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...

The Yoga would help if there was more time for it

It’s a cold Tasmanian night. It’s a long night, drawn out, protracted, dark, the faintest disturbance encroaching on his suburban middle class slumber. A clock bought long ago in the safest of suburban middle class stores from the most plain and unremarkable counter staff crew member provides the room with its lights. The clock is covered in faint wisps of dust – like a lot of things, he’d update the clock, but he’d do it tomorrow. The room is otherwise unadorned. He has kept his room plain and devoid of memories. He has never been blokey, so he has not made fabulous adornments to his room. He never watched all those blokey shows with Cam and Durie when they were popular and he wasn’t going to start now. He promised to paint it, but he promised many things in his life. Not all of them were physical actions. He hasn’t slept well lately, his mind a labyrinth of confused thoughts, 1/2lf formed faces and recollections. He used to talk himself to sleep by imagining a much better life, sometimes he was on Parkinson swapping an anecdote, other times he was a lottery winner...

He had come from the most unremarkable of middle class backgrounds. His mother had treasured a life devoid of scandal. She hated being noticed, loathed it, and avoided it at all times. She never collected any mementos of a life best described as solid. Dependable. Never nae bother fae her. It bothered her on her visits the amount of clutter that had crept into his life. Piles of un-read books, DVDs with long forgotten stars on the cover – who was Rebecca De Mornay anyway? He had protested, in a friendly way, that accoutrements in his life had been earned. He pointed to his cousin and his folly of a marriage. Look at them he had said in a sneery voice. Kids! BBQs to pretend they got along with the in laws! Why would anyone even BE in a relationship he had said! He, he had said, got to spend his money on himself. He would then hold up a trinket of some sort and say how much it has cost. Plays X-Box all day long, never has to go on a furniture buying expedition. Oh how he hates people doing nice things on the weekend like driving in the country or shopping for drapes. How proud. How true to himself...

And now...this...it made a mockery and nonsense of everything else...he just hadn’t realised it yet...

She sits on the edge of his bed. She looks beautiful, even unmade, even with her traumas - he looks a curled up, crumpled mess. She’s wearing his T-shirt, 1ne of those Xmas presents aunties who know nothing about you buy you – it had wrestlers on it, and a jagged pointed black star that looked like it would come off the fabric and take a child’s eye out, but she makes it work. She could make anything work. He’s sleeping, but she’s stirring him, she’s stroking his leg. He opens 1ne sleepy, tired eye, fixating in his eyeline on a red sharply cornered number on the digital clock. He presses his fist deep into his sheet, adjusts, feels the rubbing of his ankle, and stirs gently. Time stands still in his brain. He had slept unusually well...

Realisation to hit in 3...2...1...

His gums ache, his brain is devoid of its usual intense thought patterns. She’s smiling at him as he sits upright, his lazy left eye unable to fully open. There’s a cold stillness in the air. Such problems, such discourse that lead to this point, so many tears and anguish. Well here it was kiddo, time to wake and face it. As soon as his brain engages in any kind of discourse with itself – and it always has, it’s always chattered to itself, always been on high maintenance catholic guilt FM – you’ll know what you did. It’ll come soon – look to your left, cigarettes by the bedside. Not like you smoke is it? There’s a cramp in his leg, a deep intense ache, that makes him sit bolt upright. He’s done it a million times. In fact, when he was younger, he found he could give himself cramp. And as his face is illuminated by the thundering passing lights of a Toyota Camry, there she is. Still smiling, still more mature than you. Oh you’ve read a thousand more books than her, know more about the completed works of Proust, talked that girl at uni into bed talking about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but guess what...you can’t talk your way out of this one. Time to sit up...be a big boy...

Welcome to the future kid – you’re going to love it.

“Hey”...oh good start. That’s your first words. This has taken 6ix months and that’s your first words at this moment in your life. “Hey” – what’s next? A handshake? And you’ve said it in such a limp, flat way. Sure, rub your eyes, that’ll make up for it. I guess you can be forgiven – it’s been a stressful day. How did we start this anyway...we didn’t know each other 6ix months ago...then via the exchange of Facebook messages and drinking vodka shots in the living room while George and Mildred bickered on television in the background she’d come to depend on your company. You didn’t even see it...

