Drew's News

Tag: Creative Arts

  • When I Become a Panther

    When I Become a Panther

    Foreword: This fictional piece was inspired by my interest in the psychological and neurodevelopmental effects of childhood trauma, which began after reading The Boy Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Throughout this story, I have attempted to touch on the powerlessness felt by victims of child abuse and the brain’s natural survival mechanism of dissociation. The nature of this story, which includes descriptions of violence, bullying, and references to sexual abuse, may be upsetting to some readers.

    I hate making eye contact with other kids on the walk home. Sometimes I forget and glance up, only to see the hope in their bright eyes, glowing with the excitement of returning home to afternoon tea and their games. Worse would be if they noticed the despondency and dread in my eyes, so I have made it my mission to keep my face parallel to the ground.

    I shuffle along, scuffing my torn-up Roman sandals on the concrete, feeling the growing gnaw in my stomach. My destination pulls at me like a weight around my neck, but my body drags forward, powered only by instinct. In those moments, I wish I could vanish, move unseen like a panther slipping through shadows, invisible and strong.

    “Hey, dummy! Get out of the way!” a voice yells behind me.

    Eyes locked on my feet, I step to the left side of the path, letting my classmates pass by. “Dummy! Do you even hear me?”
    I keep walking, head down, muscles tense. I know too well what happens when you get in the way of angry people.

    Be brave, it’ll pass. That’s what Mum used to tell me when I was scared, though I think she was mostly trying to convince herself. Her voice echoes in my head constantly, a hollow comfort in a world that feels anything but brave.

    The boys brush past me aggressively, the spokes of their bikes spinning in the corner of my vision. “No point, boys! She’s just a sissy!” one of them jeers.

    As they cycle away, I release the breath I didn’t realise I was holding.

    Don’t be a sissy. Everyone hates sissies. Tony tells me that every time I say no to playing with him. When he touches me, sometimes he whispers, “No one likes you because you’re always scared. That’s why you don’t have any friends but me.” And deep down, I know he’s right. Nobody likes me – not my classmates, not my teachers, not Mum, and definitely not Dad. I don’t even like me.

    I arrive home too soon. Any hope of today being different – of finding Mum dressed and asking me how my day went, like a normal Mum would – is crushed when I see Dad’s beat-up car in the driveway.

    I stare at the front door, my heartbeat clambering up my chest and sticking in my throat. Be brave, it’ll pass. But I’m not brave. Not like a panther. Like a coward, I swivel away from the house before anyone notices me. Not that anyone would care.

    I walk until I find the old playground and awkwardly wedge myself into the narrow tunnel, away from prying eyes. Slipping my Unison backpack onto my lap, I dig through piles of neglected homework and failed tests until I find my drawings. Most of the teachers have given up on me; they don’t even ask about my missing work anymore. To them, I’m invisible – just how I like it.

    I smile down at my sketch of a panther, carefully filling in the shadows with my chewed-up pencil. The panther is sleek and powerful, moving silently through the jungle, faster than anything else. A predator. I bet panthers don’t hide in playground tunnels like prey. Nobody calls a panther a sissy.

    Shouldering my bag again, I take a deep breath, summoning the courage to face home. Running away only delays the inevitable, Mum says. But she’s wrong – hiding makes me stronger. When I’m hidden, I can dream of being like the panther, untouchable.

    My entrance into the house is announced by the hollow floorboards that betray me. Mum’s hunched figure tries to slip away unnoticed, but hearing my halted footsteps forces her to hesitate in the bedroom doorway. She tilts her head just enough for me to catch the swollen raspberry welt across her eye and forehead.

    “Dad’s in the kitchen,” she murmurs, a warning tone concealed in her voice, before closing the door with barely a sound.

    Hypocrite. That’s what I learned at school this week. Be brave, she says, but she never stands up to Dad. It’ll pass, she says, but it never does. It just goes on and on and on.

    I don’t know how long I stand there, staring at the closed door. Seconds? Hours? But when I hear the sound of Dad pouring my rice bubbles – the ones Mum buys just for me, and I only get them once a fortnight and have to make them last – that’s when something inside me snaps.

    I storm into the kitchen, my heart racing, fury driving me forward.

    The next hour is a fog of garbled images, like when you skip forward on a movie with an old remote. Moments too sharp to hold. 

    Shouts. A fist. A cry of pain – maybe mine. 

    For maybe seconds, minutes, hours, I am my father’s makeshift punching bag. The outlet for his self-frustration. Every hit reverberates around my body, and I’m flinching and jerking and trying to move away, but with every contact, I feel the pain less and less. 

    Lying on the cracked kitchen tiles, cowering, I watch his heavy footsteps storm away. Milk is trickling down the sides of the kitchen drawers, pooling next to my clenched hand. The slam of the front door is aggressively jarring, but then relief floods my body, rushing to my head and blurring my brain. 

    I think Mum carried me to bed. My eyes were closed tight, my world still floating and tilting, and in quiet shame, she said nothing. 

    When I find myself back in my bed, my breath is shallow, the pillow is wet. My blurry eyes focus and unfocus on the streetlight breaking through the fracture in the tired purple curtains.

    The muffled sounds of the hallway reverberate on the stained walls, blending with the static in my head. As if I am hovering above myself, I see a small, broken figure cowering beneath a Disney princess duvet. A princess is the last thing I feel like with splotches like squashed plums blooming under my skin.

    Yet even in this broken body, I feel stronger. In my mind, I am faster. Mightier. Someday, when I’m big enough, when I’m strong enough, people will look into my eyes and they won’t see a scared little girl anymore. They’ll see someone fierce. Someone untouchable.

    Maybe, one day, they’ll see a panther.

  • The Centre Does Hold

    The Centre Does Hold

    There all the barrel-hoops are knit,
    There all the serpent-tails are bit,
    There all the gyres converge in one,
    There all the planets drop in the Sun.

    – W. B. Yeats, Supernatural Songs, IV ‘There’

    The Brown Betty teapot’s older than the Hills Hoist and twice as stubborn. Five generations of paddy women, and decades of tea parties, afternoon pick-me-ups and lone contemplative imbibing have cultivated an ambrosial aroma that, as Great Granny Quinn would have it, rivals Byzantium. ‘See that?’ her gnarled old pointer jabbing at the shiny streaky black patina, ‘That’s not just tea stains, girls – that’s a whole empire boiled into her belly. Rings inside rings all coiled together as though they’ve nowhere else to be. Murphy gold girls, and if it’s not black it’s not proper tea.’

