Adelaide experienced another spectacular storm last Tuesday. Lightning, thunder, heavy rain…the lot. Our home received at least 45mm, according to the rain gauge. The ceiling leaked and we had to get our builder out to locate the cracked tile.
Anyway, all that rain reminded me of a story way back in my youth being caught in the rain while waiting for my mum to pick me up from school. The experience sparked this story, a re-blog, but hey, what are memories for?
Feature Photo: Rain, Kaniva, Victoria (c) L.M. Kling 2023
I gripped my bike’s handles and studied the sand. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” I recalled Liesel saying. Another embarrassing break up. The previous night, this latest ex drove straight past me as I waited on Jetty Road with my friends after meeting at the coffee shop eleven o’clock at night. How was I going to get home now? Walk? Thanks a lot mate. No one else had room. My brother John ended up making two trips to ensure my safe transport home. Monica reckoned she saw the ratfink the next day. She hid behind a rack of dresses. He came by to apologise a week later. I sent the crumb on his way saying I had to study for exams.
Collecting shells on the beach calmed me.
That man again. Dressed in brown corduroy pants and beige top. He fell in-step with me. ‘If you could have anything in the world, anything at all, what would it be?’
‘Go away,’ I said and increased my pace.
‘Just a simple answer to a simple question, that’s all I ask,’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, yes you do, you can tell me.’
If he made a move on me, I planned to use my bike as a weapon. ‘I don’t care, leave me alone.’
‘Not until you share with me your greatest desire,’ he said.
‘Fine, then you’ll leave me alone?’
‘Maybe.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you would.’
I jumped on my bike and pumped the pedals skidding the sand in my effort to escape. I sped along the hard sand until the intruder of the day was a speck spoiling the sea view. When I reached the ramp, I hopped off and with heart racing, I walked up to the road. On bitumen, I pelted home. Something about that man gave me the creeps.
I parked the bike at the back of my home under the plum tree. I raced inside, slammed the door shut and then fumbling locked the dead lock. Ah, safe, at last!
I strolled into the living room.
The man in brown reclined on the vinyl lounge. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Minna.’
‘How did you know my name? Who are you?’
‘I am Boris and I know many things about you, my dear. Except, perhaps, what you want most in life.’
Like rancid body odour this Boris wasn’t going leave in a hurry. Where was mum when I needed her to kick him out?
‘Will you go, if I tell you?’
‘Indeed, I will,’ Boris said.
‘Okay, I want to be beautiful, find a handsome man, get married, have children, oh, er and I would like to travel too, like in space.’ Ha, I’d like to see this cockroach of a man grant that wish.
Boris waved his hand as if he were a royal. ‘Done.’
‘Good, so you can go now. I have an orthodontist appointment—in the city—which I must keep, so if you don’t mind.’
‘Glad that you answered my question. You won’t be disappointed, in time.’ Boris walked to the front door and then turned, ‘Although, for all wishes, there will be a cost.’
Boris strode out the house and then disappeared out the driveway.
Herr Crankendinger cracked the switch on Gunter’s open hand. The lad, fourteen years old, the in-between of boy and man, clenched his teeth. He locked eyes with the scowling school master. Gunter had the urge to snigger. Not a good urge to have when the school master is beating his hand. Gunter pushed down the bubble of snigger rising from his beating chest. His stomach churned, and all fizzed up, the snigger with a mind of its own, rumbled in his throat and then slipped out of his curled mouth.
‘Dumkopf!’ Herr Crankdinger screamed. He hammered the boy’s palm again and again. ‘You will learn!’
‘Aber, the water in the bucket is held by centripetal force, not magic. The man at the Show is not the devil.’
Herr C’s face glowed red and his ice-blue eyes bulged. He stomped his one foot and peg-leg (a casualty of the Thirty Years War), and cried, ‘Heretic!’
In the candle-lit chapel, thirty-nine pairs of eyes stared at their castigated classmate, and the owners of those eyes froze on their cedar benches. One boy in the back row tittered.
Encouraged by the titter of support, Gunter continued, ‘Gravity, have you not heard of gravity? Have you not heard of Isaac Newton?’
‘Oaf!’ The teacher pointed at the door. ‘Witch! And don’t come back! Your education is finished. Understand?’
