Whitlam

Months have passed since we returned from the blue zone, and my brown skin has faded. A jaundiced woman with dark eyes stares back at me in the jagged and chipped bathroom mirror at yiayia's house. I make my way into the living room.

There is a global pandemic under the name of COVID 19, and we are not supposed to visit family but today it is Greek Easter, and the Greeks have never been known to gather in small circles.

Today inside my yiayia's house in Bentleigh, there are 14 people, although the state government has announced that Victorians should not congregate in more than groups of two, and there will be heavy fines to anyone found visiting a friend.

Yiayia says she would rather die of sickness than loneliness, so Greek Easter has not been cancelled this year, as recommended by the Australian Prime Minister. She has lived through a war, so I take her point very seriously.

The greek radio is blaring a modern-day classic when I return to the living room, and yiayia speaks at a minuscule octave to greet me.

'Can I turn this down a little bit?' I am almost yelling.

'What?' She asks

'Can I turn it down! It's so loud.'

'Yes yes, turn it down, agapi you, it's breaking my nerves. I just couldn't be bothered to get up and turn it off.'

I can't hear her because of the radio, and she can’t hear me because she refuses to wear her hearing aids. I mute it so we can both hear, but the only sort of due to the rest of the racquet coming from the kitchen.

In the kitchen, my aunty Sofia is busy arranging a salad and banging the salad spinner around like a gravitron. She is talking rapidly to my mother, who is washing a greasy pan next to her by the small kitchen sink.

Mum does this thing where she changes her voice dependent on who she is speaking to. When she talks to Sofia, her voice is high pitched, fast-paced, bordering on frantic and she puts on that Greek/Australian accent that many of the second generation folk have acquired.

Outside, my uncle is talking in colours, a dissenting voice that is louder than your average, in fact, he is almost yelling at my sister and Jack, who are sitting in the living room at least 3 metres away and I wonder why he doesn't just move closer, so he doesn't have to scream. As a causal pedestrian walking past on the street, the noise he makes suggests Tourette's syndrome or serious abuse, but he merely tells a story about the scar on his foot.

He always does this to new people, I think to myself. I watch a smirk emerge on Jacks face as he catches my eye. 'It was this fucking big', screams uncle, as his arm width widens to the furthest possible length, which isn't that far given his short, stocky stature. He tells his famous old story about how the crocodile attacked his foot on the river in Darwin while he was taking a break from the football field, and how the doctor sewed it back together using a needle and thread, no anesthetic. A close encounter with death.

He is left with an enormous scar along the side of his left foot. I'm still not entirely convinced that the story is true, but he speaks with such animation and conviction, that I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Dad, the quiet observer, is roaming around the backyard, enjoying his own company and tying up the grapevine that has fallen from the side of the wooden stake that has been carelessly pushed into the soil.

They couldn't be more different, dad and his brother, but I think that's why they ran a business so well together. My uncle, the lively, animated relationship holder that won people over with his charisma and charm, and my dad, the estimator, the quiet achiever, the brains behind the business that did all the maths behind the sideline. It was a very Greek thing to do, start a construction company with your brother in the 1980s, but they did it well. The company had now grown with over 200 employers and took on some of the most significant contracts in Melbourne, Sydney, and now the Pacific. Now they had three of my cousins, my sister, and Sam, amongst other people, all running a relatively large business out of an office they bought in Moorabbin 25 years ago.

The office in Morrabin, Warrigal road, sat on the corner of a busy intersection; Nevertheless, people could hear them in the next suburb, despite the traffic pollution. It swarmed with people like my uncle, talking 10 octaves higher than your average individual and pacing around on the phone as if they had somewhere to be. They didn't use pagers or intercoms or emails, they yelled at each other. They didn't eat food, they drunk ten black coffees a day to keep the tension high and the work flowing. It was chaos, but I liked going in there because it smelt familiar, a smell I had known forever and no matter how macho they all thought they were, they were nice to me because I was the boss's eldest daughter.

Back to Easter. Yiayia is remarkably nonchalant about the pandemic while she grabs my face and kisses both cheeks.

αγάπη μου, μπορείς να πάρεις τα λεμόνια;

'Can you go and get some lemons, my love'.

I comply and make my way to the lemon tree in the backyard. On route, I bypass by the garage to throw the pips of the olives I have been chewing on into the green bin, when I see, sitting on the washing machine in the garage next to the OMO washing powder and some basil seedlings, a dead chicken, fully feathered with its head severed off and tossed into a nearby green crate. It is covered in a thick layer of dark red blood as is the neat rim of the silver blade that makes up part of the axe placed neatly next to it.

'For fucks sake', I mutter under my breath as I hear my uncle's voice grow louder outside. 'We are not in the village!' Another dead bird in her backyard.

Without lemon, I made my way inside to question my yiayia why this time, a dead chicken was sitting on her washing machine.

'It stopped laying eggs' she replied, a matter of factly. 'Why would I spend my money feeding it food when it wasn't giving me eggs' 'i'll pluck it and freeze it tomorrow so we can have it for dinner next week, okay, my love' A smile forms across her face and the deep wrinkles around her wise eyes bunch up.

On the table in front of us, is an array of cheeses, tzatziki, bread, boiled eggs, jams, meats, patates, domathes, rice, melenzana, meats, pastas and salads, cut up peponi.

When we eat at yiayias, we never eat around a table. The table is where the food is presented, the plates stacked high, and there is a plate full of mixed silver cutlery. We take one, add as much food as possible to the plate, and head outside. We scatter around the backyard like flies. I always like to sit on the strip of concrete that runs through the middle of the backyard because it has full sun exposure and is warm on my bum. Yiayia sits on a chair next to me.

'το κοτόπουλο δεν έβαλε αυγά, αγάπη μου Γιατί θα ήθελα ένα τεμπέλης κοτόπουλο;'

'The chicken wasn't laying eggs' she repeated.

'Why would I want a lazy chicken that doesn't lay eggs'

There is an enormous disconnect between a dead chicken flopped over the washing machine, fully feathered and covered in blood and a dead chicken, headless and plucked wrapped in plastic sitting neatly stacked in the refrigerator in the poultry section at Coles. There is no disconnect for my yiayia because in the village to put food on the table she would catch the chicken from outside, bring it back in a bloody plastic bag, pluck it wash it, groom it to cover it in olive oil if there is any available and put it on the stove.

I saw this first hand in the village when I visited Sparta, age 12. Yiayias sister, Dimitra, brought back a chicken in a plastic bag full of blood, late night in August before the paniyiri and that night we ate well.

I nod in agreement with her. I guess it’s not a pet, more of a worker.

She picks at the chicken on her plate with the fork.

'How is your house going, over there' still in Greek. She is referring to Carlton. I am yet to inform her I have bought a house in Geelong with my unmarried boyfriend.

'It's good, yiayia, I like living there, it's close to work and close to the city, I can ride my bike."

But why are you wasting your money on paying rent! You work very hard, you should be putting your money away, come and live here with me!'

