When Silence kills a person

At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the first month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: "Now deign, I beseech you, once more to bloom, because I am going to die in your stead."

Then under that tree he spread a white cloth, and divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed hara-kiri after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went into the blood soaked tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.

And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month, in the season of snow - Jiu-Roku-Zakura (traditional Japanese story)



We broke up in the end in a New Norfolk swing park. We couldn't even be bothered to argue in the end. We argued for an hour up to that point. I offered her a cup of tea, it started an argument. A child came in and asked if I was his new Daddy. She said I was no one. She didn't mean it like that, she was just deflecting his curiosity, not building his hopes up - but what if she did mean it? And then she kept saying I thought she was stupid...same argument, over and over again...

One argument spilled into another argument into another argument. For once I was roused from my apathy. I even argued back. I had confrontation, won't seek it, certainly run from it. Not this time....

It had to be New Norfolk as well. The place I felt lonelier than I ever have in my whole life when I was a kid. A Tasmanian town miles from home. Where Dad dropped me off in a car park after a one hour drive where we didn't talk to each other, dropped me off early in the works car park, and then drove away, leaving me standing there, life over, about to start a new job, hopeless, hapless, in a novelty tie to try and make people like me. Rain fell, I had no one to talk to, and no hope....

I always storm off and then wait for people to catch up with me. I hate that about myself. I stormed off mid argument, as the latter words in the argument died out and fell to the floor. I then stopped, waited for her to catch up with me, and then sat on a swing and waited. Some kids kicked a ball in my direction. I kicked it back. Such a simple action, compared to everything else...

He sat on the rusted swing in the concreted rusting hulk that used to be New Norfolk’s most impressive swing park. The bucket seat spun and twisted as he sat. He looked at his shoes, filthy, rotting trainers. He had come to her house just to write - to try and win a writing challenge. Just for something to do on a public holiday. He knew their relationship wasn't work. He kissed her much harder than she kissed him lately, and as the song might say, he could only pretend for so long she wasn't that hungry...

They didn't argue much until today. Everything came out today. Every little slight. Every little moment - but as the philosophy he lived by went, it wasn't about the tree. It was about someone else. Her ex boyfriend. The scrunchy faced man who never really left. He could impress her with wisdom, sitcom knowledge and Japanese folks tales, but he wasn't him...

She followed him in the end. She tried to talk to him. She tried to calm things down, she tried to explain. She tried to say all the things that would make him stay. She didn't mean any of them, but maybe in time she would. She sat on a swing next to him and spoke softly, gently, she looked amazing, way out of his league. She said she had things to work out, work things out with the scrunchy faced man. She smiled, she invoked the spell of George and Mildred, their favourite sitcom...then she leaned from her swing to his, and kissed him so deeply, so wondrously, it hurt....

He still walked away, pulled away. It wasn't enough. She didn't love him. She could try to, but she didn't. So he walked away. He died in her stead. The tree in the swing park wasn't glorious or glamorous or beautiful or blood soaked like in the story - it had a cat up it that ferociously pawed in their direction with aggressive angst. It didn't make his sacrifice feel any less painful. In time, she would call his name 3 times as he walked away. The third time she called his name, she said it with the most aching of poignancy. Desperate poignancy. It didn't matter, he still walked away.

She needed to bloom. Bloom with someone else. Blossom with a man who she loved. Or maybe he was fucking selfish and walking way from something wonderful because he was immature. The Japanese didn't have a folk tale about that that he knew of...

He drove home, and when he got home, he slumped on the couch, bored. He sat in his house. It was dark. It had been a long drive illuminated only by the flickering lights of the laptop. His world had changed. He looked at his bookshelf. All books about Japanese philosophy, Brazilian educators, people who made a difference spelling wisdom out to the masses. They had educated him many times over these books. And in the space of a few hours, he had walked away from something wonderful. He wasn't sure if it was noble, sacrificial, or plain dumb...

No one will ever know how hard it was to walk away from that kiss. It was almost impossible. I fell under it like a spell...a damn spell...

But it meant nothing...

He checked his phone, no text messages. He checked his Facebook page. There were no messages with x or o at the end. It was truly over.