‘Never learnt anything here,’ Gunter muttered as he strode between the rows of school boys towards the heavy doors made of oak.
He pushed one open, squeezed through and then bolted. Pigeons fluttered as Gunter ripped through the town square, of the small village in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). First flush of spring made Gunter a bundle of nervous energy, especially when he saw three milk maids delivering their buckets full of cow juice to the stalls in the square. He looked at the blonde triplets in their puffy cotton sleeves and blue pinafore dresses, and he stumbled on the cobble stones.
The girls sheered away from him.
‘Oh, keep away from the plague,’ one said loud enough for him to hear.
‘Ugh, he smells like cow dung.’
‘No one would want to marry him.’
‘All he attracts is bugs and flies.’
And the three girls giggled.
‘You’re no beauties yourselves,’ Gunter muttered as he dug his hands in his pockets. He didn’t care it was bad manners to dig hands in pockets. Too bad, he thought, then tramped up the hill to his home.
On the way up, Gunter glanced in a pond. His nose like the Blauen-Hoch dominated his dusky face, and pimples gathered in clumps like pine trees on his high forehead, square chin and of course, his mountain of a nose. He pulled his thick dark curls over his face to hide the awkward ugliness, and then with his head down and hands buried in his pockets, Gunter shuffled up to his home presiding over the village, a mansion crumbling with neglect.
How long before his home looks like those Roman ruins down the road? Gunter wondered. Another victim of the Thirty years war that had dominated life in the 17th Century. So close to the sanctuary of Switzerland, and yet…his father had to go and join the cause. So did his older brother Johann. How could Gunter as a boy keep the house and home together?
Go on a reading binge and discover the up close, personal and rather awkward relationship between Gunter and that nasty piece of cockroach-alien work Boris in…
More silence as the Kombi trundled along Main North Road. Was this the trend for the road trip? Long awkward silences. Two brothers sitting side by side, itching to punch each other. Liesel itched to lay hands on Fox who squashed himself against the car door. And Minna opposite Günter, tried not to make too many calf-eyes at him, as well as trying her best to not nibble her nails. Was this what grown-up young people do for fun? Where was the excitement? The pillow fights? The Coca-Cola? Things go better with Coke, so the commercials say. And things in this mobile can did require better going.
A man dressed in brown walked on the roadside. He hunched over and stuck out his thumb.
Fox slowed down the van. ‘Oh, a hitch-hiker. Why don’t we pick him up?’
‘Are you crazy? No way!’ Liesel batted his arm.
Fox eased the Kombi to a stop. ‘He looks like he needs a lift. What the heck.’
‘What’re you doing?’ Liesel raised her tone.
But Fox continued to pull over to the side of the road.
As I developed my characters from the War against Boris series, stories began to emerge. Here’s one of them.
THE CHOICE: MINNA
One of those summer days doused in grey…I ride my bike to the beach to collect shells. As I comb the surf-soaked sands, a man’s voice snaps me out of the zone.
‘Found anyone interesting?’
‘Nup, no bodies,’ I murmur.
‘That’s a shame, a nice looking lady like you.’’
I fix my sight on shards of shell and ignore him. Hate those pickup lines.
‘Oh, what’s your problem? I’m not going to bite.’
I glance at him—had to see what creep I’m dealing with. Pale, pock-marked face, thirties and just a little taller than me at 165cm. In a grubby white t-shirt and brown trousers. “Never trust a man who wears brown trousers,” my school friend Liesel always said.
‘Come on, dear, just a little conversation. Tell me, what do you want more than anything in the world.’
I shrug. ‘To leave me alone.’
‘Tell you what, you tell me and I’ll leave you alone. Deal?’
I push my bike faster trying to escape this man, but he follows me.
‘I promise, I’ll leave you alone—just tell me.’
Hopping on my bike I announce, ‘I don’t talk to strangers.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I bet, I bet you’re one of those girls who wants to get married, have a family. That’s what you want more than anything.’
‘If you say so, now leave me alone,’ I say and then speed from the creepy little man with his creepy questions.
‘Your desire will be arranged,’ he says as I splash my wheels through the water. He then shouts, ‘But, I might add, there will be a price.’
