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