To be is the answer (if to be or not to be is the question)

I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve. I’m absolutely crap at hiding my feelings. Dad described this as the storm clouds gathering but he kindly qualified this by acknowledging that the sun would quickly shine again. So as the year draws to a close (well in 40 minutes to be exact) I hope that I can live with this version of myself in 2019 and ‘be’ rather than function in some well-behaved role, portraying a carefully edited life to those around me.

I knew early on in life that acting was not my gig. It’s hard to get excited about being cast (no pun intended) as a sheep in the Christmas nativity play, crawling on all fours up the centre aisle between the pews with the sheep-skin rug from our lounge tethered to my back. If this was not bad enough, there was singing involved and to make matters worse still, this had to be delivered in sheep-like vibrato,

“We’re shivering sheep and we daren’t go to sleep …” 

If there was one impromptu acting moment, however, it was the deathly glance directed towards my gloating older sister sitting in the pulpit behind the palm fronds, looking serene in blue and white as the highly-favoured one.

It would be easy to assume that my next starring role was looking up and travelling in the right direction. At least being a Wise man was bipedal. It is at this point that I need to declare another character flaw…a susceptibility to uncontrollable fits of giggles as a manifestation of performance anxiety. And what was the cause of such angst? Wearing borrowed silk pyjamas with sweat-stained armpits and delivering this clanger in melodic synchrony with my ever suffering younger sister.*

“Where is the babe born King of the Jews? No one is able to give us the news.”

Exit stage right, quickly.

In my teenage years I played a forlorn workhouse boy and low-life ruffian in Oliver!, a background role worth the waiting for.

And from humble beginnings playing a ruminant mammal I ended my acting career on a high as a Shepherdess on the Delectable Mountains pointing Pilgrim to the Celestial City of Gold. No bloomer bloopers thankfully!

I am content to leave my brief dramatic experiences in the past but cannot promise clement weather in the future. Bring an umbrella 😃

*Don’t ask her about the piano duet.

Sharon Hawkey

Ibsen's Ghosts

Not a bad face, Irene Stenhope thinks, as she deftly applies base make-up. She’s never been a beauty – always a Barrymore or Plowright rather than a Mirren. Her appearance is unremarkable, someone you would pass on the street and fail to recall a minute later. A blank canvas has been her blessing, more so than great beauty. It’s taken her from Ophelia, to Blanche, to Lady Macbeth. Irene darkens her eyebrows with expert strokes. Countless times, she’s added thirty years, shadow and pencils creating crow’s feet and lip wrinkles. Now she works to keep age at bay.

What’s the secret to being a great actress, her disciples ask, as they study her metamorphosis? They’ve come from schools where the art is taught by academics. Funded by student loans, they absorb the theory, get an A+ and a graduation ceremony, and a year later they’re making coffee and sending out audition tapes. Those with guts and talent make their own work; others gravitate to Sydney or London, and email when they get a walk-on in a sitcom, still yearning for the stage. It breaks her heart.

Irene gives thanks for that time when theatre was an event. People dressed up and a ticket was hot property. Forty years ago, Ibsen’s Ghosts was scandalous. A philandering husband, a syphilitic son, drunkenness and incest. Now such stories fuel the 24 hour news cycle and Irene understands why the audience doesn’t come. The tide has turned to spectacle and celebrity – the stadium concert, the A-list comedian – where the underbelly of human existence can be forgotten or mocked with numbing cruelty.

Irene dons Mrs Alving’s full period clobber one last time. The show is closing, they were told today. No four week season, no tour. It’s all there in the contract; it’s the company’s right. Sales are slow, the houses are thin.

What’s the secret to being a great actress, they ask? Technique, method? No, not even talent.  Irene knows that, more than the ability to fully inhabit the character, the art is to forget what you know. To forget the end of the story, to forget that the show is closing, to forget that the best years are behind. To step into the lights and towards an unknown future as if for the very first time.

Rosemary McBryde

Pania

They linked arms as they advanced towards the police lines.

Pania stood to one side. She held aloft a sign – it was not on a pole, she held either edge of
it over her head.

This is not the moment for the consideration of art history, Anthony scolded himself, but
amidst the fear that churned his mind was a cool corner that saw and analysed the sight.
The Shadow of Death was painted in the 1870s by William Holman Hunt. Pania’s stance
mirrored Christ’s in the painting exactly – he, stretching his arms up from carpentry work
and his mother aghast at the shadow cast on the wall, the shadow falling on a beam from
which tools hung – a shadow man crucified. The angle of her hips, the jacket tied around
her waist. The correspondence was uncanny. And chilling.

She it was who had said on RNZ after the Environment Court delivered its final decision
that she was willing to die. ‘We will remain here until the bulldozers come. I’ve already
planned to sacrifice my life for this campaign’.

It was as if she were the only real person there, the rest of them like characters in a short
short story – a flurry of drama and the book is closed – but for her this was real.

She was like a karearea – fierce and burning, with rage gleaming in its eye, beautiful and
wild in the sky or swooping remorselessly upon prey, but ultimately fragile – light, hollow
bones and delicate soft brown pinions. Could her rage prevail, could such purity resist the
seemingly relentless spread of injustice?

Anthony drew his elbows in, drawing closer to him Kayda Matsushita on his left and
Gerard on his right.

They staggered forward

‘Pigs in the dark,’ Anthony thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.

The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Anthony, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.

Dhiraja

Curtain call

They linked arms as they advanced towards the police lines.

Ambrose felt the adrenaline making his heart thump and his eyes widen. He drew his elbows in, drawing closer to those on either side of him.

‘It’s not so bad for you,’ he said to Kayda Matsushita on his right, ‘you’re a fictional character – you don’t have so much to lose.’

‘Dude,’ she replied coolly, ‘you’re only semi-non-fictional yourself. I’m not entirely sure you’ve been to Dakota at all.’

But Ambrose knew why he was here, arm-in-arm on the slopes of Puketepapa tanga a Hape: because he had been to Dakota and he had failed to do anything there but be scared. Failed though he had seen God Himself there. He had, in his own estimation at least, failed to ‘stand with Standing Rock’. Here he would stand to the end with the indigenous opponents of unfettered greed and consumption and destruction.