‘Sure, sour grapes,’ I mumble. Then pumping the pedals, I sail along the damp-packed sand where the waves meet the shore.
Then, near the ramp and having to cross sand too soft for bike wheels, I glance behind before alighting.
Friedrich was sure it was his fault. He was always getting smacks or the belt from his father—usually for not polishing his boots perfectly. Or for spilling milk on the floor. But when he saw the blue line in the air, the urge to escape, was too great. This was not the first time he’d ventured beyond the thin blue line under the outhouse. He just had to go through the light—for Wilma…
Then bang. Everything went black…
Friedrich put out his hands and shuffled forward. He groped for a wall, a surface, anything to orient himself.
He tripped over some bulk. He fell onto it. It groaned.
Friedrich scrambled to his feet. His mouth went dry. It was like his heart, lungs and guts were in his mouth. Oh, no! I’m on an alien world without light and with groaning monsters.
The thing at his feet moaned. It sounded like a man.
Friedrich gulped. He knelt down. He held out his shaking hand. He touched something soft and greasy. Was that hair under his fingertips?
‘Who are you?’ he asked in his Silesian language. ‘What’s your name?’
The man-thing with hair moaned again and then mumbled what sounded like forbidden words in another language. He’d heard Joseph use such words when angry.
‘My name’s Friedrich,’ the boy said. ‘And you?’
‘Oh, the pain! The pain!’ the man-thing said in that strange language. It did sound like the tongue Joseph and Amie used. They spoke using similar sounds when they were together.
Friedrich presumed the man spoke English. But he knew few English words, so he still hoped the man understood his native language. ‘How are you?’
‘Oh, the pain! My stomach! My head!’
Friedrich traced the head, the shoulders, arms and distended stomach. ‘You’re a man, aren’t you?’ He patted the spongy surface in the middle.
The man groaned and squirmed.
‘You’re a sick man,’ Friedrich said using the word in his language “krank”.
‘Too right, I’m cranky!’ the man straightened up. He grabbed Friedrich’s wrist. ‘And who the heck are you?’
‘Huh?’
‘What?’
‘Huh? What?’
‘What? Huh?’
Friedrich shook his hand free from the man. How was he to make sense of this man in the dark? How was he to make this man understand him? Joseph and Amie could speak his native tongue, Silesian, but this man couldn’t, apparently. Friedrich rubbed his hand.
‘Who are you?’ the man asked. ‘Where the frick are we?’
Revenge is best served with a side-salad of Schadenfreude
I have been doing some “housekeeping”, on the computer, that is, searching for files, and sorting them. I came across this tale from my high school days. Wish it were true, but more likely it’s wishful thinking from an over-active imagination.
However, as is the case with so many authors’ works, the following is based on real events, but the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
Sowing and Reaping
She perched on the kerb waiting. The minutes stretched, ticking into what seemed to her, an eternity. Cars whizzed past. With each car that emerged around the corner, the hope—her mum’s car. That battered blue FJ Holden, had suffered many knocks in its fifteen years of life. Like me, same age and having suffered hard knocks, she thought. But cars with anonymous drivers passed by and so did her hope…until she just sat…waiting…expectations drained…waiting.
A mixture of gloom and uneasiness had shadowed her all day. Ever since the first period, home class, when Dee, yes, that’s right, Dee, her arch enemy, had sidled up to her and hissed, ‘He’s mine, Lillie. He’s mine. He never liked you. He likes me.’
Dee slithered into her seat; pink lips pursed in a smile. She flicked her brown mane, and then glancing at Lillie, she smirked and then rubbed her hands together. ‘Mine!’ she mimed. ‘All mine.’
Lillie imagined Dee at that moment morphing from the budding model she was, into a female form of Gollum, bent on possessing the ring offered by her latest conquest—Danny. Why else was Dee gloating?
Lillie’s heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach. A drop of rain plopped on the pavement and sizzled. Lillie sighed. She’d seen him—Danny—that morning. Lofty, blonde hair tousled, framing his high cheek-bones, strong jaw and his face all tanned. But Danny hadn’t seen her. He never saw her.
