Victor helps me out of the car and I am embarrassed to hear myself groan slightly, like you would expect of an old man. I feel large. We walk into Baby Plus and head to the back where the cots are kept. I see a sales assistant do a double take and then walk in the other direction. You’d think these people who work on commission would be willing to help anyone but they aren’t. I try not to let it bother me and Victor and I look for something suitable. There are hardly any other customers and still the sales assistant is avoiding us.
‘I’ll rustle somebody up to sell this to us, eh?’ Victor takes charge, as usual. He walks up to the teenaged girl awkwardly trying to look busy enough not to bother. ‘Can we get some assistance over here please?’
‘Oh… sure,’ she looks timidly at me. Her name tag says Annabelle and her t-shirt is too small. She scratches the back of her hand and walks over to me.
‘I’d like this cot,’ I say.
‘That’s a popular one. I’ll see if we have any left.’ Annabelle walks off quickly.
We wait. After ten minutes or so I see a Baby Plus uniformed man striding purposefully toward us.
‘Hi, I’m Garry, the manager here at Baby Plus, now you say you wanted one of these?’ Garry does his best to be business-like and not ogle my belly.
‘Please,’ I murmur as I look at him looking at me.
‘Well, is this the best price you can do? We’re happy to pay cash,’ Victor, once again, takes control.
‘The thing is we’re actually out of this model at the moment. The next delivery will be Tuesday. Now, if your heart is set on this one, you can purchase it now and pick it up Tuesday.’
I look at Victor, knowing he is working all week. ‘Do you deliver?’ he asks.
‘For a small fee we can deliver it Wednesday.’
I hand my wallet to Victor and let him take care of things. As Victor and Garry discuss the price I get bored and I wander off toward the high chairs. I pass by a young couple looking at the changing tables. I see the woman look at me and step behind her husband, as if she were looking at something else.
On the way home I ask Victor how Mum and Dad are.
‘Oh, you know, alright, the same,’ he stumbles over these words a little, like I’ve caught him off guard. I do know why but that’s my secret for now.
‘Nothing new at all?’
‘You should call them you know.’
‘You know Dad won’t talk to me and I can’t handle Mum. Mostly she just cries when I call her’
‘It’s not my news to tell. You have to talk to them sometime.’
‘So there is news?’ Finally, he might tell me. I can’t tell him how I know already. I’ve kept my special talent hidden this long and I’m not giving it up now.
‘Yes, but you have to hear it from them. You know all they want you to do is talk to Blanche. They don’t expect any more than that. They think she deserves that at least. Or that Elliot does.’ We are silent for the rest of the drive. I stare out the window at the passing houses.
Victor drops me off at the building and we say goodbye. He says he will come over on Wednesday evening to help me set up the cot. As he drives off I sigh. I am exhausted. My belly is so heavy these days. I have a fat person’s shuffle instead of a walk now. I make my way up the stairs and try to curl up on my bed. Except there’s this belly in the way.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Scotland Will Rule Again
Where to begin? Billy was a short and slim Scot with slanted eyes, salt and pepper hair tied in a pony tail and breath that reeked of tobacco, beer, and puke. He always wore a green tee shirt that read ‘Scotland will rule again’ with faded jeans and leather boots that had walked a thousand miles, unless he had to dress up for his girlfriend Rose, then he wore cross-country ski boots.
Billy would always greet you with his missing-tooth grin by calling you an “old toad”. Then he would yell to Ken the bartender “give us a round of drinks” acting as he was going to pay for them, but he never did. Billy was loud and obnoxious and you had to walk on eggshells many nights because he also threatened quite a few that he was going to make them “gobble glass”. You might question me “Why would you want to be around anyone like this?” I would respond, “You never seen him play guitar”.
Billy claims he was in a sixties band named Shadows of the Knight, they are the band who wrote “Gloria” I never checked on it, I don’t really want to know. As I mentioned about the Gallery, anyone, anytime could get up on stage and perform anything. One night with a lot of coaxing, Billy in his drunkenness jumped up on stage and started playing the guitar, he wasn’t very good but I chalked it up to his drunkenness, no big deal. A few nights later same thing, and next time the same and so on and so on.
Billy only knew three songs and not very well, when he sang you could hardly make out anything he was singing due to his heavy accent and too much beer. Every time my friends and I were at the Gallery we always wanted Billy to play. It was entertaining to us, not in the typical way but more like watching a shitty comic bomb. One night, after seeing Billy play fifty times or so, we got him up on stage and he started singing his three songs but something seemed out of sorts. Billy had finished singing “Old Man” by Neil Young, and as everyone was cheering Billy uttered a very soft and humble thank you, I think I was the only one who heard him and as I watched walk off stage my heart began to sink. All these times that I had listened to him play thinking this some sort of drunken game, I suddenly realized that those three songs meant everything to him. When he played he was transported to a better time. It made him made him forget all his troubles and the hard and sad times in his life, I think that’s the only time he felt real and good inside. Instead of seeing Billy as partner to drink the night away, I saw a sad old man who had basically given up on life. I didn’t really know anything of his past or anything he was really doing in the present, I never even knew his last name and I guess I didn’t really know him at all. One thing I did know is that I felt his emptiness that night and that is a horrible feeling. I’m not a healer, I can’t turn back time, I knew the only thing I could do to help him have a better life, if only for a few minutes a week, was to get him to play me his guitar and wail out a song knowing he was off to that better place.