It was difficult to walk like this on such rough ground. The grass was long, and random volcanic rocks made maintaining the line a challenge.

To his left, Dr Cooper looked an unlikely radical, arm-in-arm on the other side with his ‘spouse equivalent’, but not as implausible as various Japanese monks and a lone Ethiopian who, though he might know more about revolution and violence than the rest of them, looked impossibly tall and thin amongst the mostly Maori crowd that moved as steadily as possible towards the police.

‘Pigs in the dark,’ Ambrose thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.

The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Ambrose, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.

Barnaby McBryde

The final curtain

There she was again tonight, bowing ever-so gracefully as she blew kisses towards the audience.

If only they knew, she thought. If only they knew…

The lights went out as the curtain was pulled in. She let out a sigh of relief, slouching her shoulders once more to return to the room behind the stage. Other people ran to quickly dispose of any unnecessary items and fold up the tables and chairs scattered across the black stage. No words were exchanged among them, not even a smile.

She closed the door behind her and sat down, grabbing a makeup wipe and ferociously rubbing off her white face and dark eyes to reveal a sad girl who smiled.

Unfortunately, there was no one else inside the room except for the little puppy who yawned lazily.

Where was she? The girl who wanted to pursue a career in making people laugh and cry, making an audience clap and smile as they watched her dance across the stage and recite the same lines she had rehearsed for months.

There was an emptiness in her that she was unable to shake away no matter how many times she got on that stage in front of a great crowd. Whether she was aware of this or not, the vacancy was eating her alive.

You did so well last night!

What a horrendous show!

She thinks she can act!

Your best performance yet!

The compliments and insults went through her as if she were nothing. She looked up into the mirror, her eyes meeting with the face of a stranger.

What happened to her? That girl, the one who would beg her parents to watch the same play every Saturday. The one who auditioned over and over again, coming ten minutes early to rehearsals every day.

She herself did not know.

She gathered her things and left. She was going to find that girl again.

This was her last performance, the final curtain.

Katya Tjahaja

Brian. Revisited.

 (A bonus November story)

Archbishop Brian sat in silence in his office, his hands cradling his face, the fingers brushing cheeks that resembled the sheen of his platinum coated iPhone broken only by irregular patches of light stubble like a well-used sheet of 150 grit sandpaper. The silky skin was not due to his usual expensive moisturiser created from Himalayan glacial water; instead it had been sustained during a farm rubbish fire that turned on him and left him with burns to his body. Following the initial emergency response, his recuperation involved maintaining his fluids and although in a private hospital room, his trips to the toilet were occasionally sabotaged by a faulty hospital-issued gown with a crucial tie missing from the rear. Within a short time he became known to a select few staff as the Arse-Bishop.

He lifted his head up and continued perusing the daily news on his tablet. The date stamp in the bottom corner reminded him another month had passed and he stood to turn over a new page on the wall calendar. The new month featured an image of whales gliding in Pacific waters off the East Coast and, as if in unison, the news page featured a story on a whale stranding.

He sat back and reflected on that night when his mighty God had shaken his fists upon the land and sea. Part-promotional for his flock, part-holiday and an opportunity to open the throttle on his 900cc machine, it was a miracle that he had avoided any serious mishap or injury.

“God spoke to me that night,” said the then Bishop to his full house of believers, “and he told me I should leave, for something bad was coming. His displeasure at the wickedness of man and his continual perversity, the moral decline, men marrying men, gays, lesbians, and kids choosing their gender. I will send a warning that cannot be ignored, I will make the heavens boom and the waters to part. God told me I should leave so that I can continue to spread his word!”

The faith of the congregation was galvanised in their slick-haired leader. God had talked to the Bishop and indeed spared him for a higher purpose. There was only one thing for it. Anoint him as an Archbishop.

His stomach now began to rumble and he thought about getting some sustenance, much as it had in the growing shadows of that early evening in the seaside town. He realised that there was little on offer other than some fish and chips and a bed in a motel that was far below a man of his stature should have to endure.

“Let’s get out of this shit-hole,” he said to his posse as they mounted their machines. His onboard phone had delivered the only voice to him in his helmet’s earpiece that night as his wife prattled on about something trivial as they headed out for the nearest southern city on the still unbroken road.



Andrew Hawkey

December

After 36 months and hundreds of stories, here we are at the final starter idea for the Short Short Story project. Thanks for writing and sharing your creativity. Thanks for being committed to the project. If you aren't a regular writer, I hope you've been enjoying the stories written by others.  Your starter for December is "The final curtain".

Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com and let's make the deadline 21 December this time. There's enough to busy ourselves with after that.  Thanks again, and over and out.

Rosemary

Living the dream: Day 540

Standing with the day’s first coffee in hand, Damian has eyes only for the screen. What exists beyond his window is irrelevant. Fifteen projects have progressed overnight. He reads the dialogue boxes, satisfied that his avatar’s instructions to contractors in Mumbai, Nairobi, Manila and Dubai are worded exactly as he would have written them. He checks the assessment of data submitted in the last nine hours, and notes that the productivity of his Dubai operative is below the acceptable threshold for the third consecutive day. Damian clicks TERMINATE, triggering an automated invitation to a next available contractor, located in Istanbul.

It’s more than a year since his last long haul flight to air-conditioned boardrooms and anonymous hotel suites. Then his world was team-building meetings and strategic plans, mind-numbing conferences and farewell functions. He had staff that expected to be trained, reviewed, motivated, and appreciated. They inconvenienced him by getting sick, taking holidays and breaking down in his office.

Damian slips a cuff over his hand and slides it up his arm until the electrodes sit snugly against his bicep. He clicks the VitalMe icon that appears on his screen and examines the data. Blood pressure: 122/84; pulse: 67; calcium: normal; potassium: normal; magnesium: low. Duncan clicks MenuMe then removes the cuff. He selects TODAY from the options, and surveys the meals recommended by his virtual nutritionist. He initiates a scan of the contents of his pantry and refrigerator, and adding identified low stock or missing items to the list, creates an order to be delivered by his local supermarket within the hour.

It’s been 540 days since he last negotiated a crowded mall car park and queues of payday shoppers. Gone is the agony of canned music, crying toddlers and ‘have a nice day’ from a glassy-eyed checkout chick.