On the way back from chapel, Danny had been walking behind her and she’d worried about her uniform. Was her dress hitched up in her regulation stockings? Autumn and the school demanded girls wear the winter uniform with the awful scratchy woollen skirt. The month of May in Australia, that day, hot and all steamed up, clouds billowing with purple bellies, threatening a storm, but not before all the students at College were fried having to wear their blazers as well as their uniforms woven in wool. The principal threatened suspension if they shed any part of their school attire.
Plop! Another drop. A rumble of thunder.
During the day, her usual foes added to her discomfort. She was already hot, sweaty, and itchy, and then they had to weigh in. On the way to English class, Dee and her clutch of fiends attacked from behind. They threw verbal abuse; the usual “stones” of “loser”, “dog” and “no one wants you, Lil”.
Lillie fixed her eyes ahead even as the heat rose to her cheeks. She trod up the stairs to Dee chanting, ‘Poor Lil, poor Lil, what a dill.’
As Lillie turned the corner of the stairs, she glanced down. Danny leaned against the rail. Dee slid up to him and pointed. ‘Hey look! She’s got a hole in her stocking. Poor Lil, poor Lil. Too poor to buy new stockings, Lil.’
Dee laughed and her gang joined in.
Lillie turned and continued plodding up the stairs.
‘Charge!’ Dee yelled.
At her command, Lillie quickened her pace. She knew what was coming. The thudding, the cries and the horde as her foes surged upon her. They crowded in and jostled her. Big beefy Twisty jammed her into the lockers and then bumbled down the corridor.
As Lillie straightened herself, Dee strode up to her and poked her. ‘He’s mine, understand?’ She then waved her hand in front of her nose. ‘Phew! You stink! B.O.!’
Danny lingered behind Dee. She minced into English class, then turned and blew him a kiss. Lillie’s stomach churned, and with her gaze riveted to the floor, she followed Dee into class. Her scalp prickled with the sense that the eyes of every class member had set upon her. Her orthodontic braces took on astronomical proportions and her pigtails drooped like greasy strips of seaweed.
Then Scripture class. Just her luck! Lillie picked Dee’s name out of the Encouragement Box. So she had to find a verse from the Bible to encourage Dee. Dee? What sort of blessing could Lillie bestow on her worst enemy? The girl who had everything—popularity, beauty and a boyfriend.
Lillie opened up her Bible and picked out the first verse that caught her attention. She wrote down the verse from Galatians 6:7: “…for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” She plopped the note for Dee back into the box. From what she could tell, Dee seemed happy with her note, if not mildly miffed by the message.
After school, as she sat on the kerb waiting, Lillie reflected on the verse she received. Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” She nodded and mused, That’d be right, Dee had me. Still, it does say I’m blessed.
A flash of lightning. A crack of thunder. Fat dollops of rain splatted on the footpath. Lillie sighed and muttered, ‘I’ll just have to risk getting laughed at. My mum’s car. What a relic! How embarrassing!’
She shrugged her bag full of books over her shoulder and sauntered to the shelter of the chapel. Rain pelted down on her and she sought refuge in an alcove hidden behind a diosma bush. There, she drew her knees up to her chin and sniffed. The rain and then the tears had melted her mascara. Her vision blurred. She drew a soggy tissue from her blazer pocket and wiped her eyes.
The downpour stopped. Fellow students emerged from shelter and straggled along the road to the carpark where their cars or parents in their shining white Commodores awaited them.
Lillie examined her calloused knees that had broken through the holes in her stockings. When would mum be able to afford new stockings? Dad and mum barely scraped together the school fees. ‘We go without for your education,’ Mum says. Lillie had begun to understand how that worked in a posh school like this one. No friends, no choice but to study and get good grades.
A car screeched. Lillie looked up. She saw them. Dee and Danny. They held hands. Dee nestled into Danny’s side as he held an umbrella over her, even though the sun now shone casting an eerie golden glow over the gum trees and oval. Lillie winced.
The couple perched on the chain fence where they swung back and forth and whispered into each other’s ears. Lillie parted the diosma bush. She watched and cursed them as wrapped in each other’s arms they consumed each other’s lips.
‘Ugh! How could they? In public!’ Lillie muttered. ‘I hope the principal catches them and puts them on detention.’
Lillie heard a familiar roar. She stepped from the bush and strode towards the carpark.
