The family were in the car. Her driving, him day dreaming in the passenger seat. They had recently bought a home, but had a holiday booked, up the coast. So they drove, despite the busy time. Their young son was in the back left seat – the boosted didn’t fit in the middle, and they’d broken the belt trying to make it fit. He played with pink ball, with little trinagular bobbles. It was too big for his hand. They drove 107km/h, just a bit over the speed limit. It was a hot day in Tasmania.
Whooosh! Bim…bim.. bim. He’d thrown the ball out the window. She saw it in the back rear view mirror. He should know better. The parents shared a glance. The day dream stopped. The son screamed ‘mum, quick get my ball’. Dad frowned, and shook his head. But she turned the car around at the next intersection doing a ‘big u-bend’ as the father called it. They back tracked, and after two u-turns and 10 minutes of lost time, they were approaching the pink ball which had been dancing and bobbling on the road, dancing out of the way of trucks and cars. The vacuum of passing cars brought the ball into the way of traffic and caused a few dangerous swerves.
Mum slowed down, putting on her hazard lights. Slowly she approached the ball which rolled towards the gutterline. She rolled over the ball, with let out a satisfying pop. The father turned to his wife, surprised. The son let out a scream of alarm. She pulled over bringing the car to a stop. Jumping from the drivers seat, traffic zoomed by – narrowly missing the open door. She walked back, picked up the ball and threw it into the car past their kid who was stunned.
‘We can talk about this lesson later,’ she said to her husband as they took off into the flow of traffic heading North.
Confucius
Today’s Confucianism
A leak on Level 1, is one problem.
A leak on Level 5, is five problems.
The recommendation
Our military man, needing to relive himself wandered a short distance into the forest. By the ravine and the bridge, he pulled down his trowsers, only to be disturbed by two dark skinned children who merrily crossed the bridge from one side of the ravine to the other. Our man pulled up his trousers swiftly and pretended he was out for a walk, admiring the view. Lagging behind the kids, was their father. The group of them walked back towards the town, which was occupied by our man and his fellow troops. Past razor wire and big trucks which rumbled by. Our man, spoke with the father, who was considered and walked slowly with his hands in his pockets. The father recommended a book, which by sheer coincidence our man had read on the plane over. 3 short pages. The father brought the book from his pocket and asked our man what he thought of the middle passage where the school burnt down and the children were all trapped inside. Our man, frowning, said it was a horrible scene that depicted perhaps many things. The end of childhood, the ravages of war and human cruelty. The father nodded, passing the man the collection of short stories ‘as a gift you see’.
Later that day our man read the opening page of the book, where a soldier walked into the forest to relieve himself, only to be stumbled upon by two children and their father. They crossed the bridge. The soldier didn’t notice, and the father struck him across the head with a club and rolled his body over the cliff edge. Later that day the school burned.
Eyeline
Sometimes I clean above eye line, as a joke. It’s like having a secret. Knowing that out of sight, the door frame has been wiped clean of dust and grime.
Yadayada
My first born son, Yadayada .
He tells me, he tells me, that he wants to be a gardener. But he won’t even mow the grass.
I said, Yadayada, you wanna be a gardener?! You get in the yard, and cut the grass in the garden ya little shit.
The New Pen
When he recieved a new pen as a gift, he wondered what should be the first words to be written. Immediately the pen did not work. He licked his finger to moisten the nib. And after some slow purposeful circles the ink finally began to run.
On a piece of brown scrap paper, below an old list from earlier he wrote, ‘Thankyou for your service’.
The ink ran and ran. Until his wrist begun to hurt.
The hurt was great.
Wine
What colour wine do Horse People drink?
I think white. Core belief.
Won’t be a second
The Australian receptionist greeting that gives you very little information on how long you’ll be waiting.
Poor guy, had a full bladder at Radiology and came in for his appointment 1 week early.
“He’s gonna blow!”
REALIZATION – The Time of Great Distrust
And so here I am, typing on the keyboard. Like many other keyboards. With the keys in an order, as there are many others. Not like the French say, but the outcome, yes the result may well be the same.
And so, here we are arriving with the convenience of legibility. Some of us with the luck and happenstance to decode. The word, lost in the sea. As if bubbles were more important than other bubbles.
And so I came to realize that what I was writing was mine, but once removed. Hosted elsewhere, saved in a cloud, a great anti-bubble in the sky. Permeable, impermeable, semi-permeable. Spelling supported, meaning contrived.
And so there I was, looking at images of people standing on a large tree stump, the tree is gone now. It must have been old. That is a message, without it it is sad, it is the without that hurts. Like the ache of knowing when something is there but you cannot see it. You cannot visit it. Pain both ways. With and without.
And so I thought to myself, perhaps only to make it better. To bandage the hurt. To shield my heart. “It’s not real”. Anything, and everything you have the chance to see through the lens of a digital screen has the potential to be un-real, fabricated, painted, generated, “realized”. The tree is not real. The image is not real. We cannot trust this screen. We cannot trust this time. I don’t trust generated writing.
And so we are jammed between the possible unreality of this rectangle, sacrificing physical truth for a convenient lie. Resting and waiting for us to die.
The colour is that.
“What colour is that”
Is what?
THAT
thecoffeetable 