This piece was written for me by my friend Steve Miller. I wanted to share it with the world. That is, if anyone even reads this blog.
Billy would always greet you with his missing-tooth grin by calling you an “old toad”. Then he would yell to Ken the bartender “give us a round of drinks” acting as he was going to pay for them, but he never did. Billy was loud and obnoxious and you had to walk on eggshells many nights because he also threatened quite a few that he was going to make them “gobble glass”. You might question me “Why would you want to be around anyone like this?” I would respond, “You never seen him play guitar”.
Billy claims he was in a sixties band named Shadows of the Knight, they are the band who wrote “Gloria” I never checked on it, I don’t really want to know. As I mentioned about the Gallery, anyone, anytime could get up on stage and perform anything. One night with a lot of coaxing, Billy in his drunkenness jumped up on stage and started playing the guitar, he wasn’t very good but I chalked it up to his drunkenness, no big deal. A few nights later same thing, and next time the same and so on and so on.
Billy only knew three songs and not very well, when he sang you could hardly make out anything he was singing due to his heavy accent and too much beer. Every time my friends and I were at the Gallery we always wanted Billy to play. It was entertaining to us, not in the typical way but more like watching a shitty comic bomb. One night, after seeing Billy play fifty times or so, we got him up on stage and he started singing his three songs but something seemed out of sorts. Billy had finished singing “Old Man” by Neil Young, and as everyone was cheering Billy uttered a very soft and humble thank you, I think I was the only one who heard him and as I watched walk off stage my heart began to sink. All these times that I had listened to him play thinking this some sort of drunken game, I suddenly realized that those three songs meant everything to him. When he played he was transported to a better time. It made him made him forget all his troubles and the hard and sad times in his life, I think that’s the only time he felt real and good inside. Instead of seeing Billy as partner to drink the night away, I saw a sad old man who had basically given up on life. I didn’t really know anything of his past or anything he was really doing in the present, I never even knew his last name and I guess I didn’t really know him at all. One thing I did know is that I felt his emptiness that night and that is a horrible feeling. I’m not a healer, I can’t turn back time, I knew the only thing I could do to help him have a better life, if only for a few minutes a week, was to get him to play me his guitar and wail out a song knowing he was off to that better place.
This piece was written for me by my friend Steve Miller. I wanted to share it with the world. That is, if anyone even reads this blog.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Peace, Tony, Devil. Pt. 4 (I'm not dead right now)
This morning I have two post-its on my monitor. One is from Jesse, William’s secretary, re the preschool accounts and the other is from Brad, my cubicle-mate, saying that Antonia called. This notice takes up most of the little square but at the bottom it also says Blanche called. Blanche is my wife, so really I called but it’s just my way of keeping up the illusion.
When Brad arrives he greets me with a big smile. He is a small man, like myself, and blends in similarly; I guess that’s why we were partnered up when Loomis & Loomis moved to its new offices. He never does much to get noticed but I can sense in him a longing to be recognised and reveled as an important man. I mystify my co-workers and as the closest to me, he is the ‘go-to guy’ for any updates on my status as they tend to avoid me. He sees this as some sort of upgrade to his social standing and I know he is grateful for it.
‘Morning, Tony?’ Brad mostly states questions when he talks. It frustrates most people but I quite like it, and usually ignore it but sometimes I like to play along.
‘Certainly is, Brad. Busy day today eh?’ I do my best at a manly pal-around.
‘Finishing the preschool accounts today? Definitely, I haven’t seen our old Loomis and Loomis this flustered since old Hadley was leaving the team?”
* * * * * * *
On Saturday my brother comes to visit. He picks me up at the door to my building and we head out for the day. He’s the only person with the know-how to assemble things I could find who was willing to accompany me to shop for the baby’s room. My brother, Victor, has broad shoulders and almost no neck and despite my shape being almost the opposite (weedy and long-necked) I have never envied his stature. Being my size made it easier to slip into the background, until this belly appeared anyway.
Sitting in his car I wind down the window and let the fresh air breathe over me. He says something to me but I look out the window and am distracted by a man in the car we are passing. As we overtake him I catch a glimpse of a figure hunching toward the steering wheel and probably he has just sneezed but it looks as if he is crying. A sudden dark feeling envelops my body. I feel awful inside. It’s hard to believe that a stranger who probably isn’t even crying but looks as if he is can do this to me. Deep down I fret a little, what will happen when I see my child cry? How will I cope?
When Brad arrives he greets me with a big smile. He is a small man, like myself, and blends in similarly; I guess that’s why we were partnered up when Loomis & Loomis moved to its new offices. He never does much to get noticed but I can sense in him a longing to be recognised and reveled as an important man. I mystify my co-workers and as the closest to me, he is the ‘go-to guy’ for any updates on my status as they tend to avoid me. He sees this as some sort of upgrade to his social standing and I know he is grateful for it.
‘Morning, Tony?’ Brad mostly states questions when he talks. It frustrates most people but I quite like it, and usually ignore it but sometimes I like to play along.
‘Certainly is, Brad. Busy day today eh?’ I do my best at a manly pal-around.
‘Finishing the preschool accounts today? Definitely, I haven’t seen our old Loomis and Loomis this flustered since old Hadley was leaving the team?”
