”
“Oh don’t be so dramatic. You’ve still got your old kidney plus a new incision where a kidney transplant might have gone. All I did was snip your kidney tubes and then sew them back up. But no one except you and I know that. Of course if you wanted to get some third party to remove your healthy kidney and prove that it’s really yours go ahead. Meanwhile I have this signed documentation proving that you joined BCC partly to receive this operation. You really should have paid more attention that day we had you sign all those forms.”
Snookered, I thought to myself.
“Oliver I hired you because of your brilliant accounting mind, not because as you say, you’re an ethicist. Frankly if you hadn’t found the kidney data soon I would have been disappointed. And it is hidden very well by the way. Just not from your terminal.”
I lay there slowly coming out of my stupor. Revenge was the first thing that popped into my mind. But what came out of my mouth seemed to fit our newfound relationship better. “Sid I think we can increase our profitability 10% by cutting out the stand-by anesthetist. The co-surgeon we use can fill that role.”
Friday 26 March 2010
Dreams Can Come True! by Gordon
The countdown clock for Christmas is ticking. Santa's elves begin working their magic on the assembly lines, but the line comes to a screeching halt when rumours leak that one elf is going to get let go that day.
Dreams Can Come True!
by Gordon MacAulay
The roll call started: “Elmo, Janny, Bunle, Spark, Ellie, Bounder, Kallie, Jikney, Blitzie, Baffle, Rando, Purdy, Danno, Abran, Wulkie, Zanzwi and Ripplo.” “All present” yelled Ripplo the senior elf.” This was always his response as the last name on the rambling list was read. Immediately, they all began to work at their production line producing hundreds of items a day.
Team spirit was the essence of an elf’s life. Elmo knew exactly how to cut the two pieces of cloth and pass them to Janny who stitched with an elegant movement of arms and threw the result to Bunle and so it went day after day. Of course, Zanzwi was at the end of the line and many times Abran and Wulkie would finish with the labels and wrapping leaving Zanzwi without work. Zanzwi would yell over the noise to his fellow elves “Hey what about sharing, I will be out of a job tomorrow.” For a little while Zanzwi would be busy as he knew Santa’s senior manager, Dancer, would come in regularly to see how work was progressing.
“Smoko” said Ripplo. Zanzwi rushed outside although he never smoked. Wulkie followed. They sat on a bench overlooking the ice-covered lake. Zanzwi thought for a few moments. “What would it be like to be not working”, he said, turning to look very directly at Wulkie. “Imagine what you could do? I could travel over the tundra, I could spend time exploring the wilderness, I could play with my children and I could even climb a mountain. I could be so free and relaxed. No one would be watching what I am doing all the time and no need to sit waiting while everybody else catches up with me.” “Wow”, says Wulkie, taking in a big sigh. Wulkie paused and in a slow and deliberate manner said: “Would you miss us?” There was a long silence between the two. Eventually Zanzwi said: “I think I would.”
Ripplo, watching the time carefully, pressed the button that rang a bell through the igloo-shaped building reporting the end of “smoko.” Slowly Zanzwi and Wulkie walked back inside the building without saying anything. Ever alert to the slightest innuendo or rumours, Ellie slid up beside Wulkie and said: “Better be careful, I have just seen Ripplo talking to Dancer. They were looking very secretive—almost whispering to each other. “ “What do you think?” said Wulkie. “My guess is we are in for downsizing. You know we have just had an economic crisis!” he whispered. “Be careful that what you wish will come true”, retorted Zanzwi.
The bell suddenly rang again and they all stopped work. They had all been working hard to finish a batch of 1000 pieces. Ripplo stood and said: “I bring you all some good news and some bad news. We have just completed a new record number of items for a year and finished two days before Christmas eve. Well done. The bad news is Zanzwi, you are to be made redundant.” Slowly, in complete silence, sixteen elves walked out of the building.
27 March 2010
Dreams Can Come True!
by Gordon MacAulay
The roll call started: “Elmo, Janny, Bunle, Spark, Ellie, Bounder, Kallie, Jikney, Blitzie, Baffle, Rando, Purdy, Danno, Abran, Wulkie, Zanzwi and Ripplo.” “All present” yelled Ripplo the senior elf.” This was always his response as the last name on the rambling list was read. Immediately, they all began to work at their production line producing hundreds of items a day.
Team spirit was the essence of an elf’s life. Elmo knew exactly how to cut the two pieces of cloth and pass them to Janny who stitched with an elegant movement of arms and threw the result to Bunle and so it went day after day. Of course, Zanzwi was at the end of the line and many times Abran and Wulkie would finish with the labels and wrapping leaving Zanzwi without work. Zanzwi would yell over the noise to his fellow elves “Hey what about sharing, I will be out of a job tomorrow.” For a little while Zanzwi would be busy as he knew Santa’s senior manager, Dancer, would come in regularly to see how work was progressing.
“Smoko” said Ripplo. Zanzwi rushed outside although he never smoked. Wulkie followed. They sat on a bench overlooking the ice-covered lake. Zanzwi thought for a few moments. “What would it be like to be not working”, he said, turning to look very directly at Wulkie. “Imagine what you could do? I could travel over the tundra, I could spend time exploring the wilderness, I could play with my children and I could even climb a mountain. I could be so free and relaxed. No one would be watching what I am doing all the time and no need to sit waiting while everybody else catches up with me.” “Wow”, says Wulkie, taking in a big sigh. Wulkie paused and in a slow and deliberate manner said: “Would you miss us?” There was a long silence between the two. Eventually Zanzwi said: “I think I would.”
Ripplo, watching the time carefully, pressed the button that rang a bell through the igloo-shaped building reporting the end of “smoko.” Slowly Zanzwi and Wulkie walked back inside the building without saying anything. Ever alert to the slightest innuendo or rumours, Ellie slid up beside Wulkie and said: “Better be careful, I have just seen Ripplo talking to Dancer. They were looking very secretive—almost whispering to each other. “ “What do you think?” said Wulkie. “My guess is we are in for downsizing. You know we have just had an economic crisis!” he whispered. “Be careful that what you wish will come true”, retorted Zanzwi.
The bell suddenly rang again and they all stopped work. They had all been working hard to finish a batch of 1000 pieces. Ripplo stood and said: “I bring you all some good news and some bad news. We have just completed a new record number of items for a year and finished two days before Christmas eve. Well done. The bad news is Zanzwi, you are to be made redundant.” Slowly, in complete silence, sixteen elves walked out of the building.
27 March 2010
The Sacking - by Rick
The countdown clock for Christmas is ticking. Santa's elves begin working their magic on the assembly lines, but the line comes to a screeching halt when rumors leak that one elf is going to get let go that day.
The Sacking
“Pssst”, Elvis stage-whispered over to Elvira who was opposite him on the Transformers assembly line. “Did you hear what happened to Alf?” Alf, who normally sat beside Elvis, was mysteriously absent that morning.
“No. It’s not like him to take a sickee so close to the Big Day. What have you heard?”
“Well,” Elvis went on in a voice that could barely be heard above the clanking and banging of the line, “word has it that he’s been given the sack by SC himself.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that. Alf is one of the best workers ever. Master would never let Alf go. There must be some mistake.”
“That’s what I thought at first when Evelyn told me this morning over cocoa. You know how she gossips. But she swore that when she was leaving yesterday, she walked by Master’s office and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation he was having with Alf. ‘You’re getting the sack Alf’ was what she heard the Old Man say. Then she snuck off before she was found out eavesdropping.”
“Goodness,” replied Elvira. “That might explain why I smelled loganberry wine on Alf’s breath last night when he passed me in the hallway. He did seem a bit tipsy.”
“Well if it could happen to a hard worker like Alf, it could happen to any of us. I say we’ve got to do something.” This time Elvis wasn’t so quiet and the elves over on the Chatty Cathy line glanced over.
“Do something?” stammered Elvira. “What do you mean by that? We don’t have time to do anything what with Christmas just 4 days away.”
All the elves’ ears were turned Elvis’ way now. He went on, “I hear that way down in Australia they do a lot of what’s called Industrial Action. When the workers are downtrodden or abused, they stop working and stay that way until the abuse is fixed. That’s what we should do. We should stop working until Alf is fixed.”
Elvira went white, which isn’t easy for a green elf. “What are you saying, stop work? Millions and millions of children depend on us. We just can’t stop.”
“That’s what Master is counting on. We’ll never stand up to him because we never, ever did. But we’ve never had a sacking before either.”
“Dear me,” squeaked Elvira. “I suppose you’re right, but stop working? Couldn’t we just write a note after Christmas is over and leave it on Master’s desk?”
“No, Elvis is right.” “We have to take action now.” “Power to the workers.” The other elves were throwing in their opinions now.
Buoyed up by the votes of confidence all around him, Elvis leapt to his stubby little legs, ran over to the end of the line and pressed the big red button. Bells started clanging all over the place and all of the lines jerked to a halt. Elves came running over from all directions to find out what happened.
“Who pressed the emergency stop?” screamed Evelyn. “Did someone fall under the conveyor belt again?”
Then from the second story balcony a booming voice rang out that overpowered all the cacophony. “What’s going on down there? Who stopped the production lines?”
Elvis, Elvira and all of elfdom gazed up and there was Santa himself and standing beside him was Alf.
With a puzzled look on his face Elvis yelled up, “I did Master. We want to know why our good friend and hard worker Alf, was given the sack.”
With that Santa gave one of his best “Ho, ho, ho”s ever with Alf coming in a close second. After he got his breath back Santa he paused and looked sternly over the assembly. “I can tell that somebody was putting their not so little ears where they don’t belong. We’ll talk about that after Christmas but yes it’s true, Alf is being given the sack.”
There was a gasp from the collective and when the rumblings stopped Santa continue. “You’re right Elvis about Alf being a good worker. He’s been so good in fact that me and the missus decided that he should be given the Christmas sack. Christmas Eve Alf is riding the skies with me and will be the first elf ever to be given this honor. I was going announce this at lunch today but circumstances changed my plans. Alf and I have been going over the logistics of it all if that’s ok with you all.”
There was a hushed murmur from the elves which then broke into a long and hearty ovation. When it stopped Elvis sheepishly replied, “Yes Master, that makes us all very happy and I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like that.”
“Apology accepted my friend. Now back to the lines everyone and let’s make up for lost time. The kiddies are waiting and we mustn’t let them down.”
As they walked back to their places, Elvira whispered to Elvis, “Let’s chat a bit more about this Australia thing. I was thinking we haven’t had a pay raise in 1300 years and working 18 hours a day sounds a bit much too, and then there’s the issue of …..”
The Sacking
“Pssst”, Elvis stage-whispered over to Elvira who was opposite him on the Transformers assembly line. “Did you hear what happened to Alf?” Alf, who normally sat beside Elvis, was mysteriously absent that morning.
“No. It’s not like him to take a sickee so close to the Big Day. What have you heard?”
“Well,” Elvis went on in a voice that could barely be heard above the clanking and banging of the line, “word has it that he’s been given the sack by SC himself.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that. Alf is one of the best workers ever. Master would never let Alf go. There must be some mistake.”
“That’s what I thought at first when Evelyn told me this morning over cocoa. You know how she gossips. But she swore that when she was leaving yesterday, she walked by Master’s office and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation he was having with Alf. ‘You’re getting the sack Alf’ was what she heard the Old Man say. Then she snuck off before she was found out eavesdropping.”
“Goodness,” replied Elvira. “That might explain why I smelled loganberry wine on Alf’s breath last night when he passed me in the hallway. He did seem a bit tipsy.”
“Well if it could happen to a hard worker like Alf, it could happen to any of us. I say we’ve got to do something.” This time Elvis wasn’t so quiet and the elves over on the Chatty Cathy line glanced over.
“Do something?” stammered Elvira. “What do you mean by that? We don’t have time to do anything what with Christmas just 4 days away.”
All the elves’ ears were turned Elvis’ way now. He went on, “I hear that way down in Australia they do a lot of what’s called Industrial Action. When the workers are downtrodden or abused, they stop working and stay that way until the abuse is fixed. That’s what we should do. We should stop working until Alf is fixed.”
Elvira went white, which isn’t easy for a green elf. “What are you saying, stop work? Millions and millions of children depend on us. We just can’t stop.”
“That’s what Master is counting on. We’ll never stand up to him because we never, ever did. But we’ve never had a sacking before either.”
“Dear me,” squeaked Elvira. “I suppose you’re right, but stop working? Couldn’t we just write a note after Christmas is over and leave it on Master’s desk?”
“No, Elvis is right.” “We have to take action now.” “Power to the workers.” The other elves were throwing in their opinions now.
Buoyed up by the votes of confidence all around him, Elvis leapt to his stubby little legs, ran over to the end of the line and pressed the big red button. Bells started clanging all over the place and all of the lines jerked to a halt. Elves came running over from all directions to find out what happened.
“Who pressed the emergency stop?” screamed Evelyn. “Did someone fall under the conveyor belt again?”
Then from the second story balcony a booming voice rang out that overpowered all the cacophony. “What’s going on down there? Who stopped the production lines?”
Elvis, Elvira and all of elfdom gazed up and there was Santa himself and standing beside him was Alf.
With a puzzled look on his face Elvis yelled up, “I did Master. We want to know why our good friend and hard worker Alf, was given the sack.”
With that Santa gave one of his best “Ho, ho, ho”s ever with Alf coming in a close second. After he got his breath back Santa he paused and looked sternly over the assembly. “I can tell that somebody was putting their not so little ears where they don’t belong. We’ll talk about that after Christmas but yes it’s true, Alf is being given the sack.”
