December 20, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Anneliz Marie Erese is a Filipino writer whose works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, Island Online and Cordite Poetry Review, among others. She has previously received writing prizes such as the Nick Joaquin Asia Pacific Literary Awards (2019) and the Deakin Postgraduate Prize in Writing and Literature (2022). She was also the 2022 Deborah Cass Prize winner. Most recently, she was awarded a scholarship to Faber Writing Academy at Allen & Unwin. She lives on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people.
Photo Credit: David Patston
International
I found a place in a five-bedroom house share in Hawthorn with two students like myself and a paramedic. The landlord also lived with us – a mid-thirties contractor who disappeared to his beach house in Point Lonsdale for two weeks at a time. The place was enormous and charming and a bit rundown, but wherever I went there was light. Even in the bathroom. I would lay for a long time in the tub looking up through the skylight and see nothing but white. There were wooden floors throughout. An updated, working oven. There was a kitchen bench and bar stools and the dining table sat eight. I picked a different chair each time.
At the end of the hallway was my room. It was small and perfect and mine. I had a second-hand mattress and bed I purchased from the tenant I replaced, a double wardrobe with a full-length mirror drilled into one of the doors, a small wooden desk pushed against the wall, and a hand-me-down bedside table. My books were stacked neatly on the floor. At night, I would play some tunes on my ukulele and Veena, one of the girls, would knock and ask me if she could come in and listen. We would stay quiet for a while, the only sound was that of the strings, and then she would get back up and say thank you before leaving. It helped me fall asleep quickly.
*
Some mornings were disorienting. I would lie awake and try to remember what I must do for the day, but I wouldn’t be able to come up with any. It always seemed like my subconscious took care of things before my consciousness caught up. For example, I would find my linens were already drying on the clothesline when I couldn’t remember doing them the day before, the same way I would keep buying a bottle of tomato sauce then open the pantry to find three of them, mouth sealed. I knew there was nothing to arrange in my room nor in the house. Classes weren’t to resume until the end of summer. I felt undeserving of this brief idleness. Alone, there was no one I must talk to, no one to report my day to. No one to cook for. No one whose laundry I needed to do, whose pants I needed to press. There was no one taking account of what I spent or where I went. No one to whom I must justify myself. No one whose justifications I chased to hear, whose tales I craved, whose mouth I needed to kiss, whose body sought my body as escape. There was nothing waiting for me, and I breathed.
*
In between his orders to bring this drink to that table or to fetch that thing from the back storage, Connor often told me stories about the time in his life when he travelled overseas. He smacked his thin lips numerous times before he finished a sentence in a mix of Irish and Australian drawl. Last week it was about the pub where he served naked in Amsterdam. Tonight, it was about a supposed three-week trip in Saint Petersburg that was cut off by an involvement with a gang. He’d gotten drunk one night with the leader after they met at a tattoo parlour. ‘This snake here,’ he said, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt, ‘up around the back of my neck.’ He turned around, moving his long bun to the side, and sure enough, the reptile’s head popped out from underneath his collar.
He was invited to the gangster’s family home where he met the sister. ‘Fucken gorgeous,’ he said. Then he’d slept with her while everyone was unconscious off their faces from alcohol. Next thing he knew, he was being forced to marry the woman. He’d fled as quick as he could. He didn’t want to get married. ‘Especially not to a Russian,’ he said. Who did you want to marry? I asked. He told me he had a penchant for Asian girls. He was staring at me with a smile plastered on his face. Penchant, I said, is another word for fetish. ‘Nah,’ he growled. ‘I just like my girls soft and small. No harm done.’ His hands were up in surrender as he chuckled.
I was observing him the whole time – the disturbing chewing sounds his lips made between sentences, the way he seemed to be gliding when walking, the jokes that missed the mark. He must had felt uncomfortable with the way I was staring at him, expressionless and unmoving, because he raised his huge palm to cover his cheek and asked, ‘Is something wrong?’
*
To my mother’s appeal, I visited home for a week. I was exhausted before the plane even hit the tarmac. I couldn’t bear to see her face, although I didn’t really know what about her face was too difficult to see. Her concern, perhaps? Or worse, her ridicule. Her hair was cut short now, brushing her nape. I considered giving her a hug, now used to how people overseas greet each other. But as I approached her at the gates, the truth struck me: this was my mother; intimacy, even feigned, was alien between us. Her first words to me were about how sickly I looked. I braced for all the others to come. The moment we got in the car, she asked: what happened? Was it money? Did he get tired of you? What did you do? She asked me if there was ever a chance to fix it. I sat uncomfortably beside her, silently cursing the heavy traffic. She said, ‘Maybe you didn’t look after him the Filipino way.’ What is the Filipino way? I asked. ‘Alam mo na,’ she said, ‘cooking and cleaning. Men like those kinds of things.’ I didn’t answer. Then we stopped at a fast-food joint and she bought me lunch.