Damian’s recommended exercise for the day is a 60-minute walk with pulse rate maintained at 140 – 150 for a minimum 45 minutes. He moves to the treadmill and selects RESUME HAMPSTEAD HEATH from the touchscreen. Instantly, the digital walls project the path leading from Westfield Gate and past the West Meadow. A touchscreen display tells him that fellow walkers Sam and Gina are logged on and have opted for a shared session. He checks their pace for equivalency to his own, then, deciding company would be nice, selects Gina. She appears on the screen to his left and gives him a smile as he matches her step. Damian enjoys her conversation, and finding a common interest in jazz, he offers her his guest access for a Lincoln Centre concert which they agree to login to together that evening.

His dynamic screen indicates movement at his double-doored entrance lobby. Stepping off the treadmill, Damian grabs a towel to wipe his face as he collects his delivery and carries it to the kitchen. He whistles softly as he sorts the items, while his second coffee brews.



Rosemary McBryde

Time Machine

The interior was small and curvilinear and white.

Anthony and Kayda Matsushita sat down in the two white chairs and looked at each other. A vague sense of apprehension filled the silence.

‘Junko Shimada?’ he asked.

‘Of course. You only wear the best when time travelling: “timeless fashion far from the diktats of trends”.’

‘1627,’ he mused, ‘– I guess the lords will be wearing white lace ruffs and tights and puffy rompers like a bunch of woofters.’

‘And,’ Kayda finished for him, ‘the peasants will be wearing track pants and hoodies.’ She gave a little moue and wrinkled her elegant nose at him.

‘How does it work?’ he asked. Again.

‘Dude, how does a pocket calculator work? There is a reason everyone in the modern world is so alienated. For a million years everyone knew how to hunt and gather, and which stones made fire. Now no-one understands how their toaster works. “How does it work?” – you enter the time and place, and press “go’’.’

*

The Jaktorow Forest in Poland in 1627 was not entirely as they had expected. The trees were huge – giant oak and linden, such that if the pair of them had held hands they could only have encircled half the trunk. Fallen trunks and branches, thick undergrowth and many pools of water made movement deeper into the forest almost impossible, but, on the edge of a clearing, the sun poured down and the most striking thing was the number of butterflies – they swirled through the air like flakes of paper rising from a fire, a many-coloured shimmer of vibrant life. Everything was green, birds called, and everywhere flowers of all kinds bloomed.

It took them a while to find the aurochs. It sat darkly at the edge of the clearing, mostly obscured by vegetation.

Kayda straightened her pale-yellow skirt and squatted down a few metres away from the great, dark bulk. Rheum had collected around its eyes and its wet nose flared and its laboured breathing rattled.

The two humans watched. They sat in the long grass. After a while, they held hands.

At last the flickering of the giant cow’s eyes ceased and everything was silent.

The pair sat for a long time in silence before creeping forward and tenderly stoking the dead beast’s shaggy neck.

‘“Moved by the infinite pity,”’ Anthony quoted, adding – ‘Saint Isaac the Syrian.’

‘They had already been hunted to extinction in Greece by the time of Herodotus,’ Kayda said.

‘And now we’ve seen the last one die.’

He stood.

‘Where to from here?’


Dhiraja

Becoming God

‘Coffee’s getting cold,’ she called from the next room, not that it was, it was half a second in the cup.

‘So, how’s it going?’ she asked when he appeared with “it’s not going well” in the hunch of his shoulders and in his gait.

‘Well, it’s not going to work.’

‘I’m sure it will.’

‘I’ve got one stanza done.’ He waved a piece of A4 paper.

‘Strong ropes constrain his tossing head,
the great black bull is harshly lead
by small cruel men whose hearts are dead
towards a cave of deepest dread
to kill him far from sight
of those from whom they stole
something something something roll
Something toll.
This evil fills the night.'

‘It’s a weird rhyme scheme – aaaabcccb. Not that I can’t do it. It’s just that the deadline is getting closer a lot faster than satisfaction or … quantity. I’ve got one other line: “His eyelashes are made of flame” – for later on when he has become God. All cattle have awesome eyelashes and the Tibetan pictures all show Yamantaka with flames coming out of his eyes. But there’s too much to get done – the details of the thieves killing the bull in the cave. I heard a woman on the BBC who had watched two bullocks being killed – there was a huge amount of blood and thrashing of legs and so on. And then their finding of the holy man in the back of the cave. Ian Baker describes him as begging for his life but surely he would just calmly request not to be killed because he had further spiritual practice to undertake and then accept with equanimity when they decapitate him? And then the moment when the dead saint gets up and seizes the bull’s bloody head and puts it on his own shoulders – that could be a page or two in itself. Then his raging across the universe, wrathful and furious. It’s interesting from a Christian interpretation – kind of the resurrection combined with the driving out of the money changers: God with a whip, savagely attacking evil. Money changers, those who oppress widows and orphans and the poor – or immigrants. Vice-presidents who instigate wars of aggression, reality television personalities who grab ’em by the pussy … National-Party voters. Christopher Logue in his Iliad put it “those who bear false witness … and judges divorced from justice by contempt of those they judge, plus the accomplices of both, perched on their fences”. I see him blazing across the galaxy like a flaming comet, though I guess astronomically that’s not possible – things only burn in the atmosphere, I guess. See, there are too many things to apply one’s thought to.’

‘Drink your coffee or it will be getting cold.’

They both gazed out the window.

‘I like the eyelash bit though,’ she added.


Barnaby McBryde

It's getting closer

There was a change in the breeze that morning.

Whether it was its direction or strength, Melinda was unable to pinpoint exactly what had changed.

She kept walking towards her school building, a shiver running down her spine as the cool air hit her,when she realized that there were only a handful of days before she would put on her graduation cap and leave.

There was a Christmas tree in the hallway that morning. A great one that stood tall, ornaments arranged neatly on each of its tidy branches. A golden ribbon was wrapped around its green body, shimmering in the lights. She grinned at it, taking out her phone to take a picture.

Today was her last Christmas party at school.

“MEL!” A voice suddenly shot through the hallways. “I LOVE YOUR SWEATER! Can you believe it’s our last Christmas party here? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?”

