Tag Archives: writers

He’s overfilled the kitchen sink with suds again and is elbow deep in bubbles, fishing for the last teaspoon he knows is in there. Scoops it out, puts in the cutlery rack then reaches for the plastics on the bench. The first one is pockmarked on the inside and stained by leftover spaghetti bolognese nuked in the work microwave. He knows the stain will never be removed. It’s part of the container now. Still, he scrubs at it, if only to remove the grease. Tipping out the dishwater he gives it the once over, thinks the stain is a shade or two lighter and puts it on the rack. Yes, dear reader, there is a metaphor in this scenario. I’ll let you work it out.

Slippages

I trailed after my older brother down the street to the creek, and continued to follow him through the bush as the track ran parallel to the water. The cicadas were out in force, the aural accompaniment to the heat haze we walked through. I was following him because he’d had this shit-fight with Dad and had to duck to avoid the backhander swung at his jaw. When he stormed out, I followed him as a shadow. Under the broken shade of the eucalypts he kept walking, and still I followed. Said nothing. Watched his feet pick their path. I didn’t watch where I was going and tripped over a small branch. I looked down to pick myself out of it, check the branch hadn’t scratched my leg and saw my shoelace was untied. Once I’d done my shoelace I looked up and my brother had gone beyond the bend in the track. Picking myself up I jogged to catch up with him. Coming around the bend, I saw him a little ways ahead, but he had stopped and was facing the way I was coming. I pulled up, drawing deeper breaths. He nodded, turned and kept walking. I understood the irony that while Dad had broken him, he was not fragile.

The dust swept from behind the door is a substitute for dusting icing sugar on a sponge cake. It also adds texture to a Vegemite sandwich. Take the bunches of flowers from the vases of water and separate each bunch into individual stems, suspending each flower by their stems from the ceiling in the garage and create an upside down universe. Take the rose petals to make tea and taste the bitterness in beauty. A couple of dandelion flowers can be scrounged from the nature strip to add to the mix. Go to the medicine box, the one in the laundry, and take out a couple of Band Aids. See if some of the kids’ cartoon ones are still there. Put one on your knee and another on your elbow. There is no wound visible or present; it is a memento mori.

FICTION FRIDAY – The Broken Window Theory

Dad reads aloud from behind the paper while we’re having dessert on Thursday evening. “A building with a broken window that has been left unrepaired will give the appearance that no one cares and no one is in charge.”

My brother and I exchange glances, knowing errant tennis balls and footballs or a book thrown in jest, have cracked a fair share of windows. We copped a hiding for it but the windows were repaired eventually. Sometimes the masking tape dried out and the makeshift cardboard panel fell off.

The irony is this: Dad was an architect of anger. He built a house out of the rigidity of his beliefs. Brick pylons to support a history of resentment and frustration. It was a constant. It formed the floorboards and plasterboard walls, laced with asbestos. Hence, there were constant broken windows, the cracking of his self and his spirit which made it hard to write on the glass after fogging it up with your breath.

As I entered the church for the funeral, I was handed a blank postcard, a pen and a small yellow envelope that jingled with coins. The postcard had a stamp affixed. People put them in suit jacket pockets or handbags, and when one person opened the small yellow envelope and counted the change inside, everyone started doing it. Somehow it was musical. The chiming of bell birds. One person whispered to one another, “Coins for the ferryman,” and I could hear the echo of it from others.

            The service started and we were still none the wiser after the processional, the introduction, the opening hymn and the reading of Scripture. The priest stood for what I assumed was the homily. Instead, he explained the postcard and the coins. “Tell yourself the most significant loss you have experienced and why it still hurts. You can write your own address on the postcard or leave it blank. On the way home, buy a packet of lollies as a treat, a succour to your grieving.”

            Even in your death, you know what everyone needed.