*
I almost forgot what my grandma’s house looked like after being away for more than a year. We had new neighbours whose concrete wall cast a shadow over the walkway. The gate was painted moss green to cover its old red colour. I was lent my old bed which had become my brother’s. The sheets smelled of strong soap. My bookshelf was covered with thick transparent plastic. There were Korean pop group posters tacked on the wall above my pillow. I walked around the house in a state of stupor. Listened to the blabber around me. The bathroom was the only private place, though tiny. There was still the small mirror with the scissors hanging on a hook on its frame. It reminded me of days when I used to stare myself down in it, daring myself to do something. My lola was wondering about the man I used to love. ‘Nasa’n na si––?’ she asked. In the past, I wanted to say. I listened to the little fights. Observed how this house had become smaller as things accumulated. More people, more things, less space. My little cousins’ biggest worry was who would take what gift from my luggage. People came – my aunts, uncles, more cousins. They said hello and I said hello. At night, we watched television the way we used to: sitting closely together in a small couch while the children played with their toys on the floor. The fan blasted hot air. In the middle of this, a pin dropped. Lola thought I left. ‘Nasa’n na si––?’ she asked, her eyes roaming around the small room. I was sitting right next to her, useless and invisible.
*
Often, I imagined whole conversations with my father as if he were still alive. Being his daughter had been an education in being a version of a good girl: learning how to pray, avoiding swear words, going to church, learning the piano, getting home before dark, selecting parent-approved friends, becoming invisible from boys, getting high marks in class, becoming someone. In my fictive scenarios, I was always defending myself. If he said I was late to get home, I said the traffic was bad. If he asked me why I had failed my Chemistry class, I asked him where I got my genes from. If he yelled at me for missing church, I said I already atoned for my sins. In one of these scenarios he asked, ‘Which is worse: staying or leaving?’ I said, I think it is the leaving. It is always the leaving. The only thing I still couldn’t find an answer for was when he asked me why I was like this. I came up with several things: I couldn’t have known; I didn’t ask for it; I’m sorry. Sometimes I wanted to tell him: I think I wasn’t loved enough. But I never dared to even say the words.
*
Back in Melbourne, I started having these moments when the world appeared to go dim and I would suddenly be alone in my head – although I could be waiting to cross at the lights or in line at the self-checkout – and my mind would go back to the dark apartment where I used to live. When it happened, I shook my head vigorously or pinched the skin on my palm over and over again. In those moments, there was nothing more important than getting from point A to point B. Through this, I discovered movement. I developed a routine of walking in early mornings and stopping by at the corner café. Then I’d continue to walk on with a cup in hand. These mornings were like finding a toehold on a cliff I didn’t know I was on. It saved me, to say it simply, in that it took me away from myself. The poet Arthur Rimbaud had loved walking, too. He’d had swollen knees because of all the walks he took that his leg had had to be amputated. What cause was so noble to implore oneself to a point of dismemberment? Rimbaud walked from city to city, across deserts, took weeks and weeks of journey on foot. He’d considered himself a passer-by: ‘I’m a pedestrian. Nothing more,’ he’d said. On his last days, he’d been excited about having a wooden leg, it was all he was talking about. His last words had been: ‘Quick, they’re expecting us.’ Who was expecting me? I wanted to arrive for nothing and no one. For an hour or two, I was all bones, one with the neighbourhood trees and Victorian bungalows and closed Chinese restaurants. I was the leash on the dogs and the dogs themselves and the owners of the dogs walking the dogs. I was the yoga place and the mat and the plants behind the glass windows and the baguettes and croissants from the bakery. I was the clouds and the blue hidden behind the clouds and I was the peach in the sky and the cars and the tram passing by. There was nothing that wasn’t me, and I was lost in this rhythmic dance with the world that I forgot I was simultaneously suffering.
*
Night-time would come, as always. I was still trying to create a habit of sleeping alone. I would place one pillow in the middle of my queen-sized bed with every intention of spreading myself. But in the morning, I would always find myself on the right side, close to the windows, in a position that didn’t look like I just happened to roll there. In my sleep, I was making space for him on the empty side, leaving room for an absent body. I was clinging desperately for anything to fill the space that I started filling it with books and bags and used tissue. Something, anything. But nothing seemed to work. Separation is like death except in death, we nurse the ache knowing fully well we cannot unbury the body. In separation, the body just leaves; there is nothing to bury. I considered getting a smaller bed, but in the end, I wanted to face the ghost that seemed intent to sleep beside me.
