reflecting on the forest (Kerry)

It was my sister’s counsel in the end,
“In my experience, be there when something’s happening.”
I couldn’t resist,
Packed and was gone
In a day.
Caution to the wind.
The one concession
A caravan park away from the river’s edge.
The old hometown.

And the river?

Awesome in flood.
Brown water sweeping debris from the forest floor.
Ancient sandbags compromising levee banks
Leaving townships inundated.

In the forest
Rain-soaked clouds over treetops
Encourage re-incarnated frogs.
Their afternoon chorus
Staccato tympani in the watery landscape
Despite the poised heron statues in the shadows.

Battered by fifteen dry years
Broken river red gums suck hungrily,
Draw moisture into mighty limbs.

Birds respond to the spring siren,
The promise of abundance.
A sacred kingfisher alert at water’s edge.
Black swans sail with young
Over yesterday’s dry grass plains.
Black-jacketed ibis flock to lush pasture.

My reverie is interrupted.

Undermined by relentless floodwater on exposed roots
It is a graceful fall.
No shout of timber.
A tree-high splash followed by silence.
Sinking below the rumbled surface
To a shadowy afterlife
Melting in black mud.

“We’ll turn back here,” our riverboat guide declares.
She has no choice
Our way is blocked.
A narrow escape.
Hearts pounding
Only seconds from our own demise
Every giant now leans ominously.

Back on terra firma
The water creeps up the track.
Barely perceptible.

Lulled by the blaze of sun
A splash startles me.
I turn.
Another heart-stopper.
Thirty kangaroos pounding rhythmically through the water-bound trees.
No sideways glance.
Parting around me.
Far behind follows the big male.
Stops to catch his breath,
Great chest moving steadily.
Looks me in the eye,
Suspending time.

I am awestruck.
Mesmerised.
Enchanted
To be witness to the forest,
Its future sustained.

Kerry MacAulay
27th September 2010

Just a hare’s breath apart (by Heather)

After years of handing out dyed eggs, the Easter Bunny is in search of a new gift to give to kids. You're a pitchman for a company who's hoping to land the Easter Bunny's account. What's your product and your pitch?

It was those teeth that impressed me the most. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. There were two of them, each the size of an I-Phone.

About what you could expect in the mouth of a six foot rabbit, seated just across the desk from me.

He cleared his throat and I hastily shifted my gaze to meet his eyes. Big round soft eyes, framed by gold granny glasses. When my company had appointed me to be the one to deliver our pitch to the Easter bunny, I’d done my research. This guy didn’t look like the Easter bunnies of my childhood storybooks, but he did look like the photos that Wikipedia had recently published. I was in the presence of the real deal.

“Sorry about the Myxy-Mist, sonny,” he said, referring to the spray treatment I’d undergone as I came through the final length of the burrow. “It’s routine for all our Australian visitors. We can’t have you accidently bringing in the ol’ myxotosis, can we?” He looked at me intently over his glasses.

“Oh, no, sir,” I reassured him, feeling unexpectedly guilty. “The spray was nothing. No worries. Just what I’d expect, of course. I mean, we spray our own visitors when they arrive in the country.” I realised I was babbling and shut up. I was a bundle of nerves. “Sorry, I don’t mean to rabbit on,” I said, promptly groaning inside and biting my tongue.

“Well, we don’t want this to be hare-raising for you, do we?” he said solemnly. “But let’s proceed. I’m ever so keen to hear about what you have for me.”

“Well!” I said. I was feeling harried but took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. “We certainly appreciate the opportunity to show you an exciting new Easter product line. And we feel we can offer you the most astounding breakthrough in, well, in history.” He waved his paw in a move-on gesture so I cut to the chase. “As you know, my company GenuTech is a pioneer in the area of nano-tech gen-mod. That is to say, we use nano-technology to assist with genetic modification.” I paused to see if his eyes were glazing over, which often happens at this point. “Do you follow me?”

He held up a paw. A very large paw with very large pads and very large claws. “I may be a rabbit but I’m not hare-brained,” he said, glasses flashing. “Speak, sonny. Show me the next generation Easter Egg.” He leaned in toward me.

I cleared my throat, trying to smile. “You will love this idea,” I said. “We wanted to keep the tradition of spring-time, of rebirth, renewal. We think that’s good.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he said drily, “as it IS a tradition of several millennia.”

“And we love the Easter colours that have been so popular over the last few decades.”

“How observant.” Dry as the desert.