He checked his writing journal. Someone told him he was trite and tedious, and in every short story writing contest someone sent in the same story he had written time and again. "Didn't address the challenge" and "garden variety" stood out to him. He didn't let it sink in - he had made his choice in life and in story telling....he turned off his computer and went back to the couch to drink orange juice in silence...

He was alone...

We build our life’s for the good of other people whether we want to or not. Every one of us, every person on a computer, every person on the plane with me, every person running on a beach, we are who we are because of other people. There's no true individuals. We convince ourselves that the CD we bought, the hat we wear, the smile we perfected, the places we holiday, that we picked them on our own. We didn't. It started as soon as you could talk to someone. As soon as you could connect with another person, they shaped you, and unless you lived in a cave your whole life, they are still there. They made you. You really don't have much say in the matter...

I miss you Mildred. Blossom well...

Starring Barbara Ferris as Sally

I don't read novels. I haven't read a novel right through for about 6 years. I can't judge other peoples intent. I can't judge what's in someone’s heart when they create a world. I can't judge their intent in writing. I only read non-fiction books. Books I can learn something from. I've thus spent too much money on terrible autobiographies - sports men and women talking about pranks and hi-jinks...but then every so often, I find a story that means something relevant to my life in one of those books. I got this from a philosophy book, or one of those subpar Freakonomics clones, but I always remember it...actually, I read it on Harry O'Briens Twitter feed...I hope that a footballer told me this story doesn't dilute it too much or make it silly stuff...

It started with a tree. It wasn't much of a tree, probably a spruce; maybe it was a bush and as it grew in the head its foliage blocked the Israeli security cameras on the Israeli-Lebanese border near Addaiseh. The Israelis decided to use a crane to rip it out. But the problem was no-one was sure where the Israeli-Lebanese border is. It started a war that tree. Once the cranes arm went into a disputed part of the territory, shots were fired, people died, lives were ruined, all because of a tree...a blood soaked tree...

The point this book made was that the tree was an excuse. Something for people to fight about. Hurt each other over. If it wasn't a tree, it would have been something else. A dog, a child, a kiss...anything really. If a fight is brewing, something minor will spark it off, and then, every little thing that you've held back for years, every unspoken sleight, it's all on the table...and there you are, your life is changed...

It's never about the tree...


Its late afternoon in a suburban Tasmanian living room. Outside her window a neighbourhood dog is pawing aimlessly at a rose bush. Prick your ears just right and you can hear a neighbourhood radio playing a popular music tune loudly. Kids run unsupervised hither and tither from one house to the next in a frenzied ball of pent up energy. He had been inside her house all day, trying to write anything that came to mind, just trying to fulfil this writing challenge assigned to him, but he hadn't got any further than typing the assigned phrase into his laptop. She had been bored all day - she knew every time he tried to write he would get frustrated and annoyed. She didn't really like what he wrote anyway - she liked escapism, she liked to stare out of the window and dream. She had never shared her dreams with him - she felt he would be intellectually snobbish about them, since they were simple things like her kids being free of violence, so she kept them bottled up. Sometimes she would drop in little hints and conversational titbits late at night when they both couldn't sleep. She wondered if he was listening. He wondered why she was talking...

Now they were arguing. Within hours, they'll have broken up. Within hours, they won't have a clue what they ever saw in each other. Within hours, all that ever was, all that ever has been, will be all gone...every little sleight, stretching back to when he didn't listen to her properly at Wendy's on their first casual date. It's all coming out...

They think it's about the kid. It's not. It's not about the kid...

It's nothing to do with the kid...

It's never about the tree...

When I was younger, I used to be terrified of dying. All my collections would be finished as quickly as possible lest I die one football card short of completing my collection. I had a revelation during a thunder storm one night that if I died, I had accomplished nothing - I was only 14, but I couldn't sleep all night. I imagined someone picking over my Sports Illustrated magazine, re-attaching the mug handle to my coffee mug because I never got the time to do it...I hated that. I used to stare into my family cupboard and imagine all the flotsam and jetsam of my life pored over, all the things I had never done discussed as sad music played for sad people. It was terrifying...all those things that kept you going for today, that never got finished when there was no tomorrow...