There was a gasp from the collective and when the rumblings stopped Santa continue. “You’re right Elvis about Alf being a good worker. He’s been so good in fact that me and the missus decided that he should be given the Christmas sack. Christmas Eve Alf is riding the skies with me and will be the first elf ever to be given this honor. I was going announce this at lunch today but circumstances changed my plans. Alf and I have been going over the logistics of it all if that’s ok with you all.”
There was a hushed murmur from the elves which then broke into a long and hearty ovation. When it stopped Elvis sheepishly replied, “Yes Master, that makes us all very happy and I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like that.”
“Apology accepted my friend. Now back to the lines everyone and let’s make up for lost time. The kiddies are waiting and we mustn’t let them down.”
As they walked back to their places, Elvira whispered to Elvis, “Let’s chat a bit more about this Australia thing. I was thinking we haven’t had a pay raise in 1300 years and working 18 hours a day sounds a bit much too, and then there’s the issue of …..”
Herman takes his place (Heather)
The countdown clock for Christmas is ticking. Santa's elves begin working their magic on the assembly lines, but the line comes to a screeching halt when rumors leak that one elf is going to get let go that day.
“Oh, isn’t he cute?” one of the flesh-things said as it walked by, turning to look directly at Herman.
“It must be a new model,” another flesh-thing beside it said. “It’s nearly life-size. Don’t you love the cooking-pot head? And the scrub-brush mullet?”
“It looks very professional. It will make some child very happy come Christmas,” the first said.
Herman waited patiently, his cooking-pot head cocked slightly to the side, scrub-brush bristles sensing alertly. He assessed the last of the two beings who had passed and were making their way down the long assembly lines. Female, if his databank informed him correctly. Elf. 92 centimetres high. Red cheeks. Green pinafore. Red apron. Red and green striped stockings. Nametag reading: Nancy.
The Nancy elf flesh-thing, well, Nancy, to say it correctly, stepped up at a place in the assembly line where several dolls without arms (hmmmm…humanoid, big boobs, little middle, plastic yellow hair) waited in front of her. Nancy smiled and waved at several of her workmates.
Herman continued to watch. He’d been told to wait here until called, and waiting was one of the many things he was good at.
He was also good at doing stuff. He made a little mental list, which glowed on the round screen on his forehead, if anyone had been watching.
Things I can do:
1. Put arms on dolls
2. Paint soldiers
3. Brush snow off reindeer
4. Plot orbits of planets
5. Make lunch
Things I can’t do yet:
1. Talk out loud
2. Think of jokes
3. Ice skate
4. Play banjo
5. Think philosophically
He could have put several thousand more things on each list but he was happy with five for now. Besides, he was busy watching.
He was especially good at watching, actually.
He watched Nancy laughing with the elf (male, 98 centimetres, green and red stockings, leather apron…) next to her on the assembly line, fluttering her eyelashes up and down at him. She threw a candycane at someone on the other side of the room. She picked up one of the dolls and jammed an arm in (Pop!), then reached over and wiggled her fingers in the armpit of the laughing elf beside her.
She was fun to watch.
Suddenly someone came out of one of the elf-boxes (what are they called? - that’s right, elfices, no, offices) along the wall, walked up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped a little, then followed him back to the office where he shut the door firmly. No smiling, no laughing.
That’s when Herman got the message. His antenna quivered as the call came through. Across his forehead screen flashed the instruction he was receiving: Go to empty place in assembly line. Put arms on dolls as programmed to do.
Herman briskly activated his feet-walkers and moved to the place recently vacated by Nancy. He pincered up one of the armless dolls, boobs side up, and pushed in two arms, one after the other.
Pop! Pop!
He passed the doll to the elf beside him (male, 98 centimetres, red and green stockings, leather apron, mouth wide open) and picked up another doll.
That’s when he noticed the sudden quiet in the room.
This time the Pop! Pop! sounded very loud.
His scrub-brush bristles quivered as he registered all eyes on him. 116 eyes divided by 2 = 58 elves. No smiling, no laughing.
POP! POP!
The quiet didn’t last long. Within nano-seconds his sensors were besieged by a cacophony of voices.
“What the hell?”
“What do you mean, Nancy’s been fired?”
“Replaced by a frippin’ robot? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Finally Herman’s sensors overloaded and he could no longer process all the input. “… nobody like Nan…” “…all be replaced soon…” “…sick of being treated like…” “what’s the world come…” “…if you can’t trust Santa…” “….going to San Francisco, where they know how to treat a …”
In addition to the vocal chaos, there was visual hullabaloo as well. Fists punched the air; arms waved. Somebody’s red, white and green scarf got caught in Herman’s sensor bristles, making everything that much harder to sort out.
But an idea nonetheless managed to wedge its way into his processor.
He picked up a candycane in his tosser-pincer and threw it across the room to a large elf who was shrieking very loudly. He climbed up onto the table and at top volume played his favourite song: When the Saints Go Marching In. He did a little jig with his feet-dancers.
And then he climbed back down and placed two arms into a doll.
Pop. Pop.
The hubbub diminished.
All the elves looked at one another and then slowly began picking up their toys and tools.
Pop. Pop.
Herman’s eyes fogged over slightly from relief.
Pop. Pop.
“Oh, isn’t he cute?” one of the flesh-things said as it walked by, turning to look directly at Herman.
“It must be a new model,” another flesh-thing beside it said. “It’s nearly life-size. Don’t you love the cooking-pot head? And the scrub-brush mullet?”
“It looks very professional. It will make some child very happy come Christmas,” the first said.
Herman waited patiently, his cooking-pot head cocked slightly to the side, scrub-brush bristles sensing alertly. He assessed the last of the two beings who had passed and were making their way down the long assembly lines. Female, if his databank informed him correctly. Elf. 92 centimetres high. Red cheeks. Green pinafore. Red apron. Red and green striped stockings. Nametag reading: Nancy.
The Nancy elf flesh-thing, well, Nancy, to say it correctly, stepped up at a place in the assembly line where several dolls without arms (hmmmm…humanoid, big boobs, little middle, plastic yellow hair) waited in front of her. Nancy smiled and waved at several of her workmates.
Herman continued to watch. He’d been told to wait here until called, and waiting was one of the many things he was good at.
He was also good at doing stuff. He made a little mental list, which glowed on the round screen on his forehead, if anyone had been watching.
Things I can do:
1. Put arms on dolls
2. Paint soldiers
3. Brush snow off reindeer
4. Plot orbits of planets
5. Make lunch
Things I can’t do yet:
1. Talk out loud
2. Think of jokes
3. Ice skate
4. Play banjo
5. Think philosophically
He could have put several thousand more things on each list but he was happy with five for now. Besides, he was busy watching.
He was especially good at watching, actually.
He watched Nancy laughing with the elf (male, 98 centimetres, green and red stockings, leather apron…) next to her on the assembly line, fluttering her eyelashes up and down at him. She threw a candycane at someone on the other side of the room. She picked up one of the dolls and jammed an arm in (Pop!), then reached over and wiggled her fingers in the armpit of the laughing elf beside her.
She was fun to watch.
Suddenly someone came out of one of the elf-boxes (what are they called? - that’s right, elfices, no, offices) along the wall, walked up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped a little, then followed him back to the office where he shut the door firmly. No smiling, no laughing.
That’s when Herman got the message. His antenna quivered as the call came through. Across his forehead screen flashed the instruction he was receiving: Go to empty place in assembly line. Put arms on dolls as programmed to do.
Herman briskly activated his feet-walkers and moved to the place recently vacated by Nancy. He pincered up one of the armless dolls, boobs side up, and pushed in two arms, one after the other.
Pop! Pop!
He passed the doll to the elf beside him (male, 98 centimetres, red and green stockings, leather apron, mouth wide open) and picked up another doll.
That’s when he noticed the sudden quiet in the room.
This time the Pop! Pop! sounded very loud.
His scrub-brush bristles quivered as he registered all eyes on him. 116 eyes divided by 2 = 58 elves. No smiling, no laughing.
POP! POP!
The quiet didn’t last long. Within nano-seconds his sensors were besieged by a cacophony of voices.
“What the hell?”
“What do you mean, Nancy’s been fired?”
“Replaced by a frippin’ robot? You’ve got to be kidding!”
Finally Herman’s sensors overloaded and he could no longer process all the input. “… nobody like Nan…” “…all be replaced soon…” “…sick of being treated like…” “what’s the world come…” “…if you can’t trust Santa…” “….going to San Francisco, where they know how to treat a …”
In addition to the vocal chaos, there was visual hullabaloo as well. Fists punched the air; arms waved. Somebody’s red, white and green scarf got caught in Herman’s sensor bristles, making everything that much harder to sort out.
But an idea nonetheless managed to wedge its way into his processor.
He picked up a candycane in his tosser-pincer and threw it across the room to a large elf who was shrieking very loudly. He climbed up onto the table and at top volume played his favourite song: When the Saints Go Marching In. He did a little jig with his feet-dancers.
And then he climbed back down and placed two arms into a doll.
Pop. Pop.
The hubbub diminished.
All the elves looked at one another and then slowly began picking up their toys and tools.
Pop. Pop.
Herman’s eyes fogged over slightly from relief.
Pop. Pop.
Lies, Damned Lies (Eve)
Call me Scrooge, call me a cynic and even a misanthrope. Sticks and stones….
I’m just telling it like it is: I hate Santa Claus, I hate his elves and most of all I hate those punk red-nosed deer.
If global warming means that the polar ice cap melts and forces Saint Nick (like the poor, innocent polar bears) to find a new home (Mars?), or better still to become extinct, then I say hallelujah. (The polar bears should not become extinct, however. I’m not saying that at all!)
It’s all so phony. A blatant lie, and adults are not supposed to be role models of lying, are they? It’s all just one huge porkie that starts being programmed from birth, maybe even prenatally, come to think of it, especially if people want to ascribe before-birth pressies to the Big Fat Dude.
Then, those littlies, raised on the prevaricating pabulum of “you better be good, for goodness sake….Santa Claus is coming to town” adapt to manipulation by their parents – instead of learning to have their own internal moral compass.
These same innocents may end up with years on the psychiatrist’s couch because of the terror of meeting Santa for the first time at a department store. And, worse being told to sit on the lap of this crusty, overweight, old and probably synthetically-bearded man. The very same who is the arbiter of whether the child has been bad or good.
Finally, when the parents decide that the fairy tale is meant to come to an end, they dump the news the whole Santa story was a fabrication. Why? God knows (well, the God thing might be trickery too). Something that was a bit of fun for a while for Mum and Dad. Now, they have to come clean, “Hey, Sonny or Girlie, the truth is that Mr. and Mrs. S., the elves, the toy factory, the reindeer, the cookies/milk/chimney caper, all of it, utter crap.”
So, can I tell you how delighted, how utterly ecstatic…well, okay…just happy I was when I opened my on-line Sydney Morning Herald link this morning and discovered that at this late date, just days before Christmas, Santa-land is shutting down.
I mean it’s utter garbage that a major newspaper would run a story about the fictional Man-in-the-Red-Suit, but any press that goes against the old guy has got to get a star rating in my good books.
The story read that because of the Santa factory’s terrible working conditions, one of the impoverished, underfed and overworked elves had sat down on the job. Threw an unselfish hissy-fit and refused to continue. Obviously this was some kind of last straw because, wonder of wonders, in a tremendous show of elfin solidarity, the whole toy assembly line came to a halt.
Imagine what an extraordinary Christmas this is going to be. Parents now will have to go out and buy their kids toys – probably made in China of all places - instead of having them delivered by Santa with his sleigh and team of deer slipping in under cover of night.
What horrible hardship! And what will they tell their kids. Another big whopper!
I’m just telling it like it is: I hate Santa Claus, I hate his elves and most of all I hate those punk red-nosed deer.
If global warming means that the polar ice cap melts and forces Saint Nick (like the poor, innocent polar bears) to find a new home (Mars?), or better still to become extinct, then I say hallelujah. (The polar bears should not become extinct, however. I’m not saying that at all!)
It’s all so phony. A blatant lie, and adults are not supposed to be role models of lying, are they? It’s all just one huge porkie that starts being programmed from birth, maybe even prenatally, come to think of it, especially if people want to ascribe before-birth pressies to the Big Fat Dude.
Then, those littlies, raised on the prevaricating pabulum of “you better be good, for goodness sake….Santa Claus is coming to town” adapt to manipulation by their parents – instead of learning to have their own internal moral compass.
These same innocents may end up with years on the psychiatrist’s couch because of the terror of meeting Santa for the first time at a department store. And, worse being told to sit on the lap of this crusty, overweight, old and probably synthetically-bearded man. The very same who is the arbiter of whether the child has been bad or good.
Finally, when the parents decide that the fairy tale is meant to come to an end, they dump the news the whole Santa story was a fabrication. Why? God knows (well, the God thing might be trickery too). Something that was a bit of fun for a while for Mum and Dad. Now, they have to come clean, “Hey, Sonny or Girlie, the truth is that Mr. and Mrs. S., the elves, the toy factory, the reindeer, the cookies/milk/chimney caper, all of it, utter crap.”
So, can I tell you how delighted, how utterly ecstatic…well, okay…just happy I was when I opened my on-line Sydney Morning Herald link this morning and discovered that at this late date, just days before Christmas, Santa-land is shutting down.
I mean it’s utter garbage that a major newspaper would run a story about the fictional Man-in-the-Red-Suit, but any press that goes against the old guy has got to get a star rating in my good books.
The story read that because of the Santa factory’s terrible working conditions, one of the impoverished, underfed and overworked elves had sat down on the job. Threw an unselfish hissy-fit and refused to continue. Obviously this was some kind of last straw because, wonder of wonders, in a tremendous show of elfin solidarity, the whole toy assembly line came to a halt.
Imagine what an extraordinary Christmas this is going to be. Parents now will have to go out and buy their kids toys – probably made in China of all places - instead of having them delivered by Santa with his sleigh and team of deer slipping in under cover of night.