    We’d brought her home in a wheelchair taxi, an afternoon’s respite from the insult of Twilight Gardens Nursing Home teabags, and were parked under the fig tree out back of number five, Mum and Gran leaning back into yellow striped banana lounges, me trotting about, ankle bells jangling our recent arrival from India, Brown Betty and Honey Buttered Toast (BB and HBT) laid out on some wonky old thing propped against the trunk.

    I loved these sessions, these tea parties with four generations of Murphy Queens, and can’t recall a time when the BB wasn’t an integral part of life’s fabric, the palpable centripetal pull drawing all loose threads back to their gilded home at the centre. And in between brews and sips and sups the Murphy mythologising, the irreverent retellings of stories as old as the gyres, spun fresh each time depending on who’s got the floor and how much tea they’ve had. Most of all, I loved to hear about where our Brown Betty came from, about Great Granny Quinn’s childhood and One Duck Farm.

    This time Granny Suzy held the floor, retelling how Great Granny Quinn’s mum, Gran Murphy, fell pregnant at sixteen and Old Man Healey, the rotten sod of a Dad, had nicked off back to Queensland, leaving her in the lurch. Gran Murphy was nothing if not resourceful, though, and determined to keep young Quinnie, left her home alone to work at the jam factory, ducking back each midday for lunch. Old Man Healey’s childless marriage in Queensland landed him back on Gran Murphy’s doorstep, trying on a grab for young Quinnie, alerting welfare about ‘unfit mothering’ and ‘neglectful conditions.’ Gran Murphy, by all accounts a raven Irish beauty with bouncing black curls, green eyes and winning ways, lassoed herself a husband and a house, keeping the welfare at bay and Quinnie by her side, and sent Old Man Healey packing back North. ‘But,’ said Quinnie, slurping her tea, ‘once Mum and Dad had divorced their respective spouses down the track, Old Man Healey arrived back on the scene, wanting to shack up again with Mum! I warned him against that idea, she was impossible to live with after all, but he was persistent and thereafter unfurled a lifetime of him chasing her round the country, desperately in love but destined to be utterly incapable of living under the same roof.’

    Granny Suzy chimed in ‘yes! Gran Murphy was hilarious, she’d look at him, pull a face and shout GOOOOOOORK, you’re a GOOOOORK!! And turn back to enjoying her meatballs!!’ And so, it seems, Quinnie’s childhood was not the norm. Gran Murphy ran with the local racing crowd and, after supping through the days from a KB long-neck stashed in the kitchen cupboard, would often be performing handstands against the wall when Quinnie came home, her skirt draped round her ears. ‘Ugh! She was dreadful,’ Quinnie chimed in, laughing fondly at the memories that had so embarrassed her back then. ‘Diamond Lill I used to call her! She owned one pair of diamond earrings she was always pawning after losing on the races, betting with the SP bookies.’ Then Granny Suzy recalled the banter between Gran Murphy and her other sister, Aunty Moo, Moo being short for Muriel. Aunty Moo would taunt ‘Ha ha! I see you’re wearing your rabbit skin again!’ To which Gran Murphy would retort, running her fingers through the pelt, ‘oh no, darling, it’s Pershanique, you know!’ Back then, they were, according to Granny Suzy, ‘a family of bog trotting Irish Catholics, but aspiring gentiles and extremely proud, for example, of their Father the Meat Inspector.’ In any case, Quinnie’s teetotalling ways seemed to me readily traceable back to an early life of rough and tumble and the threat of things falling apart.

    Great Granny Quinn’s the wisest woman I’ve ever known, even though she never went to school. Somehow, somewhere along the line, she collected quite a cache of quotes, great philosophers, literary giants, Shakespeare, Schopenhauer and Yeats, and I knew that somehow she grokked the deep down gist of things more wholly than any blear-eyed wisdom borne of midnight oil. She slurped another sup of BB tea and tossed one on the breeze – ‘Well might one wonder then, in all of this with Diamond Lill and Old Man Healey, that naturally “Things fall apart; The centre cannot hold”?’ Theatrical pause, theatrical slurp, then ‘The centre cannot hold? Pfft!! Not if you leave it to the men! That’s why we got the BB.’ She leaned back, arching one bushing black brow, and gave the pot a fond little pat.

    We were coming to my favourite bit, about One Duck Farm, Quinnie’s home-away-from-home growing up, and site of some of her happiest days. Gran Murphy’s Mum, Old Lizzie, was something of a trailblazer too, having left her husband and moved to One Duck Farm in the country with her other daughter, Nell, just four years Quinnie’s senior. People in their Irish Catholic community were suitably horrified, of course, but for Quinnie it was the start of a lifelong bond with Auntie Nell as she escaped out there for some peace and quiet, respite from Gran Murphy and her racing cronies. ‘Well then’ said Great Granny Quin, ‘that’s how the pot was got! When Old Lizzie died, and One Duck Farm was all sold up, I was allowed to choose one thing, one knick-knack to keep, so I chose the BB, and the rest is history!’ And so, like the layers of tannin cultivated over thousands of brews, time, memory, meaning and the whole Murphy Queen inheritance spiral inward, all the gyres converging in Brown Betty’s rough brown belly. Quinnie winked at me, laughing, ‘and there Darl, “all the barrel hoops are knit,” and our BB, our centre that does hold indeed!’

  • Triptych

    Triptych

    Constrict Me Serpent

    Burns the light above
    Does on petty eyes of mine.
    From high up as if to guide light
    To my fingertips and my knuckles.
    Such advice deemed little
    To a boy so confused,
    he forgot how to write.
     
    Melancholy, some shout,
    Others pensive,
    More merely stranded youth.
    Yet they do not know my thoughts,
    When I lie awake without understanding,
    Of where my heart nor mind lie.
    Whether to be happy or sad or both or none.
    How can I answer?
    And so I do not.
     
    Grateful, anxious it seems
    In times like these,
    With heart racing yet pulse slowed,
    by the time it reaches my fingertips.
    In limbo I rest
    A peaceful place once learnt it’s to stay.
    With thoughts of past and future as one
    Coiled around my spire of mind.
    Bending and twisting it until
    I no longer can recognise.
    But I do not care,
    I do not busy myself
    In pursuit of mending her straight.
    Rather, I gaze up into the light,
    So as to switch it off.