The FJ Holden raced up the driveway, it’s wheels crushing the carpark’s gravel in its rush to meet Lillie. Dee and Danny remained oblivious in their passion on the chain fence.
Mum’s car cut through a large puddle. Water flew high in the air and then dumped on the couple.
Dee shrieked. They stood like two drenched rats, their legs and arms spread in their sodden clothes.
Now Dee really does look like Gollum, Lillie thought. Her nemesis’ mascara streamed down her face and made her eyes look like a panda’s and her hair was pasted on her head.
The couple glared at the FJ Holden as it screeched to a stop in front of Lillie. She smirked as she jerked open the white door of the mostly blue car and then scrambled in.
‘How was your day, dear?’ Mum asked.
‘You’re late,’ Lillie snapped.
As the FJ Holden with Lillie and her mum merged with the crowd of cars on the main road, Lillie glanced back and smiled. Revenge is best served cold…and wet.
[Triggered today by all these shifty and inconsistent rules by which we must abide in this day and age, reminds me of some traumatic experiences concerning rules playing golf with my beloved late father.
This story is based on those experiences, but the characters and situation have been changed. As so often happens with us writers, life experiences can be good material for a short story, or even a chapter in some future novel.]
TRUE LOVE
Polly
Australia Day, and the last vestiges of a less-than-perfect summer holiday wilt in the sweltering heat in the foothills of Adelaide. A blowfly beats against the window, in time to the droning of the radio, doom and gloom, global warming, and politics. Nine in the morning and thirty-four degrees Celsius—already!
I sit at the kitchen table. I’m the sitting-dead, the zombie of no sleep after a hot night, no gully breeze and me sticky and sweaty, tossing and turning and Mum’s chainsaw of snoring filling the house.
Mum enters the family room and I recoil. ‘Ugh! Mum! How could you!’
‘It’s our family day, Polly, dear. I’m wearing my lucky golf shorts.’
‘Those legs should not be seen in public! Oh! How embarrassing!’ I cover my eyes shielding against the assault of mum’s white legs under cotton tartan shorts. At least she wears a white T-shirt; better than nothing. Matches the legs, I guess.
Dad drifts into the family room. He’s looking at the polished cedar floorboards while tying up his waist-length hair in a ponytail. He wears his trademark blue jeans and white t-shirt with a logo of some rusty metal band. That’s Dad. He’s a musician.
I look to Dad. ‘Dad, why do we have to play golf? Why can’t we just have a barbecue by the beach like my friends?’
‘Because, this is what Mum wants to do,’ Dad says. ‘We’re having a family day together before Mum gets all busy with work, and you get all busy with Year 12.’
‘But, Dad, we always play golf. And it’s not family-building, it’s soul destroying.’
‘We’re doing this for Mum.’
‘That’s right, Polly.’ Mum strides down the hallway and lifts her set of golf clubs. ‘Ready?’
Dad and I follow Mum to the four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle. The only terrain that vehicle has seen is the city, oh, and the only rough terrain, pot holes.
‘The person who invented golf should be clubbed,’ I mutter.
‘Polly!’ Dad says. ‘Mum loves golf. We play golf on Australia Day because we love Mum, okay?’
I sigh. ‘Okay.’
***
‘What a way to ruin a pleasant walk!’ I grumble as I hunt for that elusive white ball in the bushes. Rolling green hills all manicured, a gentle breeze rustles the leaves of the gum trees either side. My ball has a thing for the trees and bushes and heads for them every time I hit the ball. And if there’s a sandbank, my ball plops in it like a magnet. And don’t get me started on the artificial lake.
Dad and Mum wait at the next tee ushering ahead groups of golfers.
My ball doesn’t like the green and flies past it. I’m chopping away at the bushes near Mum and Dad.
Mum smiles at me and says, ‘Are you having a bad day, Polly?’
Understatement of the year. I swing at the pesky white ball.
‘Remember to keep your eye on the ball,’ Mum says.
I fix my gaze on Mum and poke my tongue at her.
***
It gets worse.
I straggle to the tenth after twenty shots on the ninth. Mum and Dad sit on a bench sipping cans of lemonade.
‘Well done! You’ve finally made it halfway,’ Mum says.
I stare at her. The cheek! Now she’s got white zinc cream over her nose and cheeks. ‘You look stupid, Mum. Like a clown.’