I laugh because she always suggests I either move home to mum and dads or move into her house for the sole reason of saving money.

'It's hard now, I know’ she continues. 'Things these days aren't as simple.'

'You know when I moved here, I lost my job for 9 months!' 'They stopped all the jobs because of the recession' Whitlam paid us, but once a month, Peter would take me to Centrelink to try and find a job' 'Finally, I got into the curtains and worked for ten years! Even more. But it's hard when you're paying rent.'

She always talks about Whitlam, my grandmother. Gogh Whitlam was the Federal Prime Minister and leader of Australia's Labor party in 1972, representing the working class. Greeks love the Labor party.

She continued. 'When Whitlam gave a lot of money to all, after a year, they stopped him. They closed all the jobs. I remember it all. One month I didn't work, but the government paid us, Whitlam paid us! I sat and got paid. But once a month, we had to go and try and find work from the centre link. Each month, your dad would take me, or Peters English friend so we could understand.’

For one month I didn't work, and then the next month I found a job making curtains. I sat and rested. Then I went into the curtains and worked for ten years, even more. If you're paying rent, life is expensive! You shouldn't be paying rent.

I had heard my yiayia sing Whitlam's praise many times before, but this time, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to what was happening right now, in Melbourne. The Labor government was paying everyone that had lost their job a weekly wage to keep their heads treading water while the global pandemic engulfed the economy and killed off the weak.

Lunch finished at 5 pm, and I had to go. There was a long drive back to Geelong, and I was the designated driver given Jack had lost his licence for drink driving last month. I round him up, and we say our goodbyes as yiayia shoves a yoghurt container full of roast chicken into my right hand and a hundred dollar bill into my left hand. 'πήγαινε να αγοράσεις έναν καφέ - 'go and buy yourself a coffee' she whispers into my ears as I hug her and move towards the door.

A warm feeling washes over me, and it feels nice to be alive today.

A coffee on the Labor government.

Since I've been gone

Enormous redevelopments swallowed the Inner West. Not the good kind. Dog boxes strung out along King street leaving little room to the imagination or the single fronted workers cottages that used to be there, well built in the 1950s with sound architecture, no asbestos. Definitely no room in the living area for the kitchen table.

The light on King street has been blocked. It’s dark. It’s not happy and it’s not sad, it is nothing. Nothing can get in like germs or cockroaches or bad news but nothing can get out either like the painting of a fruit or a painfully loud song while speeding, homebound along the Western freeway. No creativity left in this town's brain.

The city has been shut down the way his mother would shut their house down on a hot day. Not a ray of sun would peak through those heavy blinds and the air conditioning made my skin feel as uncomfortable as the conversation.

The hotter the better, I secretly thought although the rapidly changing seasons sat next to the currently dormant demon in my frontal lobe, a little further to the forefront and a little more active given my current obsession with the news report.

The hotter the better because there’s something soothing about the 1 pm sun on a cloudless day. The structure of the smooth rock moulding into the architecture of a bony back while the sun rises higher and scorches the skin. The cold river water brushing over, just as it becomes unbearable. And then it starts again. Occasionally, the combination of the hot sun and the cold river can empty a busy mind, if just for a brief minute.

Anyway, back to the city - early 2016. Those hot days in that old weatherboard house in Newtown were some of the best. Yes, in the literal sense, the creaky stairs and the lack of insulation brought in more cockroaches. You could see them scurry away if you turned the bathroom light on downstairs in the middle of the night. Once when I was sleeping, a roach scurried over my body and landed on the wall. I awoke, screaming mother Mary, except there was no blood coming from my eyes, just dust and outrage. Unable to fall back asleep until it faced cold-blooded murder, I began scouring the room, but I knew that the cockroaches of Sydney's Inner West would survive the apocalypse. If the city were to unexpectedly set on fire, if all the buildings in the CBD and the tall towers surrounding Hyde Park and the ancient trees that occupy Clovelly Road in Randwick were to suddenly catch fire and burn into the ground because of some freak accident, leaving nothing but ash and a bad taste behind, the roaches would survive and rebuild their own colony, feasting on the sinking burnt flesh of human.

The cycle from Newtown to Coogee Bay was about 40 minutes if you were lucky with the traffic lights. Even after two years, I hadn’t mastered the quickest route and Tim Clermont had to lead. I was close behind but I was no competition. I lagged, especially when tackling that big hill on Havelock Avenue as you came into Coogee from the West. People say that my sense of direction is shocking. I can get lost on the simplest of routes because I am easily distracted with my surroundings and usually wound up in a conversation. I always wonder why it is that I can remember every lyric to Wyclef's rap version of ‘Perfect Gentleman’ from 9 years ago but I can't remember a relatively straightforward bike route, or sometimes, where I am when I wake up in the morning.

The job interview

The coffee had gone cold hours ago, but I sipped it slowly and stared down the empty barrel of the computer screen. I sat patiently, slightly irritated by the 42 degree heat, that had turned into a windstorm, blowing the dead grass clippings onto the cracked pavement as the hills hoist swung around at a rapid pace, flinging my socks onto the freshly cut grass, burnt and brown. 

Windstorm: A storm marked by high wind with little or no precipitation. 

The stove was on and the kettle was beginning to squeal, indicating it was close to the boil again. Enough hot water to make another coffee in the french press.

They were late to my meeting. 

The train approached closer, and moved past the house towards the station. The tracks had swelled on the Sandringham line, so the Frankston line was doing an awful job compensating all the passengers. The timetable non conducive, more than usual. I liked the sound of the train, especially through the night because it reminded me that people were alive outside. While I was warm in my bed, there were operations happening, things working, people moving, all through the night. 

I was hoping they would not call as the train was passing through because it made it harder to hear but of course, it did. There it was. The irritating sound of the skype bell.

When the first thing came out of my mouth, what followed was a domino effect of complex lies. Sure, I could do the job. I had done it before and I could do it again, maybe not to this extent but thereabouts, or slightly to the left of thereabouts. After all, they were looking for a ‘character fit’ and I would say that was strictly my expertise. Anyone could learn to write a speech and navigate a dry excel spreadsheet. It was  navigating the lines between the passive aggressive emails and the exorbitant meetings with a thousand conflicting personality types that was the difficult part.

Politicking. Boring as. 

I felt the English language to be a complex and dire one.  A form of communication that attempted to express thoughts and feelings through one arbitrary system, lacking structure through the symbols it did not produce, but holding onto complex sentences that could have been said, periodically, with one word in other places around the world. So because of this minor mishap, I found it hard to verbalise what my thoughts were suggesting throughout this meeting. 

I flashed back to my cognitive therapy. That’s what Jil said they used on the prisoners in Thomas Embling but they also used it on neurotic women in their early thirties. Disambiguate the cloudy things, and the rest will be clear. But I couldn't find the answer to the question. My focus, yet again occupied by the very green tree sitting directly outside my window.

Bentleigh, stinking hot, mid Melbourne summer. The year 2017. A hotter year than usual. The type of muggy heat that shortened your breath and cracked your lips. The grass had turned from a lush green to a burnt brown within two days and that can often be the sole identifying factor in an Australian summer.