*
A woman moaning, gasping, followed by a man’s grunt. The particular orchestra of sex. Flesh on flesh on flesh on flesh. I could tell the exact moment he put his hand over her mouth, the muffled cry and her bite on his palm. A quick flip over and now he’s on top of her. Something happens to a woman pressed down by the heavy weight of someone she wants. She becomes weightless herself, initially floating on a lagoon then sinking down to the bottom of it. She welcomes the entering, soaking wet with anticipation. Then a fullness comes over, drowns her to the core; nothing is left dry or empty. If there is a kind of heaven where you’re gagging as your lungs fill with water, then this is it. Perhaps this is why humans are obsessed with sex, as much as they are obsessed with death – they are one and the same. The thud of the headboard, the wall moving. For a second, I feared I was back in the old apartment, back at the end of the days when it had begun. But as I sat up, I saw the full moon through the window, the books on the floor, the sparse bedroom, the bed that was mine. The sounds were coming from the paramedic’s room next door. I lay back down again, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. It was so quiet it was easy to tell what was happening. He was kissing her now, his tongue inside her mouth. The rustling of hair on the pillow. Their bodies adjusting to each other. I yearned for the clumsiness of it all, the learning that transpires between two people naked before each other. My hand slowly moved down under my blanket, underneath the cotton garment covering what was between my legs. I stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing. With my eyes open and with the sound of their lips together, my fingers found the spot that weakened me, moved there slowly, slightly, gliding and gliding until I was drowning too in heaven, and crying on earth.
*
Connor asked me out on a date, but I turned it down. He’s my friend, I told him. ‘I don’t need more friends. I already have friends,’ he quipped, which surprisingly hurt. We worked together in tense silence. He was cold to me, asking me to carry the heavy boxes of liquor to the storage area or deal with the difficult customers. When someone wanted an expensive drink that was at the top of the shelf, Connor called me and pointed at the stool. ‘Use that,’ he said. I obliged and they all watched awkwardly as I placed the stool in the middle of the bar and climbed up on it to reach the bottle. I poured the guy his drink and, in turn, he put a large tip in the tin can. At closing, when I passed by Connor at the hall, I pulled his arm to a room and asked if we could talk. There was nothing to talk about, he was saying. It’s just that he couldn’t understand why I flirted with strangers all night but rejected him straight off the bat. He was kind to me, he said, he was there for me when I needed help, he gave me more hours than legally allowed, he waited for me at the tram stop when we finished late at work. He looked like a kid pacing around the room. I understood this so well, the panic, the anxious way emotions surfaced the moment something felt like slipping away. He was making his case, and I suddenly felt the urge to put my arms around him. I asked him to stand still, then approached him slowly, afraid he would bolt. Let me try this, I whispered, then tiptoed to kiss him. He was so tall, so bulky, and I imagined for a second how it would feel like to be underneath all that weight. His lips were dry, tentative against mine. I felt his hand move to my back and all the wondering stopped. I broke the kiss and gently pushed him away, shaking my head. I can’t, I said, I just can’t. I apologised. ‘Why would you fuck it up like that?’ he whispered, his fingers brushing his lips, then left the room.
*
I wanted to write a good piece about my father but someone told me I can’t call myself a writer until I am published. I desperately wanted to call myself a writer, but I had to deserve it first. So, I called my mother and asked what she could remember about Dad. ‘What does it matter what I remember?’ she said. I told her she was the wife. She told me I was the daughter. We were quiet after that. In the end, she talked about her hands, how because of her arthritis, she found it hard to wash clothes. The machine was no good, she was saying. It was still better to touch things. Feel the fabric. She swore she could feel the dirt being washed away, carried by soap water. She tended to forget these things. What things, I asked. ‘How water feels,’ she said. ‘Or dirt.’
December 19, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Gayatri Nair is an Indian-Australian writer, poet and DJ based on the land of the Wangal people of the Eora nation in Sydney’s inner west. She is a member of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement, has qualifications in Law and Arts, and is working in human rights policy, research and advocacy. She is passionate about pride in cultural identity and using art to affect change. Gayatri has been published in Sweatshop Women Volumes 1 and 2, Red Room Poetry, Mascara Literary Review, The Guardian and Swampland Magazine.
Mystics
Last night you saved my life
There was a fire in the building
and I would have slept through it
But you woke me up and we survived
Earlier that day we had seen the impossible
The unbelievable
Whales breaching out past the rocks
An island which I later looked up, called ‘Rangoon’
‘How racist’ I said, the old term for Yangon
A place I once had a visa to but had never been
And we wouldn’t have seen the whales
But for a lone woman on the beach
who told us to look
No phones no cameras,
nothing to capture it
So I’m writing it down now
You said this is where we would consummate our love
And I said ‘yuck isn’t that like about marriage,’
and ownership of a woman through making an heir
But this morning I googled consummate love
it said it was ‘the complete form of love, representing an ideal relationship which people strive towards… it is the ideal kind of relationship’
I can’t stop laughing at the way
you carried the car keys above your head
swimming with one hand raised through the estuary to the beach
Twice people stopped to ask if you were ok
And I wonder if we can ever go back there?