‘You look sunburnt, dear,’ Mum offers the sunscreen, ‘come and put some on. There’s a pet.’
I glance at my reddening arms. ‘Can I stop now?’
‘You may not,’ Mum says. ‘We’re only half way. Now, come and I’ll put some sunscreen on. You don’t want to get skin cancer.’
‘I won’t if I stop.’
‘Come now, Poll, it’s our family day,’ Dad says.
‘Oh, alright.’
Mum pastes me with sunscreen. ‘Where’s your hat? Have you lost it? You need your hat.’ She finishes covering me with a bottle-full of sunscreen and offers me her tartan beret. ‘Here, you can wear mine.’
I jump away. ‘No! Ee-ew!’
‘Come on!’ Mum thrusts her hat in my face.
‘No!’ I say. ‘I’m not wearing any hat! It gives me hat hair.’
Mum shakes her head, replaces the beret on her bleached bob before placing her ball on the tee. As she stands, legs apart, eyes on the ball, the wooden club raised ready to strike, I watch her behind; not a pretty sight, I might add.
Mum turns slowly, her eyes narrowed at me. ‘Would you please stand back? You’re casting a shadow. Don’t you know that it’s against golfing etiquette to cast a shadow?’
I step aside. ‘No, I seemed to have missed that one.’
Mum swings her club back. She stops again. She rotates her body and glares at me. ‘You’re still casting a shadow.’
‘This isn’t the Australian Open and you’re not the “Shark”. Have I missed the television crews?’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ Mum says. She’s acting like a shark.
‘Sorry!’ I say with a bite of sarcasm and then retreat behind a nearby Morton Bay Fig tree.
Mum arches back her polished wood, then stops a third time. She marches over to me and snarls, ‘You are in my line of vision. Take that smirk off your face!’
Dad shakes his head while tossing his golf ball in the air and catching it.
‘It’s not for a sheep station,’ I say and then edge further around the thick trunk.
Mum stomps her foot and rants. ‘Now, that’s just ridiculous! Over-reacting! You haven’t changed. You always over-react. Grow up, Polly!’
I slink over to Dad and stand next to him. ‘Am I in your way, now, Mum?’
Mum shakes her club at me. ‘I’m warning you.’
Dad tosses the ball higher in the air and says, ‘Ladies, calm down.’
Mum puffs, lowers the club and strolls back to the tee. She swings.
‘She’s not in a happy place, Dad,’ I say, ‘she can’t be enjoying this family day. Next Australia Day we’re having a barbecue. And we’re using her golf sticks for firewood.’
Mum looks up. The club having shaved the top of the ball, caused it to dribble a few centimetres from the tee. Mum’s fuming.
I snigger and then say, ‘Good shot!’
Mum points at the ball. ‘Pick it up! Pick it up, Polly!’
Dad hides his mouth and giggles.
‘What’s your problem, Mum? I’m the one losing here.’
‘Oh, stop being a bad sport and pick up my ball!’
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ I stride up to the ball. ‘I’m not one of your students.’
‘Do it!’
‘Get a life!’ I say and then grind the ball into the recently watered earth.
Dad claps.
Mum sways her head and clicks her tongue. ‘You have seriously lost it, Polly.’ Then she places another ball on the tee. ‘Oh, well, I was just practising, considering the circumstances.’ She swings and lobs the ball into the air. Shading her eyes, she watches the ball land on the green.
‘That’s cheating!’ I say.
‘It’s just a game,’ Dad says with a shrug.
‘Mum’s psycho,’ I say taking my place at the tee.
A crowd has banked up behind us. I chip the silly white ball and watch it hook into the thick the pine tree forest. Mum and Dad head down the fairway and I commence my next ball-hunting expedition.
***
I catch up with my parents on the eleventh. I’d given up forcing the ball in the hole.
Mum holds a pencil over a yellow card. ‘Score?’
‘Twenty,’ I fib.
Mum says, ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Thirty, then.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Her beret flops over her left eye. She looks ridiculous.
I wave. ‘Whatever!’
We reach the circle of smooth green grass. Mum races up to the flag and lifts it. She grins at the sound of a satisfying plop. She stands still, her eyes fixed on the hole. Then she raises her arms and dances a jig on the spot. ‘I did it! I did it!’