    Clarity

    I think often about the time when I was 12,
    Sitting on a swing.
    But I didn’t want to move,
    Didn’t want my feet to go above my head,
    Or feel the wind.
    Waiting maybe for a breeze to pick me up,
    Or for the sun to go back down.
    So I could go to bed.

    I think often about when I was 16,
    And would walk alone
    Around the lake and
    Through the grass.
    Music playing to hold thoughts at bay,
    Until they boiled over
    So I’d stop.
    And rest on my bench.
    Always the same.

    Now I have a different thought,
    Of her in solitude.
    Seemingly no background nor noise
    Nor world beyond that door.
    Merely breaths taken and let go,
    Her arm tightly wrapped across
    Chest of mine.
    Mine clung tightly to waist,
    As if rolling hills I must climb,
    So I hold on.

    Perhaps fear of letting go or,
    What should come if I fall back down?
    Or maybe I like that hill I cling on,
    And maybe I’ll stop for a while
    And have a picnic,
    To admire the view
    And watch the sun set.

    On the Valley

    Alone it seems
    I may be.
    Spoken not for days,
    Thoughts bounce plenty.
    Yet solace I find in the hum
    Of memories replayed.
    And ideas discovered.
    Atop this mountain of mine.

    Below, calves graze and feed,
    Smog billows from the chimney,
    Coal, I smell.
    The sun glimpses one last time at me,
    As she nestles behind the steppe.
    This valley, my valley.
    Valley for my thoughts to subside
    And linger held within.
    Not to boil over,
    Or follow me home.

    I look to the temple,
    On cliff beside.
    Thoughts of gods, life, of her
    Flow through my juvenile head.
    Spins the Tibetan words
    Wisdom gives me for troubles
    Thousands of miles away.
    What must I do,
    What must I see?
    And sometimes I wonder
    If Buddha and Jesus talked,
    Would they speak of me?

  • Aithrí

    Aithrí

    In Her Name

    Mary Magdalene is posited as Christianity’s exemplar of repentance, the apostle of Christ, the faithful woman, freed of seven demons. Worthy of hymnal adoration, and biblical heralding… but the rankle, the blister, the problem was she was robust, energetic. A prostitute. None of which were revered in the picture of the Christian feminine. Hence, the embodiment of devotion had a dark reputation worthy of punishment. The Magdalen Laundries, blackened bricks binding blackened souls, an imposition on the streets of Dublin. A four-story building strung together with crumbled copper, devoid of life. For seventy years, there were eleven copies of these impositions in Ireland, with ten thousand girls, raspingly named ‘Penitents’ passing through. No pay was given, as they were deemed Magdalenes, fallen women, punished, then ‘saved’ by their labour for the Church. Each girl came to the Laundries on different, dust-clad tracks. Some had been sent from brothels, orphanages, and were considered ‘dangerous’ by their own family. Sheets had to be fed into the dryers, vestments and shirts ironed. After the scald and burn wore away at the girls, they were locked in their dormitories from the early evening and awoken for morning Mass. 

    Many women never left. Uneducated, distinctly institutionalised, branded. With no support or contact from the outside world. Left without an individual name or identity, but known by the walls that enclosed her.

    I

    “The Monastery of our Lady of Charity”

    “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out”

    Luke 8:2

    The dust-clad grounds lie bare now,
    Streams of sun trace the cracks on the laden stone
    Twisting their way around the veins of the wooden bough
    The pearly tears of slaughter lay white as bone.
    God’s window opens in these places,
    Although the stone, now laced with mold,
    Holds the delicate etches of 30,000 faces,
    Most will never know what it is to grow old.
    To feel the stain of the scald and pound.
    Incised within wrinkles, memories that won’t drown.

    The light has faded now.
    Smudges of gold turned cinnamon brown.
    Penitents.
    The word seeps out of the place, tumbling from the tongue.
    Syllables fall together lazily,
    Gauze-covered vowels
    Lay themselves out on display.
    Words printed on rust-covered gates.
    Gates that swing, and wail, and crack
    Still.

    Grief.
    The effervescent hollow that holds them so.
    The Laundries’ bigger belief.
    Steam tugs, a double-crossed bow.
    The floss of rot clings to the air.
    It settles in the girl’s stomach.
    Until the ribbon that laced itself around her hair
    Resembles the twisted paths, the lines amok.
    Sunlight remains in the cracked crescent of the courtyard.
    The light pulls them in.
    Fragile moths, piled in discard.
    Flayed arms outstretched, tears in skin.
    Devotion confused with impropriety.
    Dust hangs from the skeleton of society.

    The building had seen the lives filter past.
    The whisper of prayer, tapers blown out.
    Spires of the gate rising like a mast.
    Confines echo censure, a religious drought.
    Stakes of wood clinging to the walls,
    Cross through the middle.
    Stories long gone recall.
    The rot of the plank whittles.
    A perpetual hue of grey frames the imposition.
    Silken clouds cling to the spires.
    A decreed prescription.
    They wait for the hue to expire.
    But the memories lay tenant,
    Sprawling with the Penitents.

    Their names cling to the brick.
    Sheets of dust formed in their shadow.
    Their stories ironic.
    The rooms whisper names back to the brick, hollow.
    Rust-clad frames of shelter wallow in the corner
    A shadow of a figure, a blend of age untellable to estimate,
    Remains.
    That’s what they will call her, the truth of the matter desolate.
    The irons lay below, scald marks impenetrable on skin.
    They lay now, tarnished and devoid.
    Scars imposed brand them, a map of where they’ve been.
    They scab and fade. Destroyed,
    A breath echoes from the walls
    The tangle of steam stalls.

    The walls seep sweat-clad tears.
    Catchment pooling into the light.
    It stands. No one nears.
    Fear no longer ignites.
    But when the sun sets like this,
    Light filtering through the willows,
    Impossible to dismiss.
    The Laundries and the women settle below.
    Whispered prayers of thousands of girls
    Settle into the soil,
    Unanswered.
    Nettles begin to spoil.
    The incision of the matter remains
    Tattooed on their hands, cheeks, tongue.
    An eternal bound of chains.