Melinda didn’t know any other way to respond besides a slight smile and nod, accepting Haylee’s ecstatic embrace. Haylee laughed excitedly as she dragged Melinda towards their main auditorium.

“We HAVE to sit at the front, it’s our last year! Look, Jay and Santana are already there!”

After a few more hugs and laughter, the entire auditorium grew silent as the Principal stepped forward to introduce the assembly. There was a unison of applause as the first performers began stepping on stage. Santana gave Melinda a wide grin, her pearly white teeth showing. Jay waved overzealously, whisper-shouting.

There were a series of performances, all purely showcasing extreme talent or humor, which Melinda thoroughly enjoyed. But what she enjoyed just as much - if not more - was the company of her three best friends as they sang, their voices muffled with laughter and bodies warm from countless cuddles.

Their graduation day was approaching, any of them could easily count the number of days they had left with one another.

They felt it, deep inside of them, under their smiles and behind glimmering eyes, that it was nearly the end.

But for a few moments, as they chanted out Christmas tunes at the top of their lungs, they enjoyed the precious memories they were making.



Katya Tjahaja

November

The end of the year approaches and with it, chapters will close, activities will cease. There will be pause. Perhaps change. This blog too will come to an end after three years, so if you have a short short story inside you demanding to be written, now's your chance. For November, your starter idea is "It's getting closer."

Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 30 November. Happy writing.

Seven Swans

It is a ‘finisterre', the ultimate west, the end of the road, the end of the world.

There is open ground ahead, rugged, bare, grass-covered; it could be an old rubbish dump; toxic ooze might slowly seep into pools; rusted shapes might protrude through the grass; the ground might slump beneath the foot if one should venture there beyond the high, mesh fence.

The wind stirs the tattered weeds.

A kilometre and a half away – the quarried-away stump of a holy hill, and along the front of it are dark trees.

Beyond is nothing – the western horizon.

The wind whips at him, it moans and roars in the wire.

From here, at this distance, the black body of a flying swan is invisible against the dark trees, but the white pinions catch the light.

Seven swans fly down in a line in front of the trees.

It is a white line of calligraphy; a twirling scrawl of some lost alphabet; it is a song without words; it is music without a tune; the moving finger that writes unknowable words on a wall of air; it is communication; a spinning, double-helixed, branching skein of life.

The fog in his mind; the heavy rock in his guts; the cruel talons that tighten round his tiny, crushed heart – for a moment they lift.

It is worth it after all.



Barnaby McBryde

Kayda Matsushita II

The bar was in a tall building in the Akasaka District and, from the thirteenth floor, its wide, glass wall gave a panoramic view of Tokyo’s lights in the growing darkness.

Kayda Matsushita’s Junko Shimada business suit was, in the soft light falling from the discrete light fittings, an indeterminate colour.

In a jazz bar in Tokyo she could only order a Cutty Sark on the rocks – she had, like everyone else in the country, read too many Haruki Murakami novels to do anything else. Her old school friend opposite nursed something more flamboyant.

‘You always seemed,’ her friend said, pausing to find the word, ‘so … traditional.’ She picked absently at the bowl of pistachios between them.

‘Yes, my grandfather had his leg blown off by the Americans. They bombed his ship and he lost his leg. And my mother, for all her revolutionary zeal, trained originally as a kimono dyer. So, yes, it all filters down.’

Kayda paused. ‘But this isn’t the medieval world of Murasaki Shikibu.’ She waved her elegant hand indicating the bar, the lights below, the twenty-first century.

‘No, certainly – but there are still monks it seems.’

‘Yes, there are still monks,’ Kayda replied, her face indecipherable.

‘So, it’s what – six months now? How do you feel about it all? Is it really worth it?’

‘I feel – thoroughly amazed.’



Dhiraja

Mrs Stewart and the School of Fish

Mrs Margaret Stewart, known in polite Dunedin society as Mrs Walter Stewart, and her boarder Miss Isobel Tanner, seamstress, step out into the lightness of late evening. Behind them, the hall is alive with the hubbub of women’s voices.

The summer shower, which caused them to hasten down Melville St earlier in the evening, has passed leaving the air heady with a steamy warmth. They quicken their pace to cross in front of a carriage, Mrs Stewart too preoccupied to heed the fresh mud splashed up the back of her skirt.

“Mrs Morison is an inspiration,” Mrs Stewart declares. “I feel quite renewed in my determination.”

Isobel skips to keep up with the older woman’s pace, casting nervous glances at a group of men watching them from the corner ahead.

“Mrs Sheppard has the Union committed to a new petition. We must devote ourselves to this, Isobel, for nothing is more…”

“Get ba’ home t’ yer husbands.” A wild-eyed fellow lurches towards them, his slurred words punctuated by a stabbing finger.

Mrs Stewart links arms with her companion and, chin lifted, marches onwards.

“Poor sods. Home t’ a cold hearth and no dinner on table. I’ll allow no wife o’ mine t’ be part of yer shriekin’ sisterhood. In’t natural!” He staggers, blocking their passage.

Mrs Stewart stops suddenly, taking in his flushed cheeks and twisted, spittle-flecked mouth.

“I know you, Tommy Fitzgerald. You should be ashamed to be out in this state, while your wife is at home with two young bairns and another on the way.” Mrs Stewart glares at the others assembled. “I demand that you let us pass.”

Isobel trembles as they hurry past the mutters and scowls, and dash up Melville St, slowing only as they round a corner.

“That Tommy’s young wife has been left black and blue from his drunken beatings. I’ve a mind to report him to the constable.” Mrs Stewart grips Isobel’s arm tighter. “I swear, Henry Fish has got a lot to answer for. He stirs up his disciples from one end of the country to the other, accusing us of vituperation and condemning us to domestic servitude. We simply can’t stop the fight now."

“But what good will it do, Mrs Stewart?” Isobel puffs. “Mr Fish and his kind will find another way to block us, even if the House allows it.”

Mrs Stewart turns to Isobel, her eyes ablaze. “Is that a reason not to try, Isobel? Must we stand by while these fellows drink and gamble their money away, and not a penny left for their wives and children? Yet we are the ones lumped with the lunatics and criminals, declared to be incapable or unqualified. A man fresh out of gaol is able to vote, while the woman who has raised his children, cannot.”