It came to pass my fears. My cousin died of a heart attack 3 weeks short of his 30th birthday - the invitations to his party were still on his table. My uncle died in a pub, mid discussion about why Celtic always get robbed by referees. His pint of beer was a mouthful short of being finished. My gran died next to a little soccer figurine that I bought her. The leg had come off, and next to where she died, was the glue she was going to use to fix it. All signs. All moments in life unfinished. All things no one ever got around to before the end. I'm so conscious of time...I'm so conscious that there will be an end point to my life...I'm so aware since I moved from Scotland to Penguin to Scotland to Burnie to Scotland to Hobart nothing is permanent. I walk around shopping malls berating myself for wasting time just picking up computer games and reading the labels to kill my lunch break...I should be doing something...

And now - this. This empty house, only filled with the sound of television, and there it is - her half finished Diet Coke in my fridge. She's not dead, but our relationship is. Just a little unfinished memento of life’s ebb and flow. In her house, she might find a photo, or a memento - our ticket to that film, one of my abandoned socks. She doesn't think like I do - she's a practical thinker...she'll scoop them up, throw them away...

The unfinished parts of my life, though, will always kill me...

When Attention Means a Lot To A Person

An hour, maybe more, has passed in a suburban Tasmanian living room on a lazy public holiday Tuesday. Aside from the silence, it has no discernible difference to the previous hour. Not one word has been entered into his computer to answer his writing challenge that will earn him the undying respect of Internet based strangers. In fact, he is now re-considering everything about his alleged vocation as a writer such is his mental blank. The white of the Microsoft word blank page is mocking him, the paper clip regularly jumping out to wonder what's taking him so long. She ran out of things to say roughly 37 minutes ago. She can't offer cups of tea forever. The air conditioner seems to be relishing its role as an antagonist within the room, spewing hot air when all they want is cooling, like some kid who repeats every word you've just said - every moment the air conditioner spins, it gets hotter, and their mood frays and fractures until they eventually have a pointless argument. She's run out of Pods - but if she goes to gets them from the store, she leaves him alone with her kids. They aren't quite ready for that yet - adjustment is still ongoing. He's only been hinted at - not formally introduced. Truthfully, she knows in her heart of hearts he's not ready to look after kids - judging by the way a piece of Pod has clung to his chin like a barnacle to a boat, she's not sure he can look after himself...

If he leaves to get Pods, he feels as though he will get in his car, drive down the highway, through Tasmania’s labyrinth of traffic lights and around all the slow witted pension age drivers, and not stop until he gets back to his own house with elongated couch and a cable box that allows him to mindlessly chuckle at the antics of Mark Bosnich and Robbie Slater. So it's a Pod based standoff. She stopped rubbing his back 54 minutes ago. He was happy that he wasn't being zapped anymore, but the silence made things uncomfortable. He wanted to write, he even wanted to write something poetic, just to make her smile, laugh. A joke even. Write a joke - you can write jokes he thought; remember when you worked for Triple J? What did they call you when you used to submit jokes about Nick Cave for the breakfast show - the guru? Draw on your well of vast interpersonal experiences, he thought, remember that time something happened and humourous events occured? He sighed. He looked around to at least make an attempt at a joke and she had gone anyway to do the dishes. He smiled ruefully. Finally, some peace and quiet. He then wondered how long that piece of Pod had been on his chin...

"Under the Kiss of the Blood-Soaked Tree"
By Miles McClagan

Good title, he thought as he sat back on the carpet. He leaned forward and touched the computer to type something, anything, just to get something done and got an electric shock from the keyboard that penetrated deep through his fingernail and into his soul like an acerbic insult - a violent combination of electrical equipment, nylon carpet, nylon replica Manchester City tracksuit, and general terror and fear of anything painful, that lead to his next action...

"SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!" he said, standing up and yelling from a nightmarish mix of fear, pain and scattered Red Bull.