Melbourne, 1956

Melbourne reeks of eucalyptus. A fragrance that makes you sneeze. A yellow tree, wattle hanging so low it smacks you in the face as you stroll by, unconcerned. Big open parks with dirty pigeons picking at the shit on the concrete, and the deep suburbs flowing with a sea of mixed migrants. Cranes shadow over the main strip where the butcher throws off cut meats at the stray dog strolling by. Cranes, suggesting  development is about to blow. Cranes. A sign of construction, growth of a suburb, jobs in the industry, prosperity! prosperity! prosperity! for the new arrivals. 

‘That’ll be .55 cents, love’. She smiles at him, takes the bottle of milk, and skips out onto the road.

the freedom of the bicycle

BACK in the state of Victoria, my bicycle was locked outside my house. the old townhouse, paper thin walls. my long boney fingers reach out to scratch at the code and that’s when i realise it is chained next to yours. i can tell by the U shaped lock, the tattered handlebars and the hand that reaches out to unlock it. your hand. short dirty fingernails attached to previously broken fingers and an old gold watch covering the base of a dark hairy wrist. my bike, less identifiable. a standard run of the mill numerical lock with an easy code to crack. a black basket that mirrors all of the other baskets floating around the north. unused gears as my life continues to move forward at a painfully slow pace whilst i grapple with the impossible task at hand of moving any faster. a better job in a field I enjoy. a house with solid walls. a mind that does not falter. stuck in time with nowhere to go. stuck in my skin. CANNING STREET: just turn left at the end of miller, carry on down nicholson for around 78 seconds (full flung), and take the third right at park, next to the bike shop that doubles as a coffee front. hipster at the scene but the worst brew in this capital. the curdling type that turns to clag when you take the first swig. it’s just a front. isn’t everything, actually? anyway that's how you get there. my feet are strung onto the pedals. left shoelace is undone slightly but not enough to get caught in the spokes. as i turn the corner, i stand up over the front handle bars and begin to throttle down, overtaking the man in the suit to my left. finally the day feels less cold. the bad dream that woke me in a frantic sweat begins to fade from my brain and my eyes start to open. that icy, second hand wind slaps the face of my front runner and now cuts through me as i momentarily forget where i am which is exactly where i want to be in this point in time. in the land of the forgotten, the land of the free. i feel a drip from my nose and one from my eye. the same soothing sting you feel when you’re chopping an onion. i love that feeling. the cold trying to break through a warm face. the wind is in me now. fully inside. made its way through the button gap of my green jacket and into my cold heart, but i am not phased. i am moving at a rapid pace and my surrounds become a blur of colours. i focus my eyes on the road ahead and feel that familiar intense burning sensation in my thighs as i push my legs harder, throwing the bike forward, faster. the overwrought human on my right morphs into a shape, shifting with time, free on their bicycle in the depths of winter, mid july. i glide effortlessly around the roundabout, and into the park. the sun reaches higher and time moves forward. my breath, heavy. head, light. for now, in this very moment i am without insecurities. my guts does not speak to me. i am not jammed on the 96 tram with the stagnant, stale smell of graying hair at my shoulder height. i am not stuck in punt road traffic hurling abuse at the incompetent driver trying to turn right. i am not walking alone, half awake and half asleep, attempting to block my thoughts of you, scheduling self demolition as my insides begin to hurt again.

i, just like the time, am moving forward. moving past the chaos and disarray of the day and towards the lilac sky. for this time only,  i am a free person, on my bicycle.

Modern World

Yaya looks at me with anguish. The monitor beeps once, and her heart beat shows as regular, maybe a little slow. I can’t help but notice the hospital technology. The machine connected to her arm is outdated and was invented in the 1950’s along with floppy disks and the first non-stick pan. We live in a modern world but this hospital feature wasn’t included in the update. I watch the liquid drip from the bag, slowly through the funnel, and into the needle that connects to her blue veins. The doctor speaks slowly as he asks her if she has any pain in her chest. She says no, which is unusual given her condition of a punctured bowel. She looks at me and asked why I am melancholy. Two minutes later, she repeats the same question. ‘All bones’, she scoffs as she grabs my wrist. ‘όλα κοκαλιά’.

The next day, I sit in my office and stare out the window. It is a shitty day in February. The wind howls and I watch the dust, human hairs and umbrellas blow towards the sky, safe within the 20th floor of my building. My attention, for a brief moment, flicks to the task at hand of updating a mind-numbing spreadsheet. Again I lose focus and begin to browse ‘realestate.com’ for rental properties. I enjoy procrastinating from anything that I am supposed to be doing in my actual job. It makes the time go slower but I can’t really focus on one single thing. The blue skype icon pops up in the left hand corner of my screen. My boss leaves a message asking me to send the paper by the end of the working day. It’s 2:21 pm. I exhale loudly, but I am unconcerned.

I catch the train home at 4:13 pm. The Sandringham line. It takes a long while, but I pass the time by reading an article on Artificial Intelligence and how computers are becoming smarter than people. Soon they will be able to take over the cognitive jobs of humans, not just physical. I think of how we used to dig holes with shovels and now we have extravagant and expensive machines to do it for us. I think of what else we can use machines for and I come up with two options before I get bored: To prepare legal documents, and to drive cars. That’s all. Then I stare blankly out the window as the train speeds past the city, into the deep suburbs.  

-------

I’d spent this past month asking google absurd questions like ‘why can’t I sleep at night?’ This wasn’t a profound realisation or technique that I had recently come up with, but I was genuinely curious to see if other people had problems that mirrored mine. I wasn’t provided with ground-breaking answers and my insomnia was not cured but it was nice to know there were others out there with much larger problems. Google informed me that other reasons for not sleeping could include the following: Circadian Rhythm disorder, drugs (both recreational or prescription) stress and blue lights.

It takes me approximately 4 hours to fall asleep at night, which means that if I get in bed at 10:30, I will fall asleep at 2:30 am, give or take an hour. Once I am asleep, I can stay asleep, which is nice. My friend Evan does not sleep at all. Or he does in 5 minute intervals. Last week I watched carefully as the psychologist scribbled notes from her chair regarding my troubles, and I listened with one ear as she suggested I begin to regularly consume a medium to strong anti-anxiety medication. I stared at her and blinked once, half listening and half tuning in to the baby screaming in the doctors’ reception room.  Later that night I explained to my father what the psychologist suggested. He looked at me, pained, and told me to go on a long run.

------------

To both the psychologist, and my dad, I say nothing, but that night I go for a run. I take Bowie, the wild dog, down to the beach and I run along the track for 6.2 kilometres. I am a bad runner. I am short of breath on most occasions, dizzy, and I am built like a piece of spaghetti. All long limbs with an almost astounding lack of coordination. I look especially stupid when I run because my legs are far longer than my torso and my arms seem disproportionate. Similar to a prehistoric T-rex dinosaur. I lump the pile of knotted hair on top of my head at the starting line, and begin slowly. The dog runs circles around me and at this point in time I am grateful for his existence. Erratic and moody. Deranged dog. I run to the clock tower at the end of the beach track and don’t bump into anyone I know. I feel uncertain with everything going on around me but I don’t think about anything while I run.