What horrible hardship! And what will they tell their kids. Another big whopper!
Lamb to Slaughter by Peta
“What do you think I should do? If I spill the beans he’ll know it’s me for sure.” Julie stood with her back hard against the office door to ensure privacy. She looked at Patrice expectantly, hopefully her colleague would solve her problem with her usual thoughtful advice.
Patrice responded in a matter of fact tone. “Well what choice do you have? You can’t let him get away with it. It probably isn’t the first time this has happened and if you don’t blow the whistle it may not be the last.”
Julie grimaced. It was not the answer she wanted.
“Maybe I should confront him. There could be a simple explanation for why he transferred the money out of that account.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Patrice scowled. “If it was kosher he would have followed procedure. And the last thing you should do is confront him. You don’t know what he is capable of.”
“You don’t think he’s dangerous?”
“Who knows what he’s caught up in or who he’s involved with.” Patrice crossed her arms across her chest and cocked her head in a questioning manner.
“But he’s so nice, Patrice. I can’t believe he would hurt me.”
“That’s why mass murders get away with murder again and again.”
“Don’t be so daft. He’s not like that.” Julie said defensively.
“Yesterday you would have said he’d be the last person to steal money from our clients. And hey presto!” Patrice looked at her watch, showing her impatience.
“Shit, what am I going to do?” Julie wrung her hands nervously.
“There’s really only one thing you can do and if you don’t do it I will. Look I have to go before Thompson sends out a search party. You need to see the Big Kahuna ASAP.”
Julie moved away from the door. As Patrice reached for the handle, a loud knock startled them both. Patrice opened the door and greeted the boss’s PA.
“Hi Maude, how’s tricks? Gotta go. See you after work for a bevie?” Patrice asked.
“Sure that’d be great. I’ll meet you in the foyer at 5.30. Julie, Michael would like to see you in his office immediately.”
Julie walked solemnly to Michael’s office, head bowed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. They called him the Big Kahuna, partially because he was the top dog but also because of his size. He was a very big unit, intimidatingly so.
Julie knocked softly on the door then entered as instructed to do so by the strong, confident male voice on the other side. She was alarmed to see her immediate boss, Josh Mapleson sitting by the window staring down the 42 stories to the buzzing metropolis below.
“Ah, Julie thank you for coming, won’t you sit down.” Big Kahuna pointed to an empty seat. “Josh here tells me we have a problem.”
“Oh I am so glad it is out in the open, I have been worried sick about it. I was on my way to see you before I saw Maude.”
“Really? Well I am surprised. In the circumstances I might have thought you’d be long gone. Notwithstanding, you understand you cannot stay here at Parkers and the Police must be informed. It is a very serious matter. In fact the Police will be here shortly. But Julie I would like to know why?”
Michael stood before her staring down into her face from his great height. Josh continued to look out the window as if not even listening to the dialogue behind him.
“Sorry, I’m confused. What are you talking about?” Julie’s voice quivered.
“Clearly you know, Julie. You said you were on your way here to tell me about the money you took from the Heyton Trust Account.”
At that point Josh turned and smiled, a nasty, smug smile and all at once Julie understood.
Patrice responded in a matter of fact tone. “Well what choice do you have? You can’t let him get away with it. It probably isn’t the first time this has happened and if you don’t blow the whistle it may not be the last.”
Julie grimaced. It was not the answer she wanted.
“Maybe I should confront him. There could be a simple explanation for why he transferred the money out of that account.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Patrice scowled. “If it was kosher he would have followed procedure. And the last thing you should do is confront him. You don’t know what he is capable of.”
“You don’t think he’s dangerous?”
“Who knows what he’s caught up in or who he’s involved with.” Patrice crossed her arms across her chest and cocked her head in a questioning manner.
“But he’s so nice, Patrice. I can’t believe he would hurt me.”
“That’s why mass murders get away with murder again and again.”
“Don’t be so daft. He’s not like that.” Julie said defensively.
“Yesterday you would have said he’d be the last person to steal money from our clients. And hey presto!” Patrice looked at her watch, showing her impatience.
“Shit, what am I going to do?” Julie wrung her hands nervously.
“There’s really only one thing you can do and if you don’t do it I will. Look I have to go before Thompson sends out a search party. You need to see the Big Kahuna ASAP.”
Julie moved away from the door. As Patrice reached for the handle, a loud knock startled them both. Patrice opened the door and greeted the boss’s PA.
“Hi Maude, how’s tricks? Gotta go. See you after work for a bevie?” Patrice asked.
“Sure that’d be great. I’ll meet you in the foyer at 5.30. Julie, Michael would like to see you in his office immediately.”
Julie walked solemnly to Michael’s office, head bowed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. They called him the Big Kahuna, partially because he was the top dog but also because of his size. He was a very big unit, intimidatingly so.
Julie knocked softly on the door then entered as instructed to do so by the strong, confident male voice on the other side. She was alarmed to see her immediate boss, Josh Mapleson sitting by the window staring down the 42 stories to the buzzing metropolis below.
“Ah, Julie thank you for coming, won’t you sit down.” Big Kahuna pointed to an empty seat. “Josh here tells me we have a problem.”
“Oh I am so glad it is out in the open, I have been worried sick about it. I was on my way to see you before I saw Maude.”
“Really? Well I am surprised. In the circumstances I might have thought you’d be long gone. Notwithstanding, you understand you cannot stay here at Parkers and the Police must be informed. It is a very serious matter. In fact the Police will be here shortly. But Julie I would like to know why?”
Michael stood before her staring down into her face from his great height. Josh continued to look out the window as if not even listening to the dialogue behind him.
“Sorry, I’m confused. What are you talking about?” Julie’s voice quivered.
“Clearly you know, Julie. You said you were on your way here to tell me about the money you took from the Heyton Trust Account.”
At that point Josh turned and smiled, a nasty, smug smile and all at once Julie understood.
Sunday 21 March 2010
In the Dark (Kerry)
You discover your boss is involved in illegal activity. Tell the story using dialogue as much as possible.
“Follow him, Jimmy,” Col whispers urgently to the young man at his elbow. “I’ll wait here and keep an eye out for the cops.”
Jimmy slips away into the shadows of the building, out of the glare of the street lights. He darts from the laneway where Col is crouching and quickly works his way along the street following the silhouette of the man in the distance. There is no sound in the street. The buildings are dark, long since emptied of office workers, shop assistants and tourists.
The man ahead disappears. Jimmy quickens his pace, anxious not to lose sight of his quarry. There is only one way he could have gone – into the car park at the end of the lane. Jimmy is cautious about entering the car park at this hour. He shivers involuntarily. The wind lifts a sheet of newspaper at the end of the lane, startling him.
The phone call he had overheard at work that morning had alerted him to this rendez-vous. His boss had appeared nervous and distracted, talking urgently.
“After midnight…Millers Lane…By yourself…”
Jimmy was furious to think that his boss was pushing into his beat, the area he shared with Col. He and Col had worked the block around the QVB for six months now. They’d have to deal with this intrusion.
Silently now, Jimmy approaches the stairwell to the car park. He stops quickly, hearing low voices close by.
“Did you get it?”
“Yes, it’s here in my brief-case.”
“Hand it over then.”
The tone is desperate. Jimmy crouches in the shadows. He can’t see the two men but recognises the voice of his boss, the man he has followed. He hears a crackling sound as of paper. A case is snapped shut. Quick footsteps echo across the empty car park. Jimmy presses against the wall, out of sight to any passers-by.
He jumps when he hears his name being whispered from the darkness behind him. He turns. Col emerges from a doorway recess nearby.
“The cops are out there on Clarence Street. They’ve got the sniffers. What’s happened here? Where’s the boss?"
Col’s breath is coming in uneven bursts. Jimmy raises his hand, indicating danger, urging him to be quiet. Col slumps to the ground to catch his breath.
“I’ve lost him,” Jimmy whispers in Col’s ear. “But he’s done the deal. He handed something over to another bloke. Couldn’t see them though. They’re both gone.”
“We’ve got to get out of here before the cop’s find us,” Col mutters under his breath. He drags himself to his feet and pulls at Jimmy. Suddenly they both freeze. A man has emerged from the darkness of the car park.
“It’s him,” Jimmy breathes. “We’ve got to find out what he’s up to. Let me do the talking.”
He steps out from the shadows as his boss approaches.
“Quiet night, John,” Jimmy says approaching the man coming down the laneway. He stands squarely in the middle of the road, forcing him to come to a stop.
“Jimmy, is that you?” the man whispers incredulously. “And Col, what’re you doing here?” he adds as Col steps out beside Jimmy.
“Thought we’d ask you the same question, John.”
Jimmy feels for the knife he carries in his belt. His boss is playing it cool and he’s not taking any chances. This could get nasty.
“Seeing a man about a dog,” the man responds evasively.
“Don’t get smart with us, John,” Jimmy snarls. “This is our territory and you’re trespassing.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve just met my cousin here.”
“A likely story,” Jimmy interrupts with a snicker. “Why would you be meeting anybody here at three o’clock in the morning?"
“He’s on the six o’clock flight to Singapore this morning,” John explains in response to Jimmy’s hostile questioning. “Wanted me to bring him his passport. He left it at my place last week when he went down to Melbourne. This was the only chance I had to give it to him."
“What do you mean ‘your territory’, by the way?” he adds.
“Never mind. None of your business. Just don’t come down here in the middle of the night again. Alright?”
Jimmy starts to back off. It sounds like he and Col might have got the wrong end of the stick.
Their boss nods and sidesteps the two men. He walks quickly away from them, back towards Clarence Street, smiling as he fingers the wads of cash in his pocket.
Just a wild and crazy guy (Heather)
You discover your boss is involved in illegal activity. Tell the story using dialogue as much as possible.
That Alt Tab thing drives me nuts.
When you walk up to someone at their computer, and their left thumb and forefinger slink over to the Alt Tab keys to change screens – you KNOW they’re hiding something from you.
For me, it’s like a declaration of war. I HAVE to find out what they’re up to.
Big Bob is the principal at our school. Both times recently when I’ve walked in to talk with him about the field trip I’m taking with some of my year 10 students, I saw his hand do the Alt Tab thing. Bob, what are you covering up? I knew I’d have to take special action to catch the screen he was intent on hiding.
Big Bob has salt and pepper hair, cropped short. He’s a bit jowly and has that jovial you-can-count-on-me-for-anything air about him. He seems to be popular with the staff and kids. He has a devilish streak that goes down well with people.
– Except that somewhere along the line his deviltry started getting me a bit worried and I began keeping a closer eye on him. But really it was the Alt Tab thing that got me into the closet on the wall behind his desk.
That’s where I am right now. As I lie in wait in the closet in Big Bob’s office, I review my mental rap sheet on his offences.
The first item on the rap sheet is practically not worth mentioning. “Hey, Bob, I saw you taking home those little under-sized fish,” I said to him in the staff room in a comradely fashion, the day after spotting him fishing at the beach while I was enjoying some free time in the café nearby. I can’t say taking home little fish bothers me one way or the other, and I thought it would be fun to have a little joke with him about it.
Bob laughed and responded in kind. “Hailey, you caught me in the act. But what the heck, it doesn’t matter because I don’t have a licence anyway,” said he unabashedly. We all had a chuckle.
Here in the closet, I flex my ankle a few times to keep the circulation going. I consider the next item on my rap sheet. Speeding. I decided that I liked that in a school principal. I’ve just bought my first ever car (co-owned by myself and the bank) and I’m a bit of speed freak myself. I figure it’s nice to see an old guy of forty plus feeling his oats.
The day after I clocked him, I nailed him in the staff room again. “Hey, Bob, I followed you doing 150 on the Calmar Road last night.”
Bob grinned in a conspiratorial manner. “Guilty as charged. But wait till you try to tail me in my BMW – you won’t get close to me!”
One of the other guys in the staffroom eyed him warily. “Bob, how is it you can afford two hot cars on a principal’s salary?”
“Ah, it’s good to have a wife with an inheritance.” We all had a good chuckle, though Janice, his wife, doesn’t look like the inheritance type.
This whole question of the two-car thing (plus a very elegant nice house on two acres, I might add, with a luxurious pool and sauna) brings me to Rap Sheet Item #3. “Hey, Bob,” I said the day after I’d dropped by his house to deliver the proceeds from the weekend raffle. “I swear that’s good old Mary Jane I saw growing in your back garden.”
To my over-attuned eye, I thought Bob looked a trifle annoyed on this occasion. The camaraderie appeared to be over. “Nah, just a bit of spider flower that Janice is growing,” he said, and walked off.
This event may or may not contradict the next item on my rap sheet, which happened a couple weeks ago when I was making coffee in the staff room. I overheard him talking to Bill, the phys ed teacher. I’m sure I heard him saying his new crop was in and he’d be happy to sell him a gram or two.
Now, I have to admit this also didn’t bother me. ᾈ chacun son gout, as the French say in their great wisdom. Vive la liberté. You’re a wild and crazy guy, Big Bob, I thought.
But around that time the whole thing with Big Bob began to dip into the dark side a bit for me. A couple of times I spotted him having covert conversations in the schoolyard with one of the older kids who’s well-known around the traps as a dealer. I mean, he could have been talking about the kid’s exam results, but something in the way they both were lurking in the shadows made it a little suspicious. I thought about the two nice cars and the big house.
Back to the rap sheet, and me pouring sweat in Big Bob’s closet. The last item on the rap sheet got there yesterday when Peggy and Marie, two of my year 10 girls, drew me into the change room and silently pointed out a tiny lens loosely poised over the one of the mirrors. My senses all went on high alert.
“What do you think it is?” Peggy whispered.