Mrs Stewart turns back to the uphill path before her.

“Oh no, Isobel, we must prevail.”



Rosemary McBryde

Is this really worth it?

Mavis and John were sitting with an after dinner drink watching a TV programme about up market
homes in Australia. Mavis sighed and said, "That is my dream, to live in a home like that. I don't want to wait until our children are about ready to leave home. We should live in a home like that as
soon as we are married."

John was a bit taken aback knowing that Mavis had lived in a very ordinary home with her parents and five brothers and sisters where bedrooms had to be shared and they only knew secondhand furniture. They didn't have many modern home appliances. Why should they, with so much free labour available?

"OK," said John, "make a list of all the things you would like, no harm in dreaming."

With that, Mavis reached for pen and paper and wrote, double or triple glazing, solar panels, clothes
dryer, dish washer, all of the latest appliances for the kitchen and an up to date TV and Sky, a
bedroom for each of our children and one for guests.

"We would need to have a least two ensuites. There could be more things but I will have to give it more thought."

"Yes but dear that is going to cost us alot of money," said John.

Mavis replied,"I've thought of that. I'm prepared to work full time and not have kids until I'm in my mid thirties. Let's work it out to get a rough cost and ask some of our friends how they cope. Look at the wonderful holidays they have and shows they can go to."

So that is what she did and got a wide variety of replies. They ranged from why have snotty little kids mucking up your home, who wants to be getting up to crying babies when you are mid thirties, don't your parents want grandkids, who will look after you when you are old? Who wants to go to work on a beautiful summer's day when you could be out in the garden?

So John and Mavis did some calculations and were horrified at the cost of building and as Christians they thought will all this make us happy? IS THIS REALLY WORTH IT? Perhaps we
can compromise, have less of the latest gadgets and have kids who will open up our world and will we have friends who will have time for us and we can have time to smell the roses.

Would the Lord say "congratulations on your fine house in the best area but did you miss out on the joys of simple things in life?"


Margaret Hawkey

Is it really worth it?

“All boys are stupid.”

“They’re all so dumb.”

“I hate boys.”

“He’s not worth it.”

Melissa grew up hearing her sisters repeat those phrases to one another. Every time the words fell from their lips, the more determined she became to stay away from the opposite sex. They were disgusting, immature, annoying and weird. She truly believed, truly, that there was no boy on the planet who was worth anything.

And so she went into junior high with this mindset, without an intention to get to know any boy. Besides, she knew all of them from primary, they were all dumb.

“I heard there’s a new girl! Her name’s Sam, she’s from the other side of the country!” Anna had chirped into Melissa’s ear as they sat down together.

“Really? How’d you know?”

“Hayden was just talking about her, said that she’s pretty cool and skates or something like that. Heard that she likes to study plants, too. Just like you!”

Melissa and Anna continued to flourish their excitement about this interesting new kid who had similar interests to Melissa. They started to imagine what she would be like, her hair color, her height and her outfit.

How surprised they were when Sam walked through the door.

He stood confidently before the class, his chest straight and chin up. He slung his backpack on one shoulder, both his shoelaces were untied. Melissa’s jaw nearly touched the floor, quickly making eye contact with Anna who just shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m Sam. I like skateboarding and plants.” Sam introduced himself with a smile. The teacher told the class to greet him before allowing him to sit down next to Melissa.

“Hey,” A rather unfamiliar voice called out to Melissa, who looked up at Sam. “Could I please borrow an eraser? Forgot to bring mine.”

Melissa was taken back by his chocolate brown eyes and pearly-white teeth. She quickly handed over a spare eraser and looked away before he could thank her. Who doesn’t bring an eraser to the first day of school? All boys are dumb.

“Who can tell me the reaction of photosynthesis in plants?”

Only two hands shot up, Melissa’s and Sam’s. She looked over at him when the teacher chose him to answer.

“Carbon dioxide and water react to form glucose and oxygen!” He answered, making the teacher smile and compliment him. A proud expression danced on his face. Okay, maybe not ALL of them are dumb.

Halfway through the lesson, a post-it was slapped on her notebook. It read, in the scribbliest and thickest handwriting, ‘thanks for the eraser - here’s a kiss.’

Melissa squirmed in her seat, but was relieved when a Hershey’s Kiss landed on her desk. She looked over at Sam, who gave her an unapologetic wink and wide grin. She quickly turned towards the front of the class, feeling her cheeks reddening.

“Hey Melissa,” Sam ran to her at the hallway. “I heard you’re interested in plants. We should sit together at lunch! Here’s my number! See ya.”

He ran in the other direction, almost tripping over his own shoelaces.

All boys are dumb. But maybe, some, might be worth something.



Katya Tjahaja

October

It's been a busy September so now we settle back into a slower pace with time to think and write stories. And for October, the starter idea is 'Is it really worth it?' Goodness, see what you can do with that enigmatic phrase!

As usual, stories 300-500 words to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 31 October.

Detour Ahead

“I hate how camp is mandatory,” Jake growled under his breath, throwing a rock at the path before him.

“I think it’s rather exciting, we all get to bond with one another,” Amelia yawned out, stretching her arms. “And we get to be in an atmosphere of clean air, which is pretty great to wake up to.”

“You know our phones are dead, right?” He completely ignored her, instead choosing to walk away. She followed after him. “And we have to do this stupid trek, you know I hate trekking.”

A group had gathered in the middle of the open field. Most of the people were still yawning, lids half open, stretching as they tried to shake off what remained of their slumber. Amelia grabbed Jake’s arm and dragged him towards the crowd as he cursed to himself silently.

“Good morning Amelia!” Sam called out, embracing her tightly. She started a conversation with him, one that Jake completely ignored as he tried to escape.

“Jake!” Liam’s voice, a little too loud for the morning, startled Jake’s footsteps. “Excited to hike?”

“Not particularly, but I see you are.” Jake commented, pointing at Liam’s hiking sandals.

“You bet I am!”

The trek started faster than Jake anticipated. After a few more moments of playful conversation the walking tour guide had appeared, and all of them were off. Jake was separated from Amelia; instead he was stuck with the overzealous Liam, who was able to identify every single flower and type of grass. Somehow, out of his consciousness, Jake had made it to the very front of the group, Liam leading them. His mind was wandering, there was nothing he wanted to do more than go home and sleep on his bed.