My yaya is 88 years old. At the age of 81, she read me her tea cup and told me she was going to die in 7 years, which brings us to the current year, and she is in hospital with severe dementia and a punctured bowel, although she hasn’t seemed to notice.

She cannot remember Tom, my sister’s handsome boyfriend of 8 years who is quite memorable. I stand next to her and she asks me in a whisper ‘who is that tall man standing next to Cassandra?’ She is losing her mind, and I watch her scream at the young nurse in Greek while she tries nervously and rather patiently to fix the drip in her arm. I say nothing.

I have spent the last few months feeling very strange. Stanger than usual. I do not have dementia but sometimes I feel as though my mind is failing me in some shape of form. My thoughts are clear, but erratic, and I have to work hard to keep them in order. My face looks young, but I feel very old, which is a strange phenomenon to experience while in a hospital where everyone around me is 80 plus.

I focus every day and attempt to feel normal. Recently someone told me (in a rather scathing tone) that I had the weight of the world on my shoulders so I have been trying very hard to take that weight off my shoulders, and leave it in the hospital with the sick and elderly where I have been spending my time, and where it belongs really. It does sound unfair, plaguing the already sick and dying with the world’s problems, but in a selfish way, I no longer want it.

My hypothesis is this: The old people can take that weight to the grave and it can be buried deep beneath the soil, so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. I can revisit when I am dead, which will be when I am 65, according my grandmothers tea cup. I have 33 years left so I should stop worrying, and get on with life. I have an enormous list of things to accomplish, in this modern world.

Before they found my teeth

The walls came crashing down on that cloudless day in December.

It was nearly the year 2052. Human population, 11.2 billion.

The sky was sunny but the street was still damp from the rain. The smell of old meat was still lingering from the market nearby, buzzing with anxious tourists just yesterday.

But now the world was still. It always was at this time in the morning. Especially after the rain had hit.

Not a bird was chirping. The skinny old Norwegian man that runs laps around the school at this time wasn’t out either. Maybe he had got word of what was about to happen.

The blast hit from the left and took down everyone in a 381 kilometre radius. That’s what was reported on the news three and a half days later when the electricity was back up and running. My friend in Holland watched the footage of the aftermath and a tear dripped down her face because of her close ties with Australia.

As the blast hit the ground, the fire started burning and I instinctively started running. I ran and I ran, the way I had experienced in my deepest nightmares. There was smoke filling the air and I was a little short of breath. Despite my long strides and long legs, I was not a good runner. But this time my legs moved swiftly and elegantly. They didn’t hold me back as they had before. This was real life and it was flashing before my eyes.

Lucy used to pick me up for school with her mum. They would drive to our house which was 2.3 kilometres from their house on Linacre road, and honk twice out the front. The two honks were so my sisters and I would come out the front. She usually got there around 7:44 in the morning. Occasionally she would honk and I was still in bed, stuck in a bad dream. I would have to throw on my clothes and run out the door without even brushing my teeth! That didn’t sit well with me because my teeth needed to be brushed in even numbers throughout the day. Either four or six times. Lucy’s mum worked in the canteen so it was important she was on time. I always kept her waiting because I disregarded other people’s time. That was one of my flaws.

It was 38 years ago when she used to pick me up for school and now that school was on fire. The old dark room where I would sit for hours and develop photos, the swimming pool where I used to swim laps in the morning, the trees that I liked to climb at lunch time. All gone in seconds.

I am moderately happy with my life to date. The green forest that surrounds my home is peaceful and I wake up to the sound of chirping birds when the sun rises each day. Of the 11 or so billion people that inhibit the earth, I have at least 11 close to my heart which is quite a lot in this day and age. I am 65 years old. My teeth are in good condition except for the molar on the top left that had been drilled into a few weeks back. I watched the new Prime Minister sworn in on the ABC TV as the dentist drilled further into my mouth. That’s the 128th Prime Minister I’d seen sworn into the Australian parliament. The side of my face went numb from the anesthetic. I counted to ten and tried to focus.

As the fire burned down the leafy school driveway towards the road, I was quite quickly taken on a journey back in time. Firstly, to that night upstairs in the rumpus room. I was sitting on the couch and Nouna had come in with the news about dad’s heart. Mum was at the hospital. I was crying and there was nothing I could do at that point in time. I didn’t like that. When things around me were out of control but there was nothing I could do to fix it. Lucky he survived with just an enormous scar and some heart medication but I didn’t know that at the time.

The second thing I thought about was that day at work in the Docklands. The text message came through and I called John to confirm. He was gone. He did it with a rope somewhere in North West India. My perception of reality was skewed for 8 months after that. I thought I would wake up from a bad dream but I never did.

The third and final thing that came to my mind were those exotic canary birds. I knew that my sister had forgotten to cover the cage that morning and that the storm was coming in strong but I wanted to teach her a lesson. Teach her to take responsibility. She was only 9 years old. We got home that day and they were all dead and I knew it was my fault. They were born in a cage, and they died in a cage. Never experienced the freedom that the Indian miners, the sparrows and the magpies and even those annoying brown birds that are an introduced species experience.

Just because I was stubborn. That was another flaw.

The fire caught up to me as I reached the top of the driveway, near South Road. I was wearing a brand new tee shirt. 100% cotton with a built in no-pill special agent. It was crisp and new and it had that really good crew neckline that I liked. One inch thick with vertical ribs stitched in. But that really didn’t matter anymore. What did matter was that the school was on fire and that fire was caused by a nuclear bomb that had been catapulted into the air and was about to spread for a 381 kilometre radius. I didn’t know where the bomb had come from but it engulfed everyone and everything in it’s path. Just like that my dead birds and my dead friends didn’t matter anymore.

I heard that when humans burn in a fire, their teeth are the only thing that can identify them.

 Lucky I got that molar fixed the other week. Please tell my 11 friends.

Μελαγχολία

Inside, there was angst. Carefully layered between a river of blood and closely locked in by a thick layer of skin.

Consistently inconsistent. Everything was dense and compacted, a heavy head to hold up on my flimsy, boney shoulders. The world around, the world inside me. A fear of change. A fear of letting go. A fear that someone close to me, was catastrophizing.

I am too much. Too chaotic. Dissatisfied. Strung up like a goddamn clothesline. A vacant stare as you remind me of my insecurities. I search for peace, but it’s gone. You flick a switch and I am gone too. Consistently inconsistent, like you.

I walked slowly with my head down. Walked past all the flags, screaming red. I didn’t step on the cracks. Complex and complete, I avoid the melancholy look in your eye. Dying to know what’s going on inside but I don’t ask in case it changes your mood. I lay awake in the bed looking up at the roof but it was so dark all I could see was black and a crack of the street light that crept in through the half drawn curtain. Not myself, but someone other than me. Someone that carefully chose their words, even though I was smothered inside. Trying to dissect my failure, in every excruciating detail. Quietly gasping for air so I don’t wake you. You know it hurts me. But go ahead, cut me up. I’m only yours.