I drew them out into the hall. “Look,” I said quietly, “can I ask you not to say anything for a day or two? I want to do a little detective work before we call in the national guard.”
“Whatever,” Peggy said. “But I’m changing in the toilets after this.”
So that brings us to why I’m crouched in Big Bob’s closet, behind his desk. I don’t have any evidence on the camera thing, but an instinct got me here (that plus the Alt Tab thing that’s happened too often for my liking). I couldn’t exactly pop up to Big Bob in the staffroom and say, “Hey, Bob, I saw the nifty little video cam you installed in the girls’ change room.” Whoops, not a good career move. I’m not sure hiding in this closet is a good career move either, but…well, the office was empty, the halls were vacant and the closet door sat slightly ajar, beckoning. It’s well past 4:00 and most of the staff and students have long since headed for home. I’m pretty sure Bob is at the cricket practice.
So here I am, waiting for Big Bob to come into this office, plop his portly bottom down into his chair and zip into one of his little apps to check out what’s going on in the girls’ change room. I’ve got the closet door closed but I can see clearly through the tiniest crack. I have a terrific view of his monitor.
I don’t have to wait long. Big Bob shows up, throws the cricket ball and bat he’s carrying into the corner and plops down at his desk. He flips on his computer, gets up, walks back to the door and closes it tightly. He twists a key in the lock. I almost stop breathing. He returns to the computer, types in a password, grabs the mouse and does a few clicks. I can see perfectly over his shoulder. Suddenly I’m watching an amateur video and I nearly punch my hand in the air to say, “Hey, Bob. Gotcha!”
But as I switch from the left to the right eye, I quickly ascertain it’s not a video of the girls’ change room. My heart races. There’s a woman tied to a table, screaming her lungs out, and I’m sure that’s Big Bob beside her with a knife in his hand. He turns to the camera for a moment with a look of pure and savage evil on his face. It’s him, all right. My heart is frozen by that look. He turns back to the woman. He raises the knife, ready to slash. She stops screaming, stops struggling, just looks as if her time has come and she won’t fight it any more.
My brain struggles to think. I realise I’m looking at a snuff video. My friendly little marijuana-growing, BMW-speeding school principal is a maniacal killer.
I’ve never been claustrophobic but all of a sudden I know my heart will stop if I stay here one more second. I tuck and roll out of that closet, scrambling straight for the door. I grab the doorknob, but it’s locked, of course. I scrabble with the key. I hear Bob’s chair creak wildly behind me, and next thing there’s a thick arm around my neck.
“I think you’ll just stop right there,” Bob’s voice says, close to my ear. “I’ve had more than enough of you..”
His grip on my throat tightens. I see red patches but the surge of adrenalin that hits me just then surprises me. “Let go, you cretin,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Say goodnight, Hailey, because I’m putting you to sleep. But I’m going to keep you alive so I can film YOU tonight.” He sniggers and shifts his weight to get a better grip. I think, okay, he’s off-guard; it’s now or never.
I stomp a heel onto his instep, then swing in toward him, twisting to bring a knee hard up into the family jewels.
“Ooooof,” he says, and doubles over.
I’m out of his grasp in a flash. I scuttle to the corner where he’s thrown the cricket bat and come up swinging. On my second round-house, I catch him hard behind the ear. He falls like a rock, a swath of blood running through the salt-and-pepper hair.
I lean on my knees, panting, then dash to the door. This time my fingers manage the key and before I can think I’m outside in the cool air of the parking lot. My handbag is where I left it in my car. I lock the doors, drive a few blocks to where I feel safe and then with trembling fingers find my mobile and dial 000.
In a few minutes, my world is going to get wrung inside out. As the phone rings, I get a mental flash of the police, the forensics, the press, the kids, the staff, the parents.
I wish I could Alt Tab out of here.
But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alt Tab got me here but it won’t get me out.
That Alt Tab thing drives me nuts.
When you walk up to someone at their computer, and their left thumb and forefinger slink over to the Alt Tab keys to change screens – you KNOW they’re hiding something from you.
For me, it’s like a declaration of war. I HAVE to find out what they’re up to.
Big Bob is the principal at our school. Both times recently when I’ve walked in to talk with him about the field trip I’m taking with some of my year 10 students, I saw his hand do the Alt Tab thing. Bob, what are you covering up? I knew I’d have to take special action to catch the screen he was intent on hiding.
Big Bob has salt and pepper hair, cropped short. He’s a bit jowly and has that jovial you-can-count-on-me-for-anything air about him. He seems to be popular with the staff and kids. He has a devilish streak that goes down well with people.
– Except that somewhere along the line his deviltry started getting me a bit worried and I began keeping a closer eye on him. But really it was the Alt Tab thing that got me into the closet on the wall behind his desk.
That’s where I am right now. As I lie in wait in the closet in Big Bob’s office, I review my mental rap sheet on his offences.
The first item on the rap sheet is practically not worth mentioning. “Hey, Bob, I saw you taking home those little under-sized fish,” I said to him in the staff room in a comradely fashion, the day after spotting him fishing at the beach while I was enjoying some free time in the café nearby. I can’t say taking home little fish bothers me one way or the other, and I thought it would be fun to have a little joke with him about it.
Bob laughed and responded in kind. “Hailey, you caught me in the act. But what the heck, it doesn’t matter because I don’t have a licence anyway,” said he unabashedly. We all had a chuckle.
Here in the closet, I flex my ankle a few times to keep the circulation going. I consider the next item on my rap sheet. Speeding. I decided that I liked that in a school principal. I’ve just bought my first ever car (co-owned by myself and the bank) and I’m a bit of speed freak myself. I figure it’s nice to see an old guy of forty plus feeling his oats.
The day after I clocked him, I nailed him in the staff room again. “Hey, Bob, I followed you doing 150 on the Calmar Road last night.”
Bob grinned in a conspiratorial manner. “Guilty as charged. But wait till you try to tail me in my BMW – you won’t get close to me!”
One of the other guys in the staffroom eyed him warily. “Bob, how is it you can afford two hot cars on a principal’s salary?”
“Ah, it’s good to have a wife with an inheritance.” We all had a good chuckle, though Janice, his wife, doesn’t look like the inheritance type.
This whole question of the two-car thing (plus a very elegant nice house on two acres, I might add, with a luxurious pool and sauna) brings me to Rap Sheet Item #3. “Hey, Bob,” I said the day after I’d dropped by his house to deliver the proceeds from the weekend raffle. “I swear that’s good old Mary Jane I saw growing in your back garden.”
To my over-attuned eye, I thought Bob looked a trifle annoyed on this occasion. The camaraderie appeared to be over. “Nah, just a bit of spider flower that Janice is growing,” he said, and walked off.
This event may or may not contradict the next item on my rap sheet, which happened a couple weeks ago when I was making coffee in the staff room. I overheard him talking to Bill, the phys ed teacher. I’m sure I heard him saying his new crop was in and he’d be happy to sell him a gram or two.
Now, I have to admit this also didn’t bother me. ᾈ chacun son gout, as the French say in their great wisdom. Vive la liberté. You’re a wild and crazy guy, Big Bob, I thought.
But around that time the whole thing with Big Bob began to dip into the dark side a bit for me. A couple of times I spotted him having covert conversations in the schoolyard with one of the older kids who’s well-known around the traps as a dealer. I mean, he could have been talking about the kid’s exam results, but something in the way they both were lurking in the shadows made it a little suspicious. I thought about the two nice cars and the big house.
Back to the rap sheet, and me pouring sweat in Big Bob’s closet. The last item on the rap sheet got there yesterday when Peggy and Marie, two of my year 10 girls, drew me into the change room and silently pointed out a tiny lens loosely poised over the one of the mirrors. My senses all went on high alert.
“What do you think it is?” Peggy whispered.
I drew them out into the hall. “Look,” I said quietly, “can I ask you not to say anything for a day or two? I want to do a little detective work before we call in the national guard.”
“Whatever,” Peggy said. “But I’m changing in the toilets after this.”
So that brings us to why I’m crouched in Big Bob’s closet, behind his desk. I don’t have any evidence on the camera thing, but an instinct got me here (that plus the Alt Tab thing that’s happened too often for my liking). I couldn’t exactly pop up to Big Bob in the staffroom and say, “Hey, Bob, I saw the nifty little video cam you installed in the girls’ change room.” Whoops, not a good career move. I’m not sure hiding in this closet is a good career move either, but…well, the office was empty, the halls were vacant and the closet door sat slightly ajar, beckoning. It’s well past 4:00 and most of the staff and students have long since headed for home. I’m pretty sure Bob is at the cricket practice.
So here I am, waiting for Big Bob to come into this office, plop his portly bottom down into his chair and zip into one of his little apps to check out what’s going on in the girls’ change room. I’ve got the closet door closed but I can see clearly through the tiniest crack. I have a terrific view of his monitor.
I don’t have to wait long. Big Bob shows up, throws the cricket ball and bat he’s carrying into the corner and plops down at his desk. He flips on his computer, gets up, walks back to the door and closes it tightly. He twists a key in the lock. I almost stop breathing. He returns to the computer, types in a password, grabs the mouse and does a few clicks. I can see perfectly over his shoulder. Suddenly I’m watching an amateur video and I nearly punch my hand in the air to say, “Hey, Bob. Gotcha!”
But as I switch from the left to the right eye, I quickly ascertain it’s not a video of the girls’ change room. My heart races. There’s a woman tied to a table, screaming her lungs out, and I’m sure that’s Big Bob beside her with a knife in his hand. He turns to the camera for a moment with a look of pure and savage evil on his face. It’s him, all right. My heart is frozen by that look. He turns back to the woman. He raises the knife, ready to slash. She stops screaming, stops struggling, just looks as if her time has come and she won’t fight it any more.
My brain struggles to think. I realise I’m looking at a snuff video. My friendly little marijuana-growing, BMW-speeding school principal is a maniacal killer.
I’ve never been claustrophobic but all of a sudden I know my heart will stop if I stay here one more second. I tuck and roll out of that closet, scrambling straight for the door. I grab the doorknob, but it’s locked, of course. I scrabble with the key. I hear Bob’s chair creak wildly behind me, and next thing there’s a thick arm around my neck.
“I think you’ll just stop right there,” Bob’s voice says, close to my ear. “I’ve had more than enough of you..”
His grip on my throat tightens. I see red patches but the surge of adrenalin that hits me just then surprises me. “Let go, you cretin,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Say goodnight, Hailey, because I’m putting you to sleep. But I’m going to keep you alive so I can film YOU tonight.” He sniggers and shifts his weight to get a better grip. I think, okay, he’s off-guard; it’s now or never.
I stomp a heel onto his instep, then swing in toward him, twisting to bring a knee hard up into the family jewels.
“Ooooof,” he says, and doubles over.
I’m out of his grasp in a flash. I scuttle to the corner where he’s thrown the cricket bat and come up swinging. On my second round-house, I catch him hard behind the ear. He falls like a rock, a swath of blood running through the salt-and-pepper hair.
I lean on my knees, panting, then dash to the door. This time my fingers manage the key and before I can think I’m outside in the cool air of the parking lot. My handbag is where I left it in my car. I lock the doors, drive a few blocks to where I feel safe and then with trembling fingers find my mobile and dial 000.
In a few minutes, my world is going to get wrung inside out. As the phone rings, I get a mental flash of the police, the forensics, the press, the kids, the staff, the parents.
I wish I could Alt Tab out of here.
But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alt Tab got me here but it won’t get me out.
Saturday 13 March 2010
Winter Vision (Kerry)
Write about a childhood memory of snow
Excitement erupted in the car as we saw the familiar giant pine trees along the fence line to our left. Dad slowed down in order to make a surprise entrance. There was no dust trail now. We reckoned no-one in the house would have seen us coming. Once we turned the last corner before the house we were hidden behind the tall cedar hedge.
“Where’s the comb?” Mum asked. “Everybody tidy up. Here’s a hanky to clean off your faces. Kerry, help Randall with his, will you? Quickly."
I sensed the tension in her voice. We'd been in the car for nearly three hours. It’d been a long trip with five kids, and no seat belts to keep us under control. But it was important for Mum to show us at our best because this was her family home, where she had lived before going away to high school and University and before she and Dad got married. Grandma and Grandpa lived here still with Mum’s twin, Uncle Wilfred, and her big sister, Auntie Flo.
Dad drove the car slowly up the driveway and brought it to a halt at the back gate. We scrambled out, a little shy now that we had arrived. Our attempt at stealth had been thwarted. Auntie Flo was at the gate. She stood waiting, hands planted on her wide hips and a welcoming smile on her face.
“Hello, everybody,” she said warmly. “Did you have a good trip? Nobody car sick this time I hope? My goodness, I hardly know who’s who. You’ve all grown so much in the time I’ve been away. Who’s this big boy?”
She picked Randall up and gave him a cuddle. He was not impressed and started to cry so Auntie Flo handed him to Mum. The rest of us were used to Auntie Flo. She’d come and looked after us when Mum went into hospital to have Randall the year before. She was much stricter than Mum. She wouldn’t let us leave the table until we had eaten everything on our plates. But we loved the stories she told us. She was a war widow, very independent, and had taken several trips overseas. After Mum came home from the hospital, Auntie Flo headed off to England again. To recover, we thought. This was the first time we’d seen her since she’d come back.
“What was England like?” I asked her bravely. “Did you bring any presents home?”
She smiled secretly, turned and strode up the path to the back door, with all of us in her wake. I breathed in the perfume of jasmine as we brushed past it. The spring garden was a feast of colour. Garden beds of lilies and annuals lined the path. In the distance I could see Grandma’s special roses behind the vegetable garden.