She yelled from the kitchen - "are you OK babe?" - she said it in a flat, monotone voice, which indicated she didn't really care, but she felt it was important to at least pretend. If he could see her, he would see she hadn't even turned around from the suds. She was staring outwardly in a dreamlike state out of the back window, over the neighbours fence, even beyond the general store run by the man with the wooden leg - just deep in personal contemplation, the kind of pondering people do when they are wondering about the decisions they had made in life. It was fine to laugh with someone, fine to playfully punch him on the arm at work and say he was doing a great job. Fine to stay at his house after a late night drinking session while he introduced you to George and Mildred and taught you about that series of The Dukes Of Hazzard with the cousins. Fine to think he was interesting, then cute, and then take him back to your place...but committing to him? She had her elbows deep into the suds, her eyes expressionless as she scrubbed the same plate over and over again. He got up to see if she wanted anything from the shop, stared at her for a moment, and walked out again. The radio was playing that love song she liked. The one he secretly hated. Too commercial he thought. He thought she was just listening to it. He didn't know she was listening to it, but finding it somewhat ironic...

He went back into the living room. He stood back from his laptop tentatively. He had put a coaster over the spilled Red Bull as if the spillage had never happened. That's man thinking. Her carpet had little grooves in the nylon, so the Red Bull had seeped between the cracks, perfectly, as if it was meant to be. How ironic, he thought, as he returned to his Microsoft Word document for another attempt. What had happened to him under a tree that he could draw on? There was a big lemon tree out the back of...no, that wasn't his house, that was the neighbours. Kissing? Maybe he could work something out of that...his first kiss was...actually, it was for charity. Live Aid? With his Grade 2 girlfriend? That was in assembly - he liked to imagine that would create something of a hubbub these days, teachers making kids kiss in public to raise a few dollars...he shrugged and chewed his Juicy Fruit as he worked his brain. Think man think. It's getting dark outside. Blood? There was a kid at his old school who used to faint every time he saw blood. Maybe he could get something out of that...remember the time that kid had fainted at the swimming carnival, fell in the pool - oh for a JVC video camera, we could have made a fortune on one of those Jeremy Beadle shows...focus man...no, it was no use. He was drowning, he couldn't think of anything worthwhile...he would have to give up and play solitaire on the computer...there would be no adulation from Internet strangers in this particular writing exercise...

It was "write a funny story about this picture" day in Grade 8 all over again...

He thought of their first kiss as he stared at the word kiss flashing at him on the otherwise blank screen. Flashing in a basic verdana font on the screen with a cursor dancing unconcerned next to it. It was raining; it was in the car park of one of Hobart’s more atrocious pubs. The one that promised 16 different types of chicken parmi, none of them edible. He had made a joke about how they were all very similar - she had laughed a bit too much. Someone, maybe the singer at the Telegraph, had pointed them out as a couple in his stage banter. He had playfully disagreed. People in their party began to whisper behind their hands. More drinks. Everyone went home but you and her. You both then had a massive argument about something after you had drunk shots at Syrup, in that way that a major argument sometimes isn't about the little thing you end up arguing about, but instead is the culmination of a million festering awkward unresolved moments in your life. Hell, his Dad had not spoken to his family for 28 years because they all had an argument about a christening shawl. It was nothing to do with the christening shawl...it was about every other argument they'd ever had...every word they had let slip through to the keeper, every slight, every unattended birthday party or parental beating dished out in grim dystopian Paisley childhood moments...and there it was, all in the open, and left to hang there...

Except in their case, it wasn't anything to do with fighting - it was about every single moment of slowly building tension. The time she scrawled on his notebook, the first text message with an x on the end of it, the first time she had bought him a hot chocolate, the first time he had bought her a packet of Butter Menthols because she didn't like chocolate. The first time you had lunch together. The first playful argument you had because she liked the Sydney Swans and you liked Collingwood. All those times when you had to pick someone to sit in on a teleconference with you taking notes and you had picked her to sit and listen. And then, without knowing, it's suddenly 4am 3 months later and it's raining and you are arguing, but you are arguing out of frustration. Frustration because she won't leave him. Frustration from her because you won't say what she wants to hear. Frustration from the taxi driver because he's leaning out his window trying to get a fare. The argument has nothing to do with the fact that you won't go with her to Irish Murphy’s because you hate the black shirted fascist bouncers and their jackbooted attitude to entrants...