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right?

You could make this place beautiful.

BY MAGGIE SMITH

Hot Yoghurt

Perplexed by the idea of not enjoying my own company, I wanted to try something new. Somehow, unemployment had thrown me down into a deep dark hole filled with sleepless nights, manic mood swings and explosive bursts of anger. This was supposed to be a time where I could relax. Where I could find what I really was passionate about. Where I could use time to paint, go for a run, start a ceramics course or take up day drinking. But I didn’t know what to do with myself and I didn't know why.

I went to hot yoga once last week. Yoga is not normally my go to but Ben told me I needed to relax and I think he was right. As I sprawled myself along the mat in a 34 degrees room, I looked at the people around me. Women mostly, except for the shirtless man wearing a peace tattoo along his sweaty shoulder blades. It looked fresh, and straight from Bali. I squirmed as the teacher sung the word ‘namaste’ and requested everyone put their hands into a prayer position. Last time I checked I wasn’t practicing religion of any kind so this embellished my Greek upbringing and I felt happy that I was never made to do this as a child.

Instead, my childhood was made up of of playing tennis with dad, long hot summer days at Sandringham beach, walking the rabbit and taking on the responsibility of judge Judy for the physical fights my sisters were having.  

Time is a strange thing. When I was working, I never felt like I had enough of it. Looking at art museums and cooking were put on the back-burner because I was frantically riding my bike around the city trying to get something done.

I never enjoyed my own company really because I needed someone else to talk to. Menial tasks like taking the bin to the front of the house was a time filler to think about what I wanted to do next.

I made my way out of the leafy green namaste yoga studio that was filled with sweaty girls, burning incense, sweet dreams and Saturday night plans. In the literal sense, and in my dire attempt to relax, I stopped to smell the roses but a truck driver pulled up to my left and filled my lungs with petrol fumes. I watched the complex 2 tonne truck race down towards the Geelong freeway wondering what sort of freight was stored in its deep dark trunk and where it was heading tonight.

The clouds moved slower and turned into shapes that I had never seen before. Was I going crazy? Or is this just what reality feels like when you are left alone for too long. If I couldn't sleep before, it seemed as though now I may never sleep again. My hands clicked together and picked at that one stubborn nail that wouldn't come off .

Today was okay.

Princess Park

It was 5:46 on a Sunday evening and I lay there in a fit of rage that I couldn't express through words, only movement. Rapids, soaring through my bleeding heart as I abruptly got up from the bed to awaken the sleeping boy next to me.

It was starting to get dark. I was uncomfortably full from all the scones I had eaten, and the dog was still agitating me with his general existence.

'I’m going for a walk', I scowled and the scathing tone in my voice carried across the room loud and clear. The wind howled outside as the rain started bucketing down again.

He was half asleep. 

I had an uneasy feeling in my chest and my behaviour this weekend had been volatile to say the least. I tossed and turned in my sleep. I felt angry because the weather was cold. I felt tired because the heater was too hot, frustrated because my boyfriend was asleep, upset because I got made redundant from my job and my head was racing because as I tried to sleep, all I could think about was the 22 year old girl that got raped and murdered in Princess Park on Tuesday night.

I wanted to go for a walk to take a deep breath and to clear my head, but for the first time in my life, I felt scared to walk in the dark.

I didn't want to be raped and murdered. Didn't want someone to come up behind me and tackle me to the ground, cover my mouth with their hands and try and pull off my jeans. Choke me, or strangle me until I can't breathe and my lungs collapse. Threaten me, be on top of me, hurt me. You see, I didn't feel like that tonight.

The tree saw it happen. It was cold, dark. Misty. That tree, right near the tennis courts saw him coming from a fucking mile away. Couldn't say anything though. Couldn't warn her.  

My voice is pretty loud when I want it to be and I could scream at the top of my lungs, and if anyone was listening, they could maybe come and save me. I’m pretty strong too. I could kick someone away if they tried to come near me. Stab them with the keys I keep in my left pocket, punch them in the stomach and run as soon as someone flinched behind me. Could I?

Hey, but did you hear channel 7 talking about the African Gangs? Did you hear there are refugees attempting to get into our country? Better stay in our houses because we aren't safe. White boy murders and rapes a 22 year old but he’s autistic. Maybe didn't know any better.

750 metres from my house. As that girl was getting raped and murdered, I was sleeping in my bed, safe, in a second level terrace building on Drummond Street with arms wrapped tightly around me. I was breathing. I was sleeping and alive. Just 750 metres away.

Tomorrow when I walk along Merri Creek, right next to Clifton Hill where I used to live, I’ll hold my bag close to my chest, and I will flinch when the dog starts barking. I’ll think someone is following me, but really it's just the wind rustling the leaves in the gum tree on my right. I’ll be walking by myself, but I won’t have my headphones in this time. I'll be walking by myself, but ill be more alert than I normally am. I'll be walking by myself, but every time Bowie tries to stray away, i’ll panic and put him back on the lead.

A gloomy reality and a sad end to a cold winter week in June.

The windy byelection

Gave up on the property market and decided to search elsewhere. It had been two years. I still didn't have a million dollars. Still didn't have a house.

My brain was full of trivial questions but it kept  ticking over regardless. Where is my dog going to grow old and senile? Where would I grow my zucchinis? I can cut them on the bench in this house if I move the toaster onto the microwave, but it's a bit annoying playing tetras with kitchen utensils every time you want to cook.

And where am I going to put my print of Southern Italy? I went to the trouble of framing it last week and now I need a wall to hang it on. A wall that wont fall down.

A year and a half ago, I met a boy named Stewart. Well actually that's his last name. He’s a little erratic but I love him the most and for the rest of my damned life I couldn't possibly avert my gaze from his beautiful face.

On Saturday afternoon while the Greens were losing the Batman byelection, on the shittiest, windiest day of 2018, I was standing on a corner outside East Reservoir Primary School for 12 hours with an eyeball full of dust. I was trying my best  to convince the old wogs of Reservoir to make a change in the electorate and actually vote for our policies.

The wind must have been too strong that day because it somehow blew the electorate of Batman into the hands of the Labor government. I cried. As that was happening, Stewart stood at an auction and we bought a bloody house.

It’s a brick house that can withhold my Southern Italy picture without breaking. It has a backyard for a veggie patch and a passion fruit vine. It has a big front yard for Bowie to be manic in and maybe we can get a goat or some chickens. It’s an adventure and I feel like smashing down a wall or painting everything olive green in the loudest, most obnoxious manner possible.

I got drunk on election night. The wind died but the weather remained steamy. Edinburgh gardens was full of my friends and I didn't need a jumper.