She’s got kids...1ne of them is going to hate you...

So your life got more complicated than simply deciding it was going to be a Lily Allen day or a Smoosh day on the car stereo? So you made another friend? So her husband kicked her out and then she came and stayed in your spare room? You didn’t see it...you thought you were being nice. Sure you’d flirted with each other at karaoke and the people at Montgomery’s gave you both a standing ovation, so what? So what if you were txting, so what if you were there standing in the rain picking her up from the bus stop so you could see a movie...

...one of her kids is deaf. Stone deaf. How do you even begin....

“Hey you!” – She’s smiling, speaking with genuine affection. You’re out of your depth now aren’t you? She looks incredible, smiling, so sweetly, so amazing. She’s relying on you now. You smile a thin wan smile and try your best to focus. And in the all the time it’s taken to gather all these thoughts, all these particles of your life and assemble them into a thread of coherence, the last digit on your digital clock has progressed no further than moving from 3hree to 5ive...

Start with breakfast...it’ll be easier after breakfast...

There’s nothing in my house. Orange juice, and 1ne of those little multi packets of different kinds of cereal you take on camping trips. I was meaning to go to the grocery store, I really was – I just got distracted. Distracted by the ephemeral trivia that distracts a single man – episodes of the Simpsons, and Xbox games of Smackdown vs. Raw. The controller was still lying on the floor when she came to the door. She’s left her life behind, and all I can offer is Nutri Grain and 17teen different types of yawning. If we were going camping in Grade 8ight, I could be of some use. I have a pocket knife in the bottom drawer. Why is that important? There’s coffee, at least there’s coffee....focus your brain child...

“So...” she says. The smile hasn’t left her face. She sits down at my table and puts her legs either side of the wooden stool at my breakfast table. She flicks through the liner notes on 1ne of my CDs and sets it aside. I still haven’t said anything profound all morning. In fact, since “hey”, I haven’t really said anything at all. I’ve mostly stirred my Nutri Grain and poured honey onto it. Little bits of Nutri Grain are drowning under the weight of a honeyed frenzy. She’s tucking into a tiny packet of Corn Flakes I’ve salvaged from the wreck of my cupboard. It was either that or we tried to create a dish made out of salt and foil.

She takes my hand waiting for some affirmation. I shrug meekly. “So...”

Just like I did when you said you loved me right...yeah, I’m doing well so far...sure, I’m an improvement on the violence, but I promised more than apathy...

She throws back her head and laughs. “Fuken hell, how did THIS happen!”...don’t get on me, that’s how she says it. No C. That’s how she spelt it in her messages....

I take a sip of coffee that nearly scalds my mouth. I rub my hair so vigorously it’s almost an assault. For the first time all morning I smile. “Geez I love you...”

There. You said it. You own the sentiment now, it’s out there, given to you as a gift. Now, about your kids....

“So tell me about you!” she says, taking a spoonful of my cereal and devouring it in a messy way. We’re together and she knows nothing about me. And it’s ME she wants to know about. Not my love of Smoosh, not when I got my print of the 1990ty Collingwood Premiership team...me...

I hate talking about myself. Ironic for a writer, especially a poor 1ne. Writer? What have you written? Your Dad still hates you for not entering the Going Live! Competition to become a sports writer. How could you lose to a nerdy girl with thick Jo Pa glasses who wrote about cricket. You, you failure...how to sum up a lifetime of 1/2lf attempts, of moments past in the blink of an eye. Where to start? I’ve sat too many nights like a country and western singer in desperate, stomach twisting moments of regret. I devour popular culture but nothing of meaning. I lost my virginity to a girl who chatted me up at uni by singing Sex and Candy to me in class. I can remember the band that sang Sex and Candy – Marcy’s Playground. Their album was self titled. And yet I can’t remember her name for the life of me. You want to know about me – that’s about as telling an anecdote as can be found. I lacerate myself mentally far too much. I take sports defeats personally....