Like an ending in a Satyajit Ray film
But I don’t think I have a visa to that country anymore.
December 18, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Christopher Cyrill is the author of the novels The Ganges and its Tributaries and Hymns for the Drowning. He has also published numerous stories, articles and written a number of broadcasted radio plays. For many years he was the fiction editor of HEAT and the fiction editor of Giramondo Publishing. Cyrill has taught at Sydney University and Macquarie University and currently runs his own writing academy mentoring writers.
Index of First Lines
Edited by I.V.A Sumac
Achaean Minotaur, upon the shattered ledge; two men in frame |
1 |
Agamemnon insists, despite your chaplets, the graces of the gods |
25 |
All I have in the Promised Land is a plot for my bones. |
47 |
All life is shipwreck – I dis/agree |
94 |
Archipelagos. Cargoes of lighthouses. |
37 |
Aria is my brother, my sister overboard |
93 |
As for you, you meant evil against my house, my daughters |
46 |
As the astral fuse turns off the light, the gas, the water. |
15 |
Books stacked up like skylines |
41 |
Borges and I/ Achille and Achilles? |
3 |
Boys throwing shadestones in white houses |
59 |
Brass banded rum tubs – God Bless Her |
78 |
Bull leapers, labyrinths, now in the catalogue of Alexander |
34 |
But that is all migration of text- |
36 |
Capstan bar, man down, sing it in the forecastle |
82 |
Careless – careless |
23 |
Codex of fire, lost on the middle passage |
19 |
cold lies, half truths, rope bound confessions, |
88 |
Cornell shadowbox on the rock |
4 |
Daughters exiled from lonely jungles become pop stars |
57 |
Dreams she gave me; river labyrinths |
99 |
Enclosing lightning in her hands |
92 |
Eternal mother, strong to serve. |
80 |
Every passing cup negotiating Iphigenia |
86 |
Fire will still burn the black body |
16 |
Firewalkers, dawn healed, fire breathers douse the wreck. |
20 |
For twenty years I have touched with my eyes their vermilion |
7 |
Girls sweep the ashes for the boys to run to the patriarch |
17 |
God said I will take you there and I will lead you back. |
43 |
Hands held Abhaya |
31 |
Hands throwing three crowns, three anchors |
87 |
He says, Poetry should make the visible a little hard to see |
18 |
He was the third witness, the one I forgot, or never knew. |
12 |
Honey and apples |
50 |
I am combining the exhibits, sharing museums, opening space. |
27 |
I carried him out of the enflamed house |
45 |
I have come for the body of my son, I prayed |
96 |
If you want to understand that dream we need to return to Egypt. |
42 |
In an anthology of abandoned endings, |
10 |
In folksongs they sing of fi |
90 |
In the Catacombe di Priscilla the prophet is cast |
38 |
J provides the main source material, supplemented by E |
49 |
Joni Mitchell was levitating at the forum |
58 |
Lalla does not give ghee all the time |
63 |
Lear’s daughters wear wishbones in silk purses. |
48 |
Let us then offer the first conceit and process from there. |
28 |
Maria Constantinople is gathering the ruins of Mycenae |
35 |
Nelly poisoned my windflowers |
51 |
One entire phalanx fell into the crevasse |
60 |
Painters spill into the garden at dawn, to quarter the mad bear |
9 |
Pangaea and the first wreck, stones singing the ocean out |
84 |
Peisistratus, accused of revealing the mysteries |
69 |
Plunged into the literature of disaster. |
39 |
Quarks bound to the masts, electrons |
73 |
Quaternions of narrative |
74 |
Samedi at the crossroads, calling in ships of rum and dice. |
11 |
Save your liturgies for those who fall back onto the street |
13 |
Say, let’s, the carnival is the book –I-I |
29 |
She will spend her days on Argos |
26 |
-signifyin’, signifyin’ – when the |
8 |
so scuppers sailed to the 99th night |
66 |
Sophrosyne, the world never made |
71 |
Soucouyants, soca, swimp. Douens gathered on the Half Mile |
33 |
Splice the mainbrace against the dark, cruel chaos |
79 |
St. Kitts raised its palms, refused it harbour |
22 |
Stars strung on the frets of night |
85 |
Tack and sheet chanty, ‘aul away St. Joe. |
83 |
The argument of a complex number, first order logic |
89 |
The astronauts refuse re-entry; the sky is too delicious |
56 |
The Atreus façade reveals the crimes; cannibalism, adultery |
70 |
The carnival started on Knossos |
32 |
The deepest holy is her middle finger and thumb |
98 |
The doll nested on Plate 34 |
5 |
The escape route takes you to St. Nicholas. |
65 |
The fields, the herds, the sugared cane |
77 |
The main doors opened, Orestes, sword in hand, stood above |
68 |
The potstills of Massacre, barrel to bottle. |
81 |
The saffron dress becomes windbound |
72 |
The schooners sail on in bottles toward Bellesbat |
54 |
The sea is tired of the burden of sailors |
55 |
Their gazes solid as light under water |
2 |
There’s a day for the hunter, a day for the prey |
64 |
Things will all then fall into the centre. |
30 |
Three rivers suicide at the waterfall |
95 |
To the Lady of Nineveh, torch of continents |
97 |
Traveller between looms |
75 |
Traversing Liedland, without ruin. |
76 |
Two fish won’t pull a cart |
62 |
Vinegar and salt |
52 |
Voiceless mother of exiles |
91 |
Watching the panther‘s panther |
6 |
We won’t then need to look there anymore. |
31 |
When I was a child a painting of a shipwreck hung above my bed |
21 |
When Jacob became Israel he offered me this vision |
40 |
When Zeus turned the ill wind to good |
67 |
When the Marys bring wine and myrrh, fresh linen; lacunae |
14 |
Wolves chase the tiring prey across Capricorn |
53 |
Yahweh is now active in the narrative. |
44 |
Notes:
He says, Poetry should make the visible a little hard to see – This is a paraphrase of Line 21 of “The Creations of Sound” by Wallace Stevens, page 310. The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, Faber and Faber, London, 1954.