Their guide paused in front of them.

“Detour?” Liam asked immediately. Jake snapped out of his daydream.

“Well,” The guide smiled at them. “I think we should go to the lake instead, how does that sound?”

At this, the collective of students applauded and yelled in approval.

“The lake sounds better than another hour of trekking,” Jake said to Liam, who nodded vigorously.

After a few quick minutes, all of them had arrived at a lake that was just large enough to fit them. The water was clear, though the bottom of the lake was dark. There were a few people already swimming and splashing around, but the group of students did not mind.

A few of them hastily stripped down and jumped inside, followed suit by more. Jake tossed his shirt and discarded his shoes before racing into the water. There he found Amelia once more.

“Isn’t this exciting?” She laughed, making him smile. Amelia swam closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she giggled.

“Best detour I’ve ever had.”



Katya Tjahaja

Kayda Matsushita

Brother Kenji walked slowly down past the monastery vegetable garden and through the zelkova trees to the swampy ground beyond. It was a path that dear Brother Akimitsu had often taken in his last days to stand watching the birds as the Sun slid westward.

Zoroaster spoke of the path, Buddha of the noble eight-fold path, ‘Tao’ means ‘path’, the Hebrew word for ‘law’ is ‘the walking’, ‘shariah’ means ‘the path to the watering hole’. ‘Ask for the ancient path, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls.’

Brother Kenji stood and stared over the marshy ground. Kayda Matsushita – her name meant ‘little dragon under the fir tree’.

It had been hard, after years of helping Brother Akimitsu in his little ceramic studio, to adjust to being without him. It was a year after the death of his old friend that Brother Kenji was summoned to the abbot’s office. The Maeda Hiromi Art Gallery in Kyoto’s Minami-ku ward – between the To-ji Buddhist temple and Nintendo’s head office – wanted to put on a major retrospective of Brother Akimitsu’s work. They were sending someone to go through the work still in his studio, any unfinished work, any journals and sketches and workbooks. Also, photographs of the studio, of ceramic pieces in situ in the studio, atmospheric shots of the monastery would all add to the exhibition and to the accompanying book. Brother Kenji had been closest to Brother Akimitsu, had helped him, had known most about his ideas and work – it made sense for the abbot to appoint him to liaise with the representative from the gallery: Kayda Matsushita.

Over the next months, Brother Kenji and Kayda Matsushita spent hours together pouring over old books, directing the photographer, classifying works and building up an overview of the old master’s work.

Brother Kenji watched the swallows, his feet and the hem of his robe wet and muddy from the edge of the path, as the evening approached.

A common feature of Brother Akimitsu’s work had been the use he made of words – incised in the ceramic surface or painted with startling precision in the smooth glaze.

That day, Brother Kenji and Kayda Matsushita had found in one of Brother Akimitsu’s sketchbooks ideas for a piece that he never seemed to have actually completed. Across the curve of the shape, words in medieval Italian:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita …

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood …


Dhiraja

How I met your father

It was a dreary town, a weatherboard and corrugated iron island in an ocean of pine forest. The primary attraction was proximity to a choice of larger towns with greater charm. Petrol stations and the KFC on Highway One were beacons, places to refuel, get a feed, take a piss, before driving on. The railway line ran parallel, carrying its relentless rolling stock loaded with logs. Even the trees were leaving. Residents turned left off the highway into the town centre - New World and Four Square, a TAB, video shop, and several well-patronised pubs. The skate park and courthouse were gathering points for interchangeable gangs of dull-eyed youth.

Like my great-great-grandmother, disembarking to mud and bush in 1883, I had gambled my future on a blind-folded step into the unknown.

The angel: Free will has a lot to answer for, but then I didn’t set the rules. You could argue that without choice, there’s no opportunity to learn. But if you make the wrong choice, and end up taking a detour down one of life’s sidings, it’s we who are charged with getting you back on track. Destinare, destination, destiny. A detour is not a divergence, after all, just an alternative path to the place you are meant to be.

Community radio was a world away from the broadcasting career I imagined. I sold time in thirty second increments to aging appliance retailers with hair transplants. My drink hard, play hard colleagues were locals. Occasional ambitious, talented graduates from Broadcasting School soon followed the trees out of town.

Breaking point came. Alone at Christmas and stranded on the wrong side of Cook Strait by an airline strike, I made a resolution: time to leave. Then one particularly homesick Tuesday afternoon in February, I felt strangely drawn to the public library and the three-day-old pages of my hometown newspaper, where by chance, by sheer good luck, I saw the vacancy.

The angel: Chance? Good luck? Oh yes, I’ve heard that a million times. Yet, your life does not unfold at the whim of a rolling dice. Your better angels plant seed that blossoms as the inspiration you claim comes from nowhere. You’ve probably said it yourself, haven’t you? “I don’t know what made me think of it but ..” or “The idea just popped into my head…”. Angels whisper, whisper, whisper until we are heard.

I applied, with the naive confidence of youth, for a management role in a place I loved. The interview lined up with my travel plans for Easter, the time for new beginnings. Providence meant they chose me. When things are meant to be, it’s like a guiding hand at the elbow, a gentle touch pointing the way.



Rosemary McBryde

A shooting, mate

It’s not like Anthony ever expected any journey by car to be easy or smooth or to be undertaken in a reasonable amount of time – he had lived in Auckland long enough to get over that expectation.

Back in the 90s, when ‘let’s go and hit the slopes in Howick’ was a new and exciting joke, there had been the night that Mr Hin So, fresh off the boat, had jumped his brand-new car over the median strip and sent Anthony and his mates rapidly from the Vic Park Viaduct to Auckland Hospital.

A decade later – and how many tens of thousands more cars? – the year spent widening the Mangere Bridge on the South Western had resulted in a year of a narrowed Mangere Bridge. Sometimes it took Anthony longer to drive the fifteen kilometres home than it took him to cover the fifteen kilometres home the times he ran.

Then there had been the work at the corner of SH20 and Kirkbride – enormous excavations and constructions all done while maintaining some kind of flow of traffic to the airport. Sometimes the tail was backed up to not far from the bridge. Zero kilometres per hour.