‘Is she okay?’ I ask Dad.
‘Hole in one, Polly. Hole in one.’
I gaze at Mum performing a River Dance, trampling over the green in her tartan shorts and white legs. She still looks ridiculous. How embarrassing, there’s an audience gathering, watching her performance. Now she’s hopping and clapping away from us.
I sigh. ‘Just my luck! Now she’ll be gloating for the rest of the game.’
‘It has been her day,’ Dad says. He waves at Mum. ‘Well done, dear.’
‘She’s demented,’ I turn to Dad. ‘I don’t know how you put up with her.’
Dad pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his eyes. ‘It’s called love, Poll. You put up with the good, the bad and the ugly.’
‘I say you’re putting up with ugly most of the time.’
‘Your mum’s been through a lot. She had it tough growing up. That’s what love is about. You don’t throw it away, just because it’s not perfect all the time. I mean, none of us are perfect.’
‘But Mum?’
‘You’ll see,’ Dad says and then he taps my back. ‘Come on, it’s our family day. Better get on. I reckon Mum’s danced her way to the thirteenth already.’
‘We had that one!’ That’s what my brother would say when mum read him the same story when he was young.
“We had that one!” maybe was the cry from readers all over the world, as this is what I have done with the Out of Time project. For four weeks. How did I not notice?
Anyway, I think I know how it happened. I changed the sequence of chapters as one does in the editing process. Then up came that particular chapter and it was repeated. All part of the editing process.
So, in the spirit of the day, here’s a post from the past on feedback, which also is about a vital part of refining our work and making our stories the best they can be.
Feedback
I like to celebrate. As a child, when I received full-marks for a spelling test, Dad rewarded me with a Kitchener Bun from the Fish ‘n Chip shop/Bakery which in the good ol’ days of my childhood was situated opposite Glenelg Primary School. A few years ago, when I used to drive my son his course in Magill, my mum and I treated ourselves to lunch at the local hotel.
Every so often, I check my Amazon account. I wipe off the virtual cobwebs of neglect, and dig deep in the files of my mind, retrieving the password to enter. I expect nothing much to have changed.
I’ve been busy with my blog and the rewards, small, though they are, compared to the rest of blogging world, but the steady trickle of views, likes and comments, satisfies me. Over the years, the number of followers has steadily grown.
Once long ago, now, I made a daring move, and posted my short story, Boris’ Choice—not for the faint-hearted or while one eats breakfast…After the post, I checked for results on Amazon with my War on Boris Series books?
Then, I checked the reviews. Now, I don’t know how other writers have fared with reviews, but for many months since my books were published, I had received no reviews. Yes, I asked my readers to do the deed and tick the star-boxes and comment, with no results. Yes, they’d say and the weeks went by and nothing. Were they just being polite? I have no illusions and the reality is that art and literature are subjective—what one person likes another won’t.
Anyway, back to checking the reviews…I looked again at one of the countries one of my books sold. The page appeared different. A yellow bar, and a comment. Genuine feedback. Not a great appraisal, but an appraisal all the same. I knew the person responsible for this first-ever comment for my book, but was not surprised at their response. I did wonder at the time how my novella would work for them—not well—just as I imagined when they informed me they’d bought the book on kindle. As I said before, Boris and his antics are well…not for everyone.
That being said, and for fear my works may be misunderstood, I would describe the over-riding theme of my stories are the classic fight of good against evil. How evil, like Boris, can creep into our lives. And when for whatever reason, usually when we maintain and enhance our self, and to avoid discomfort, we allow evil to stay. This evil, however subtle, will drive us to isolated places in our lives, much like Boris does in The Hitch-hiker; places we never wanted to go. I want young adults and people young at heart, to make choices and use their energy for goodness and to fight evil, so they can live a full life and also be an agent for good in their community and the world.
[The continuation of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, 1967, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…Now, being a project of sorts, over the summer holidays, I have pieced together the story from beginning to end, and then revised it. A main thread has evolved. Something to do with murder and Letitia’s unfortunate involvement in it. I have worked on developing some of the other characters. In this episode (14.1), we get to see inside the younger stolen boy’s (Liam’s) head.]