It was a warm feeling that seeped through my skin and a lightning bolt that shot through my veins and a tear that ran down my face. I don't know if it was because of the weather or the byelection, or because I was tired or delirious or if it was the gin or if I was just plain mad. The storm rolled in without any warning and I lay back, and took a very deep breath.

Dream #1

The room was full of people I liked. Dancing erratically, moderately mad.  I stirred my gin with a spoon and sipped it slowly as I watched from the back door. A gust of warm air came in from behind me and it felt nice on my bare legs. It was 34 degrees outside and the sun had set a long time ago. I always liked it when the weather was like that. When the night is too hot to sleep and all the fan does is blow leaves around the warm room.

As the fan blew, I dreamed.

I was in the new house. It was not on top of the hill anymore, but completely inner city. The tram began clamouring down Lygon street at 5:45am but I liked the noise because it reminded me that people were alive. Tom had moved out. Strangers in the two vacant rooms. The house was big and open, only half the price of my rent in Sydney. My room wasn't finished. The floorboards were rotting underneath me and it was bound to be a disaster when the rats came in from the flood. I had to move my stuff in that day but I was thinking twice if this was what I wanted.

Bowie had been hit by a missile because he ran away trying to find me. It was my fault because I had left the gate open. I was walking back to the car to get my jumper when I found him - covered in dust and barely alive. North Korea had launched on Australia and the bombs were going off behind me as I attempted to run inside - my legs weren't running fast enough.

Ben was in the drama school at St Leonards. I found him in a flurry and led him back to Bowie. He tried to scrape his body off the street but he was covered in blood and yelping. Nearly dead.

We were in parliament - at least I thought we were. I was at the front of the stage, breathing heavily because I hated public speaking. I began blurting out words - aiming to challenge the High court of Australia for letting North Korea come with the missiles in the first place when I realised I was inside a church and not the parliament. Everyone knew except me. The priest started laughing and talking in Greek. 

I started running home but again my legs wouldn't move properly. I was never going to win this race.

I woke up sweating.

Monstera Deliciosa

There was an economic crisis and the refugee crisis in Syria and there was the climate crisis that had been pushed aside for now.

Just as the leaf reached out from the top of the cupboard to press the off button, the video game went up a level. Rainbow patterns, stars and colours morphing into one another. The machine man marched through the bathroom and his French accent was astounding! I looked down at the floor and the oil was spilling into the water, bugs squiggle along.

Matt looks me straight in the eye.

Am I dead?

No, you’re not dead.

Are you dead?

No, I’m not dead either. We’re alive.

The white girl sitting across the fire doesn't stop talking about her dose of antidepressants to a pit full of people. Maybe she has a chemical imbalance in her brain but it seems like she’s just looking for attention.

I'll swing back in my chair, kick up my legs and fall back into the bath. The water splashes up and causes a tidal wave in the Pacific ocean.

It’s 17 years from now.

They're all under water. All the islands. Too many people taking bathes, fucking to make babies, eating tuna. Climate changed killed the humans and the politician throws his head back and laughs because we are finally out of debt.

I turn to my right and ask him how long it takes to boil an egg. The thought of my Monstera Deliciosa trickles into the back of my brain but he doesn’t answer my question. Maybe he doesn’t know. I don’t think he was ever very good at egg boiling anyway.

17 years. That's a long time. Much longer than the life of a goanna.

But it's something you gave me to focus on. I couldn't. I never could. All I could do was tap my foot on the deck and pick my bottom lip but it started to bleed because the heater had made it so dry and the thought of it had me think too much.

So I smiled at you, and I sat for a minute. I forgot about it for a while. Forgot about the bleeding lips and I sighed and pretended it was never there in the first place.

Housing Hopportunities

If the topic wasn't boring enough to begin with, it managed to drag me in, and bring me down. $975,000 was how much is sold for. $975 THOUSAND dollars. That’s $240,000 over the asking price. Is that cheap change? ‘The floor boards are rotting anyway’ scoffed my mother as we walked away. 'You would have to re-stump the whole thing, it would cost an extra 100 K on top of what they just paid.’ 'Plus those commission flats in Collingwood. Have you seen the scruff that walks out of that place? Junkies! All of them. You’d get stabbed!'

Stop buying smashed avocado, the tabloids read. Smashed fucking avocado. I didn't even like avocado and I still couldn't see myself acquiring a house in the next 500 years. Maybe it was the Herald Sun reporting.

Real estate agents. Wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. The scummiest of the lot. Lying, skeezy salespeople. Under quoting by $300,000 to draw the attention of hopeful millennials on the auction day. ‘You can afford this! The reserve is in that price range!’ You won’t find another house in Fitzroy North for that price!'

That price was a million dollars. That was a bargain around this area. A bargain I couldn't afford.

Daniel was of a short, slim stature. He was wearing a fitted blue suit and his blond greying hair was slicked back. He wore spectacles that sat just above his nose and his voice was highly pitched. I asked Daniel, the shifty real estate agent who had taken me through 130 Gold street earlier this week what the plan was if the liberals won the state election again. They had poured over a billion dollars into the East West link and it had been shut down due to public outroar not that long ago. All the housing in this area was acquired by the state government and was now being sold. The East West link was still on the cards. If they won the state election, would there be another housing acquisition? He looked at me as if I might have been deranged. Did he know what the East West link was? I thought to myself. Shouldn't he have SOME general knowledge on the suburb he is selling a million dollar house in?  I thought that was his job. A rush of blood to the head. I was furious, frustrated and dealing with a fucking idiot.

Gore street? SKA-TA! Pou pou pou. My yaya scoffed at the thought of Fitzroy. 'You couldn't PAY me to live in that area.' She muttered in Greek.  Mum replied swiftly. ‘You couldn't afford to even if you wanted to mum! It’s changed since you lived there. No one can afford it.’ Mum was driving with her knees. She had one hand on the phone and the other was twirling her hair, a casual 20 kilometres over the limit down the freeway. It’s called multitasking and that’s how she taught me how to drive.

Coburg, Cheltenham, Chelsea, Depreston. Consider it. I could have a backyard! I could have a solid brick house that isn’t rotting from the inside. I may be isolated from society and be growing up in the 'burbs but the cute family next door will let me play with their dog and ask me to babysit their kids. I contemplated the option of moving to Tasmania and pro creating with a relative. 

‘Why don’t you just buy shares. That's what I’m doing’, Jack made suggestions and threw the stick for the dog as I complained. 'But I don’t know anything about the stock market. Maybe i’ll ask my boss - Or just move to Italy. I've been considering that for a while now.'  'What about your new job! Where’s the new office again? 'Collins street.' 'Paris or Afghanistan?' 'Paris, it’s the good end. Only 4.2 kilometres away from here.' It’s a pretty good deal, I guess.

I decided to shut up for a while. Stop going to auctions. Stop researching. Stop looking at the paper.  Put my time and effort into entering competitions and winning the lottery.

The orange chair

I'm running late, can't find the office. Dripping wet from the pool and stink like sweat. It's 30 degrees outside and I have already run one block, parked illegally. I knock on the door, rip off my bathers and turn my t shirt the other way around to hide the boob patches. 