And then she leans in and kisses you in the rain. And that's that...

He smiled to himself, there was so much going through his mind as he re-examined his flashing cursor. Had the topic been Under the kiss of the rain soaked bogan, he would have stormed it. He shook his head. There was no blood involved that night. There was a tree, sure, but it was largely non judgemental and passive on the subject. He looked at watch - his deep and meaningful with his own brain had taken 8 minutes, but felt like it was an hour and still hadn't got any work done. If he had to type his "songs you don't need to hear" again list, he could do it in seconds. This story...it was driving him insane. He hadn't even understood the topic yet, hadn't even cracked it. He head butted the keyboard, and luckily it didn't zap him. He looked up to see her hand on his shoulder, and a cup of tea passed over to him from a supportive hand. She didn't even pass judgement on the Red Bull stream heading inexorably towards the kitchen in a flow from underneath the coaster...

She had resolved in her mind to be supportive - she had been having the same sweet and gentle reminisces about their relationship and thought she would make the effort...

"So I was thinking - what if the tree was a source of seduction. You know somewhere the kids all went to..."

"So the kiss of the tree is some sort of metaphorical spell?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, I'm not going to follow up my good idea! Just give me a writing credit!"

He smiled and pushed the laptop away from him. "Tell me more about your pirate movie!"

She giggled gently as she sat down on her couch.

"I liked the one you had about the dog driving the taxi! THAT was a good idea!"

"Does the dog talk or does it just drive the taxi?"

"I think it should wear a hat, or maybe a bow tie..."

"His taxi company has gone to the dogs!"

"It can star Jimmy Kimmel!"

"Why Jimmy Kimmel?"

"He needs the work?"

He sat on her knee as pulled himself up from the carpet, and kissed her on the lips. It was suddenly easy, moments like this, when they could just talk about nonsense and then kiss for hours. Just like the old days. Just like the carpark...

"Mummy, is this my new Daddy?"

Don't blow those brains yet
We gotta be big boy
We gotta be big

When Sound Means a Lot to a Person

It's Tuesday afternoon in a suburban Tasmanian living room. Her living room is different to his and that has taken some getting used to in his set in his ways brain. He had an elongated couch, big leather one sold to him by a girl who clicked her teeth when she was spinning for a sale, and the television that said his name when he turned it on - she had a small little box television with wiry old school rabbit ears and instead of a couch she had little chairs with loose wires in it that poked into your arms when you sat down. The TV made Nick Riewoldt look like he was kicking for goal in a snowstorm any time he tried to watch the football. He tried hard not to make the financial discrepancy in their earnings a point of conversation, but sometimes she would bring it up in arguments. Her money went on her children, his money want on frivolities, or it used to. Now it went on her children. He had pondered many times if he had done the right thing, and changed his mind every 7 seconds. For now, his only thoughts were adjusting his tracksuited body in such a way that his tracksuited body didn't combust on her nylon carpet – his secondary thoughts on trying to do some writing in the midst of his afternoon lazy public holiday torpor...

She was eating Pods from a bowl, making noisy deliberate crunches with each bite. Part of his relationship education as a good and charming partner involved learning to be patient. Sure, she was rubbing his back with her feet as she sat behind him on one of her deadly chairs, and causing him irritation, not to mention sparking him with every rub like he was a Scalextric car about to wind up and go. Sure, she was crunching loudly in what had to be a crunch for attention, and sure, she was overlaughing at George and Mildred, featured on one of those terrible Russell Gilbert hosted nostalgia shows they put on in summer, just to try and get him to join her on the couch and enjoy the best sparkling banter British Sitcomery had to offer. Once upon a time he would have gently snapped and thrown a hissy fit, but now he was dulled, tired, full only of apathy and fatigue. He accepted the crunchy noises, he tolerated the gentle constant electrocution, and even accepted sitting through one of the poorer episodes of George and Mildred, the one where they look at the posh property, but what he couldn't escape was his duty to the written word...his calling in life...to be a writer. My son...