Tack and sheet chanty, ‘aul away St. Joe. – This is a partial quote from “Haul Away, St. Joe” a traditional sea shanty/chanty/forecastle song. Sourced from: https://www.whalingmuseum.org/
There’s a day for the hunter, a day for the prey – This is a quote from “A Day for the Hunter, a Day for the Prey” by Leyla McCalla Track taken from “A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey” – Leyla McCalla : May 27th 2016 on JazzVillage Music video directed by Claire Bangser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czmaR4wVqoQ
December 17, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Vyacheslav Konoval is a Ukrainian poet and resident of Kyiv. His poems have appeared in many magazines, including Anarchy Anthology Archive, International Poetry Anthology, Literary Waves Publishing, Sparks of Kaliopa, Reach of the Song 2022, Diogenes for Culture Journal, Scars of my heart from the war, Poetry for Ukraine, Norwich University research center, Impakter, The Lit, Allegro, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Fulcrum, Adirondack Center for Writing, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Revista Literaria Taller Igitur, Tarot Poetry Journal, Tiny Seed Literature Journal, Best American Poetry Blog, Appalachian Journal Dark Horse. Vyacheslav’s poems were translated into Spanish, French, Scottish, and Polish languages.
Cold drops of rain
Descending from the roof
the melting handfuls of snow.
Moaning and humming
echoes outside the window
the wind plays with the lonely poplar,
bends thin branches.
In the darkness of the apartment
confusion creeps
how is the Bakhmut city
my frontline friend?
Year of Darkness
A snowflake pinches the cheek,
the frost bites jokingly,
the fog is sliding on the ice.
As thunder tears apart a rocket supply,
the heart in pain, strangulation of the throat,
oh, that black fog covered the country.
There are thousands, tens of thousands of them.
Maybe hundreds of thousands
of worldly souls that flew to heaven,
from the sooty piles of smoke from the huts of towns and villages.
God, why such a punishment?
December 15, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Lesh Karan is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer and poet. Her work has been published in Best of Australian Poems 2022, Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Island, Mascara Literary Review and Rabbit, amongst others. Lesh is currently completing a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing at the University of Melbourne. She’s of Fiji Indian heritage.
The Floor
She took off her earth-caked shoes
and put them on the floor. On the floor,
she stacked her old notebooks and red pens
drained of ink. She placed her sweat-drenched
leggings on the floor. On the floor, her heart
still racing, too. She piled the organic produce
from farmers’ markets on the floor, alongside
the key holes, acupuncture and Advil. A stone
statue of Lord Ganesha she placed on the floor.
On the floor, his wordlessness, too. The mango
tree from her childhood home, she gently lay
on the floor and saw an orange dove
flutter off. Friends she let go, the friend who
let her go, all on the floor. The ill-fitting careers
she stacked like witches hats in the furthest corner on the floor.
She took her mirror off the wall and set it
flat on the floor, looked at herself
from the ground up. The dream home
she dismantled and stacked on the floor,
next to all the how-to manuals she had bought.
The question she couldn’t answer, she tore
and scattered like seeds on the floor. When
the floor cracks, she putties it
with moonlight, Fleetwood Mac,
fresh Moleskines—
and continues stacking.
December 15, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Morgaine Riley is a writer and English tutor from Peramangk Country (the Adelaide Hills). In 2021, she was awarded the Peter Davies Memorial Prize for Creative Writing. She has recently completed an Honours in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide.