    II

    “The Guillotine” – Martina Keogh: Institutionalised 1964 – 1966

    “The earth, corrupt in the sight of God, was
    violent. God looked onto earth
    It was corrupt; for all flesh corrupted
    their way upon the earth    ”

    Genesis 6:11-22

    The guillotine slide of shade.
    A pandemonium of time.
    Martha Keogh prayed.

    Sixteen years.
    Deaths repentance.
    Thirty-nine thousand tears.
    The print of the words has captured her attendance
    McDermott was the street
    The eye-level grille sliding
    Thirteen white pupils, meeting her eyes, incomplete.
    The garda relinquishing her, eyes residing.
    The waxing light of the evening took a breath with her
    In a pair of lonely arms, she crept.
    The guillotine slides down, a spindle spur.
    Arms turn to a pearl-dried bone,
    Devouring wide-eyed innocence,
    Subsided temperament.

    The heart of the guillotine, the beat of it.
    The hand of the higher power strikes.
    The smell of grit.
    The stench of skin alike.
    Marks of labour-stained fingers
    Spots of flesh remain, left to decay
    No holy water could repent the naevus, it will linger.
    The crime of gentleness a price too high to pay.
    The lock struck with the guillotine,
    The waxing evening welcomed the blow.
    If a fire brew, unbeknownst to the heavy-handed machine,
    It would blink, no remittance to owe.
    The girls would sit in the flame,
    Souls rotting just the same.

    Martha retreated from the flame
    Time surpassing the guillotine
    She thinks of the forest, unheeded of blame.
    She closes her eyes, with the snap of the machine.
    A flutter.
    Saplings tower, a shadow.
    Hair turns to moss, rising with a shudder.
    ‘They’ve all forgotten about you’ the trees whisper, hollow.
    The scald calls now.
    Steam rising, wrapping itself around frosted dew.
    Rusted frames creek, preparing for the plough.
    When she blinks, she can see the soil where the tree grew.
    The steam tangles itself in her skin
    A trail of sin.

    The guillotine glints in the wane of light.
    A breath.
    Two years leave stains.
    Martha tears at them.
    Beckoning their loss.
    The word ‘penitent’ ingrained in every
    Crevasse of her soul.
    It blinks in the sun
    Sinks in the moon.
    It sharpens with the steel of the guillotine.
    This isn’t how it’s supposed to be
    This isn’t how it’s supposed to be
    This isn’t how it’s supposed to be
    The guillotine holds repentance by the throat.
    But this is how it is

  • Into the Jacaranda-Garden

    Into the Jacaranda-Garden

    ‘And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.’
    – T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

    Laid out lulled in luscious green, 
    sweet muslin drawing on the breeze
    Springtime in our courtyard
    with the jacaranda tree

    Misty mauve effusive, 
    Her visitation draws on us
    to merge in her 
    ethereal embrace.
    Allure miraculously sudden –
    bomb blast brilliance born in colour
    leaves yesterday’s bleak and scribbly limbs, 
    all dark and winter cool, 
    suspended alive 
    somewhere beyond 
    the sandstone certain tower clock that ticks in drifting deep blue sky, 
    yesterday’s bleak and scribbly limbs, 
    all dark and winter cool –
    footfalls, echo in the memory
    Down the passage which we did not take

    The blossoms lift, 
    float weightlessly round, dressing things up 
    time’s indigo brides.
    I follow their lead –
    accompanied sweet by pigeons’ refrain, by choirs streamed down stairs 
    to Muru Dturali,
    new ‘Pathway To Grow,’ new First Nations Garden.

    And I wonder about Botany Bay, 
    about Great Grandpa Stanley and Gallipoli, how he survived
    and how he loved Sydney with all his heart….

    Slipping, quicksand rapid so
    mind’s eye dissolves
    To vanish underfoot. 
    A million tiny points of view, 

    A million bit mosaic –
    displaced, reimagined, piggy backed back together
    and where’s a spot to land?

    So many whispers in these hallowed halls,
    Whispers of the past –
    Past Revs, Chefs, seasons, students,
    All plugged into a venerable slipstream
    With Einstein, Byron, Kant and Keats….
    And through it all there’s surely, too
    Eliot’s ‘voice of the hidden waterfall’
    Between two waves of the sea.

    Laid out lulled in luscious green 
    Sweet muslin drawing on the breeze
    Springtime in our courtyard
    With the jacaranda tree

  • Oakstand: Part II

    Oakstand: Part II

    3. The great Australian emptiness.

     

    First of December 1972                       |                       12pm

     

    The paddocks surrounding Lance had a sense of leopard silence which engulfed him. This land was well-versed in eternity. It made its own boundaries.

    Lance parked the Ute sideways in the paddock, as he bundled fence wire against the car door. He watched as the homestead in the distance glimmered in a sort of dull fortitude. The paddocks hummed their own dull fortitude. Slow western gusts moved over the great western emptiness from time to time, weaving in and around slow-moving cattle.

    On the way over, he took the bumps in the grass without discernment, emulating Peter Brock winding around Mount Panorama in the Bathurst 1000. The truth was, he was angry. He was angry his boy knew more about politics than him. My son is disconnected from Oakstand. Is this all my fault? Is it all to get away from me? He spun around and around in his mind.

    He’d spent years trying to understand the landscape around him. The patterns and contours were a language in which Lance was always learning. In this, he’d neglected to learn about the political landscape, or the recent life of Junior. He lit a cigarette which wrapped him up in its course, heavy comfort. The expanse before him stretched its flatness deeply into the dustpan of the horizon, as the smoke trailed off toward Wilcannia.

    He was overcome with a swallowing fear. He tried to imagine what he thought Junior’s disappointment would look like if Labor lost.

    If Labor won, Junior would be expecting to get his scholarship. He’d be waiting around for the news, disconnected from all things Oakstand, listening to the orders of the ABC. He’d be mowing the ute around the Western Highway, thinking it would all change overnight, and the scholarship would fall into his lap. He’ll be drowning under the fact that he got his hopes up, and Lance would be the public enemy who said ‘I told you so’ time and time again. Maybe it would have been a lifetime wasted because his time was poorly spent. Maybe he could have played it safe if he’d just listened to Lance.

    All of it could be painfully real.