UNDER THE KISS OF THE BLOOD-SOAKED TREE

It wasn’t going to change, the challenge, no matter how much he stared at it.

"Whatcha doin..." she said gently, rubbing her toe onto his tracksuit for the tenth time today as he tried to come up with a story around the title given to him. This particular rubbing sent a violent shock into his spine, pure nylon on nylon combustion. Took him right back to his childhood, all those summer evenings where he tried to get off his trampoline only to be shocked right on his big toenail. One time he was on there for 3 hours, just refusing to get off until his Mum assured him he wouldn’t get shocked...he got shocked...he never forgave her...

He looked down at the badge of his Manchester City replica tracksuit, then back up at her. Apathy in the relationship had meant he hadn't even noticed she'd put blonde streaks in her hair. No wonder she was upset with him at the BBQ. He couldn’t put his finger on why she spat out every food request with a hissy tone of voice – he thought it was because she was losing at backyard cricket.

"I'm trying to write something honey", he said, softly, mumbling to himself. He stared at his writing challenge as if he could turn the title into a snap and a breeze through his own intellectual abilities - he glared balefully at the burning mass of words writhing on the screen before coherence fell out of his brain, turning to fuzz and disappearing into the abyss of the nylon carpet. Stared deep into the Dell computer onto which he had typed three words. George and Mildred. He hadn't even meant to do that, but he had been so distracted trying to untangle the meaning of the title given to him, all he had done was type the name of the sitcom on the TV...stared deep into the Dell Computer, staring at the reflection of an inarticulate man, more suited to playing Sensible Soccer than composing something people would like...his thoughts only broken by her voice, trying to break into his world...

"Why don't you write about pirates! I like pirate stories!" - she meant well, she always meant well when he was writing, offering suggestions and making cheese sandwiches, but their intellects often clashed. She was honest, straight forward, liked dancing, saw the best in people, and he thought the world was complex, full of hidden agendas. He wouldn't admit he liked Britney Spears for fear of denting his super cool image, she'd wear the T-shirt and wonder why anyone thought it was strange. He reached up to grab a Pod from the bowl and she playfully slapped his hand. "You never listen to my writing ideas! All you do is tap your fucking rubbish on that computer! Pirates, I'm telling you! That's what people would love to read! A pirate adventure on the high seas! Housewives would buy it..."

He shrugged as he bit into his hard earned Pod, smoothing the crumbs off the zip of his tracksuit as he stared into his Microsoft Word document. "I'm not a pirate story kind of writer, I'm...."

"I know, an observational writer!", she said, mocking his hybrid Scottish Australian accent as she threw a pod at his head. "How fucking laudable!"

He picked the Pod off the ground and returned it to the bowl. "Well, it's better than writing about pirates! Next you'll be telling me to write about a dog that drives a taxi in New York City! And the audience can go why is the dog driving a taxi! What's he up to! We can make it full of hilarious mix ups and crazy ant..."

He stopped. He had gone too far.

"So I'm stupid, that's what you are saying!"

His Dad had often told him that everything in a relationship basically revolved around the same argument endlessly looped from the first time you had it and only slightly changed by events - actually what he'd said was "you get nagged all the time about the same shite" but he had got the idea. In Dad’s case, it was generally that he tried to read the paper and Mum would suddenly have things to talk about, depriving him of the latest wit and wisdom of Bob Shields or Andrew Bolt. Interruptions were his absolute pet hate. He was beginning to know how his Dad felt...

He took her hand in his, risking another electrocution. “I’ve never thought you were stupid, in fact, it’s me who feels stupid trying to work out what to write about!”

She softened. She liked those little moments of insecurity he would give her from time to time – they let her know he was human and not some university educated robot. She smiled a beautiful smile and then ruined the romantic image with another unladylike crunch of her Pod.

“So if you can’t write about pirates, what are you writing about?”

“I’m in a writing competition – I have to write a story based on something someone has given me to write about. In this case, the phrase is under the kiss of the blood soaked tree...”

She looked at him evenly. “What the FUCK does that mean?” she said, scratching a blonde tip with her fingernail.