I coughed and sped up. “So we’ve identified the genomes that give chlorophyll its green, that give tulips their reds and yellows and pinks and oranges, that give delphiniums their blue and irises their purple. And we’ve been completely successful at implanting these colour genomes into…” I paused for effect, “….into the cocoa plant.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “So we now have…?”

“You guessed it,” I said jubilantly. “Coloured chocolate! Chocolate in all colours of the rainbow!” I scuttled for my briefcase and popped open the latch. A cascade of eggs, bunnies and chicks poured out – a riot of coloured chocolate.

“AND,” I shouted, thoroughly on a roll, “not only that, we’ve identified the genome that gives chocolate its unique taste. So not only can we take any chocolate thing and make it any colour of the rainbow, but we can also take any organic thing and make it taste like chocolate! How’s that for an unbelievable Easter?!”

I paused, partly out of breath and partly to let the magnificence of this thing we had done sink in. The years of work, the patent manipulation, the successes and failures, the children’s focus groups, the sheer wonder of those vivid chartreuse chocolate bunnies and the chocolate-flavoured spinach leaves!

The Easter Bunny rose majestically to his full height and hopped over to me, placing a paw around my shoulder. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “Good for you, very good work indeed.” He pushed his glasses further up his nose and began to lead me around the room. “But let me tell you a bit more about what I’m looking for. I’ve had this idea for something I’m calling ‘pet rocks’, and if I’m right, the children’s market is ripe for…”

“Pet rock?” I breathed. “Pet rocks?!”

“Yes, isn’t it marvelous? How’s THAT for hare-brained?” he announced proudly.

Don Draper’s Rabbit Punch - by Rick

“Mr. Bunny a Don Draper is here to see you.”

“Ah, thanks Bettina, please show him in.” The Easter Bunny sat with a smug look, his whiskers twitching with anticipation. “The fun begins”, he thought to himself.

Bettina escorted a tall, handsome and well dressed man into the office. He strode over self-assuredly and held out his hand. “Don Draper Mr. Bunny. It’s such an honor to have been invited here. What can I do to be of service?”

“Thank you Bettina. Mr. Draper, please have a seat.”

“I’ll get right to the point. I called you in because I’m in need of some help and I think you’re the man for the job. Easter is being stolen from me. The Christian Right as they like to call themselves is trying to take the Bunny out of Easter. Preposterous! I invented Easter over 5,000 years ago. It had always been a Pagan celebration of the coming of spring until these Johnny-come-latelys hijacked MY EASTER and put their Savior into a feature role. Well share the joy I always thought. But now they want ME OUT. Can you believe it? Well I’m taking the gloves off. No more timid rabbit over here. I’m taking back Easter to the Pagan ritual it always was and I want you to design a whole new Pagan campaign for me. They tell me that you and your firm are the best. What do you think you can do for me?”

Don Draper sat there stunned. He was speechless. His brow furrowed as he ran ideas back and forth in his mind. Pagan…. Easter…. Taking the gloves off…. Suddenly his eyes lit up and a smile as big as his idea broke out. “Mr. Bunny, this is just shooting from the hip so let’s run it up the flagpole before we judge it. We are going to promote the 2011 Easter Holiday with chocolate Lady Gagas. The campaign will feature Lady Gaga in the flesh, on television, talk-show radio, Blogs, twitters, Facebook, you name it. The queen of Pagan will bring the Pagan back to Easter.”

Easter Bunny sat there stunned. Except for 2011 Easter Holiday he didn’t understand a word that Don Draper had said. “Mr. Draper for starters, what is a Lady Gaga?”

“Mr. Bunny, Lady Gaga IS Pagan. Nothing would upset your opponents more than this person. She has already captured the hearts, souls and allowances of the world’s youth. What Lady Gaga wants, Lady Gaga gets.”

“Stop right there Mr. Draper. I’ve heard enough. Go back to your office and bring me your ideas. Money is no object. I haven’t spent a cent on marketing in 5,000 years and my war chest is impressive.”

“Thank you Mr. Bunny. Let the battle begin.”

Uglies by Sue

Ugly is what the kids go for these days. Gone are the days of Barbie, dolls that pee themselves and fluffy teddy bears. The rage today are UglyDolls. They look peculiar, often with multiple brains and horns but they are decidedly quirky and kids love them.

My company, Quirky Toys Pty Ltd, is making these dolls out of chocolate. Not just ordinary milk chocolate but plain chocolate, white chocolate and a favourite for kids is bound to be blue chocolate which matches the real thing. The chocolate is covered with a strong foil, blue of course and the eyes are made out of real pink buttons. The Ugly dolls are not much bigger than an egg.