    Am I wrong to want Junior to stay around? Am I wrong to want a son to tend the farm with? To hand down the farm to? Lance’s thick forearms and work shirt couldn’t withstand the change. He didn’t want to vote for Labor, and potentially enable all the disappointment for Junior to face. By voting Liberal, he’d feel like he was protecting Junior, saving him from his own upset. To him, university and Sydney was where the empty political promises lashed out, and dreams died. A slippery slope from dreams to disappointment. Where promising displays of a boy’s ambition became reduced to despair.

    He could not be changed, no matter what Junior said. Do I vote for the kid? For me? Do I save him the disappointment? Do I let him decide for me? Maybe it is time. He pondered.

    The slow movement of the cattle across the low horizon returned a memory of Lance and Junior, before the disappointment, pain, hurt, drinking, politics, solitude…

    ***

    The boy was young. The man was happy.

    They sat with their backs against the large stump of an Angophora tree, looking up at the sky. Between the matching beanies they sported and the blanket spread over them, only their faces felt winter’s cold sting. Something of the sky’s immense vastness was maternal to them both.

    ‘See that one, Junior?’

    ‘Which one?’

    ‘I guess I could’ve been a bit clearer, hey?’

    Together they laughed. They laughed to the complexity, the multitude, the ease, of the stars. They laughed together knowing they wouldn’t understand their appearance, or their frequency. They laughed because they laughed. Junior felt the warmth of his father’s shoulder, and the stiffness of his moleskin jacket. He felt the safety of his father’s presence.

    ‘Dad?’

    ‘Yeah?’

    ‘Can you tell me another story?’

    These very stars promised the boy something. He didn’t know what it was yet, but they promised him something.

    ‘Just a quick one, mate. This is from ‘Now we are Six’.’

    ‘I’m five, Dad.’

    ‘Yeah, but you’ll be six next week – don’t think I’d forget that!’

    The boy liked his father’s affirmations. He felt like his father’s words could withhold the sky pressing down from above.

    Lance began to recite.

    ‘When I was five, I was just alive,’

    Junior began to nestle his head more comfortably into his father, closing his eyes.

    ‘But now I’m six, I’m as clever as ever.’

    So under the soft light of a million distant lanterns, the man and the boy sat alone and content.

    ‘So I think I’ll be six now, forever and ever.’

    Lance finished the book and carried a sleeping Lance Junior back to the house. The continent resumed its strange unvisited glamour, as the winter’s dark seemed to collapse in on the two…

    ***

    Lance was returned by the rustling of an Angophora tree, which forced his gaze downwards towards its stump.

    Something was starting to turn in Lance. Something that Junior’s words could hold more than just unrealistic expectations.

    He’d never forgive himself if he voted for the coalition and Junior got sent to Vietnam, never to return. He could picture the conscription. The waves goodbye. He could imagine the battalion marching down Pitt St. The fear in the form of an ABC report, speaking of a devastating Vietnamese attack. A father’s solitude in a packed funeral. The slow renditions of Slim Dusty while friends and family shuffled around in grief and mourning. All of it could be painfully real.

    Is Junior right? I mean, this Whitlam bloke does reckon he can bring the boys back home. Oh my god. I sound like Junior. Lance the Farmer butted heads with Lance the father.

    He imagined another future: one where Labor won, and Junior got his scholarship. He imagined Junior’s waves goodbye. The dust from the fleeing car. The fading red brake lights as the car traversed the driveway. The letters from Sydney. The once-in-a-blue-moon postcard that would politely inquire how Lance was doing, politely decline his invitation to Christmas lunch, politely wish them the best.

    All of it could be painfully real.

    The ever-growing world around him invited him in, the world beyond Oakstand. Beyond him. Beyond the election.

    That was it.

    Maybe I am a bit tone-deaf. Maybe Junior was right. Lance thought. If he could thrive in the droughts and heat, he could survive in an air-conditioned university. Lance realised that even if the electoral promises were never delivered, Junior was his boy, and they would brave the new world together.

    He finally saw how their lives in that week had slowly slipped away. How the silence of the bush and the noise of Canberra and the words of Junior sank him into an ignorant state of fear. The timeless smells of eucalyptus and earth and dryness restored him to a self that he’d almost forgotten.

    He knew who to vote for.

     

    4. Theirs to keep. Held tight.

     

    Second of December 1972                       |                       8pm

     

    As the family sat together, the last traces of the sky’s red were saying their last goodbyes.

    The four sat on chairs on the veranda again, with a bottle of Blue Rhapsody on the centre-table amongst two boxes of Wynn’s wine. Eileen sat between the two, legs crossed underneath a long white dress. She tapped her boot against the deck periodically as the knitting in her lap began to take shape. Clancy was off somewhere with the wire.

    ‘Election results are out in a minute or two,’ Lance said.

    ‘What does it matter whether there’s a change or not, you won’t be happy anyway,’ Junior muttered.

    ‘Who knows, Junior. I think we have to be prepared for change in this day and age. I think that’s most important,’ Lance said.

    Junior sat up sharply in his chair, spinning his head to look at his father. What’s gotten into him? Since when did he believe me?

    ‘Saying that won’t change who you voted for earlier. It was you that said Labor was a lie,’ Junior said disgruntledly.

    From his shirt pocket, Lance revealed and flashed before Junior a how-to-vote card. A red one. A Labor one. He threw it in Junior’s lap. Junior held the card before him, as the veranda breathed a collective sigh of relief.

    ‘Wait… does this mean you voted for—’

    Lance looked at Junior and winked. Maybe Junior’s right.

    Junior held the card to his chest and smiled. Maybe Dad’s right.

    All the arguments and hurts and pettiness of the previous weeks dissipated. The veranda filled with a sense of family, with all its arguments and hurts and loves and petty victories. Lance’s decision was a flickering hope in the vast expanse of a new world. Perhaps the hope was closer than Junior thought. The ABC’s percussion began.

    “…Hello Australia, I’m George Negus, and from the newsroom, this is the results of this year’s Federal Election. The Australian Labor Party, headed by Gough Whitlam, has won the election, securing 67 of the 125 seats in the House of Representatives. They form a government for the first time in 23 years ….”

    Promises. Change. Junior. Lance.

    Junior smiled.