Auntie Flo opened the screen door. It sighed in that particular way it had of conveying that it was doing you a favour by being so obliging. We were ushered into the dark kitchen and stood in a rough huddle near the stove where it was warm. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness Auntie Flo produced a basket. She put it on the table in front of us, pulled out the first treasure and handed it to me.
I felt the weight of it in my hand. It was a transparent glass ball on a wooden base. I peered in. There were two skaters inside, perfect in every detail. They were gliding around a skating rink beside a dark forest.
“Shake it a little,” Auntie Flo said.
I gave it a momentary shake and a miracle happened. Tiny wet snowflakes filled the sky with light. Gently they fell to the ground. Some settled on the trees, some on the skaters. I was entranced by the unexpected magic of the snow.
“It’s wonderful. Thank you,” I cried, giving it another shake.
“When you’re a bit older I’ll take you with me to Europe,” Auntie Flo said. “Then you can see real snow and real skaters.”
But she never did.
Friday 12 March 2010
In the stillness (Heather)
I'm celebrating two things: an early mark from school and the first snowfall of the year. I've decided to borrow the family car and drive down to Sooke's Creek in the hopes that I can get in a good skate before dark.
The thing I notice, when I switch off the rock'n'roll, turn off the car and slam the door shut behind me, is the quiet. The half inch of fresh snow is not just a mantle over everything visually, it is a blanket over the sound.
There are no bird calls, no creak of ice, no crack of boughs breaking.
I throw my skates, knotted together by the laces, over my shoulder and slide down the side of the creek bank. The creek, powdered with new snow, spreads out smooth in front of me. I spot a log, dust it off and sit to put on my skates. I remove my boots and yank on an extra pair of socks. I pull on the skates and draw the laces tight, up through the eyelets then onto the hooks. I flex my ankle to check that I haven't laced too tight. I totter to the edge of the creek, feeling for where the ice begins. I dig in the tip of a skate -- and soar off in one clean stride.
It's so quiet. The half inch of snow on the ice muffles the sound of the skate blades to a quiet shoooosh-sh-sh-sh. There is the slightest creak as the ice adjusts to my weight. I build up speed, taking longer strides, pushing hard. I crouch into a twist, causing a screech as the blades slash sideways. I stop on a dime.
I look back behind me. The car is already out of sight around a bend in the creek. My tracks lie like giant herringbones, each three or four feet long. The snow is slashed and scattered where I came to a halt.
I am so alone, and it is so quiet, and it is so white. The fallow fields are white. The birch bark is white. There are spots of green-black where the underbranches of the pine and spruce show through, but mostly the trees are covered in white as well. There is an adjustment of white at the edge of the horizon where the sky acquires a touch of grey.
I listen to the nothing for a moment, then keep moving to stay warm. I tuck my mittened hands into my armpits and glide, glide, herringbone after herringbone, along the creek. I watch for places where the channel gets too narrow. I watch for willows trapped in the ice, lurking to trip me.
But mostly I stride faster and faster, faster than anyone can run, cutting through the shallow snow.
Suddenly, the creek widens to several times its normal size. I slow down and peer ahead for the skater's nemesis: the beaver dam. I'm sure it will be just around the next bend. It will be shrouded in the same snow I am gliding through, and if I'm not careful I will get too close.
Here's the thing about beaver dams. Have you heard the expression, "busy as a beaver"? Well, beavers ARE busy, and their dams are active places, full of furry little bodies -- and lots of heat. The four or five inches of ice I am confident of underneath me will thin to less than an inch closer to the dam. And the water will be deep there.
I don't take any risks. When we were in grade 5 my friend Orest got too close to a dam, went through the fractured ice and was miraculously pulled out by his brothers before he died of hypothermia. So I clamber up the bank and portage ackwardly a long way around the dam. Skates were NOT made for walking.
It's worth it. On the lower side of the dam the ice is narrow again, but there is a whole new patch of pristine creek surface, waiting for me to spin along it. I can't help smiling as I break into a pace that covers the miles, in a style that I know would impress the Olympic judges. I breathe deeply, enjoying the inhalation of cold air.
A few snowflakes tumble out of the sky. I pull back my mitten and glance at my watch. I know it will be completely dark by 4:00 o'clock. It's already almost 3:00 and I can tell the gloom is settling.
Time to head back. I cut into a speed turn, sending snow flying at high as my hand. I throw my weight into my strides and cut back across my tracks.
Other than the quiet shoooosh-sh-sh-sh, the silence is absolute.
The thing I notice, when I switch off the rock'n'roll, turn off the car and slam the door shut behind me, is the quiet. The half inch of fresh snow is not just a mantle over everything visually, it is a blanket over the sound.
There are no bird calls, no creak of ice, no crack of boughs breaking.
I throw my skates, knotted together by the laces, over my shoulder and slide down the side of the creek bank. The creek, powdered with new snow, spreads out smooth in front of me. I spot a log, dust it off and sit to put on my skates. I remove my boots and yank on an extra pair of socks. I pull on the skates and draw the laces tight, up through the eyelets then onto the hooks. I flex my ankle to check that I haven't laced too tight. I totter to the edge of the creek, feeling for where the ice begins. I dig in the tip of a skate -- and soar off in one clean stride.
It's so quiet. The half inch of snow on the ice muffles the sound of the skate blades to a quiet shoooosh-sh-sh-sh. There is the slightest creak as the ice adjusts to my weight. I build up speed, taking longer strides, pushing hard. I crouch into a twist, causing a screech as the blades slash sideways. I stop on a dime.
I look back behind me. The car is already out of sight around a bend in the creek. My tracks lie like giant herringbones, each three or four feet long. The snow is slashed and scattered where I came to a halt.
I am so alone, and it is so quiet, and it is so white. The fallow fields are white. The birch bark is white. There are spots of green-black where the underbranches of the pine and spruce show through, but mostly the trees are covered in white as well. There is an adjustment of white at the edge of the horizon where the sky acquires a touch of grey.
I listen to the nothing for a moment, then keep moving to stay warm. I tuck my mittened hands into my armpits and glide, glide, herringbone after herringbone, along the creek. I watch for places where the channel gets too narrow. I watch for willows trapped in the ice, lurking to trip me.
But mostly I stride faster and faster, faster than anyone can run, cutting through the shallow snow.
Suddenly, the creek widens to several times its normal size. I slow down and peer ahead for the skater's nemesis: the beaver dam. I'm sure it will be just around the next bend. It will be shrouded in the same snow I am gliding through, and if I'm not careful I will get too close.
Here's the thing about beaver dams. Have you heard the expression, "busy as a beaver"? Well, beavers ARE busy, and their dams are active places, full of furry little bodies -- and lots of heat. The four or five inches of ice I am confident of underneath me will thin to less than an inch closer to the dam. And the water will be deep there.
I don't take any risks. When we were in grade 5 my friend Orest got too close to a dam, went through the fractured ice and was miraculously pulled out by his brothers before he died of hypothermia. So I clamber up the bank and portage ackwardly a long way around the dam. Skates were NOT made for walking.
It's worth it. On the lower side of the dam the ice is narrow again, but there is a whole new patch of pristine creek surface, waiting for me to spin along it. I can't help smiling as I break into a pace that covers the miles, in a style that I know would impress the Olympic judges. I breathe deeply, enjoying the inhalation of cold air.
A few snowflakes tumble out of the sky. I pull back my mitten and glance at my watch. I know it will be completely dark by 4:00 o'clock. It's already almost 3:00 and I can tell the gloom is settling.
Time to head back. I cut into a speed turn, sending snow flying at high as my hand. I throw my weight into my strides and cut back across my tracks.
Other than the quiet shoooosh-sh-sh-sh, the silence is absolute.
Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! (Eve)
Prompt: Write about a childhood memory of snow.
Hurry hurry hurry, step right this way, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. See one of the great wonders of the world. Witness one of the fantastic phenomena of the freezing climes – all for the incredibly low admission of one thin dime, one-tenth of a dollar – Hurry hurry hurry….
What the @#$%&*!!! Joe woke with a start, shot his warm feet out from the doona and jumped down onto the hard floor. Fortunately, his lamb’s wool slip-ons were right there. Jesus! It was cold! He yanked his woollen dressing gown fast as he could over his flannel p.j.’s. Gawd, it was still so cold.
Hurry, hurry, hurry…..
Tiptoeing through the dark hall, and down the stairs, careful, but still rushing as he’d been exhorted, he sidled by the creaky spots in the steps to the get to the lounge room.
Joe nestled himself into a corner of the bay window seat, just in time to see the first pinhead-sized icy bits pelting against the glass. They were like ants’ snowballs, so tiny. They melted straightaway because of the difference between the outside and inside temperatures.
Joe snuggled in more closely to the corner of the window seat, knees to chest and pulled his robe even more tightly around him. Now he was starting to get more psyched. See one of the great wonders….
And there. The first floating, lazy flake hit the pane and Joe saw the crystalline shape of it survive for a breath or two, if he had dared to breathe. It lasted long enough, though, for him to see its six sides – and then it was gone! Just like the guy said: one of the fantastic phenomena of the freezing climes.
Joe remembered something his science teacher had said: it’s the lowest of the cloud layers because they are warmer that produce just the kind of “fantastic phenomena” he was seeing.
Sadly the greatest show was slowing down, winding right down rather suddenly, in fact. The flakes were hardlly distinguishable from each other now, clumping together to form a network of icy crystals on the windowpane – a beautiful pattern but still not as wondrous as the great flake show had been.
Snow Fun - by Rick
One of my favorite memories of childhood in Edmonton was ice skating in the winter. Winter arrived with the freezing over of every body of water, usually around early November and lasting through until mid April. Lakes, rivers, streams and ponds all froze to a depth of about a meter and drew us out of our warm and cozy houses for tobogganing, skiing, skating or ice fishing. Skating was my favorite.
I was around 6 or 7 when I got my first pair of ice skates as a Christmas present. My cousin Barry got his at the same time and Uncle Norman grabbed his and took the two of us down Mill Creek Ravine to give us our first skating lesson. We were about to become Canadians!
Now you probably have an idea of what ice skates are like but just in case you forget, they are like a pair of boots with something like a hedge-clipper blade bolted on to the bottom of the soul. You’re going outside remember so you have to rug up snuggly ‘cause it’s cold out there. You tie the laces of your skates together and string them over your shoulder so one skate is down your back and the other down your front and off you trundle to the nearest sheet of ice.
There you encounter your first challenge. The creek is covered in a foot of snow. So that’s why Uncle Norm brought a snow shovel with him. A few minutes later and he’s cleaned 20 or 30 meters of creek down to the ice and we have our rink.
Then our second challenge. You have to take your winter boots off and lace on your skates. This is not fun as you have to also take your mittens off and even on a “warm” day, it’s -10 to -20 and your fingers start to numb up instantly. But Uncle Norm shows us how to get the laces tight – they have to be very tight to insure that the skates are tight as tight can be on your feet so you don’t slip around inside them. You can’t skate if your foot wobbles inside the skate.
Uncle Norm is an expert and helps us get the laces to the proper tightness. The skates are an extension of our ankles.
Now for the hard part, the actual skating. If you have never skated on ice before, imagine something like walking on stones in a stream and they’re covered with slime. You’ve just discovered what “slippery” means. It means you fall down. Fortunately we weren’t very big and didn’t have far to fall. But we got up right away and soon managed to stay on our feet. Then Uncle Norm showed us how to push with one foot while letting the other foot glide. Then take the pushing foot, put it in front and let it glide while at the same time pushing again with the other foot. Then do it again and again. It looked so easy when Uncle Norm did it. But Barry and I were quick copycats and within a few minutes we were able to more or less skate from one end of the cleared ice to the other.
But we couldn’t stop! So we did the next best thing. We fell over into the snow, turned around, got back up again and skated back to the other end.
Over the rest of the holidays Uncle Norm taught us how to stop and how to turn. He shoveled out more of the creek and we were soon zooming back and forth and before we knew it, we could do an entire afternoon without falling. We were two young Canucks who had just gone through one of the most important rites of passage of our youth. We were now skaters!
I was around 6 or 7 when I got my first pair of ice skates as a Christmas present. My cousin Barry got his at the same time and Uncle Norman grabbed his and took the two of us down Mill Creek Ravine to give us our first skating lesson. We were about to become Canadians!
Now you probably have an idea of what ice skates are like but just in case you forget, they are like a pair of boots with something like a hedge-clipper blade bolted on to the bottom of the soul. You’re going outside remember so you have to rug up snuggly ‘cause it’s cold out there. You tie the laces of your skates together and string them over your shoulder so one skate is down your back and the other down your front and off you trundle to the nearest sheet of ice.
There you encounter your first challenge. The creek is covered in a foot of snow. So that’s why Uncle Norm brought a snow shovel with him. A few minutes later and he’s cleaned 20 or 30 meters of creek down to the ice and we have our rink.
Then our second challenge. You have to take your winter boots off and lace on your skates. This is not fun as you have to also take your mittens off and even on a “warm” day, it’s -10 to -20 and your fingers start to numb up instantly. But Uncle Norm shows us how to get the laces tight – they have to be very tight to insure that the skates are tight as tight can be on your feet so you don’t slip around inside them. You can’t skate if your foot wobbles inside the skate.
Uncle Norm is an expert and helps us get the laces to the proper tightness. The skates are an extension of our ankles.
Now for the hard part, the actual skating. If you have never skated on ice before, imagine something like walking on stones in a stream and they’re covered with slime. You’ve just discovered what “slippery” means. It means you fall down. Fortunately we weren’t very big and didn’t have far to fall. But we got up right away and soon managed to stay on our feet. Then Uncle Norm showed us how to push with one foot while letting the other foot glide. Then take the pushing foot, put it in front and let it glide while at the same time pushing again with the other foot. Then do it again and again. It looked so easy when Uncle Norm did it. But Barry and I were quick copycats and within a few minutes we were able to more or less skate from one end of the cleared ice to the other.