* * * * * * *
On Saturday my brother comes to visit. He picks me up at the door to my building and we head out for the day. He’s the only person with the know-how to assemble things I could find who was willing to accompany me to shop for the baby’s room. My brother, Victor, has broad shoulders and almost no neck and despite my shape being almost the opposite (weedy and long-necked) I have never envied his stature. Being my size made it easier to slip into the background, until this belly appeared anyway.
Sitting in his car I wind down the window and let the fresh air breathe over me. He says something to me but I look out the window and am distracted by a man in the car we are passing. As we overtake him I catch a glimpse of a figure hunching toward the steering wheel and probably he has just sneezed but it looks as if he is crying. A sudden dark feeling envelops my body. I feel awful inside. It’s hard to believe that a stranger who probably isn’t even crying but looks as if he is can do this to me. Deep down I fret a little, what will happen when I see my child cry? How will I cope?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Peace, Tony, Devil Pt 3
I arrive at work early this morning; I want to make a good impression on the bosses for the next two weeks. It would be helpful to have a job to return to when my baby is old enough. I work at an accounting firm, Loomis & Loomis. Loomis and Loomis aren’t my biggest fans currently. They are identical twin two brothers, Steven and William. I think most of our clients can’t tell them apart. The only reason I can is because of their voices, and the difference is so subtle I think only myself and Janet, the secretary, can pick it and then, only when they speak. You can usually tell when someone is trying to put on a voice, one of the many reasons my special talent is so useful.
William or Steven arrives when I do and we nod hello, I can’t tell if he’s pleased that I’m early or grizzled that I exist. We reach the door at the same time and he holds it open for me. I realise it is William, Steven is never so polite. I must admit this is something about him that I appreciate and sometimes I feel it’s the least he could do, me being in my condition and all.
‘Did you get that thing I sent you?’ William may be polite but he’s all business.
‘The preschool accounts?’
‘No, my review of the outline of your presentation, I sent it last night.’
‘Oh, not yet. I was at my birthing class last night.'
‘Of course you were,’ he sighs heavily, as if it were he with a weight in his belly.
‘It’s the first thing on my list.’ I wander towards my desk.
* * * * * * *
The more I think about it the more the fear builds inside me. This whole pregnancy thing does frighten me, immeasurably. I know I gave the impression (said in words, even) that I wasn’t afraid of what is happening to my body but truthfully I am terrified. I’m a man, not built for this. My legs feel weak, my back aches and my belly is ever expanding. I wonder if a woman will ever love me again. I have breasts now. I remember not long ago when I would judge a man with even the slightest hint of breast and now I am that man. The only consolation for me is that at least they’re not because I enjoy my food too much; although my cravings make me worry that this reason could overtake that of my pregnancy. For now my breasts serve a noble purpose.
William or Steven arrives when I do and we nod hello, I can’t tell if he’s pleased that I’m early or grizzled that I exist. We reach the door at the same time and he holds it open for me. I realise it is William, Steven is never so polite. I must admit this is something about him that I appreciate and sometimes I feel it’s the least he could do, me being in my condition and all.
‘Did you get that thing I sent you?’ William may be polite but he’s all business.
‘The preschool accounts?’
‘No, my review of the outline of your presentation, I sent it last night.’
‘Oh, not yet. I was at my birthing class last night.'
‘Of course you were,’ he sighs heavily, as if it were he with a weight in his belly.
‘It’s the first thing on my list.’ I wander towards my desk.
* * * * * * *
The more I think about it the more the fear builds inside me. This whole pregnancy thing does frighten me, immeasurably. I know I gave the impression (said in words, even) that I wasn’t afraid of what is happening to my body but truthfully I am terrified. I’m a man, not built for this. My legs feel weak, my back aches and my belly is ever expanding. I wonder if a woman will ever love me again. I have breasts now. I remember not long ago when I would judge a man with even the slightest hint of breast and now I am that man. The only consolation for me is that at least they’re not because I enjoy my food too much; although my cravings make me worry that this reason could overtake that of my pregnancy. For now my breasts serve a noble purpose.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Baths - Cerulean
Have a listen. Be so indie you listen to (some of) it before it's released. It's totally worth your time.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Peace, Tony, Devil Pt 2
We go to a trendy café, and sit on the street. I ask about her husband. I’ve only met him once; he seems to be nice enough. Bland though, so bland. Antonia is so sweet and bizarre. I sometimes wonder why she settled for him. Her response is perfunctory and she quickly changes the topic. She doesn’t ever want to talk about him or babies. I find this a bit strange although at the same time I know how an expecting parent is questioned. It’s always the same questions. I figure she just wants a break from being a pregnant married woman when she is with me.
Instead we talk about the other women in the class. This is about all we have in common, not that this is a problem. We both have a particular fondness for Audra, Colette’s partner. She’s probably our favourite person in the class. She has guts without needing to show it. Just as Colette never misses a beat to mention the sacrifice she feels she is making, Audra will never let it slip by overlooked. Colette doesn’t tend to notice but Audra lets us all know what really occurs. In reality Colette begged and bargained with Audra to have the first child. She likes to feel she is the groundbreaker in all of her relationships. It all stems from her desire for recognition. She needs to win. Almost everything is a competition with Colette. Audra tends to balance her. She doesn’t need to win and she likes direction.