But that Tuesday morning there was a helicopter hovering over Greenwood Road, and a fire engine and more police cars than Anthony had seen before in one place.

Greenwood Road is not Broadway. On one side, behind the wire fence, a mix of harakeke, ti and manuka, the inevitable piles of rubbish – a broken television, a tire, carpet, bottles, a cushion, random pieces of timber, lurid pink artificial flowers, junk mail, a toaster and a fan. On the other side – a green paddock with a herd of black-and-white steers and, beyond that, a line of tall pines.

And at the end of the road, preventing further access, a single policeman – and, held across his chest: the Bushmaster XM15 M4A3 Patrolman assault rifle, used by special forces in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and … on Greenwood Road.

"It seems like a shooting, mate," Sharon Davis told 1 News.

Barnaby McBryde

Detour Ahead (with fond memories of Essie Summers)

"Don't forget to tell your mother I won't be in tonight - I'm on late shift."

James gathered up the parcels his dad had carefully packed, grabbed his bike and headed to the hospital. It was January 1945. He had left school a year earlier, and was assisting the war effort by working around the district on farms where and when required. Now with his mother in hospital he was required to assist at home. Arriving at the hospital he parked his bicycle and headed inside. He never went in the main entrance. The little door at the side entrance was a lot shorter and therefore quicker.

Today he was in more of a hurry than usual. The local football team for which he played, was running a social dance and he was pretty keen to attend. It was important to get back home, finish the other tasks, be ready to meet the team and catch the bus out to the country where the dance was to be held. He took the service lift up to the second floor, got out and sped down the long corridor. Two signs halfway down appeared. One said Detour; the other said Wet floors. There was also a lot of equipment scattered about. Ignoring all the signs and increasing his pace he slipped, fell awkwardly and went crashing into a sturdy network of trestles and ladders, some of which he managed to dislodge, falling across his spreadeagled legs.

Two tradesmen came to help him up. A sharp pain indicated something was broken. He was in the right place. One of them walked down the corridor to a phone. A few minutes later the medics appeared. A quick jab and he was pain free and on his way to the A and E centre. From there to the hospital ward. The bone had to be reset once the swelling was down The packages accompanied him. A nurse called Elizabeth Bennett came to look after him. She offered to have the packages delivered to his Mum and to inform his Dad of his current predicament. Over the next couple of days he saw quite a lot of Nurse Bennett and at one time he heard the Ward Sister chiding her, "Nurse Bennett there are other patients in need of your attention!!!"

The courtship was not whirlwind but two months later, after the Nurses' Ball and a number of outings, they became an item. Chance intervened when James entered the side door and took that particular route. Ignoring the detour sign, though calamitous, had been opportune for him. Yes! Two years later he and Elizabeth married. The course was straight. It was full steam ahead but it was not without some deviations.



Grant Ward

September

This is the fourth offering that the Artistic Director offered for this month. The power of veto is alive and well. See how you go this month with 'Detour Ahead'.

Stories to rosemary.mcbryde@gmail.com by 30 September, as usual.  Happy writing!

Peanut Butter

Maahnoor, on her way from Wellington to New York, stayed with Gerard only for a few days – she had sort of asked, sort of demanded. It was an unreasonable thing to ask and she behaved in her usual unreasonable manner: she complained about the cold; she complained that he did not have a clothes rack; she criticised the art on the wall and the colour of its frames; she bought a lamp and put it on the coffee table; she stalked in one evening and snapped off, with an imperious flick of her fingers, the BBC news he had been listening to.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

There was no way that she would put up with drinking whatever tea he had in the cupboard, and so, when she departed, she left behind a half-empty box of her Himalayan Ayurveda Ashwagandha tea.

*

What had the questions in the census been?

14: Is your dwelling damp?
A damp dwelling may feel or smell damp or have damp patches on the walls, ceiling, floor or window frames.

15: Can you see mould in any part of this dwelling that, in total, is larger than an A4 sheet of paper?
mould (mildew) may grow on the walls, ceiling, floor, doors, window frames, curtains or blinds..
Yes – always
Yes – sometimes
No
Don’t know.

Gerard had spent a long time cleaning the house before Maahnoor arrived.

*

It seemed to Gerard that the left-over tea would keep better in a jar than in its exquisite blue box. He washed the empty peanut butter jar: ‘Pic’s really good Peanut Butter – no salt – Crunchy – Aussie’s legendary Kingaroy nuts fresh roasted and lovingly squashed in Sunny Nelson, NZ’

Did life get weird even at that point? Did the light change imperceptibly, did time begin to fluctuate and slow, did his stomach start to spin even then?

He picked the corner of the label – it seemed to be one of those labels that would peel in one piece if you were careful. Ashwagandha should not be kept in a jar with a peanut butter label on it.

Gerard slowly peeled the label and things definitely got weird. On the back of the label, visible before only from inside the jar, were words:

Right down the end of Lonely Street

You’ll find the Stone Hotel

One punter watching rugby on TV

No one to hear you crying

No one to call your name

Out loud, falling down, out loud

No room here called Self-pity
No room called Desire

And no name to be mentioned in your grief

Your love affair is dead and gone

Your deal has been done

Your tears are falling fast and falling free

You took a walk down Lonely Street

You booked yourself a room

And now it’s loss you’re keeping company

No one to hear you crying

No one to call your name
Out loud, falling down, out loud.

Dhiraja

On not shooting cuckoos

One of the things Maximilian loved about himself above all else was his impeccable sense of timing. Vital for a professional percussionist, it was also an art he was perfecting elsewhere in his life.

Of late, Maximilian had been refining his entrance to the concert platform, just a little after the rest of the orchestra. Standing at the stage door, Maximilian waited as the rank and file zigzagged through the empty chairs, sat, shuffled, picked up their instruments, played through the tricky phrases in cacophonic disharmony, sucked their reeds, adjusted their tuning pegs, tightened their bows, and aimlessly rifled through the music on the stand. Only once stillness had settled did Maximilian sweep forth, his golden locks glinting in the lights as he ascended to his position behind the gleaming brass kettles of the timpani.