But we couldn’t stop! So we did the next best thing. We fell over into the snow, turned around, got back up again and skated back to the other end.
Over the rest of the holidays Uncle Norm taught us how to stop and how to turn. He shoveled out more of the creek and we were soon zooming back and forth and before we knew it, we could do an entire afternoon without falling. We were two young Canucks who had just gone through one of the most important rites of passage of our youth. We were now skaters!
Sunday 7 March 2010
Flight from fire
100 words for entry into the Wordstorm competition with 'a twist of the NT', no adjectives.
Barry stops grazing, sits on his haunches and twitches his pointy nose. Is it smoke? He swivels his ears like antennae and peers through the Spinifex. The bush is dark and quiet. He twitches some more. He can definitely smell smoke. Then suddenly the bush starts to crackle and bang. Barry, the Bilby is on the move. He gathers up his hind legs ready to canter. Like a stallion in full flight, he screams around the spindly gums, skids around an outcrop of rocks, trips on a root and slides to halt on the floodplain. He’s safe this time.
Barry stops grazing, sits on his haunches and twitches his pointy nose. Is it smoke? He swivels his ears like antennae and peers through the Spinifex. The bush is dark and quiet. He twitches some more. He can definitely smell smoke. Then suddenly the bush starts to crackle and bang. Barry, the Bilby is on the move. He gathers up his hind legs ready to canter. Like a stallion in full flight, he screams around the spindly gums, skids around an outcrop of rocks, trips on a root and slides to halt on the floodplain. He’s safe this time.
I choose UP (Heather)
In under 500 words, and using no more than 10 adjectives, write the story of your escape from great danger.
Sweat drips into my eyes. I grip the cliff face in front of me with knees and stomach. My elbow is anchored into an undersized root while I search in vain for a handhold. My face itches where a clod of clay has come undone a moment before and launched itself at me. The thought in my head is: I don’t want to die; I’m only fourteen.
My cousin Kathie hovers 30 or 40 feet below. She is pacing back and forth along the gravel riverbed, craning her neck upward, wanting to be helpful but by now as frightened as I am. The plan was that she would follow me up the cliff, but I’ve quickly discovered that this climb is a disaster. Kathie waits anxiously below, willing me to make it unscathed to the top.
I don’t like my choices. Clearly, one is to keep climbing, but I just can’t feel or see a place where I can anchor a hand or foot.
Another is to hang there until rescued. But as I’m wearing out fast, that’s out of the question.
Backing down also isn’t an option. I destroyed my key footholds on the way up the crumbly clay face. There are no rocks and tree roots behind me.
Jumping is also not an alternative. Kathie isn’t much more than a speck below me.
I’m about as frightened as I’ve ever been in my life.
“You have to go UP,” Kathie shouts.
I’m afraid to speak for fear of dislodging my grip.
Her voice comes again from below. “You have to make it up another few feet; there’s a log you can grab. Then you’re at the top and you can just pull yourself over.” I twist my head to look up. I can see the protrusion she’s talking about, perilously out of reach.
I have to choose. So I choose. Up.
I send out a prayer. I scratch out a clod of clay at the top of my reach and grab the gap. I swing a shoe up onto the root where my elbow has been. I glance up at the log, now less than three feet away. I throw my weight onto the morsel of root and lunge for the log. To my relief I catch it in my fingertips, then claw it into my arms as I swing in mid-air.
I quickly discover problems with that log.
One is that it’s rotten. It won’t last long and I’m going to have to move fast.
Another is that it’s filled with ants, who spill down my arms in outrage.
But I grip that rotting, stinging log as if it’s Elvis Presley and kick my way up and over the top. One last clod tumbles to the gravel below.
I lay for a second at the top, patting the earth and gasping. Only then do I really notice the ants. I peel off my shirt and pants and do the Ant Dance, screaming with pain and joy and waving madly at Kathie.
I know it’s a long walk around the river bend until the bank flattens out and I can meet up with her, but that’s all right with me. Right now, I could run to the moon.
Sweat drips into my eyes. I grip the cliff face in front of me with knees and stomach. My elbow is anchored into an undersized root while I search in vain for a handhold. My face itches where a clod of clay has come undone a moment before and launched itself at me. The thought in my head is: I don’t want to die; I’m only fourteen.
My cousin Kathie hovers 30 or 40 feet below. She is pacing back and forth along the gravel riverbed, craning her neck upward, wanting to be helpful but by now as frightened as I am. The plan was that she would follow me up the cliff, but I’ve quickly discovered that this climb is a disaster. Kathie waits anxiously below, willing me to make it unscathed to the top.
I don’t like my choices. Clearly, one is to keep climbing, but I just can’t feel or see a place where I can anchor a hand or foot.
Another is to hang there until rescued. But as I’m wearing out fast, that’s out of the question.
Backing down also isn’t an option. I destroyed my key footholds on the way up the crumbly clay face. There are no rocks and tree roots behind me.
Jumping is also not an alternative. Kathie isn’t much more than a speck below me.
I’m about as frightened as I’ve ever been in my life.
“You have to go UP,” Kathie shouts.
I’m afraid to speak for fear of dislodging my grip.
Her voice comes again from below. “You have to make it up another few feet; there’s a log you can grab. Then you’re at the top and you can just pull yourself over.” I twist my head to look up. I can see the protrusion she’s talking about, perilously out of reach.
I have to choose. So I choose. Up.
I send out a prayer. I scratch out a clod of clay at the top of my reach and grab the gap. I swing a shoe up onto the root where my elbow has been. I glance up at the log, now less than three feet away. I throw my weight onto the morsel of root and lunge for the log. To my relief I catch it in my fingertips, then claw it into my arms as I swing in mid-air.
I quickly discover problems with that log.
One is that it’s rotten. It won’t last long and I’m going to have to move fast.
Another is that it’s filled with ants, who spill down my arms in outrage.
But I grip that rotting, stinging log as if it’s Elvis Presley and kick my way up and over the top. One last clod tumbles to the gravel below.
I lay for a second at the top, patting the earth and gasping. Only then do I really notice the ants. I peel off my shirt and pants and do the Ant Dance, screaming with pain and joy and waving madly at Kathie.
I know it’s a long walk around the river bend until the bank flattens out and I can meet up with her, but that’s all right with me. Right now, I could run to the moon.
Saturday 6 March 2010
The sound of rocks crunching (Kerry)
In fewer than 500 words, and using no more than 10 adjectives, write the story of your escape from great danger.
I'll never forget the sound of rocks crunching.
At first I felt the world had shimmied through a time warp. Everything was slowing down. In that space anything was possible, and nothing. Time stretched to infinity but circumstances seemed totally out of my control.
It began when I chose to tackle the ford over the river. I use the word 'tackle' advisedly. Usually I didn’t think twice about crossing it. Usually I simply put the Landrover down a cog and picked my way across the stones. I know the ford like the back of my hand. But yesterday things were different. We had been warned over the radio that the river was expected to rise later in the day. The floods up in Charleville had broken all records. But despite the warning I chose to tackle the ford.
I should have known better.
There was water flowing across the ford and I couldn’t see the stones. We don’t have a stick to measure the water at that point but it looked alright to me. I eased into it cautiously. I’m not a maniac. I’m aware of the dangers. But it was when the vehicle hit the log under the water in the middle of the crossing that I knew I was in trouble. The Landrover stalled. I could feel the power of the flood pushing against the side of the vehicle. The force of the water set up a kind of rocking motion.
I was powerless. The water was half way up the doors. It was impossible to open my door. It would have done no good to open the window to try to crawl out. I haven’t been able to fit through a car window since I was fifteen.
I undid my seatbelt and waited for infinity to pass.
The Landrover simply tipped quietly into the river. There was a crunch as the side of the vehicle connected with the ground. The windows shattered with the impact. I was flung down against the passenger door, cracking my head on the handle. Some giant was dragging the car down the riverbed. It scraped and jolted across the rocks, tossing me about inside.
But the water coming into the car was my biggest concern. It was up to my knees. I groped my way onto the steering wheel above me, clutching at the seat belt to steady myself. I was crouching with one foot on the steering wheel and the other braced against the seat.
I needed all my strength to turn the handle and push the door upwards. I wasn’t ready for the rush of water through the cabin. It pummelled me against the windscreen but I was able to use its power to escape from the cabin through the doorway.
The river was swirling dangerously beside the vehicle. I fought my way through the current to the bank and scrambled out just in time to see the Landrover sink out of sight below the water.
I'll never forget the sound of rocks crunching.
At first I felt the world had shimmied through a time warp. Everything was slowing down. In that space anything was possible, and nothing. Time stretched to infinity but circumstances seemed totally out of my control.
It began when I chose to tackle the ford over the river. I use the word 'tackle' advisedly. Usually I didn’t think twice about crossing it. Usually I simply put the Landrover down a cog and picked my way across the stones. I know the ford like the back of my hand. But yesterday things were different. We had been warned over the radio that the river was expected to rise later in the day. The floods up in Charleville had broken all records. But despite the warning I chose to tackle the ford.
I should have known better.
There was water flowing across the ford and I couldn’t see the stones. We don’t have a stick to measure the water at that point but it looked alright to me. I eased into it cautiously. I’m not a maniac. I’m aware of the dangers. But it was when the vehicle hit the log under the water in the middle of the crossing that I knew I was in trouble. The Landrover stalled. I could feel the power of the flood pushing against the side of the vehicle. The force of the water set up a kind of rocking motion.
I was powerless. The water was half way up the doors. It was impossible to open my door. It would have done no good to open the window to try to crawl out. I haven’t been able to fit through a car window since I was fifteen.
I undid my seatbelt and waited for infinity to pass.
The Landrover simply tipped quietly into the river. There was a crunch as the side of the vehicle connected with the ground. The windows shattered with the impact. I was flung down against the passenger door, cracking my head on the handle. Some giant was dragging the car down the riverbed. It scraped and jolted across the rocks, tossing me about inside.
But the water coming into the car was my biggest concern. It was up to my knees. I groped my way onto the steering wheel above me, clutching at the seat belt to steady myself. I was crouching with one foot on the steering wheel and the other braced against the seat.
I needed all my strength to turn the handle and push the door upwards. I wasn’t ready for the rush of water through the cabin. It pummelled me against the windscreen but I was able to use its power to escape from the cabin through the doorway.
The river was swirling dangerously beside the vehicle. I fought my way through the current to the bank and scrambled out just in time to see the Landrover sink out of sight below the water.
Last Resort (Eve)
(In under 500 words, and using no more than 10 adjectives, write the story of
your escape from great danger.)
Under the weight of concrete, I know I will not be able to surface at this time and perhaps at any time. I know this for a fact. I think I know how I got here. I have a memory of being here before, and if that is the case, I must have escaped somehow. For the moment, the frayed filament of this thought keeps me from hysteria.
The stress on my body is enormous, and yet I recognise I am still breathing. My breath is shallow. How is it that I can breathe with my body bearing this pressure?
The force of the mass holding me down, the crush of this load tyrannises me. I am cast down, and I understand I cannot get out of this on my own.
But now, I hear voices nearby. Who? What are they saying? Murmuring. What are they doing? What is their intent? Are they strangers? Can they save me? Do they see me under this weight because I surely cannot make a sound to save myself?
In consultation with Michaela and her husband, Professor Vargas had spoken to them, measuring his words like a slow-release medication. “We have come a long way since the old days of shock therapy. We will administer ECT now only with your consent. We give it in an operating theatre where the patient is anaesthetized and given muscle relaxants.
“We are not doing this indiscriminately; it’s being done because with serious, life-threatening depression, these are the most effective treatments we have. There is the risk of loss of memory, but, in the balance, it’s likely there will be a big improvement after some of these treatments.”
The psyche nurse dressed Michaela in a gown. It took two nurses to get her onto the gurney as her condition was near catatonic. An orderly wheeled her into the anteroom for prepping by the anaestheologist. . The full anesthesia would be administered intravenously in the theatre. Electrodes attached to Michaela’s scalp would conduct electrical current, causing her to have a grand mal seizure - hopefully positively altering her brain’s electrochemical processes.
Waking groggily in the recovery room, Michaela was wholly unaware of the procedure she had undergone. Back in her room, she was bone-tired and soon fell asleep for the rest of the day.
Late in the evening when Michaela eventually opened her eyes, she spent some minutes adjusting to the haziness of the room.
She sensed space in her mind, a welling up of lightness in her spirit, bordering on elation.
She could see she was a patient in hospital. There were flowers, a family photo. She couldn’t place a single one of the five figures in the frame, and she didn’t know why she was in this hospital setting.
What was plainly palpable, though, was the peace she felt. The past was not an issue and the future unimportant. She trusted everything was as it was meant to be in this moment, and then, in this moment, too.
your escape from great danger.)
Under the weight of concrete, I know I will not be able to surface at this time and perhaps at any time. I know this for a fact. I think I know how I got here. I have a memory of being here before, and if that is the case, I must have escaped somehow. For the moment, the frayed filament of this thought keeps me from hysteria.
The stress on my body is enormous, and yet I recognise I am still breathing. My breath is shallow. How is it that I can breathe with my body bearing this pressure?
The force of the mass holding me down, the crush of this load tyrannises me. I am cast down, and I understand I cannot get out of this on my own.
But now, I hear voices nearby. Who? What are they saying? Murmuring. What are they doing? What is their intent? Are they strangers? Can they save me? Do they see me under this weight because I surely cannot make a sound to save myself?
In consultation with Michaela and her husband, Professor Vargas had spoken to them, measuring his words like a slow-release medication. “We have come a long way since the old days of shock therapy. We will administer ECT now only with your consent. We give it in an operating theatre where the patient is anaesthetized and given muscle relaxants.