Tonight’s exercise was really about the pregnant woman (or person) in the class and most of the husbands sat around the edges of the room or milled about at the refreshment table. Only Audra and Daniel sat with their women and helped them focus. I can only think of two people in the class who aren’t absolutely terrified about what is happening to their bodies and that is Colette and myself. It seems odd that competitive Colette wouldn’t be worried about losing her figure but she truly isn’t. As long as she’s doing it first she’s not afraid of anything.
‘I think she’s amazing.’
‘Colette? Why? She’s painful.’
‘No, Audra. She amazes me. Her patience with that woman is more than admirable. You wonder how they paired up.’
‘I wonder how you and Lachlan paired up.’ Only I don’t say that last part. No one ever quite follows through with all that they are thinking.
‘It is a wonder,’ I smile at her.
We finish our milkshakes and cheesecake glad there is a baby to blame the cravings and weight on. We walk on the beach, it’s nicer at night. The funny thing about being pregnant is that strangers think that your belly is public domain and rush to touch you, to get some sense of this new life. At night not so much.
‘I can’t wait to stop working,’ huffs Antonia, ‘I’m taking eight months off, then Lachlan will take six or so then we’ll see what happens. I don’t think I will want to keep working full time after that. What about you?’
‘One fortnight left for me. Paternity leave, I get twelve months paid. I love my job. The bosses hate me though, they definitely didn’t see this coming when they hired me,’ I chuckle, “after that, who knows?”
We get back to her Hummer and she drops me to my building. I climb the stairs wearily and enter my apartment. The first thing I do when I get home is open all the windows I possibly can. I can’t abide by stale air, I feel compressed and it makes me anxious. I wonder if that’s how the baby floating inside me feels. I often wonder what it is thinking. Some people say a baby is born with all the knowledge in the universe inside them and as they grow, those first few months, all the new stimulation around them, all the wondrous things they see make them forget or repress the knowledge and they can never tell us.
I think about Antonia, her slight frame and her swelling belly. I slowly repeat everything she said to me tonight to myself in her soulful voice. I don’t know if it’s a talent or magic but I can talk in any voice I can imagine. So when I say these words to myself it is her voice I and the walls around me hear. It is a trick that is more useful than you can imagine, my boss thinks I have a wife. She sometimes calls in sick for me.
THE SOCIETY OF EROTIC POETS QUARTERLY JOURNAL VOL. 1 MARCH 2010
Carroll Digested
You won't sleep, take the paperclip and carve the door in two.
Did you see? Did you see? I saw your naked feet and tried to fold myself into the door.
Fold the note a thousand times with twice-clipped nails.
Notes and hitch-knots fail to bind, contrive and lead to nothing but a tangle.
They say, long string in hand, can't tie knots? Tie lots!
But she had long brown hair!
Enjoy your tingling scalp as your hair curls into the tar-dollop.
I curl the wrong fingers around the rails and bound down the stairs on wobbly ankles.
The confused fingers that interrupt conversation.
The conversation that always seems to come too late.
It is late, I should go to sleep.
But I won't sleep.
DAVID JOHNSTON
Peace, Tony, Devil Pt. 1
‘Focus on the spiral. Focus on my voice. Focus on your breath. 3, 2, 1. Control it lad… people!’
She still forgets I’m here most of the time. It’s an interesting place to be, a prenatal class. It’s even more interesting when you are a single man.
‘Keep breathing! Keep it controlled. Focus on the signals your body is sending! It’s most important to keep calm!’ The way Laura yells this seems to counteract her instructions. She’s new to this, and has to be forgiven. This room full of pregnant women makes her nervous. My presence is not helping.
When I first arrived to class our instructor Laura was dumbfounded. Being fresh to the job she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. When she asked me if I was sure I was in the right place I began to cry and held my belly protectively like you often see pregnant women do.
I have an idea what you’re thinking about my motives for being here. It’s likely you’re wrong though. I’m not here to find a woman. Nor am I motivated by sex. Perhaps you would think it’s a good place to find a willing partner, obviously these ladies put out. I am having a baby. It’s not as impossible as you think. You need to open your mind. Almost anything is possible these days.
Some women bring their husbands and one woman, Colette, brings her girlfriend. She’s having the first baby and her partner will have the second, she often mentions the sacrifice she feels she’s making, to her career and such. She’s the only one her who seems reluctant to be pregnant. Colette however is the only one in the fortunate position to have an option to expand her family without her herself having a baby. She is much further along than I am. She’s almost ready to give birth.
Everyone here is a first time parent, except me. Why would you come to a class about it if you’ve already done it at least once before? I can answer that one easily. Does any parent ever really feel like they know what they are doing? I can admit this and not only to myself. I’m not worried about what other people think. I’m here in the first place, right?
‘Ok, ladi… everyone, we’ll finish it here this evening, see you next week.’ She almost forgot me again.
After the class Antonia approaches me. I tend to get a lot of uneasy looks from the women here (not to mention their husbands) but Antonia seems to like me.
‘Hey Tony, want a lift?’
‘Thanks, Antonia. The busses don’t come frequently at this time of night.’
She smiles at me.
You wouldn’t expect it to look at her but Antonia drives a Hummer. From the first time I saw her climb out of it I was impressed. Yes, yes, climate change and so forth but it’s a nasty, big fuck-off car and she’s a nice, little welcoming woman. Few things in the world make me happier than these sorts of contradictions.
It’s warm inside like a womb and slightly stuffy. I wind down my window and gulp some air. Babies breathe inside the womb you know. They are basically breathing underwater. Like I said, anything is possible if you’re open to the idea.