Finding this too easy, Maximilian had upped the challenge by waiting until he glimpsed the conductor hovering in the wings on the other side of the stage. Once he had held his beat so late that the audience had burst into spontaneous applause as he entered.

This night, Maximilian arrived just as the lights dimmed and the rustling and whispering in the audience subsided. Imperious on his swiveling stool, Maximilian regarded the scene before him. There was violist Baxter, still scrabbling with his rosin. And bassoonist Fleming with the wrong music on his stand. Not Saint-Saens’ great Organ Symphony but Frederick Delius’ First Cuckoo of Spring and Summer Night on the River. What an idiot…!

Maximilian’s blood ran cold, and his heart ka-thumped in time with the paradiddle of the conductor’s patent leather shoes, now stepping on to the podium. He was early, a whole work early. The hardware of the percussion section and the organ console were deserted. He alone inhabited the outer reaches of the orchestra.

What to do? Maximilian was caught in the glare of the lights; he could neither slip off stage, nor slide gracefully to a crouch behind his instrument. Could he feign a part, a gentle thrumming on the skins? The baton rose and Maximilian knew that a whisper of timpani in Delius’s pastoral lilt would shoot the gentle cuckoo right out of the sky.

He sat, staring straight ahead in as regal a pose as he could maintain for twelve long minutes, enduring the conductor’s puzzled glare as he stood with the whole orchestra to acknowledge the warm applause.

Maximilian slunk from the stage at the conclusion of the concert, shrugging on his coat and hustling to the foyer so he could pour out the whole sorry story to his wife.

Oh! the shame, the mortification!

She hadn’t even noticed.




Rosemary McBryde

The man in the yellow shirt

Totara Park is like a painting by John Constable – a green, pastoral idyll; rolling, grass-covered hills interspersed with trees and woodland; placid cows graze. The trees are perhaps a little darker in hue than the oaks and beeches of blessed Albion – the dark khaki of the vegetation of an antipodean archipelago – with a smattering of white manuka flowers.

Totara Park is one of Manukau’s premier parks and stretches over 216 hectares. The park has something to offer everyone, with a wide range of facilities and activities to enjoy. From this entrance you can take an easy scenic walk, horse ride, or bike ride along the historic bridle trail. Please share with care.

Spring, like a timorous suggestion, can be felt. Rabbits scamper at the pasture edge and tui swoosh overhead.

‘There’s no nice way to put it: he got fucked up’, the New Zealand Herald reported.

It has been a long, wet winter; the ground is waterlogged and pugged with the hoof prints of cattle, each footfall a stinky little lake in the sward.

The sign says ‘Keep to the trails’. Walking off the trail, a man sinks in the muddy slopes, his boots and the bottoms of his trouser legs soon caked with slimy mud. The cows squelch as they walk, and, when they pick up speed, gouts of water splash up around them.

‘A herd of “possessed” cows attacked and injured a man in South Auckland’s Totara Park on Sunday afternoon ripping hunks of flesh from his body.’

Scattered beneath the puriri trees are fallen, crimson flowers like the reminiscence of blood.

‘The cows were rocking back on their hind legs and raining down on the victim who tried to free himself from the attack.’

‘Blood makes noise’, Suzanne Vega sang – it was an odd thing to remember:

But blood makes noise
It’s ringing in my ear.
Blood makes noise
And I can’t really hear you
In the thickening of fear.

Once you are down, and time fails to move at all, the only thing you hear is the pounding of blood in your ears; and a strange, bright light fills the air as the great shapes move above you and the pain explodes.

Barnaby McBryde

Red and Grey don't make Yellow

The ridiculous looking machine sits in front of me, its wheels no bigger than a side plate and when fully inflated looking like something off a bloated garden wheelbarrow. I think about the HMX500 BMX bike I had wanted for ages and the daily pleading that would be met with a ‘We’ll see’ from Mum. Ultimately, I did get a bike; a pinky-brown thing the same colour as school radiators with a carrier and no crossbar. It was effectively a girls Raleigh 20 (second hand); however despite the heavy steel construction I later found that it could do satisfactory jumps and even better skids.

“So, are ya gonna get on?” Dale asks, jolting me back to my present surroundings of the small neighbourhood park as he stands beside the throbbing machine, the two-stroke motor emitting hideous blue smoke.

“Ah. yeah, sure,” I reply trying to recall the stop and go mechanisms. Right-fast, left-slow. Got it - I confirmed to myself. Maybe I’m not so sure I’m ready for this; it wasn’t all that long ago that our fun consisted of making an aeroplane cockpit out of cardboard boxes joined together, a transistor radio and curled telephone cord forming the imaginary coms to the tower. Now I am about to step onto a real, ‘live’ machine, even if my Raleigh 20 might have dwarfed it.

I can feel the wind around my ears, I’ve got the hang of this. What was I so worried about?

“I can’t stop!”I shout in mild panic to my friend not that I can see him. My right fingers are attached to the throttle like PVA glue holding my digits together by a second skin. I feel I’m getting faster and now I’m faced with my first serious choice of my ten-year-old life. I don’t fancy dying until I have at least three paragraphs of achievements to place in the paper.

Coming up very quickly is a wooden power pole on my right and on the other side, a corrugated iron fence. Decision making not being a strong point, I lay down the bike at speed in some idiotic form of surrender. Neither pole nor fence have won, but neither have I. My left hand a casualty of the footpath, gravel embedded into the open palm wound and my forehead chipped and grazed. Blood makes a curious colourful addition to the drab grey pants and jersey of the Main school uniform.

I can’t yet decide if this is going to help or hinder my chances of obtaining a bright yellow BMX bike.



Andrew Hawkey


BONUS STORY

The boy who jumped off a cloud

Once upon a time there was a 8 year old boy that wanted to jump off a montain because he likes to go and amagine that he was in a reall clowed his pearince wur very sand and lonely so they drove up the montain to see if they could find the 8 year old but they didint see him so the pearince Jumped too and then they found the 8 year old boy we went back to the car and drove back home but there was a ginat rock in the way and the cars enjen was brokend. then we had to call the towtruck to come. It took 10 minute then the totruck came they hocked the hook. The Pearince and the boy wur safe. they lived happely ever after.



Cole Hawkey aged 7 (and a half)