He tried to say something intelligent, and nothing came out. “I don’t know...I’m too dumb to work it out. I thought if I wrote a horror story...”

He barely got the word horror out before she was laughing, snorting, and then laughing again. “Oh THAT’S original! A horror story! And you think pirates are fucking stupid! You know you can't write horror stories, you can't do it! Seriously, how are you going to end it, with the Scooby gang finding out it was old Mr Johnson from the fairground and not really a ghost! You’ve gone straight to the word blood in the title and come up with that!”

He pouted as if he was a food deprived model on her beloved Fashion TV. He looked at her a little hurt.

“I thought you liked my horror stories!”...

She smirked, threw her hair back. “Babe, they are all set in Kilwinning, and for your information, there’s nothing horrific about art class when you can’t draw and your teacher drinks a lot of vodka...at worst, it’s a mild inconvenience!”

He threw his pen on the ground in a grumpy mood.

“Fine then Steven King – you come up with something!”

She kicked him softly in the back in a playful fashion, and then smiled as if struck by inspiration. “How about a poem!”

He slumped over his computer.

“A poem...that’s your brilliant genre bending idea...”

“What’s wrong with a poem!”

“I hate poems! I can’t do poems! I can do limericks about old women from Nantucket! This isn’t getting me any closer to trying to work out something about a tree that I can submit!”

She was genuinely hurt.

“So you think I’m stupid!”

“How did you turn it back to that! No! I just don’t like poems! And it’s not helping me get this done this whole argument! All I’ve done in the last 10 minutes is eat Pods, and wonder about the tragic demise of Yootha Joyce, get my back set on fire by you, and had a stupid argument! The tree doesn’t have any blood on it at all! It’s completely un-soaked! Now can we PLEASE stop arguing so I can do some work!”

He was never good with silence. His Mum had often bet him a He-Man figure he couldn’t make it all the way from Burnie to Penguin in their Brown Torana without saying a word. He never got one. He would always see something out of the corner of his eye – an amusing dog, a mis-spelled word at the Shell Service station. An illuminated flashing advertisement for some kind of cheap soft drink. Anything that captured his imagination, he would blurt it out and try and weave something out of it. He would then spin some kind of story of it – he had always been able to do it. Set him a task and two hours later, there was something on the page. Sure it wasn’t always good, but it was reliable, his trusty old child like brain...the important thing was, he had to do something, quickly, or the silence would just cripple his day...

The unspoken realisation for him as he kneeled on her carpet was that he had lost his ability to think creatively – sure writing things down on the page, that was difficult enough, but this relationship had stolen his thinking time. He had been peaceful, he had nothing but time, long weekends to invent imaginary chat personas and then watch entire seasons of Weeds while never having to scrape a crumb from his jumper. The accumulated stains on some of his jumpers defied description. Now there were errands to run, her kids needed attention – one of them had a learning difficulty and he had to sit for hours teaching him how to do his multiplication homework. He even had to go and do nice things like shop for antiques...in his single life, e-mail him the sentence UNDER THE KISS OF THE BLOOD-SOAKED TREE and by god his tree would so soaked with blood they’d hold it up at assembly and give him a prize. Now, there was no time to think of anything, no creativity to spark – just maturity and errands and repetitive arguments and wondering how many times you had to hear about the time her last boyfriend rang a prostitute on her mobile phone. Then again, he had been told by one English teacher the world was full of talented but unsuccessful people, maybe he was just one of them...

He broke the silence by kissing her deep on her lips. He knew he loved her – they would be together always, just like this, just sitting around arguing, then being silent, then working it out. It was meant to be. They’d be together in the old folks home, arguing about honey mush and who was first to water aerobics. She was watching the hilarious antics of Mr Roper over his shoulder as he kissed her, but was able to pretend she wasn’t. They held each other’s hand on her carpet and stared at the laptop without anyone speaking for an eternity...

“So, what do you get if you win,” she said, smiling softly.

The adulation of strangers on the Internet? Nah, better not tell her that...

“Um...a hundred bucks?” he said, stammering...

He’s so cute when he lies. His little face. Just like George...