‘Straight home or do you want to get dessert first?’
‘Dessert, while we can still blame it on pregnancy,’ I know this is what she wants to hear.
klehr.
LOST
One libido
Will respond to the call of a beautiful person
Looks like unsatisfied
If found please return to Miss R. Pennyfeather currently lying undressed under a tree in Glebe Park.
AMY WILSON
He's living life reluctantly,
when self respect seems false.
Apathy and love
are all he is dealt
by perception and revolving thought.
He understands futility
set against amity.
The foundation of his quandry!
With a push
comes a pull
and affection is put to rest.
He understands
that love is too great
in a heat where nothing lasts.
The unbearable them,
the impossible him.
Please bear the drag,
and don't let go.
SPARROWBOY
BLEEDING KNIVES
I was a bit sleepy so I didnt notice when the knife
started bleeding out of my stomach. Really its quite a scary thing to
have bleed out of your stomach. And I know what you're wondering, and
the answer is yes. Yes a literal cut, yes literal blood, yes
solidifying into a literal knife.
Luckily I had a friend who was a boy scout. He was very handsome. For every three of
my fingers you might have counted one of his. Sometimes he had a bad
haircut though.
We used to sit on the loungeroom floor. Not to play boardgames, if thats what you were thinking.
He took my knife and gave it to his scout leader.
He had a nose like Drazic from Heartbreak high. Which I used to hear as "jurassic"
and so my scouting friend's nose always made me think of dinosaurs. It
was great. Once he threw up in my parents green house.
When my cut healed it left a scar which was pink for a little while and then became
white and then faded a little bit. A lover I had when I was thirty six
kissed it almost three times. Sometimes I pick the peeling skin off the
soles of my feet. Dead beetles frighten me even more than live beetles.
I wonder if beetles have ghosts?
EADIE NILSEN
GLACIAL BEAUTY, PART ONE
It wasn’t much of a morning, dark and bitter and rancid, with a cold
mildewy wind like the breath of a dead witch. Wilbur Schön shivered and
pulled his shawl closer around him. His daughter would still be
sleeping, sprawled on the horsehair mattress in her room. He wished he
was at home, stoking the fire perhaps, with some bread on the toasting
fork, but instead he was traipsing through the heath, the hem of his
dress dragging on the ground while the dank air tugged at his nose and
whispered filthy secrets to him.
“Why did John have to meet me here?” Wilbur muttered in response to the wind. He looked ahead through the greasy mist to see a man standing on the crest of the hill in a black frock-coat and riding boots. No sign of a horse.
Jonathan Grimgram had employed Wilbur for two years, ever since he’d made his flight from Germany, avoiding a bizarre assassination plot over his scientific secrets. The employment was of much lesser prestige than the work he’d been doing previously - studies of anatomy and chemical combinations, as well as exciting new developments. Now he helped with Mr Grimgram’s plant collection, dye extraction and acid solutions for his work. Mr Grimgram was an artist, thought Wilbur with some disdain. He had the artistic temperament, but not the solid work ethic to match it. At first he’d delighted in having Wilbur around, finding his unusual attire somewhat amusing, but their relationship had soured for no apparent reason, other than the green fairy filling Mr Grimgram’s glass on an evening. The sizzle of dissolving sugar cubes became a constant reminder to Wilbur that it was best if he picked up his feet and returned home - before the violent temper began.
Did Mr Grimgram, in his drunken fog, think that Wilbur was his estranged wife, a harridan, a shrew? He thought nothing of raising a hairy hardened hand to the other man’s shoulder blades or face. Sometimes Wilbur was thankful for his corset, protecting his sides from some of the artist’s lower blows.
In any case, he felt that he and Glacielle had nowhere else to go. His English still wasn’t very good, and it wasn’t as if he was very trusted. Many people seemed to consider him either a loose woman, or a sodomite, as opposed to in his home country, where they took no issue with him. Glacielle had pleaded with him to start dressing as was his position, his status, but when he put on the trousers and shirt she proffered, he felt naked and exposed, uncomfortable. It was cold not to be shrouded in layers of chemise, petticoat, dress and shawl, and he felt, bizarrely, as if he were actually wearing someone else’s clothes. He put the thought on his mind, and began instead to wonder why Jonathan had called him to the top of the hill, early in the morning.
‘To talk...,’ Wilbur thought. ‘That’s what he said. Yeah right.’
Mr Grimgram raised a hand and called him.
“Wilbur! Thou kommst!”
“Warum sind sie am die berg, Grimgram?” Wilbur replied. “Es ist zu fröh und...aber...warum?”
“English please,” Jonathan Grimgram continued wearily. “If a loathsome unbecoming old bitch like you is going to come to the queen’s fair country, the least we can ask of you is that you speak her language.”
“Aber Sie hat Deutsche familie, und einer Deutsche mann...” Wilbur continued hopelessly. It was too early for English, his brain wasn’t working, just sloshing backwards and forwards like a pea soup.
“I told you English!” Grimgram yelled, grabbing Wilbur by the shoulders roughly. “Why did you even come here if you can’t speak the bloody language!”
“I try Mr Grimgram,” Wilbur said. “I stand up this morning, and thinking why he ask me to come so early, but I do not know! Why...why you ask me coming here?”
“I’m so tired of you,” Jonathon said, his words dripping with contempt and weariness. “I’m so very, very tired of you.”