Fast Forward
10 Days before Murder
Saturday 28th of January 1967
Barbeque Battles
Liam
Liam remembered sourly the call that changed everything. One minute the fourteen-year-old was blissfully ignorant; aware only that his father was almost no-so-unhappily widowed, that his mum had returned but with that smelly character Boris, and two ratty kids, that there is no God and when he died, that was it, no accountability. The next minute, the phone rang and his whole world view was cracked. That minute there was a Jemima on the other end of the line demanding to speak to his father. It was then as this intruder insisted, demanded and hollered on the line, that Liam began to change his mind about God. Liam remembered considering, “How dare this lady invade my space! There has to be a God and my parents have to be accountable to him! This is too much! I can’t handle any more! What right had she to interrupt my life?!”
Liam clutched the telephone receiver in one hand and fended off Jemima’s advances with firm “Nos” and lies that Dad was not home at present. He could hear the rising beat of his heart, punctuating Jemima’s whiney protests. Clueless he was, how to combat this woman.
‘What do you mean he is not home?’ Jemima persisted.
‘He’s just not,’ Liam fibbed. He watched his Dad slink behind him, his old clothes high on manure.
‘But he said he would be home,’ she said.
‘Well, he’s not.’ He fanned the pungent passageway air. ‘Poor, Dad, you stink!’
‘Ha! Did I just hear you mention your dad in conversation?’
‘No.’
‘I did,’ Jemima, now a smug Jemima, ‘you said to him that he stinks.’
‘I never.’
‘You did.’
‘No!’
‘Look, Liam, dear, it is very important that I speak to him. He said, he promised that he would be home. Your father, he keeps his promises. He’s a man of his word,’ she spoke in a softly and evenly.
‘Yeah, right!’ Liam remarked cynically. ‘Like he promised us a holiday in Tasmania but all we got was mum going off to Antarctica and getting herself…’ He paused unsure whether he should be passing on classified information. After all, his mum had returned, wearing kaftan and beads in her hair, in possession of a new Kombi Van, and unscathed. Liam had been delighted to acquire a new cool van, but not so pleased to have his mother back. Of course, the novelty of kaftaned mother and new Kombi wore off when the van broke down and had to be towed away for repairs. S
Still, Liam couldn’t complain. Just before the recent, yet brief escape up north to Alice Springs, his dad had bought a new Holden Premier. Liam was pleased with his art of persuasion as he had convinced his father to purchase this icon of motoring history. Well, so a recent Wheels magazine had recommended.
‘I know! I know!’ Jemima cut in. ‘He told me all about it. Isn’t it obvious why she did that?’
‘Nup?’ Liam bit his nail. Jemima’s argument was advancing into areas that were uncertain. ‘She won a prize, a competition.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ Dad’s voice boomed in the background.
Liam had to think quickly, but Max who was passing by was nimbler. ‘A girlfriend. Ha! Ha! Liam has a girlfriend. What a loser!’
Liam covered the mouthpiece. ‘Yeah! So?’.
Meanwhile the Jemima intruder had come to her own conclusions. ‘He is there! You liar! Put him on! Now!’
Liam had had enough. ‘No!’ he retorted. ‘Go away, you freak!’ with that he slammed the receiver down. He then picked up the phone and hurled it towards the bookcase at the end of the room. A few unfortunate ornaments, namely Max’s prized “Lord of the Rings” dragon figurines crashed to the floor.
‘Oi! What do you fink you’re doing? You could’a smashed the tele,’ Tails yelled.
Max emerged from preening himself in the bathroom. His face turned red, and he pulled at his hair. ‘My dragon! You killed my dragon! How could you do that?’ He cradled the broken bits of ceramic dragon in his hands. ‘They are so hard to get in 1967.’ Then, with teeth bared, he cried, ‘Why, I’ll get you!’ With one swift move, he lunged onto his younger brother and began to throttle him.
‘Oi! Oi! Stop that you boys!’ Dad tore the fighting youths apart. ‘Right, that’s it! no tele or suppa tonight for you lads! Go to your rooms! Bof ov you! Right! I’m pulling out the plug to the tele, now!’ Tails marched both protesting Liam and Max to their rooms with as much strength as his fatherly muscles could muster.
Meanwhile the phone chirped, unheeded and ignored.
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