    They all sat in silence, but not from disappointment, or pain, or hurt – but triumph, as the change the election promised them began to take effect. Triumph. Because dim through all the droughts, heat, floods, cricket, elections; that moment on the veranda was theirs to keep. Junior held that how-to-vote card in his hands, with no intention of letting it go.

    The talkback of the radio began.

    “Would you believe my wife left me to be a flamingo dancer?”

    “…The word is ‘Flamenco’, but thanks for calling in!”

    ‘You hear about that terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics?’ Lance began.

    ‘That was terrible. Imagine that happens here. Imagine some guys take a radio station hostage or something,’ Junior replied.

    Lance smiled, then said, ‘Junior, I can’t imagine anyone enduring the horrors of a two-week endeavour to Sydney to take over the ABC.’

    Junior began to laugh as he said, ‘They could make demands to the government.’

    Lance held his fingers in a way that indicated a gun, closing an eye to aim, then replied trivially; ‘Tough ones too; a million dollars – or talkback radio gets it.’

    It was honest laughter. They weren’t so different, after all. Lance removed a cigarette with his teeth from his crumpled Benson and Hedges pack and sat back as the smoke trailed off towards the blackness, punctuated by a light of stars both familiar and strange. He gave one to Junior.

    ‘It’s Time, son.’

    THE END

  • Why We Write

    Why We Write

    To write, to put one’s thoughts on paper and place them before an audience, is, in my opinion, a small act of courage. While spoken words can be swallowed and eaten up, eclipsed by a quick clarification or a huffed laugh, there is a permanency to the written word; a solidity that invites scrutiny. Just as a person’s eyes provide a window into their soul, so too does an author’s prose – how they use dashes or semicolons, what imagery they invoke, what antecedents they recall. While one may avert their gaze or hide it beneath a smartly placed boater hat, however, a writer has little defence against the discerning reader. Yet, the urge to put something and anything on the page is an enduring hallmark of humanity, even in an era when privacy is increasingly coveted. So, to usher in this new year, and hopefully inspire a few readers to take up a pen (or keyboard), I asked our editors to untangle what they think drives this compulsion. To explain why we write.

    – Mia

    Atlanta:

    We write to convey our ideas and questions, our passions and proclivities, our aspirations and our fears, we write, as Toni Morrison would say, “to familiarise the strange and mystify the familiar.” We write to create vignettes of moments in space and time – the (apparently) tiny ones like Proust’s Madeleine, massive ones too, the heaviness of heart and smells carrying in the breeze in times of global disaster. We write to immortalise these moments, protect them from the inexorable ravaging of time and space as the present dissolves into history. We write to enliven something we know and we write to subvert that very thing, twist it round and smudge our perfectly painted portraits of ‘understanding.’ We write to give a voice to the silent and silenced, the waterways and the rainforests, the tigers that weave through the trees and the mice that scamper along the forest floor – the oppressed, the downtrodden, the stateless, the confused, the scared. We write because it is beautiful, because stories endure, evoke, and inspire, and because our voices are our most powerful instruments.

    Lucy:

    As simple and as selfish as it may sound, I write in an attempt to create and preserve history. I enjoy challenging perspectives as much as the next writer does, but my ideas are not necessarily original. However, the natural evolution of thought through collective experiences means that there are a few other people out there (hopefully) who think the same way that I do, which is another reason why I write. But as a history major, I’ve also found that writing is my attempt to create and preserve history in my voice by simply recording moments of time and relevance and situating them in our context, but primarily amidst my personal fabric of existence. And it’s not necessarily the topics I like to write about that make me part of history (or anyone else who does any writing whatsoever in their life) but the fact that they came from specifically me, at an exact moment, with all of the experiences I’ve had so far that ultimately shape every word I put down.

    Sam:

    It seems written art nowadays is somewhat sidelined by more common mediums of entertainment, and people may sometimes ask what the point of writing is. Yet this question is usually asked when people are living life well. When people suffer, however, written art provides them an avenue to turn to, allowing them to find in the works of others the emotions that they feel are so unique that no one could understand. This provides solace and comfort in the knowledge that seemingly alienating experiences have happened to others before. Here, I believe Robin Williams’s monologue from Dead Poets Society provides an apt summation, “We do not read and write because it is cute, we read and write because we are members of the human race.”

  • Chimeric Blink

    Chimeric Blink

    “The whole procedure will take roughly twenty minutes. You’ll feel a slight pressure behind your eyes.” Dr Abram peers through bushy black lashes and narrow, wire-rimmed spectacles, his face contorting into an expression of concern. A neuroscience researcher, it’s no mystery why he didn’t pursue general practice. This strange, neurotic little man’s weirdly contrived attempts to connect, soothe me nonetheless. He slides a clipboard across the perspex, a conspicuously single sheet of tiny black print clenched in its jaws. Why the clipboard? Isn’t the clipboard’s customary purpose to tidy and tame multiple papers? The absurdity of this complex apparatus hauled out for a single leaf of paper makes me laugh, out loud. “Sorry, nerves.” Scratchy, crackpot smile. Scribble my name.
     
    I did feel the needle go in. I also feel the chip cling intrusively to my cerebellum – or maybe I imagine that. Straightening, I reach for my chair. Hauling down this skin suit of blood and bone, this carcass dragged about life for twenty-two years now, I sink into the chair’s wearied, soft embrace. Dr Abram coughs, awkward and silently pleading with the nurse to do the talking. I can hear her smiling: “The implant takes effect immediately, David.” Her slippery-sweet words hover on the infinitesimal brink of pure potentiality, catalysing an explosion of sensation. So much, too much sensation. Blood platelets hum about their daily rounds, ducking and weaving through valves, popping in on Liver and Brain, rushing giddy to the tip of each finger, tingling life force below the surface just a paper-cut away from the outside world. I feel my organs chafing, jostling about, pressed against bone, tight like a drum. I feel the air inflating my lungs, the last two balloons in a 6th birthday party pack – hot, diffuse, straining anticipation. I feel my legs.
     
    I walked the entire twenty kilometres home, ran the last five. Lucy was there waiting for me. We sat on her bed and cried together, limbs sweaty, knotted like the big old Oak in her mum’s garden. It’s 2:24 am as we unload my wheelchair from the Mobile and wheel it into the middle of the old Bunnings carpark. I’d tried to convince Lucy to burn the van too, pointing out that, once these head chips take-off they’ll be redundant, but she insists we sell it. Piled high with timber and leaves and that broken red banana lounge, I hold the lit match to a pungently businesslike trail of petrol. Starting out shy, the quiet flame is a pale tangerine easily snuffed under an outbreath. It quickens though, an effusion of horns and spikes that lick at my old captor’s wheels, ravenously persistent, energy spit-firing round a ruthless blue core.
     