We are 15 minutes in and she asks me if I know what mindfulness is. I sit opposite her in the orange chair and my eyes blink once.  I don't. To be honest, I don't really care to learn. But I don't say that. She gets me to practise a breathing exercise. The first two times I do it wrong. I know I've created this but I still can't get to sleep at night. She stares at me without blinking as I tell her about my sleeping habits. 

She is blond and voluptuous and her office smells weird. She burns a candle and thinks it’s relaxing but it’s making me sneeze. Her voice is soft, caring. She asks me about my past.

I don’t really have that much to say but I tell her about my dad and I tell her about my grandpa. I am convinced it's not hereditary but I’ve never really thought about it like that before. 'To be honest I think he just wanted to be back in Greece smoking a cigarette at the platia  tending to his chickens swimming in the Mediterranean drinking red wine from a latte glass they probably got from the village. He wanted his smile wrinkles and leather skin back from the Med. That's what we all want right?'  I don't take a breath when I give her my explanation. She doesn't answer my question. 

I could pack those shorts in my bag and I think I would take the grey one as everything would fit and it’s real easy to put on my back. I could probably take an extra few days of unpaid leave and then it would be fine. He would probably want to mind the dog, even for a few months. Or maybe i'll just get a job and then we can sit on that porch again and drink the prosecco and I would only be eating seafood and it will be hot so I won't have to pack much. And then in a few months time I can ship him over, in one of those container things. It wouldn't take that long I don't think.

‘Anyone else’ She interrupts my thoughts as I attempt to tune back into reality. Forgot where I was for a second.

I take two minutes to think before I tell her about my cousin who found him hanging in the cupboard by the neck but I was so young that I don’t remember it that well and I think I was never told the entire truth anyway. I think about his fiery temper but I decide not to tell her about that because I don't think it’s relevant. She looks concerned.

I think about you and that time in Perth when we lay on the beach all day. It was New Years. We were both coming down so we swum in the ocean and it helped. Our skin matched. So dark we were nearly purple. So salty, your black hair had turned into ringlets. We lay there for hours just talking at each other mainly. Solving world problems mainly. Not really stopping to take a breath. It wasn't until the sky went black when we moved to the fish shop for some wine. It was a ten minute walk from the junction. You were good like that. Always up for a party. Didn't really ever need down time or sleep. I thought about being jealous.

But I didn't tell her any of this because I didn’t really feel like it.

I thought about that night when I drove to your house. I was hurting and I thought it would help. It didn’t. You were on the porch with your housemate, drunk. I sat there, shivering. My eyes were bloodshot, my hands were shaking. You put a blanket on me - we walked to the beach. That was the end. I stopped caring about you after that and your stupid fake job, and your coffee habit and your skin because you kept interrupting my life right when I was trying to take a breath. 

I didn't tell her about that either. I told her all the main things though and I left with my sheet of paper with every intention to practise what she gave me. I ran back to my car to find another $77 ticket. Fuck.

Hey, neighbour!

Sam was back out the front. I think he was on ice again. 'Heyyyy were you home last night?' He really dragged out the ‘hey’ which made him sound more psychotic than normal.  His voice was high pitched and his accent was from outback Queensland. Like he had been living in the bush for the past two years, maybe only communicating with dingos or something. It was 7 degrees outside but his shirt was off. He smiled, unnervingly as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was bouncing up and down on his left foot, wired, scratching and his pupils were the size of saucepans. His hair was greying and he looked rough. Deep lines spread across his forehead. Maybe he was 40 or so.  It was Saturday morning and I was on my way to Abbotsford to meet Kate for a coffee.  'Nah I wasn't here, I lied.'

Well it actually wasn't a total lie. I did arrive home around midnight. I had been at my sisters house where we had drunk a bottle of champagne and she had given me a haircut with one snip of the scissors. I had asked for a 60s styled fringe and she delivered nothing short of an 80s mullet. It looks good! She laughed historically as I looked in the mirror for the first time. 

I took my champagne haircut home and was running up my street at a million miles an hour with no preconception of what might have been happening around me. I stopped in my tracks when I heard someone screaming. There were two shadows outside my house. I could tell because the light on the SOLD sign was illuminated. ‘Get out here you dog, I know what you did with my daughter. I saw all your sex toys at the park’ It was the guy that kept coming over and asking for sugar. His name was Rod and he lived on the right hand side of us.

Sam lived on the left.

I began wondering why someone would take sex toys to the park but my chain of thought was interrupted by another voice. ‘What the FUCK are ya doing at ma door, cunt’. Sam screamed as he burst through the front door full throttle and began pacing up and down his driveway with a baseball bat in his hand. Once again, shirtless. Maybe he didn't like shirts. I crossed the road and watched from behind a tree.  As he became angrier the pacing became quicker, the voice became louder.

I called my housemate Sarah whose light I could see was on in the front room. She answered , whispering. ‘Oh my god are you okay? Are you listening? Come around the side! I'll let you in through the alleyway.'

I snuck around a few more trees, made my way back onto Alexandra avenue so the guys wouldn't see me and my face wasn't the next thing to collide with that baseball bat. I was more intrigued than scared, but I thought it was best to stay out of their way. Let them hash it out like a coupla grown ups.

‘What the fuck is happening out there!' I laughed as I stumbled through the back door. 'He has a baseball bat! ‘It’s been going on for about 15 minutes', Sarah looked worried. Jack was on the phone to the cops.

That was the fourth time something like this had happened this month.  Last week he was knocking on my window at 4am, asking me if I would like to come over for some spaghetti, or alternatively, if I would like to have sex with him. Neither options tickled my fancy at that point in time. To be honest, I was mildly petrified and strongly considered moving countries. Then he smashed the window out of Jacks car. The week before that, throwing his pillows over the fence. He was socially inapt and pretty fresh out of jail. Probably isolated from humans, struggling with drug abuse and didn't know how to fit back into society. It was a real harrowing feeling when I thought of him. Like I should invite him over for dinner or give him some food that didn’t contain meth.

Two days ago, I came back from Canberra. It was midday when I got home, stumbled out of the cab with all my bags and fished around in my suitcase for a set of keys that I left inside a week ago. My clothes were spread all over the pavement. Sam walked through the gate and asked if I had taken his wheelie bin. I hadn't taken his wheelie bin. I asked how he was and he told me all about his rehab venture. When I asked why he was going to rehab, he said he was trying to get his life in order. He seemed pretty normal that day. Wasn't scratching his arms, wearing a shirt, no baseball bat in site. Just a man looking for his wheelie bin. Sure I might be able to sleep at night in my new house in Collingwood but hopefully someone interesting swings by once in awhile to say hello.