Can you imagine a Nandy bear hunt? Where these blue foil uglies are hidden around the garden? They are malleable so can sit on branches, nestled in the fork or they can balance on smaller shrubs hidden by a few leaves. Bend their little arms and they can even hang, say from the washing line.

My Company, Quirky Toys, has been in the toy business for 10 years and specialise in toys for the 5-10 age group. We have a department dedicated to researching what kids love today and what they are going to love tomorrow. We mainly employ Generation Y who are very skilled at getting out there on the streets and talking to kids. Of course this same generation are experts when it comes to technology. They have designed and implemented our new web site and some of them have even contributed to the Design Department when we are looking to launch new products.

We can make these uglies into eggs easily. We have a pro-forma cast which can be used for the normal production or any other liquid including chocolate. So our eggs will be cheap to manufacture and therefore cheap to market and sell. 6 of the toys will fit into the standard egg carton. This is the bit I love, just imagine a kid opening the egg carton to find uglies and not eggs. They will just die and go to heaven. How quirky is that?

Image downloaded from http://learningexpressblog.

Size didn’t matter (by Heather)

Write a story titled, “Size Didn’t Matter”

His house stood silhouetted against the severe blue of the late morning sky, its cupolas, chimneys, gables and slate roof lines making stark contrast with the cloudless sky. Andrew leaned against his walking stick and stopped to catch his breath. He waited for the faint whiff of pride he always felt when he looked at the old mansion. Luxury kitchen, ballroom, ten bedrooms, twelve bathrooms – the crowd this house couldn’t take wasn’t worth calling a crowd.

But the whiff of pride didn’t arrive. It was drowned out by the thought that the last time this house had seen a crowd was almost out of his memory. There was him and there was Barbara, his housekeeper. There weren’t any crowds.

He definitely felt flat. The chemo was taking it out of him, no doubt about it. And he shouldn’t be this out of puff after the short walk up from the stables. He’d known the walk would be a bit of a challenge, but he’d wanted to see Sidney. At 18 hands, Sidney was the biggest and finest piece of horseflesh in all of WA. Too bad he’d been a bit sullen in the stable this morning. Probably just reflecting Andrew’s own mood.

He stumped his way up the marble steps, pausing half way up to lean against the balustrade. Hell, he wasn’t going to make it to the top of the steps on this lungful, so he might as well sit down for awhile. He dropped on to one of the steps, positioning his walking stick where he could lean his chin against it.

Thoughts swarmed in. He was 72 years old; he had a death sentence; he had no crowds. Truth be told, he had no individuals.

He thumped the walking stick on the marble. Just because he’d been told the cancer was still moving fast didn’t mean he was about to indulge in any maudlin reflections. There would be no melodramatic surrender to the ebbing life forces and all that crap.

So he didn’t have a crowd of people. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Around him lay a good deal of the evidence of his life. There was the majestic house at his back, the sprawling stables and corrals, the immense shed beside which his 45’ SeaWatch catamaran was currently aground, big enough for a good-sized family to holiday in luxury. It had been brought in this morning from the harbour, to spend a little time in drydock while Andrew had it cleaned and worked out what to do with it.

He rubbed the end of the walking stick against the stubble on his chin. He turned his gaze inward, looking at how he felt. All he could find was tired, tired, tired.

And scared.

And alone.

He sucked in a deep breath. I could die right here, he thought, and nobody would notice until Barbara came to take out supper to the stablehands. Further, nobody would care. The boys and good old Melanie would head straight for their lawyers. Yes, the lawyers and the accountants would have a field day and otherwise there’d be scarcely a ripple in the universe.

To hell with that. That counted as maudlin reflection and he wasn’t having a bar of it.

That’s when he noticed a car pulling up the long driveway. Ah, William’s black BMW. Not driven by William, though. By his chauffeur, what was his name anyway? – Mike, yes that was it. What was Mike doing here? Then his heart leapt a little as he saw the tiny blonde head in the rear seat. The chauffeur jumped out and whipped open the back door, fiddling with the devices on the child’s car seat.

Released, the tiny figure bounded out of the car and began racing toward the house. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the old man on the steps. “Grandpa!” he shouted. “GRANDPA! I comed to see you.” He tripped over the first step, then flew up the remainder until he catapulted himself into Andrew’s arms. “I can stay for THIS many days, Grandpa,” he said, holding up a hand with all fingers thrust out.

Andrew hugged him tightly, for a moment unable to speak. He rose unsteadily to his feet as the chauffeur approached the steps, a little suitcase in one hand and a large empty cardboard box carried by its flap in the other.