    Blink
     
    Back stares David, contemplating this strange and  ineffable notion of ‘I.’ I’m gnarling, morphing, quicksilver, voracious in the force of my weightlessness. The alchemic power in these quickening sleeves is visceral as I wave ravishing orange over a last virgin twig and, streaming across its knobbly skin, I feel it subside to ash in my violent embrace. Curiously, I don’t feel the heat, innocently insatiable for more. I rush to consume, a kinaesthetic kiss straining at David’s eyelashes, teasing Lucy’s hems. Then, humbled by thrashing winds, and as suddenly as my incendiary emergence, I hush back into Mother Earth. And there, silent revelry in the transcendent resonance of order restored. 
     
    Blink
     
    I beat fragile wings against the gaudy blue and never-ending sky, a dainty speck of determination amidst seven million square kilometres of rainforest. Eager, speedy, elegant, I weave through vivid green leaves and skim across crystal waters, projecting the ripple effect of technicolour life, beneath the surface. I float to stillness, a stone’s steady beat draws me in; it’s smooth and reflects the light like Dr Abram’s bald head. Pinpricks of sun’s incandescence – hazy diagonals slanted through layers of curled leaves – speckle my holographic wings with a million tiny crystals. Each prism holds a tiny, miraculous mirror to the world.
     
    Blink
     
    My technicolour lights compete with a peculiar array of visual noise, vying for the punters’ attention. Doing my best to lure potential suitors, I’m dinging bells, flashing LED bulbs— all colours, all movement. I yell, “Minor jackpot $2500, major jackpot $10,000,” roll an assortment of tantalising images across my screen, including Oriental Lady Smiling And Wiggling Head and Flames In Shape Of Dragon Surrounding Large Gold Coin. People loll about, like fat ginger cats basking in the midday sun, strolling between games in gluttonous stupors. Some eyes bear that rabid sparkle – they’re down, looking for a major jackpot to Put An End To This Once And For All. Finally, a bite! My fanfare reaps its reward. I silently gloat at Fat Fortune and Lightning Cash. We know before they do, see. That familiar passing glance followed fast by flash of attraction – we flirt with the possibility. Sitting a plump bottom across my inviting black stool, she feeds a $50 note eagerly into my mouth, as if for the first time all over again.
     
    Blink
     
    A frothy pink ballerina girl tugs at my nylon mane, matted by a thousand sticky little fingers. Every few seconds, she yanks on reins attached to the button concealed beneath my acrylic smile, and a sound issuing from deep within me—but that isn’t actually me—says, “Neeeeigh.” I scoff. But she doesn’t hear me scoff, because all I say is, “Neeeeigh.” Who the fuck programs a unicorn to neigh? I’d roll my eyes if they weren’t painted on. Miranda Kerr’s signature smoulder seduces passers-by, a stout woman in jeggings stopping momentarily to gaze up into that sultry allure behind a wristful of pearls, her eyes flickering to the Michael Kors store conveniently nearby. “Neeeeigh.” But suddenly her arm is near torn clean out its socket by some leashed entity. The entity? Not, as one might assume, some tiny terrier but, rather, a boy—small, ruddy, altogether overstimulated—leashed to a backpack shaped like… a chicken? “Neeeeigh.” Jesus.
     
    Blink
     
    Out here Nothing envelops it all, her midnight pelt moulded to the orbital shells of an amazement of planets, stretching beyond and beyond beyond. The concept of infinity is scientifically ungraspable by  the human mind; staring out into an unconquerable void, I wonder if I’m close. Her guiding hand nudges me ever outwards, guiding stars lighting a then, a here, and a there in this endless expanse. She spins me weightlessly up, around, and down again, and finally I see it. Home, the most beautiful planet of all. Exotic greens and blues swathed in gauzy tranquillity. Home to what felt like everything that ever was and ever would be. Home to worms and lily flowers and Amazon Same-Day Delivery. Home to David and his family and his bung legs. The ridges cut into my cool smooth metal flesh read Voyager 12, A memory washes over me – or over Voyager 12… am I Voyager 12? Hot heat, sense-blinding heat, 3141 degrees to be exact, carves at my bottom, and the smell of me burning diffuses an acrid finality over white tiles. The welder leans back, satisfied, peels off that black mask. Reflected in the glistening tiles, I see my branding: NASA. It’s all worth it though; I have the best job in the universe. And the most important job, well that’s what Bruce always said. To pierce the Milky Way, to dodge black holes and meteorites and aliens. Maybe not aliens. Earth’s most brave, most intrepid, most formidable interstellar voyager.
     
    Blink
    At last, I’m me again, staring into the fire. I rest David’s familiar hands in David’s familiar pockets, pondering those ‘sensible’ warnings against unbridled participation in clinical trials. I hold infinity in the palm of my hand and eternity in this hour.

  • IMPERMANENCE

    IMPERMANENCE

    DANCER, FIGHTER 

    The lamp rests steady 

    Behind a sea of black lingers.

    The flame, dances and rides,

    Upon the rhythm of passing breeze

    Bringing a light,

    A little bit of warmth,

    To the surrounding darkness.

    And for long the flame rages

    Neatly seated in her little glass cage,

    Petit to any wandering eye

    Yet ferocious to those close by.

    The dancer draws its fuel

    And once again lurches with evermore joy.

    But such is bound to exhaust.

    The flame sucks more.

    Faster.

    Harder.

    The darkness closes in on that little dancer

    Creeping from its surrounds,

    Crawling towards the bastion.

    Our flame fight on, 

    Flickering: spirit of resistance,

    Fierce to the touch,

    And malleable to blow.

    The flicker grows lower regardless

    Calling and gasping,

    Yet chocked from within.

    Such is the plight of the little flame of the lamp,

    The little warrior,

    Upon the moment I chose to dream.

    In Embrace of Steel & Dirt

    Above, the leaves of gum, of balga, of tuart, 

    below the bottlebrush fall, sitting in the grove of the banksia, 

    surrounded am I by that which extends from me. 