Selene
Meg
2022
The drive to Hardwicke is filled with corn chips and ABBA’s complete discography, with sleeping bags and pillows overflowing into the backseat and making it impossible to see out the rear window. On the first day, the weather is horrible—drizzly and gusty, banging the flyscreen doors and dragging green plastic deck chairs across the veranda.
We sit on the carpet of the beach shack, poring over a photo album from Tony’s Year Eleven exchange to Japan. Jenny gave it to Selene after the twenty-year anniversary. Tony is younger in these photos, only sixteen or seventeen, and it shows in his face and hair. One photo stands out. In it, Tony is wearing light blue jeans and a white t-shirt, standing with his weight on his right leg. His hair is blonde and floppy, like Leonardo DiCaprio, and his smile tilts up to the left. He looks at ease, confident, and very familiar.
Maybe it’s an aura—the way they hold themselves. Self-assured, always in action, with matching cheeky smirks—a forced moment of pause for a camera that will be abandoned quickly.
*
Something Eddy said about that day at Bullies jolted my recognition. “He got completely washed up, but he came in with this massive grin on his face.” A genuine love of trying, not just succeeding. Something the boys admired about Tony, and I treasure in Selene. I love Selene the way these boys loved Tony, and we mourn for how they could have loved each other.
*
The Keys
Meg
29th May 2022. Hardwicke Bay
On the anniversary of the day Tony disappeared, we walk along the esplanade to the beach. Nearly every second house has a tractor parked out front, old Ferguson types with big back wheels and rounded corners in pale blues and reds with rust bleeding through; or newer, John Deere green and yellow with encased cabs. To tow the boats out, Selene tells us. More heavy duty than your average four-wheel-drive. Fantastic off-roaders.
We follow the tractor treads in the sand right down to the water line. Lazy and a little hungover, we trail along the beach, jeans rolled up to wander through the low tide and out onto the reef. We squat over shallow rockpools, pulling up crabs for inspection before returning them to their rocky alcoves in a flurry of sand. Pipi casings lie open, pale purple, sometimes pinkish inside, the discards of bait left behind by beach fishermen or washed ashore from their boats.
We’ve been walking for two hours when we realise we’re hungry and halfway to Point Turton. Distracted, laughing about a boy Amber is “talking to”, we track back on wetter, harder sand, less dawdling this time. The tide has already taken most of our footprints.
Only when we are back at the house, and Kali tries to open the doors, do we realise what we don’t have. The keys.
“Are they inside?”
“No, I’m sure I took them,”
“The glove box, maybe?”
Selene pats the pouch pocket of her jumper in horror. “They were in here. They must have fallen out.”
“Tony’s rock?” We all realise at the same time. We’d been bending to place flowers there, that must’ve shaken them out.
Selene and I look at each other.
“We have to check.”
A plan is set out. Selene and I will go and check the carpark, where the keys will definitely be, the others will try and get in through a window and see if any locksmiths are working on a Saturday in the middle of nowhere. No need to panic.
The keys are not at Tony’s rock. It’s obvious almost immediately—there’s only gravel and sparse status flowers for them to hide in.
“Ok, ok, let’s think. Where else would you have been bending down?”
Selene grimaces as we look out over the beach. “Pretty much every rock pool,” she sighs.
“Alright.” I don’t let her see how panicked I am. “Let’s go and look there, then.” I grin, “How hard can it be?”
Mirroring the same stupid hope that I feel, Selene grins back. “Right? Not hard.”
Retracing our steps is tricky, because the tide has come right in, swallowing all of our footprints. Selene scans the deeper, looser sand and I give up on keeping my jeans dry, scouring the shallows for any glinting silver. We’ve been staring at our feet for forty minutes when I stumble across the edge of a rockpool.
“I think we should head back,” Selene yells over the wind. She laughs when she sees me picking my way out to the reef. We must both be mad.
I stop and turn around to yell back, “One sec!”
We stand there, a hundred metres apart, Selene with her hands on her head and me up to my thighs in sea water. Simultaneously, we keel over laughing. Then something catches my eye.
“SELENE OHMYFUCKINGGOD OHMYGODOHMYGOD!”
I fish them off the of the slimy rock and half-sprint half-jump back over the reef towards Selene. I shake my fist, keys clenched tight above my head as we shriek and jump and hug in disbelief.
“That’s gotta be him, right? What are the chances?”
*
December 3, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Nilofar Zimmerman is a writer and lawyer living in Sydney. She is currently undertaking a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Sydney and was the runner-up in the 2022 Deborah Cass Prize for Writing.
Kaa
Girl dangled her legs over the back of the truck and swung them playfully while she watched Papa and Brother. The first thwacks of the machetes were jarring. Thwack. The stem. Thwack. The leaves. Thwack. The cane trimmed for transportation. But their rhythms quickly became melodic, like an ode to the rains that had come down enough and the sun that had taken over in time.