He shoved Wilbur, who stumbled and fell backwards onto the heath. For the first time, instead of resignation, Wilbur felt fear, a fear that heightened when Mr Grimgram, rage in his eyes, grabbed him and pushed him onto his front. His face in the heather, mud in his eyes, Wilbur froze when he felt Grimgram’s hand pulling up his skirt, expecting to be raped.
“Sie sollen nicht!” Wilbur cried, feeling pre-emptively violated, but he only felt the artist’s weathered hand push higher to prod at his corset. It was a good one, steel boned and wasp waisted, although he didn’t lace it nearly as tightly as a lady would.
“Why the fuck do you have to wear this stupid thing?”
Wilbur tried to get up, but Grimgram was a lot stronger than him and much heavier.
“Take it off.”
“What?” Wilbur said, finally managing to find the English word. “What are you doing, please....bitte, what the hell are you doing? You....you...sheizenkopf! You...dikkes teufel!”
“You heard me,” the voice of Jonathan Grimgram came again. “Take that bloody stupid thing off. You’re not in a fashion plate. Take it off if you want to live.”
Wilbur’s hands fumbled at the front of the garment, his fingers trembling in fear, finally managing to separate the busk. It wasn’t exactly easy taking a corset off while still clothed. His arm felt like it wanted to dislocate.
“It’s off?” Grimgram said, and Wilbur nodded. Was this merely a cruel way to stop his effeminate sartorial habits? Or was he going to be buggered brutally on the heath, with no one to know or care about what had happened to him?
He struggled vainly for another minute, and then suddenly felt a hot stab of pain in his shoulder. Wilbur screamed in agony. He reached his hand behind him, trying to feel what had happened. With much scrabbling, he felt something embedded in him - the point of an intaglio tool. The point. Of a double ended tool 8 inches long.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck!” Wilbur screamed hopelessly, taking his hand away and realising the palm was slick with his own blood, which had stained much of the way up his sleeve. “WARUM! FICKEN SIE! Ah....”
It was too late; through dimming vision, Wilbur saw Jonathan Grimgram walking away, pulling off and discarding his stained doeskin gloves.
LOUISA GIFFARD
ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO WRITE OR DISCUSS OR DO GENERAL LITERARY SOCIETY THINGS WILL PLEASE IMMEDIATELY BEGIN.
SEND THIS TO WHOEVER YOU WANT TO. PRINT AND DISTRIBUTE! OR DONT! OR ILLUSTRATE! OR CRITICIZE! OR IGNORE!
You won't sleep, take the paperclip and carve the door in two.
Did you see? Did you see? I saw your naked feet and tried to fold myself into the door.
Fold the note a thousand times with twice-clipped nails.
Notes and hitch-knots fail to bind, contrive and lead to nothing but a tangle.
They say, long string in hand, can't tie knots? Tie lots!
But she had long brown hair!
Enjoy your tingling scalp as your hair curls into the tar-dollop.
I curl the wrong fingers around the rails and bound down the stairs on wobbly ankles.
The confused fingers that interrupt conversation.
The conversation that always seems to come too late.
It is late, I should go to sleep.
But I won't sleep.
DAVID JOHNSTON
Peace, Tony, Devil Pt. 1
‘Focus on the spiral. Focus on my voice. Focus on your breath. 3, 2, 1. Control it lad… people!’
She still forgets I’m here most of the time. It’s an interesting place to be, a prenatal class. It’s even more interesting when you are a single man.
‘Keep breathing! Keep it controlled. Focus on the signals your body is sending! It’s most important to keep calm!’ The way Laura yells this seems to counteract her instructions. She’s new to this, and has to be forgiven. This room full of pregnant women makes her nervous. My presence is not helping.
When I first arrived to class our instructor Laura was dumbfounded. Being fresh to the job she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. When she asked me if I was sure I was in the right place I began to cry and held my belly protectively like you often see pregnant women do.
I have an idea what you’re thinking about my motives for being here. It’s likely you’re wrong though. I’m not here to find a woman. Nor am I motivated by sex. Perhaps you would think it’s a good place to find a willing partner, obviously these ladies put out. I am having a baby. It’s not as impossible as you think. You need to open your mind. Almost anything is possible these days.
Some women bring their husbands and one woman, Colette, brings her girlfriend. She’s having the first baby and her partner will have the second, she often mentions the sacrifice she feels she’s making, to her career and such. She’s the only one her who seems reluctant to be pregnant. Colette however is the only one in the fortunate position to have an option to expand her family without her herself having a baby. She is much further along than I am. She’s almost ready to give birth.
Everyone here is a first time parent, except me. Why would you come to a class about it if you’ve already done it at least once before? I can answer that one easily. Does any parent ever really feel like they know what they are doing? I can admit this and not only to myself. I’m not worried about what other people think. I’m here in the first place, right?
‘Ok, ladi… everyone, we’ll finish it here this evening, see you next week.’ She almost forgot me again.
After the class Antonia approaches me. I tend to get a lot of uneasy looks from the women here (not to mention their husbands) but Antonia seems to like me.
‘Hey Tony, want a lift?’
‘Thanks, Antonia. The busses don’t come frequently at this time of night.’
She smiles at me.
You wouldn’t expect it to look at her but Antonia drives a Hummer. From the first time I saw her climb out of it I was impressed. Yes, yes, climate change and so forth but it’s a nasty, big fuck-off car and she’s a nice, little welcoming woman. Few things in the world make me happier than these sorts of contradictions.