    Yet, I am not exclusive to the bark and soil, 

    for above the roof of the karri, the metal and concrete reside, 

    the call of the blue wren, a twitter among the canopy. 

    I approach the steeple, 

    yet, find myself adjoined; 

    banker, chippy, senator, elder 

    all congregate below the cross of I.  

    Not for sermons or scripture of old, 

    but rather the hymns of the Mali 

    and the organ tune of rivers a flow. 

    On this hill I perch, a sentinel,  

    behind sprout the emerald-green fronds, 

    yet at the foot the Ute roars on winding avenue, dividing earth from the Bilya. 

    Hark! 

    Do not protest that of my ordinary day: 

    car and building and phone, 

    are the seeds which sow this kingdom and are not so different. 

    Karri, end my angst with chorus of your leaves, 

    As the mothers laughs, so does her child. 

    But friend, I must depart, 

    far I fly, my brusque end awaits! 

    Of golden white and beauty,  

    and endless swirling tides. 

    In earnest I must confess, 

    my gaze of green extends long and far, 

    not mere eucalyptus, but pine and oak as well, 

    for all grow just as tall under heedful eye o’ mine

    Expiring Lungs

    The cigarette held up above my eye,

    Its ember sits in front of the lamb post

    As I squint, 

    They share light.

    Above the sun seems to rise,

    A gloomy orange tint on otherwise black.

    Trees rustle as if,

    To heed the warning of dawn await.

    Burns the embers next to me,

    Between lips and slurred words,

    Conversation with little meaning,

    Or purpose

    Or end.

    Mere ramble of youth:

    Drinks, jobs, cars, food.

    Ember draws close to my finger,

    Heat now touches me.

    On my nails and my tongue.

    Dirty nails.

    Dirty tongue.

    Both linger in knowledge that such times,

    Are almost spent.

    Sun rises closer,

    Ashes keep falling.

    A pause in talk to watch it fall,

    Perhaps a little too long,

    As thoughts come to stay.

    So I talk again.

    Soon we will wake,

    With sun high in the sky,

    And nothing left to say.

    But until then,

    The trees will rustle,

    And the cigarette will burn.

  • ‘Boeing Boeing’: An escape to the farcical world of Parisian romance 

    ‘Boeing Boeing’: An escape to the farcical world of Parisian romance 

    It’s that time of year again, when our wonderful students of the Drama Society (DramSoc) put on their annual showstopper of a play. Friends, family, and the St Andrew’s college community flocked to a transformed Parisian dining hall in anticipation for what was sure to be a dynamic performance rife with scandal, satire and sultry humour.

    For those who missed it, this year’s chosen production was Boeing Boeing, a comedy by French playwright Marc Camoletti. Produced by Dan McSweeney and directed by incoming Senior Student Chloe Gillis, the play showcased the hard work and dedication that went into its preparation. Assistant Director Scarlett Pearce also played a crucial role, along with Stage Manager Woody Whitford and Head of Sound and Lighting Emilie Martin. The production was a testament to the collective efforts of students, who took on responsibilities in lighting, sound, photography, costuming, set design, and construction. 

    Set in the 1960s, this lively comedy follows the escapades of a Parisian-turned-American bachelor, Bernard, who is juggling relationships with three fiancées—each an airline stewardess. Freshman Nicholas Craddock takes on the role of Bernard, while the three stewardesses—an American, an Italian, and a German—are portrayed by Tilly Morgan, Amelia Fantham, and Claire Oslington, respectively.

    The play opens as Bernard meets with his friend Robert, played by Dan. Bernard proudly explains his intricate system for dating multiple airline stewardesses, relying on their carefully timed schedules to keep each relationship under wraps. Confident in his arrangement, he assures Robert of its “foolproof” nature.

    But Bernard’s plans quickly unravel when unexpected weather changes and faster Boeing jets throw his schedule off track, leading all three stewardesses to arrive at his apartment within hours of each other. The audience takes a front row seat to the chaos that ensues as Bernard and Robert scatter to pick up the pieces and try not to get caught. 

    As a classic farce, Boeing Boeing revels in exaggerated, satirical humour and leans heavily into physical comedy. This tone is captured brilliantly in the role of Bernard’s French maid, Bertha, portrayed with passion and vigour by Senior Student and former DramSoc director Ewan Jackman. Ewan’s Bertha injects the play with a combative cynicism and a quintessentially blunt French outlook, creating hilarious contrast to Bernard’s polygamous antics while adding a memorable layer of depth with her amusing romantic pursuit of Robert.

    Nic Craddock’s Bernard embodied the arrogance of American idealism, nicely contrasted by Robert’s awkwardness and naiveté in the realm of romance. As the stewardesses, Claire, Tilly, and Amelia each brought a unique flair to their characters, effortlessly delivering vibrant American and European accents that enhanced their performances.

    Giving insight into her role as director, Chloe reflected on the camaraderie amongst the cast members and the rewarding experience of seeing everyone’s hard work culminate on stage.

    “I loved directing this year’s play because it gave me the chance to connect with the freshmen and strengthen friendships with those continuing from last year. While the role was challenging and demanding, being surrounded by such a supportive and talented team made the entire experience incredibly rewarding. With standout performances from Dan McSweeny, Ewan Jackman and the entire cast, we delivered, what I feel, was a hilarious rendition of a classic comedy”, said Chloe.

    Producer Dan echoed Chloe’s sentiments and spoke highly of his experience both producing and acting.

    “Dramsoc was such an enjoyable experience this year with Boeing Boeing; truly grateful to have had so much fun on the stage. Being a producer and actor was really quite busy, but at the same time very fulfilling. We worked with a talented team from all year levels, and I particularly enjoyed my close-quarter moments with Ewan (playing Bertha), and the screaming matches with Claire (playing Gretchen)”, said Dan.

    Not to be overlooked were the raunchy cameos in the second act by Scarlett Pearce as Svetlana, a Russian pimp, and Woody Whitford as Chrystal, an Australian flight attendant. Their entrances amped up the tension as the audience awaited a climactic finale, witnessing the ultimate downfall of Bernard’s polyamorous ideals.

    Safe to say the production was undoubtedly successful, adorned by students and staff alike, and a reminder to us all of the brilliance of student creativity and collaboration here at St Andrew’s. Until next year!