“We are not doing this indiscriminately; it’s being done because with serious, life-threatening depression, these are the most effective treatments we have. There is the risk of loss of memory, but, in the balance, it’s likely there will be a big improvement after some of these treatments.”
The psyche nurse dressed Michaela in a gown. It took two nurses to get her onto the gurney as her condition was near catatonic. An orderly wheeled her into the anteroom for prepping by the anaestheologist. . The full anesthesia would be administered intravenously in the theatre. Electrodes attached to Michaela’s scalp would conduct electrical current, causing her to have a grand mal seizure - hopefully positively altering her brain’s electrochemical processes.
Waking groggily in the recovery room, Michaela was wholly unaware of the procedure she had undergone. Back in her room, she was bone-tired and soon fell asleep for the rest of the day.
Late in the evening when Michaela eventually opened her eyes, she spent some minutes adjusting to the haziness of the room.
She sensed space in her mind, a welling up of lightness in her spirit, bordering on elation.
She could see she was a patient in hospital. There were flowers, a family photo. She couldn’t place a single one of the five figures in the frame, and she didn’t know why she was in this hospital setting.
What was plainly palpable, though, was the peace she felt. The past was not an issue and the future unimportant. She trusted everything was as it was meant to be in this moment, and then, in this moment, too.
Friday 5 March 2010
The Great Escape - by Rick
In under 500 words, and using no more than 10 adjectives, write the story of your escape from great danger.
My mobile phone rings again. Unnecessarily I glance at the display to see who it might be. I know who it might be. It’s the same caller as the last three I ignored. It’s going to be Lois again. She never gives up and I’m doomed.
It’s Lois. Do I pick up? This really is silly. I can’t possibly avoid her forever. Can I?
I decide to answer the phone. I mean maybe she’s ringing to ask me to play bridge or go shopping. But I know it won’t be that. She wouldn’t have rung back three more times. She would have found another partner or shopping mate.
“Hello?” I answer pretending I couldn’t possibly know who’s calling.
“Betty hi. It’s Lois. I’m so glad I’ve finally reached you. Do you have a minute?”
“Oh, hi Lois. Oh dear, I was just about to go out. Will this be brief?” I know it won’t be and the noose tightens.
“Oh sure Betty. Just a few seconds. I was wondering if you had an evening free this week. I’d like to get together and talk.”
“This week? Oh I’m not sure. Maybe I could ring you back after I check my diary. I’ve got to go out now.”
“It’s only Monday. Surely you have one evening open. Why don’t I just pencil you in for Wednesday? Is that ok?”
“What’s it about Lois? I’m not sure Wednesday works. I think Bob and I are going bowling that night.”
“Oh Betty you don’t bowl! You’re such a fooler. I’d rather not talk over the phone, especially since you have to go out. So Wednesday or Thursday – which should it be?”
I’ll bet you’d rather not talk but I don’t say that. Instead what comes out of my mouth is so absurd I’m not sure I said it. “Lois I’m going to talk to a real estate agent. Bob and I are moving.”
“Moving? Wow that is big news. Did Bob get a promotion? Why are you moving? Where are you moving to? But never mind. You can tell me all about it either Wednesday or Thursday. Which shall it be?”
“I’d rather not commit yet Lois. Bob and I might have to start packing right away and I would rather keep my options open. Maybe I could ring you back.”
“Well ok Betty. I can understand that you’re a bit stressed. I’ll hear from you soon. Toodles.”
I breath a sigh of relief as she hangs up. I’ve escaped. For now. Maybe. But she’ll persist. Those new Amway reps always do. Jenny warned me after she got nailed.
Now how am I going to explain to Bob that we have to move?
My mobile phone rings again. Unnecessarily I glance at the display to see who it might be. I know who it might be. It’s the same caller as the last three I ignored. It’s going to be Lois again. She never gives up and I’m doomed.
It’s Lois. Do I pick up? This really is silly. I can’t possibly avoid her forever. Can I?
I decide to answer the phone. I mean maybe she’s ringing to ask me to play bridge or go shopping. But I know it won’t be that. She wouldn’t have rung back three more times. She would have found another partner or shopping mate.
“Hello?” I answer pretending I couldn’t possibly know who’s calling.
“Betty hi. It’s Lois. I’m so glad I’ve finally reached you. Do you have a minute?”
“Oh, hi Lois. Oh dear, I was just about to go out. Will this be brief?” I know it won’t be and the noose tightens.
“Oh sure Betty. Just a few seconds. I was wondering if you had an evening free this week. I’d like to get together and talk.”
“This week? Oh I’m not sure. Maybe I could ring you back after I check my diary. I’ve got to go out now.”
“It’s only Monday. Surely you have one evening open. Why don’t I just pencil you in for Wednesday? Is that ok?”
“What’s it about Lois? I’m not sure Wednesday works. I think Bob and I are going bowling that night.”
“Oh Betty you don’t bowl! You’re such a fooler. I’d rather not talk over the phone, especially since you have to go out. So Wednesday or Thursday – which should it be?”
I’ll bet you’d rather not talk but I don’t say that. Instead what comes out of my mouth is so absurd I’m not sure I said it. “Lois I’m going to talk to a real estate agent. Bob and I are moving.”
“Moving? Wow that is big news. Did Bob get a promotion? Why are you moving? Where are you moving to? But never mind. You can tell me all about it either Wednesday or Thursday. Which shall it be?”
“I’d rather not commit yet Lois. Bob and I might have to start packing right away and I would rather keep my options open. Maybe I could ring you back.”
“Well ok Betty. I can understand that you’re a bit stressed. I’ll hear from you soon. Toodles.”
I breath a sigh of relief as she hangs up. I’ve escaped. For now. Maybe. But she’ll persist. Those new Amway reps always do. Jenny warned me after she got nailed.
Now how am I going to explain to Bob that we have to move?
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Realising the Dream (Kerry)
You realise the 'brick wall' is an illusion.
“What d’you think, Auntie Pat?” Ali sings out to her aunt who is sitting on the ground at the other end of the wide verandah. She proudly holds up the painting she’s been working on. Its colours gleam in the bright light.
“It’s real good, Ali,” Pat shouts back. “You let somethin’ go I reckon. You bin here a week now, painted every day, just like your grandma used to.”
Ali sets the canvas down on the ground again and studies it carefully. It makes her heart sing to look at it. The wet paint has responded to her mark-making in ways she had not expected. There is a melody playing in her head as she tracks over the beautiful blending of pinks, yellows and sky blues. She loves the boldness of its black background. Picking the painting up carefully, she walks over to Pat. She sits down cross-legged beside the old woman. Pat goes on quietly with her own painting, dipping the brush in the little pots and applying the colours gently to the surface of her canvas.
Ali waits. She closes her eyes. Up close she hears the minute sounds of Pat’s brush on the canvas. There is a cicada scratching a discordant tune in the peppercorn tree beside her. Occasionally she picks up the sound of a crow in the bush over near the shed. Away from the shelter of the verandah the sun burns relentlessly. Ali can feel the luxurious warmth of it on her arms even in the shade. This is her country. It’s in her bones. And in her head.
Pat lays down her brush.
“So, you happy to be here?” she asks nonchalantly.
“It’s not like last time,” Ali replies firmly. ”When Mum brought me here all those years ago I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be a white girl then. At school I always felt not quite one or the other. Not black, not white. Neither.”
Ali fiddles with the buttons on her shirt. It was painful for her to remember how confused she had been.
“You pretty angry those days,” Pat suggests. “Banging your head against the wall don’t help. Your mum show you proper country, your place. But you had eyes shut. Not seeing. Now you see. It’s there. In your painting. Your Dreaming.”
Ali had stopped banging her head against that illusory wall of prejudice and misunderstanding a couple of years ago.
“It’s good to be here. With you, Auntie Pat. Learning about the country, my family.”
Ali spreads her painting out on the ground beside Pat’s. She acknowledges the peace she feels in her heart.
“What d’you think, Auntie Pat?” Ali sings out to her aunt who is sitting on the ground at the other end of the wide verandah. She proudly holds up the painting she’s been working on. Its colours gleam in the bright light.
“It’s real good, Ali,” Pat shouts back. “You let somethin’ go I reckon. You bin here a week now, painted every day, just like your grandma used to.”
Ali sets the canvas down on the ground again and studies it carefully. It makes her heart sing to look at it. The wet paint has responded to her mark-making in ways she had not expected. There is a melody playing in her head as she tracks over the beautiful blending of pinks, yellows and sky blues. She loves the boldness of its black background. Picking the painting up carefully, she walks over to Pat. She sits down cross-legged beside the old woman. Pat goes on quietly with her own painting, dipping the brush in the little pots and applying the colours gently to the surface of her canvas.
Ali waits. She closes her eyes. Up close she hears the minute sounds of Pat’s brush on the canvas. There is a cicada scratching a discordant tune in the peppercorn tree beside her. Occasionally she picks up the sound of a crow in the bush over near the shed. Away from the shelter of the verandah the sun burns relentlessly. Ali can feel the luxurious warmth of it on her arms even in the shade. This is her country. It’s in her bones. And in her head.
Pat lays down her brush.
“So, you happy to be here?” she asks nonchalantly.
“It’s not like last time,” Ali replies firmly. ”When Mum brought me here all those years ago I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be a white girl then. At school I always felt not quite one or the other. Not black, not white. Neither.”
Ali fiddles with the buttons on her shirt. It was painful for her to remember how confused she had been.
“You pretty angry those days,” Pat suggests. “Banging your head against the wall don’t help. Your mum show you proper country, your place. But you had eyes shut. Not seeing. Now you see. It’s there. In your painting. Your Dreaming.”
Ali had stopped banging her head against that illusory wall of prejudice and misunderstanding a couple of years ago.
“It’s good to be here. With you, Auntie Pat. Learning about the country, my family.”
Ali spreads her painting out on the ground beside Pat’s. She acknowledges the peace she feels in her heart.
The Brick Wall
George walks over towards the table where his mother is sitting waiting for him. It’s the same table at the same restaurant at the same time as every other Thursday for the past 12 years. The Burtons love their rituals.
“Georgie, Georgie I’m over here”, his mother calls, as if there is some look of doubt on George’s face.
“Hello Mother,” George says in greeting as he bends down and places a kiss on her forehead. “What’s looking good on the menu today?”
“Oh it all looks good dear. But I think I’ll stick with the chicken pot pie. It’s mild and tasty and agrees with my digestion. You remember what happened that time I tried the Thai beef salad that you recommended. I was off my food until the following Monday.”
“Yes, stick with the tried and true Mother. Hmmm. Let me see what’s on the specials board.”
“Georgie it’s too bad you didn’t bring a girl friend today. We have an extra chair.”
“Wow Mother. 43 seconds before you got around to talking about my girl friends or lack there of. I think that could be a record.”
“Oh Georgie you’re such a kidder. You know I’m only thinking in your best interests. You’re not getting any younger and besides, a handsome man like you should be settling down and starting a family. The way George and I did.”
“And 10 seconds later I’m reminded that you have no grand children yet. That is quite the one-two punch. Usually you wait until after I’ve ordered before we get into giving me advice on my love and lack-of-family life. Why so ahead of schedule?”
“If you must know, I was talking to Gilda Worthington this morning and she was so excited because her Billy had just phoned and announced that their 3rd child, another grandson, had just been born. And I was happy for her but so sad thinking about how much you’re missing in life. Am I wrong for wanting you to be happy?”
“No Mother, of course not. But we keep having these conversations over and over and getting nowhere. I am happy. I like being single and I like how my life is going. I don’t see why having an heir is going to make me be a better man or a happier one. Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Because having children is one of the greatest things a person can do. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t had you. You are the best thing that I ever did and all I want is for you to have a bit of that same joy in your life. Why can’t you see that? I can’t understand why you’re so stubborn.”
“Because I’m gay Mother.”
Suddenly there is a hush at the Burton table and a long, long pause as Martha sits there.
“Oh, you’re not gay Georgie. Stop teasing me.”
“It’s true Mother. So forget the grandchildren.”
Martha sits there again without talking. And as she sits there, George is puzzled because she looks quite calm and perhaps even looks a bit relieved.
“Mother you don’t seem to be very upset about this. I thought maybe you would react a bit stronger.”
“You’re right Georgie, I’m not upset. Startled a bit but that’s all. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I don’t really care about all that. Your life is your own and as long as you’re happy, then I’m happy. I love you no matter what. So we’ll talk about something else besides my missing grandchildren in the future. Goodness what a luncheon this is turning out to be.”
“Mother I’m a bit confused. I can really get that you’re not upset. You’re so relaxed and it’s like suddenly a weight has gone off your shoulders. I get that you accept me, but I don’t get why if you can accept an announcement like this with such calm, why you couldn’t have accepted me all these years for not wanting to have children.”
“Georgie to be honest, a weight has gone off my shoulders and I never saw that until just now. I’m so tired off having these same conversations year after year and going nowhere. And I just realized that I’ve been helpless to stop. It really has been like beating my head against a brick wall and now I don’t have to. Maybe I never had to. Maybe all I needed was this splash of cold water in my face to shake me up a little.”
“Now let’s get on with ordering our meals. And maybe we can talk about why you’ve taken 38 years to tell me this.”
“Georgie, Georgie I’m over here”, his mother calls, as if there is some look of doubt on George’s face.
“Hello Mother,” George says in greeting as he bends down and places a kiss on her forehead. “What’s looking good on the menu today?”
“Oh it all looks good dear. But I think I’ll stick with the chicken pot pie. It’s mild and tasty and agrees with my digestion. You remember what happened that time I tried the Thai beef salad that you recommended. I was off my food until the following Monday.”