It’s warm inside like a womb and slightly stuffy. I wind down my window and gulp some air. Babies breathe inside the womb you know. They are basically breathing underwater. Like I said, anything is possible if you’re open to the idea.
‘Straight home or do you want to get dessert first?’
‘Dessert, while we can still blame it on pregnancy,’ I know this is what she wants to hear.
klehr.
LOST
One libido
Will respond to the call of a beautiful person
Looks like unsatisfied
If found please return to Miss R. Pennyfeather currently lying undressed under a tree in Glebe Park.
AMY WILSON
He's living life reluctantly,
when self respect seems false.
Apathy and love
are all he is dealt
by perception and revolving thought.
He understands futility
set against amity.
The foundation of his quandry!
With a push
comes a pull
and affection is put to rest.
He understands
that love is too great
in a heat where nothing lasts.
The unbearable them,
the impossible him.
Please bear the drag,
and don't let go.
SPARROWBOY
BLEEDING KNIVES
I was a bit sleepy so I didnt notice when the knife
started bleeding out of my stomach. Really its quite a scary thing to
have bleed out of your stomach. And I know what you're wondering, and
the answer is yes. Yes a literal cut, yes literal blood, yes
solidifying into a literal knife.
Luckily I had a friend who was a boy scout. He was very handsome. For every three of
my fingers you might have counted one of his. Sometimes he had a bad
haircut though.
We used to sit on the loungeroom floor. Not to play boardgames, if thats what you were thinking.
He took my knife and gave it to his scout leader.
He had a nose like Drazic from Heartbreak high. Which I used to hear as "jurassic"
and so my scouting friend's nose always made me think of dinosaurs. It
was great. Once he threw up in my parents green house.
When my cut healed it left a scar which was pink for a little while and then became
white and then faded a little bit. A lover I had when I was thirty six
kissed it almost three times. Sometimes I pick the peeling skin off the
soles of my feet. Dead beetles frighten me even more than live beetles.
I wonder if beetles have ghosts?
EADIE NILSEN
GLACIAL BEAUTY, PART ONE
It wasn’t much of a morning, dark and bitter and rancid, with a cold
mildewy wind like the breath of a dead witch. Wilbur Schön shivered and
pulled his shawl closer around him. His daughter would still be
sleeping, sprawled on the horsehair mattress in her room. He wished he
was at home, stoking the fire perhaps, with some bread on the toasting
fork, but instead he was traipsing through the heath, the hem of his
dress dragging on the ground while the dank air tugged at his nose and
whispered filthy secrets to him.
“Why did John have to meet me here?” Wilbur muttered in response to the wind. He looked ahead through the greasy mist to see a man standing on the crest of the hill in a black frock-coat and riding boots. No sign of a horse.
Jonathan Grimgram had employed Wilbur for two years, ever since he’d made his flight from Germany, avoiding a bizarre assassination plot over his scientific secrets. The employment was of much lesser prestige than the work he’d been doing previously - studies of anatomy and chemical combinations, as well as exciting new developments. Now he helped with Mr Grimgram’s plant collection, dye extraction and acid solutions for his work. Mr Grimgram was an artist, thought Wilbur with some disdain. He had the artistic temperament, but not the solid work ethic to match it. At first he’d delighted in having Wilbur around, finding his unusual attire somewhat amusing, but their relationship had soured for no apparent reason, other than the green fairy filling Mr Grimgram’s glass on an evening. The sizzle of dissolving sugar cubes became a constant reminder to Wilbur that it was best if he picked up his feet and returned home - before the violent temper began.
Did Mr Grimgram, in his drunken fog, think that Wilbur was his estranged wife, a harridan, a shrew? He thought nothing of raising a hairy hardened hand to the other man’s shoulder blades or face. Sometimes Wilbur was thankful for his corset, protecting his sides from some of the artist’s lower blows.
In any case, he felt that he and Glacielle had nowhere else to go. His English still wasn’t very good, and it wasn’t as if he was very trusted. Many people seemed to consider him either a loose woman, or a sodomite, as opposed to in his home country, where they took no issue with him. Glacielle had pleaded with him to start dressing as was his position, his status, but when he put on the trousers and shirt she proffered, he felt naked and exposed, uncomfortable. It was cold not to be shrouded in layers of chemise, petticoat, dress and shawl, and he felt, bizarrely, as if he were actually wearing someone else’s clothes. He put the thought on his mind, and began instead to wonder why Jonathan had called him to the top of the hill, early in the morning.
‘To talk...,’ Wilbur thought. ‘That’s what he said. Yeah right.’
Mr Grimgram raised a hand and called him.
“Wilbur! Thou kommst!”
“Warum sind sie am die berg, Grimgram?” Wilbur replied. “Es ist zu fröh und...aber...warum?”
“English please,” Jonathan Grimgram continued wearily. “If a loathsome unbecoming old bitch like you is going to come to the queen’s fair country, the least we can ask of you is that you speak her language.”
“Aber Sie hat Deutsche familie, und einer Deutsche mann...” Wilbur continued hopelessly. It was too early for English, his brain wasn’t working, just sloshing backwards and forwards like a pea soup.
“I told you English!” Grimgram yelled, grabbing Wilbur by the shoulders roughly. “Why did you even come here if you can’t speak the bloody language!”