The Fruitcake

‘4 personalities. That's enough. You don’t need another one. You basically have 4. He's a fruitcake.' Jack was dead right.  I couldn't handle another dog. I was struggling enough with this one. In hindsight, I probably wouldn't have gone out and purchased that dog. I kind of just acquired him and somehow incorporated him into everyone's life without giving them a choice on the matter. Rocket spent hours digging up the backyard, barking at me when I wasn't throwing his stick, rolling in puddles of mud whenever available and trying to kill Sam, our ex crim neighbour who lived in the halfway house next door.  On odd but frequent occasions, I found Sam peeking in my window, inviting me to eat pasta off his bench or asking to use our shower because his skin was itchy and our water was filtered. Sam liked meth. Sometimes I thought Rocket liked meth too. He was mad. 

Rocket came from my time in Western Australia. My party friend lived up the road and goes by the name of Isac. He kept him in a courtyard day in, day out. I met Isacs one day only by chance, because my friend was fucking his housemate. Rocket liked me straight away. Which wasn't always the case with humans. I was yet to learn he had an attitude problem and was very picky about who he spent his time with so I consider myself lucky that I left that day with both my hands attached to my wrists. I asked Isac if I could take him running one day. I went running most nights around Kings Park in Perth, and I thought a cattle dog might make a good addition.

Turned our Rocket was an outstanding runner, so my running became way more interesting and I would go out for hours at the time. One day, Isac came over and asked if I could look after Rocket for a few weeks while he opened ‘Marketa’, his new restaurant project. It was taking up a significant amount of his time and he didn't have enough of it to look after a dog. ‘Rocket is 7 years old, he's real placid and loves being around people’. That was enough false information to convince me. 'Sure i’ll mind him.' My housemates didn't mind either. In fact Tom loved Rocket and let him sleep in his bed when his girlfriend was on night shift. Weeks went by and Isac never really wanted to collect him. Turns out he didn't have enough time to look after a dog and needed to get rid of him. 

I didn't know if I wanted to keep him. I was struggling to look after myself let alone a dog. I was relocating back to Melbourne, trying to find a job and hadn't slept properly since January.  But somehow, as it sometimes does, life worked out. A week before my 30th birthday, Rocket was delivered to Noone street, Clifton Hill by my dear friends and delicious housemates all the way from Western Australia. He stunk like shit, was manic as ever and ready to take on Melbourne in his black and white fur coat.

It’s been 7 months. I have discovered since then, the dog is in fact 3.5 years old, not 7. He nips at strangers if they try and touch him. He may have some sort of personality disorder. You really have to earn his love and I think his intuition might be able to differentiate between the bad guys. He especially dislikes children but to compensate, loves sticks. He’s pretty highly strung, a bit anxious at times and pretty good at swimming upstream.  He likes driving, knows how to sit but chooses not to, eats grass, rubs his head in dirt and shits on the roof. He’s my guy. He might not listen to a thing I say, but he loves me. I can tell.

My sister

'PUT MY FUCKING CAR DOWN NOW' She screamed as she climbed on the tow tray and into her car. It had become a clearway 20 minutes ago. 'Ma'am, get down off the tow tray. You’re parked illegally.' His voice was American and his face was fat. 

'WHAT! It's just after 7 and I told you before you towed my car. Put it down now!'  Her foot stamped the ground of the car and it shook.  She was ready for war. The council guy was in her direct line of fire but got paid on commission, so he wasn't having a bar of it. She called Evan. Evan was Dan's brother. Evan was a policeman. I always found it funny that a relative of Dan's made a living upholding the law. 

‘They’re not talking to you very nicely’. The tow away guys had begun yelling back at her, trying to force her off the tow tray. Evan spoke calmly in an attempt to make her relax. ‘Here. Talk to my friend, he's a policeman’ She tried to throw the phone at the guy operating the tow truck, but he was fed up and refusing. She tossed it to the side, readjusted and came in from a different angle. 'If you don’t put my car down RIGHT now, I’m going to sue you for talking to me like this AND for breaking my mirror.'  She had parked illegally, and been hurling abuse at the the guy for twenty minutes now. Just getting warmed up.

Two hours later, and she was sitting at the police station. '$450? She screamed. ‘No fucking way’. You broke my mirror. My mirror has been snapped off my car.' 'Sorry ma'am, we can't help you. You climbed onto the back of the tow truck and we have the whole thing on film. That's illegal.'  Fat face sported a smug look with his dumb accent.  She put up a solid 45 minute argument before giving up. 'You can fuck off now.' She flipped him the bird and  stomped out of the station.

On Tuesday morning I woke up at 7:36 to the sound of my alarm. I always made sure my alarm was turned on in odd increments.  I turned to the side and the dog was staring at me. I picked up my phone from it’s normal spot on the ground. Can you come meet me in Smith street for a coffee? A text from her.  Can’t, I responded. I'll call you shortly.

'I’m going to be on the news.' She cried into the phone. I moved into the photocopy room so I could talk back without everyone in the office listening to my conversation. ‘I can’t remember when they took me to the police station. I think it was a rage blackout.’ She had suffered from rage blackouts a few times before, but maybe not like this. Her sobs grew stronger as the conversation continued.  

She'd had had a shitty week to say the least and this was the icing on the cake. Already in debt, She was working two jobs and trying to get her business off the ground. She had stamina. Way more than I did, but she had just been hit with a $450 fine, had to buy a new mirror and her car was still at the towers. Her enthusiasm was beginning to drain.

We were opposites,  but we mainly got on. There was the occasional screaming fight where she would call me a brainwashed moron and I would respond with YOU’RE A CUNT from the top of the stairs. My dad got annoyed when I called my sister a cunt but I always found it most fitting to describe her.  Very occasionally we would hit each other. Once I threw all her bed sheets and pillows off the balcony in a fit of rage. But she usually won. I hated admitting but it was reality. She was much stronger than I was.  Smaller, but stronger. Shortest of the three, golden not chocolate, big dark eyebrows and light brown eyes. Sometimes they were green in the summer.

She got angry when people left a mess, when dishes weren't cleaned properly, when people were lazy. She was a good runner, knew how to cook. Inherited all the good genes probably. Me, I was messy and wired most of the time. Left things everywhere, ripped, broke or misplaced my belongings. Forever disorganised. She ran marathons and got on with it. She'd be the richest out of everyone because she wouldn't settle for anything less. She just watched, unaffected as people around her work their steady jobs, buy property and get hitched. But she just keeps running, very slowly but very surely building her empire. 

The storm

A fire moves through my sternum

I hear the rain crash harder into the flyscreen

My chest, tight

Pupils darting around the room. I can’t hold your gaze

Lips, dry, torn

Breathe

Short, sharp

Voices pollute the room

Glasses clinking

Humans, laughing

My mind

Empty

You

You’re there

Somewhere in the back. But always there

That light in your eye. The orange one. It’s burning

Deep cracks in your thick skin

Smiling, anguish

I exhale

Breathing heavier now

Shorter

Sharper

Watching them talk amongst themselves

Heart, racing as you grab hold

Pulling

Forcing. It hurts

Can you come closer?

The water rises

Salt buried deep in my lungs. Dust in my mouth

It’s damp. Heavy. I’m starting to drown

Waves crashing over

And over. Waiting

I hope you enjoy your stay

Whispered the storm