“Hello, Mr Branford; you remember me, Mike Bensall. William asked me to drive Ben over – he thought it would be a nice surprise; he can stay for a few days if he’s welcome.”

Andrew ran his fingers through his grandson’s hair as the little face pulled back to beam up at him. “Thank you, Mike. He’s very welcome. He’s very welcome indeed,” he said. “Would you care to stay for a drink?”

Mike shook his head. “I’ve got to get the car back.” He dropped the suitcase at the foot of the stairs, then waved the cardboard box. “Pardon me, sir, but Ben insisted on bringing his cardboard box along.”

Ben released his grip on Andrew and barrelled back down the stairs. “It’s my boat, Grandpa. It’s my BOAT. Watch!” He clambered inside the box and began rocking from side to side. “Watch out for the big waves, Grandpa!” The chauffeur returned to the car and waved goodbye.

Andrew gazed at his grandson ruefully. He could not help but glance at the other boat on the property: the SeaWatch, elegantly perched on its double hulls, the gleaming brass of its railings visible from here.

He had collected around himself the finest of everything – and his grandson chose the cardboard box.

He had anything a body could want, and no one to share his life with.

– Except this miracle, this little grandson with the shining eyes.

“Come fishin’ with me, Grandpa,” the boy shouted, sliding to one side in the big box.

Andrew walked down the steps, to play with his grandson.

Extract from Kakadu, Darwin in the Wet

Ubirr and Noulangie

Experience a fascinating and unique world of art, many thousands of years old, in some of the most beautiful scenery in the Northern Territory. Bush tracks lead to a number of rock art sites where intriguing stories shed light on some of the mystery and culture behind the paintings.

Wander past sheer sandstone rock faces, in vivid shades of orange and red with splashes of black, which tower alongside the eucalypts with their stark white trunks. Compare the burnt and almost dead bush from the dry season as it comes alive with vibrant new growth and tiny unfurling leaves, and discover carpets of wild pink ginger that look like bluebells in an English wood.

The rock art tells stories of the Creation and how the landscape and cultural influences have changed the Aboriginal way of life over many thousands of years. Be amazed at the fine and intricate detail that is so beautifully drawn in yellow, orange and white shades of ochre. Stop for a while and look, imagine and speculate. Your own stories and interpretations will probably unfold.

At Ubirr, follow a 1 km circular track, ultimately to a lookout. Time your visit for sunset. It’s a steady and moderate climb to the top of the escarpment where the setting sun lights up the rocks in a golden glow and the green floodplains look vibrant and lush. Don’t forget the camera!

Yellow Waters

Water is everywhere as the South Alligator River bursts its banks and overflows across the floodplains. On a breakfast cruise through this water wonderland, the river pandanus form dense hedges of green and the lush buffalo grass encroaches on the tiny white flowers of the native Wiligia vines. Lily pads, bigger than any dinner plate, gently unfurl alongside the spears of new bright pink lotus lily and a brilliant carpet of red mangrove tree flowers suddenly appears amongst the jungle of green. A crocodile lurks in the murky shallows standing guard on his mound of eggs and a darter with wings like a silver jumbo jet perches perfectly still on a dead bit of tree.

A Shock of White - By Rick

When I look back at what I saw first, what's weird is how come that's what I saw.

I remember lying there with my eyes still closed and thinking to myself, "Wow. I thought I would be going through the world's worst hangover after last night but I don’t feel a thing.”

I remember opening my eyes and staring into this mirror above me and thinking, “Oh my God, my hair’s turned white!” And in the next second thinking “Lumpy, you little bastard! I’ll bet you set this up after I passed out. Oh you are so dead!”

And then from somewhere this little voice kicked in and asked, “Hey how come there’s a mirror up on the ceiling? I don’t have a mirror there.”

The little voice rolled on, “And how come I’m all pale and wrinkled? And why am I wearing a white smock?”

Good questions. Lumpy had gone way beyond practical joking. He was seriously going to die!

Then the little voice popped in with, “Hey, how come I can’t move?”

“Ok Lumpy”, I screamed. But what I heard was a faint, raspy, “Ogaylummy”

And then off to my right somewhere I heard a woman’s voice. “Oh my God, Mr. Johnson is conscious. Marion, call Dr Franks immediately.”

And as Marion, whoever she is, went off looking for Dr Franks, whoever he is, the voice became a face looking down at me.

“What’s happening?”, I asked the face and I heard something that sounded more like “wusabig” crawl out of my mouth.

“Don’t try to talk Mr. Johnson”, the lady said. “We thought that this would never happen. Nobody has ever come out of a coma after 47 years. This is a miracle.”

And the little voice and I were speechless.