I’ll never leave you. Just say that. You know it’s for keeps now. It’s a nice sentiment...very Xmas card...

“Not much to tell,” is what I really say. “Just an ordinary guy really!”
It’s faintly self deprecating. Scottish people don’t have egos to trumpet. If we did, this bit would be easier...

“Fine!” she says, with a hint of impatience creeping across her unmade face. She folds her arms, and for a moment stares into her cereal until emerging from the milky brine with a thought, an idea, something that may pass the time until morning, until we emerge into our workplace with something tangible to tell the office gossips...

“Tell me you big idiot about your greatest ever fuck up!”

How to choose...how to choose...I’m Scottish...there’s so many choices...



I had approached my university studies with an abhorrent and careless disregard. My entire uni life was like I had been given a beautiful gift and played with the box. It was no surprise on the day of reckoning that I drove to the university to get my results, flipped open the giant ring binder with everyone’s fate trapped inside it, turned to find my name and saw next to my name 2wo numbers which would be high if they were listed temperatures for a Burnie summers day, but which as university marks put me somewhere alongside that kid who spent an entire semester trying to work out if he had ticks in his brain and got expelled for throwing paint at a feminist rally. I know – I looked him up. I had spent 2wo years taking every conceivable short cut. Sometimes in the computer lab at night, I would be at 1ne end and a pervert pleasuring himself to the new found delights of Internet porn would be up the other. I know he did, because the cleaner would always call him a “filthy fecker”...

I walked into an English exam armed only with the knowledge of the books back cover blurb which I read 3 seconds before the exam. I passed the exam mostly by repeated use of the phrase sui generis on every page. I missed another exam because I was talking to my cousin online and lost track of time. 1ne invented dead relative later, and it was rescheduled post haste. I thought I could play clever little games with the system forever...but I couldn’t....I was out, on the scrapheap, a failure. Bombed out...no where to run...

The pay phone I rang from was chocolate brown, and had gum in the receiver. My coins clanked in the slot – clanking with the weight of a life of regret. They answered straight away. It amused me a little to think they had a cake ready to celebrate. Fools. I still to my surprise didn’t feel anything yet. I spoke my words with indifference. My Mum was so disappointed. She sighed. The sigh of the malcontent. My Dad was angry. He had tried to be a doctor but failed and had spent many a draconian winter hovering over me like a thundering televangelist. Apathy is the path to office life he would say, as he threw his bag or satchel down. I didn’t listen. He spent 4our years...4our fucking years...traipsing around Ayrshire schools being told he had just missed out on jobs. 1nce ½ the panel liked him, ½ had liked some other bloke, so they gave the job to candidate 3hree that no-1ne liked...hadn’t I learned to become 1ne of those poor bastards controlled by interviews, he thundered, and I had followed in his foot-steps. It wasn’t the time for me to sing Cats in the Cradle down the phone line, but I hung up as soon as I could. I knew at home they would be ringing the relatives. Back in Scotland...

“My James is studying law...oh my Billy is going to have a corporate box at Manchester United...what’s your boy doing...oh...OH....”

I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t go home and face their disappointment. All I wanted was 5ive minutes to clear my head. I didn’t go home for 2wo whole days. I wandered around like a tramp for a while. The 1st night I slept in a corridor at uni. Irony – the most time I ever spent there in 1ne sitting. It was horrifically, apocalyptically cold. It burned and tormented every part of my homeless body. I fell asleep in awful fits and starts. Eventually a security guard and some swotty girl with horn rimmed glasses woke me up. They didn’t see me, they just disturbed me. I wandered around Hobart in only a yellow Liverpool away top for a whole day. I can’t remember how I ate, but I did. There was only so many times I could hang around Sanity and leaf through Catatonia albums before they moved me on...

Phone calls at home...

“No I haven’t seen him...why? Oh...OH....”