Half-way through the first row, Papa left Brother and walked further into the field to inspect the crops, disappearing beneath a canopy of green. Girl slid down from the back of the truck, her bare feet landing gently on the dirt. As she moved towards the maze of sugarcane, Brother stopped and watched her.
The thwacks were muffled as she ran deeper into the field among the rows of brown stalks and green leaves, which brushed her body as she weaved through the narrow spaces between the rows. She was Mowgli now. She crouched down into a gap where the stems of two plants had bowed towards each other to form a small hollow. It was the perfect den for a wolf-child. Baloo came to visit in the den and the bear told her stories about the law of the jungle as she paced along the soil on her hands and knees, practising her hunting skills. Don’t fight with the lords of the jungle, he told her. Bears, tigers, panthers – they must all be respected, just like the pack. Do you remember the pack, Mowgli?
As she pulled aside a stalk of sugarcane searching for prey she nodded and repeated to herself, the strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf. She pretended Rikki Tikki Tavi, the mongoose, was hiding behind the stalks and pounced over and over again, practising her surprise attack. A faint thwacking began pulsating towards her and she crouched on her legs with her back straight and her head up, still and listening like a wolf alone in the darkness. The thwacking slowly became louder as the field fell in line with the season. Run, Mowgli, Run, she thought. Shere Khan is coming.
When the light waned, Papa called for Brother to put his tools down and store them in the trailer of the truck. Girl sat in the cabin of the truck wedged between Papa and Brother. The air inside was thick with sweat and exhaustion and their wet bodies jolted against one another as they drove along the dirt road running down the middle of the sugarcane fields for the three-minute journey to the house. The dirt road led to a two-bedroom house made of light blue weatherboard with a corrugated silver tin roof, which was fenced in by the fields on each side and dusted with dirt blown up from the ground.
As she walked into the house, Girl was hit by the sweet smell of the tropics mixed in with the warm air that filled the living room. The fruit bowl on the counter of the adjacent kitchen was overflowing with pineapples, mangoes and a bag of apples from yesterday’s trip to the market. She picked up an empty pitcher from a dining table with a white tablecloth and a clear plastic covering on top and took the pitcher to the sink to fill it with water. She began carefully measuring out spoons of Tang and mixed the orange crystals into the water, tapping the rim of the spoon three times on the rim of the pitcher when the drink was ready, just like Mama used to.
Brother shouted for his drink as he lay sprawled on the green linoleum floor in front of the television with his back against the foot of the sofa. Papa sat in his armchair under the gentle whipping of the ceiling fan, sorting through mail. Girl climbed onto her step stool, slowly pouring the orange drink into two glasses and adding three ice cubes to each. ‘Here’s a cold drink, Papa,’ she said, using both hands to pass him the glass.
His face broke into a smile. ‘What would I do without you, sweet pea?’
Brother stared at her as she handed him the second glass. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said, his eyes red and impenetrable. Kaa, thought Girl, as she returned to the kitchen to put on a pot of beans. No. The snake is Mowgli’s friend.
She picked up an apple and began methodically dicing it for Brother, just like Mama had taught her. As she went to hand Brother the apple, she stopped to watch the laughter coming from the television screen and couldn’t help smiling along with the laugh track as the family on the screen gesticulated with frustration at one another. As soon as Girl placed the apple in front of Brother, he began scooping handfuls from the bowl, his eyes always on the screen. Brother began to cough and Papa let out a chuckle as he leant down to tap Brother’s back. ‘Go easy, boy,’ he said. ‘The market isn’t running out of apples.’ Brother smirked and continued staring ahead, putting another large handful in his mouth.
Papa beckoned Girl. ‘You have a package from Cousin Sister’. She clasped the brown envelope with both hands, brushing her fingers over the top right corner, which was filled with stamps bearing the Statue of Liberty. Cousin Sister was Mama’s favourite niece. She was a manager of Wendy’s now in San Francisco, Mama had told Papa proudly. She had 20 employees working under her, Girl remembered Mama saying with a smile so wide, Girl could almost see Mama’s back molars. Had left that man, Mama told Papa. He punched her and she punched back. Found a place in a shelter and never went back to him. America was really something, wasn’t it? Girl remembered the way Mama and Papa nodded their heads in agreement. America really was something.
Girl tore open the package and jumped with delight. ‘Another Babysitter’s Club book, my fourth one. It’s Mary-Anne Saves the Day,’ she said to no one in particular, waving the book in front of her. She opened the first page and sounded out the unfamiliar words, just like Mama had taught her. As she walked back towards the stove, she pictured herself walking through the tree-lined streets of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, through the front door of a weatherboard house and up the stairs to Claudia’s bedroom for the club meeting. Where have you been, Girl? They would say. Come and join us.