“I try Mr Grimgram,” Wilbur said. “I stand up this morning, and thinking why he ask me to come so early, but I do not know! Why...why you ask me coming here?”
“I’m so tired of you,” Jonathon said, his words dripping with contempt and weariness. “I’m so very, very tired of you.”
He shoved Wilbur, who stumbled and fell backwards onto the heath. For the first time, instead of resignation, Wilbur felt fear, a fear that heightened when Mr Grimgram, rage in his eyes, grabbed him and pushed him onto his front. His face in the heather, mud in his eyes, Wilbur froze when he felt Grimgram’s hand pulling up his skirt, expecting to be raped.
“Sie sollen nicht!” Wilbur cried, feeling pre-emptively violated, but he only felt the artist’s weathered hand push higher to prod at his corset. It was a good one, steel boned and wasp waisted, although he didn’t lace it nearly as tightly as a lady would.
“Why the fuck do you have to wear this stupid thing?”
Wilbur tried to get up, but Grimgram was a lot stronger than him and much heavier.
“Take it off.”
“What?” Wilbur said, finally managing to find the English word. “What are you doing, please....bitte, what the hell are you doing? You....you...sheizenkopf! You...dikkes teufel!”
“You heard me,” the voice of Jonathan Grimgram came again. “Take that bloody stupid thing off. You’re not in a fashion plate. Take it off if you want to live.”
Wilbur’s hands fumbled at the front of the garment, his fingers trembling in fear, finally managing to separate the busk. It wasn’t exactly easy taking a corset off while still clothed. His arm felt like it wanted to dislocate.
“It’s off?” Grimgram said, and Wilbur nodded. Was this merely a cruel way to stop his effeminate sartorial habits? Or was he going to be buggered brutally on the heath, with no one to know or care about what had happened to him?
He struggled vainly for another minute, and then suddenly felt a hot stab of pain in his shoulder. Wilbur screamed in agony. He reached his hand behind him, trying to feel what had happened. With much scrabbling, he felt something embedded in him - the point of an intaglio tool. The point. Of a double ended tool 8 inches long.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck!” Wilbur screamed hopelessly, taking his hand away and realising the palm was slick with his own blood, which had stained much of the way up his sleeve. “WARUM! FICKEN SIE! Ah....”
It was too late; through dimming vision, Wilbur saw Jonathan Grimgram walking away, pulling off and discarding his stained doeskin gloves.
LOUISA GIFFARD
ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO WRITE OR DISCUSS OR DO GENERAL LITERARY SOCIETY THINGS WILL PLEASE IMMEDIATELY BEGIN.
SEND THIS TO WHOEVER YOU WANT TO. PRINT AND DISTRIBUTE! OR DONT! OR ILLUSTRATE! OR CRITICIZE! OR IGNORE!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Sleep For Days
"Ouch," said the boy named Steele. Steele was an accident prone young lad, forever falling over and hurting himself or others. He was also a wheelbarrow.
His best friend was a wolfish teapot made of bone china, named Klehr. They loved to dance and fight and compete with each other. There were many dance-offs between the pair, Klehr usually won. It wasn't because Steele couldn't dance; rather that Klehr was a bunny that could dance forever.
His best friend was a wolfish teapot made of bone china, named Klehr. They loved to dance and fight and compete with each other. There were many dance-offs between the pair, Klehr usually won. It wasn't because Steele couldn't dance; rather that Klehr was a bunny that could dance forever.
They lived on a mountain, which had snow on it all year round and it was always cold.
Steele kept himself busy being an Extreme Morman and had just stacked his bike. Picking up his leaflets, Steele spied a shiny penny. He picked up the penny, quickly finished his leaflet round and hurried to Klehr's home. Klehr lived in a small washing machine beside a bank.
Steele pounded his fist on the front door until Klehr opened it.
"Look, I found a penny!" Steele exclaimed excitedly, "What should we spend it on?"
"A new top hat for our picnic this afternoon."
"Yes, that is a perfect idea."
So Klehr and Steele set off to the top hat store on Steele's bike, Klehr got to ride in the basket on Steele's handlebars. Upon arriving at the top hat store, Steel was slightly bemused to see an older man doubled over on the sidewalk tying his shoelaces.
"Look at that," Steele whispered.
"What? I don't care," Klehr replied.
"You know you're not easily bemused? Have I said that to you?" asked Steele.
"No, not in a while."
Walking into the top hat store, Steele caught sight of an exquisite taupe top hat, with navy polka dots and a red ribbon. "I want to buy that one," he gasped.
"But we've not even looked any place else yet," Klehr tried to reason.
"I don't care, it's perfect and matches your dress for the picnic"
"Oh, I suppose you're right and it is your penny Steele, spend it how you like," and with that Klehr gave in. Steele sauntered over to counter, paid his penny and left with his new hat in a box under his arm. Steele and Klehr rode back to Steele's house to pick up the picnic basket and get changed. Steele retired to his room to change while Klehr sat on the couch to watch his large television.
Steele pulled the lid carefully off the box and carefully lifted out the hat. It was the most marvelous top hat Steele had ever seen. It seemed to float on invisible feet and Steele felt himself surrounded by am ambient humming sound. Suddenly his bedroom seemed much bigger than it was and he felt he was falling through space.
A loud knock on the door snapped him out of his trance.
"I'll get it," called Klehr. And upon opening the door, Klehr found there to be no one there.
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