I wish I hadn’t been so selfish. I could at least have rung home. But not yet...night 2wo...chased out of every shop in Hobart, and unable to face the cold again, I broke into my girlfriend’s house through the window. She was kinda squatting anyway, so I’m not sure if it counts as breaking in. Before she got her house, the 1ne with the ATARI console in the attic that I wasted a whole year and an entire relationship playing, she had been part of a pay and stay sort of share house that people could dip in and out of. Very dodgy the system, but it worked for her. I say girlfriend in the sense that we had slept together, that we hated each other because we argued about art all night long, and then we wouldn’t see each other for elongated stretches. And I say dodgy, I mean illegal. Napster had nothing on this pay and stay system. Some1ne at uni had got very rich on this flat...

“Hello...hospital...please...can you check again....OK...sorry...”

I can’t remember taking the drugs. They were just there. That’s the most important thing. I know I did, because I know the consequences. I know as I huddled down to try and sleep people piled into the house – there was no middle ground in that house, you either huddled alone or drunk in a crowd, no in between - including my girlfriend, and we’d had an argument about art, as we always did. I know we drank many bottles of wine, and the whole thing was a distinctly murky blur of over pretentious conversation and hinted violence. I remember the consequences. Utter, complete and total blackness. Any time I tried to think, there was nothing. Any time I tried to move, there was nothing, except the faint feeling that my blood was cracking, creaking and boiling. Any time I tried to breathe, nothing came out. Any time I tried to get up, I felt lifeless and listless...in truth, such was my hatred of myself for failing that if I had never moved, just died in a black abyss of self loathing on a carpet stained with dog prints and bottle caps, at that time, I would have been very happy. It was so disgustingly immature and self indulgent...I thought I was an artist suffering, some sort of above it all tortured soul ending it all in a flourish. Truthfully I was just some guy who didn’t work hard enough at learning to draw...

Waking up from that blackness was horrendously hard. I had to physically make myself wake up, get up, go outside...find a bus, find the money to pay for the bus...and go home...

I faced it all in the end – a horrible Xmas sitting around with my cousin and his girlfriend just being better than me, a long Penguin Xmas in a crappy shack with people I hated, hearing about how well everyone was doing, especially the local footballer who had SUCH a great season...a long lecture on the couch, a horrendous series of job interviews...but I never told them I had made such an attempt on my existence. Never told anyone...never let it slip. Just told Mum about sleeping in the art room corridor and how cold it was....they never brought it up again. I wish sometimes I could just open up my entire life to my Mum and Dad. But they don’t want the hassle. They don’t want the disturbance. It would get in the way of The Bill...

“And having survived, I went on to have great friends, went on to a life of Hobart pubs, of winning meat trays...and so on and so on...to you...”

But I fucked it up. And I hate it...and like a country and western singer in a shitty Tasmanian tavern spouting words of regret to no 1ne in particular, I can’t go back and fix it...

I hope it’s a conversational flourish that will take some of the edge off the first real story about me. How I was and how I came to be. It’s all the depth I can muster at this time of the morning...

She looks at me oddly. She was clearly expecting some amusing anecdote about the time I broke my toe playing soccer in the corridor. She awkwardly stirs her coffee and shifts uncomfortably. I think for a moment, a moment in the morning air that hangs and just sits there, that she hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said...

Great, I think, as I spit my dying wish, you’re listening to something else...

“That’s pretty fucked up eh...”

We’re not going to have erudite breakfast conversation I guess

Great – he thinks I’m stupid...I can see it in his face...first it was because I liked The Script, and now this...

The illuminated perky faces of breakfast television presenters give us something else to look at eventually. They make conversation easy. They never pause, never stumble. Throw in an autocue malfunction and they deal. Satellite breaks down – they deal. I look at them carefully over her shoulder. When I look in the opposite direction her bag is parked at the door. It’s not much to look it – just an ADIDAS hold all, with a handle frayed at the edge. Her accumulated possessions. All she could muster in the 5ive minutes it took her to get out of the house while he was sleeping. He’ll come for you, you know that. You can be strong. It’ll be confrontational. You can get through it...

You won’t get through it. You can’t take a punch to save yourself. That kid kicked you in the shopping mall, right in the shins, and you nearly sooked it up a treat.

She smiles again gently, turns off the TV, straightens his tie and says “you ready”...

He smiles gently, equally gently.

Born ready...

And so, she thinks, I hope I haven’t fucked this up...