Jimbo’s leg

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Jimbo eyed the other men’s bare legs uneasily. The others all had thick black arrows pointing to the left knee; the arrow on his pointed straight at his right knee cap. Nobody caught his gaze but when he turned his eyes away he felt hot twitches of attention flicking over him. Over his knee.

One by one the others were told to get on their beds and were wheeled away. The women’s bright efficient voices were the only sound apart from the shrill birdsong floating in with the cold-aired sunshine. They all went quietly. Jimbo watched the wheels turn; no squeaks.

Three had gone. None had come back. The birdsong had stopped and the sun was gone. It was cold. Jimbo rubbed the arrow on his leg. Nothing. No smudging. He licked his finger and rubbed again. Still nothing.

When the women came for him, he too stayed silent. Until he saw the other men’s legs again.

The smell of gas

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The smell of gas turned out to be a dead neighbour. The news spread around the close immediately. Everyone knew that Murdoch lived alone, and never had a visit until the one from the man who looked like a police officer. He walked up to the door and knocked with something that sounded harder than knuckles. The door opened and he went in. Somebody inside knocked again, twice, then a few seconds later once again. The man came out, looked up and down the road, smoothed his jacket, closed the door and got into the big black car.

“Done?”
“Aye.”
“Sure?”
“Aye. Here’s the photo.”
They looked at his phone. Then the man in the leather jacket shot the man who looked like a police officer in the head. They smashed his face and fingers with a hammer. They took off his clothes. They put his body in the big black car with the hammer, the gun and the clothes and set it all on fire. They watched it burn, smelling the petrol and the meat. Then they walked out of the warehouse and along the river. The woman dropped the smashed phone off the bridge.

When the man from the gas company saw what was in the house, he ran out again. The neighbours watched from their windows. It is not clear how they found out it was Mad Dog because the man from the gas company stood alone and was not speaking. But somehow they all knew. And somehow they all knew not to talk when the journalists, and the people who looked like police officers, visited.

Murdoch. Mad Dog. Murdoch. People asked how he got away with it for so long. Then they understood how and stopped asking.

When a good person leaves us

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When a good person leaves us, we cry for the person and for the ideas, the ideas we fear may fade without their light. And we cry for ourselves, so deeply for ourselves, we cry for how we might have been and how we will have been. 

Family and love was all that ever made us cry; then friends departing and friends letting us down. Reasons for tears grow with us. Tears sting and fists rub eyes.

But a good person leaving us brings the deepest tears, the tears that shudder from the deepest place, the place we did not know existed and did not want to exist. 

Then hope? Perhaps. 

Pain knows my name

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“Pain is not a punishment, pain is always a warning. Death is the only punishment.” (Quotation)

 

Pain knows my name.

Pain ticks my name in my temples.

Pain whispers my name when I’m thinking of silence.

Pain screams through my blood when I’m gasping for sleep.

 

Pain fogs my head and bone grinds my patience to dust.

Pain knots blood wet ropes of razoring wire.

Pain flames bite black and tiger tooth savages darkness.

Pain saint martyrs my dreams, saint martyrs my dreams.

 

And then, please then, the silence, redemption.

 

The consequences of the banana

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He should never have thrown the banana. Bananas aren’t aerodynamic like boomerangs. They don’t come back.

The meaning of the throwing was disputed but the throwing itself wasn’t. Everyone had seen it. Even those who hadn’t been there had seen the endless replays. Better, in slow motion. Like those who used to argue between vinyl and live performance, those who saw it live argued with those who saw it immediately repeated.

But the meaning of the throwing was disputed. He said he was in a corner, standing on a chair under a low ceiling, and the banana was a nuisance. So he threw it to – to – the director. Others saw it as assault.

It was all there, captured on the silent cameras.

The director hadn’t been looking at the talent. The banana hit him just above the ear, on the line between the shaved and the bald. It didn’t knock his glasses off but knocked them slightly askew. It was more the surprise, the shock.

The video of what happened next went viral. Nobody had expected it or could explain it later. It affected so many people for so long.

He should never have thrown the banana. Reputations aren’t aerodynamic like boomerangs. Lives don’t come back.

I sat there among the young ones

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I sat there among the young ones, my house and hope gone. The photographer must have thought I’d make a moving picture as I hunched forward, face in my hands, my daughter looking away from me. He must have knelt on the muddy torn grass to place the clever metaphoric clouds in my background. He must have made a noise to make me look round. But I did not look at him when I turned round, I looked at the man with the gun and the knife, who left only me to tell the story. And the camera he took from the photographer’s hand. 

 

Can also be seen at http://spontaneity.org/issue02/i-sat-there-among-the-young-ones/

Let us walk through the old city alleys

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Let us walk through the old city alleys and tell each other stories of how our lives have been, stories of the heart and head, of what was and what might never have been.

And no regrets, no, no regrets. It wasn’t and it wasn’t and that is how it was. No regrets, no tears, red sunsets beautiful as the rising sun, the summer noon has been and gone and now you hold my hand.

White wall old city alleys, we stop and look up and smell the dust and smile at the swallows in the line of blue. Hands softly tighten, fingers lock gentle.

And the stories we are telling we shall tell forever.