“Yes, stick with the tried and true Mother. Hmmm. Let me see what’s on the specials board.”
“Georgie it’s too bad you didn’t bring a girl friend today. We have an extra chair.”
“Wow Mother. 43 seconds before you got around to talking about my girl friends or lack there of. I think that could be a record.”
“Oh Georgie you’re such a kidder. You know I’m only thinking in your best interests. You’re not getting any younger and besides, a handsome man like you should be settling down and starting a family. The way George and I did.”
“And 10 seconds later I’m reminded that you have no grand children yet. That is quite the one-two punch. Usually you wait until after I’ve ordered before we get into giving me advice on my love and lack-of-family life. Why so ahead of schedule?”
“If you must know, I was talking to Gilda Worthington this morning and she was so excited because her Billy had just phoned and announced that their 3rd child, another grandson, had just been born. And I was happy for her but so sad thinking about how much you’re missing in life. Am I wrong for wanting you to be happy?”
“No Mother, of course not. But we keep having these conversations over and over and getting nowhere. I am happy. I like being single and I like how my life is going. I don’t see why having an heir is going to make me be a better man or a happier one. Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Because having children is one of the greatest things a person can do. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t had you. You are the best thing that I ever did and all I want is for you to have a bit of that same joy in your life. Why can’t you see that? I can’t understand why you’re so stubborn.”
“Because I’m gay Mother.”
Suddenly there is a hush at the Burton table and a long, long pause as Martha sits there.
“Oh, you’re not gay Georgie. Stop teasing me.”
“It’s true Mother. So forget the grandchildren.”
Martha sits there again without talking. And as she sits there, George is puzzled because she looks quite calm and perhaps even looks a bit relieved.
“Mother you don’t seem to be very upset about this. I thought maybe you would react a bit stronger.”
“You’re right Georgie, I’m not upset. Startled a bit but that’s all. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I don’t really care about all that. Your life is your own and as long as you’re happy, then I’m happy. I love you no matter what. So we’ll talk about something else besides my missing grandchildren in the future. Goodness what a luncheon this is turning out to be.”
“Mother I’m a bit confused. I can really get that you’re not upset. You’re so relaxed and it’s like suddenly a weight has gone off your shoulders. I get that you accept me, but I don’t get why if you can accept an announcement like this with such calm, why you couldn’t have accepted me all these years for not wanting to have children.”
“Georgie to be honest, a weight has gone off my shoulders and I never saw that until just now. I’m so tired off having these same conversations year after year and going nowhere. And I just realized that I’ve been helpless to stop. It really has been like beating my head against a brick wall and now I don’t have to. Maybe I never had to. Maybe all I needed was this splash of cold water in my face to shake me up a little.”
“Now let’s get on with ordering our meals. And maybe we can talk about why you’ve taken 38 years to tell me this.”
Tuesday 2 March 2010
No way out (by Heather)
28 February 2010. Write about the discovery that a 'brick wall' limitation is actually an illusion.
The day you find out that your dad is a killer is a bad day.
Jay slumped under the tea tree hedge, considering his dilemma. With his arms wrapped around his legs, he smacked his head hard onto his knees.
He struggled to think carefully about his problem. He was eight years old, too young really to live on his own yet. He could go to his friend Simon’s a few blocks over, or catch the bus to Grandma’s – but sure as anything they’d call his dad. His dad would come with his big black truck, grab Jay by the arm and drag him with almost no words back to the vehicle. Jay would sit tight to the window, but soon enough they’d be home.
And there he’d be, living with the killer again.
He whacked his head against his knees once more, trying to shake a smart thought into it.
Because there was also the question of Bella.
If he was going to save Bella, he’d need to take her with him. She didn’t move very fast any more and he for sure couldn’t get her up the steps onto the bus. Also, she still ate a lot. He’d have to get dog food. He might have to get into stealing. He’d never done anything like that before, but he could turn to crime if he had to. He peered out through the leaves, where he could just see Bella lying at the foot of the steps.
Seeing Bella reminded him of the conversation he’d overheard a little while ago. He’d walked into the kitchen just as his dad said into the telephone, “Well, I’ll bring her in, then, and we’ll put her down.”
He knew they were talking about Bella, and he knew what “put her down” meant. His dad intended to kill Bella. Jay had bolted from the house.
And then, right there under the tea tree, with his head back tight to his knees, he had another realisation.
His dad had most likely killed his mum.
His head throbbed with the insight. His mum had simply disappeared about a week ago. In the morning she was there. When he got home from school, she was gone. By the time his dad got home, it was dark and Jay was plenty worried.
He’d been worried ever since. His dad had been grumpy, mean, hollering at him over nothing – all week. When he thought about it now, Jay could see it was the way a killer would behave.
He thought about his mum and experienced a feeling like an arrow piercing his heart. She was beautiful and he loved her heart and soul.
He ached with missing her. He ached with concern about Bella. He ached with hate for his killer dad.
Jay heard a door slam and anxiously peered through the branches. He could see his dad standing there on the veranda, one of his killer hands pressed against the rail, the other shielding his eyes from the late afternoon sun. Jay shuddered inside as he looked at the man who he now realised was capable of anything. There was a twisted look on that executioner face.
“Jay? Jay, are you out here?” his dad’s rough voice said.
Jay waited until his dad went inside, then crept out of his hiding place. He tiptoed to the foot of the steps where Bella still sprawled. He quietly cajoled her to her feet, half dragging her by her collar. He got her down the drive way and headed down the block, his heart thundering with the effort as well as with the fear of getting caught.
He was part way down the block when he remembered the Rawson’s tool shed. They didn’t generally keep it locked, and it could be a good place to hide until he could figure out something better to do. He cautiously pulled Bella around the side of the Rawson house. He slipped the latch on the tool shed and coaxed Bella inside. He closed the door softly behind him, then slid to the floor.
Gratefully Bella dropped down, putting her chin on Jay’s lap.
His heart continued to pound, his problem seeming bigger than ever. He had never in his life felt so alone, so desperate. There was no one he could trust. He hadn’t known that your heart could feel pain like this, or how your stomach could clench so tight, or how your breath could hurt. He pressed close to Bella, who whimpered softly. He watched the dust motes swirl through patches of sunlight coming through the side walls. He felt a little more peaceful when he tried to trace their paths, so he did that for awhile.
The next thing he knew was when Bella started whining beside him. He jerked his eyes open and his head shot up. It was completely dark. He struggled to remember where he was and his heart started raced again.
Suddenly he could hear his dad, calling. “Bella? Come on girl, where are you? Jay? Jay?”
Bella barked. A moment later, he heard his dad fumbling with the latch. He poured himself back as far as he could, but there wasn’t much hope really when Bella was there letting the whole world know where he was. He heard the shed door open, then a flashlight shone all over him. He could see a faint outline of his killer dad behind the bright stream of light. He ducked his head down, cowering under a shelf. Terror raced through every limb of his body. He wanted to scream but no sound would come out.
His situation was hopeless, completely hopeless.
A little while later he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot chocolate in front of him. His father had his big hands cupped close around his own little ones, not quite touching. Jay looked at those hands closely, wondering how he could ever have thought they could do anything bad. He was wondering how anything could change as fast as his fear had turned into relief.
“Your mother is like a bird, Jay,” his dad was saying. “She needs to fly, she needs her freedom. It’s not that she doesn’t love you; it’s just that she needs to try out this other life that she has in her mind. I spoke with her today and she said that when she’s settled you’re to come and visit her.”
Jay remained silent, looking up at his dad. He thought about his mother, and how sometimes you felt like you could put your hand through her, like she wasn’t really there at all. Maybe that’s how it was for a bird that really needed to be free.
“But that’s not how it is for me,” his dad continued. “What I need is you. I love you and I love Bella. But Bella is old, old, old, and she’s in an awful lot of pain. The vet will put her off to sleep and she’ll be in peace. That’s two bad things happening to us, to you and me. And then nothing more bad is likely to happen for a long, long while. We’ll get a puppy, you’ll see your mum every now and then, and life will be pretty good again.” His hands moved a tiny bit closer to Jay’s. “Can you hear this, Jay? Are you okay inside that quiet little head of yours?”
Jay pushed around the side of the table, climbing into his dad’s arms. His heart hurt a little about Bella, it hurt about his mum – but when he reached up to touch his dad’s face, he knew just the two of them would be okay.
“No puppy for awhile yet, okay, Dad?”
The day you find out that your dad is a killer is a bad day.
Jay slumped under the tea tree hedge, considering his dilemma. With his arms wrapped around his legs, he smacked his head hard onto his knees.
He struggled to think carefully about his problem. He was eight years old, too young really to live on his own yet. He could go to his friend Simon’s a few blocks over, or catch the bus to Grandma’s – but sure as anything they’d call his dad. His dad would come with his big black truck, grab Jay by the arm and drag him with almost no words back to the vehicle. Jay would sit tight to the window, but soon enough they’d be home.
And there he’d be, living with the killer again.
He whacked his head against his knees once more, trying to shake a smart thought into it.
Because there was also the question of Bella.
If he was going to save Bella, he’d need to take her with him. She didn’t move very fast any more and he for sure couldn’t get her up the steps onto the bus. Also, she still ate a lot. He’d have to get dog food. He might have to get into stealing. He’d never done anything like that before, but he could turn to crime if he had to. He peered out through the leaves, where he could just see Bella lying at the foot of the steps.
Seeing Bella reminded him of the conversation he’d overheard a little while ago. He’d walked into the kitchen just as his dad said into the telephone, “Well, I’ll bring her in, then, and we’ll put her down.”
He knew they were talking about Bella, and he knew what “put her down” meant. His dad intended to kill Bella. Jay had bolted from the house.
And then, right there under the tea tree, with his head back tight to his knees, he had another realisation.
His dad had most likely killed his mum.
His head throbbed with the insight. His mum had simply disappeared about a week ago. In the morning she was there. When he got home from school, she was gone. By the time his dad got home, it was dark and Jay was plenty worried.
He’d been worried ever since. His dad had been grumpy, mean, hollering at him over nothing – all week. When he thought about it now, Jay could see it was the way a killer would behave.
He thought about his mum and experienced a feeling like an arrow piercing his heart. She was beautiful and he loved her heart and soul.
He ached with missing her. He ached with concern about Bella. He ached with hate for his killer dad.
Jay heard a door slam and anxiously peered through the branches. He could see his dad standing there on the veranda, one of his killer hands pressed against the rail, the other shielding his eyes from the late afternoon sun. Jay shuddered inside as he looked at the man who he now realised was capable of anything. There was a twisted look on that executioner face.
“Jay? Jay, are you out here?” his dad’s rough voice said.
Jay waited until his dad went inside, then crept out of his hiding place. He tiptoed to the foot of the steps where Bella still sprawled. He quietly cajoled her to her feet, half dragging her by her collar. He got her down the drive way and headed down the block, his heart thundering with the effort as well as with the fear of getting caught.
He was part way down the block when he remembered the Rawson’s tool shed. They didn’t generally keep it locked, and it could be a good place to hide until he could figure out something better to do. He cautiously pulled Bella around the side of the Rawson house. He slipped the latch on the tool shed and coaxed Bella inside. He closed the door softly behind him, then slid to the floor.
Gratefully Bella dropped down, putting her chin on Jay’s lap.
His heart continued to pound, his problem seeming bigger than ever. He had never in his life felt so alone, so desperate. There was no one he could trust. He hadn’t known that your heart could feel pain like this, or how your stomach could clench so tight, or how your breath could hurt. He pressed close to Bella, who whimpered softly. He watched the dust motes swirl through patches of sunlight coming through the side walls. He felt a little more peaceful when he tried to trace their paths, so he did that for awhile.
The next thing he knew was when Bella started whining beside him. He jerked his eyes open and his head shot up. It was completely dark. He struggled to remember where he was and his heart started raced again.
Suddenly he could hear his dad, calling. “Bella? Come on girl, where are you? Jay? Jay?”
Bella barked. A moment later, he heard his dad fumbling with the latch. He poured himself back as far as he could, but there wasn’t much hope really when Bella was there letting the whole world know where he was. He heard the shed door open, then a flashlight shone all over him. He could see a faint outline of his killer dad behind the bright stream of light. He ducked his head down, cowering under a shelf. Terror raced through every limb of his body. He wanted to scream but no sound would come out.
His situation was hopeless, completely hopeless.
A little while later he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot chocolate in front of him. His father had his big hands cupped close around his own little ones, not quite touching. Jay looked at those hands closely, wondering how he could ever have thought they could do anything bad. He was wondering how anything could change as fast as his fear had turned into relief.
“Your mother is like a bird, Jay,” his dad was saying. “She needs to fly, she needs her freedom. It’s not that she doesn’t love you; it’s just that she needs to try out this other life that she has in her mind. I spoke with her today and she said that when she’s settled you’re to come and visit her.”
Jay remained silent, looking up at his dad. He thought about his mother, and how sometimes you felt like you could put your hand through her, like she wasn’t really there at all. Maybe that’s how it was for a bird that really needed to be free.
“But that’s not how it is for me,” his dad continued. “What I need is you. I love you and I love Bella. But Bella is old, old, old, and she’s in an awful lot of pain. The vet will put her off to sleep and she’ll be in peace. That’s two bad things happening to us, to you and me. And then nothing more bad is likely to happen for a long, long while. We’ll get a puppy, you’ll see your mum every now and then, and life will be pretty good again.” His hands moved a tiny bit closer to Jay’s. “Can you hear this, Jay? Are you okay inside that quiet little head of yours?”
Jay pushed around the side of the table, climbing into his dad’s arms. His heart hurt a little about Bella, it hurt about his mum – but when he reached up to touch his dad’s face, he knew just the two of them would be okay.
“No puppy for awhile yet, okay, Dad?”
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