Girl looked out the kitchen window as she dried the last dish but outside everything had merged into darkness. She hung up the tea towel for the morning and went to get ready for bed, washing away the day under a cool shower before haphazardly drying herself and wrapping the towel around her body, eager to read her new book. She darted across the hallway into the bedroom and straight to the dresser sitting between her bed and Brother’s bed. She straightened Mama’s photograph of Princess Diana, which was hanging askew above the dresser and pulled out her clothes from the top drawer. As she slipped on her underwear, she remembered Mama’s old atlas on the bookshelf. She pulled it off the shelf and crouched over it. She flicked through the index looking for ‘S’ and ran her finger down the page but she couldn’t find Stoneybrook, Connecticut anywhere. She found Stamford, which was close enough. The babysitters sometimes went there. It was real. She found the map and was tracing the east coast of America with her finger when she felt movement near the door. She looked up to see Brother standing at the bedroom doorway, staring at her, his eyes darting with curiosity across her naked torso. She quickly picked up her nightie from the floor next to her, pulled it on and went to push past him. He put out a long arm and blocked the doorway. She returned his stare. He relented and she ran over to Papa, who was reading in his armchair.
‘What is it?’ Papa asked.
Girl looked over at Brother, who was walking over to the television. Remember the law, Mowgli. The wolf that follows it will prosper. Keep peace with the lords of the jungle.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
Throughout the market, dotted with plastic tables topped with crates of fruit and vegetables, stall holders sat on folding chairs playing cards or throwing around lethargic banter under the sun. Girl hopped and skipped over the dry dirt, breaking the market’s docile rhythm as she followed Papa to the truck for the hour-long drive from town back home. She held a large piece of taro like a rugby ball and pretended to toss it to Papa. He laughed as he loaded the truck and handed Girl a bag of apples to hold in her lap
‘We wouldn’t want these to get bruised,’ he said to Girl as he climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Brother has been working very hard.’
Girl fiddled with the dial on the radio with one hand while carefully holding the bag in her other hand as they jostled down the dirt road, following the island’s curve along the coast. The radio crackled as she turned the dial and once she landed on the right song, she nestled back into her seat. Roam if you want to, the B-52s sang to her from across the ocean. Roam around the world. Roam if you want to. Without wings, without wheels. She gazed out the open window at the Pacific Ocean stretching endlessly to their left, her bare arms peeling away from the warm leather seat like sticky tape as she sat up to get a better look.
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘How long would it take to get to America?’.
‘It would take many hours, my darling.’
‘Would I need to take an aeroplane, Papa?’
‘Yes, you would. A large plane. It would cost a lot of money.’
‘Papa, I want to earn money to buy a plane ticket and live in America. I’ll work in a restaurant and have a big American house, just like the Babysitter’s Club.’
Papa chuckled. ‘What about your Papa, my darling? If you lived in America, who would look after me?’
Girl smiled at Papa, then looked out across the windscreen at the ocean to the left and field after field of sugarcane on the right. ‘Of course, Papa. Don’t worry, I’ll always look after you.’
They arrived at the house as the light was starting to fade and Brother was pulling up on his bicycle. Girl put the bag of apples on the seat and slid from the truck before carefully lifting the bag out with both hands. She walked over to the front door watching over her shoulder as Papa patted Brother on the back.
‘You’re doing a fine job, boy,’ Papa said. ‘I think we’ll get a good price for the harvest this year. In a few weeks, we’ll be ready to the take the first batch to the mill.’
Girl walked straight to the kitchen counter, taking an apple from the bag and washing it. As she slowly diced the apple for Brother, she remembered Mama’s gentle encouragement. A little smaller, a little smaller, Mama would say to Girl, showing her how to cut the apple.
Girl sat in her nightie on a bundle of cane under the moonlight, watching Papa tie down the stacks of cane piled high onto a large trailer attached to the truck.
‘Can I have a go, Papa?’
‘I’m sorry, my darling, I need to make these very tight. Otherwise, I’ll be dropping parcels of cane all the way along the coast.’
‘Why can’t I come with you, Papa?’ Girl said. The bundle of cane she was sitting on jiggled slightly as she fidgeted one leg.
‘Who will look after Brother while he carries on with the cutting? That is your important job for the harvest and I know you will do it well. Now it’s time for bed for all of us. I’ll be leaving at first light, but I should be back at night.’
Girl woke up several hours later and looked across the dark room. Slap. Slap. Slap. The sound was faint but certain. She could just see Brother’s eyes fixed on her from his bed, his hand moving up and down under the covers. Her heart was beating quickly and forcefully.
Kaa.
Kaa is watching.
Kaa is waiting.
She took a deep breath before getting out of bed and walking softly across the hallway to Papa’s room. She lay down in bed next to him and closed her eyes.
Remember, Mowgli, remember. If you fight with one of the pack, you must fight him alone and afar. Lest the pack be brought into the quarrel. Lest the pack be brought into war.
With Papa gone at sunrise, Girl spent the morning at the house doing her jobs. Papa will be so pleased, she thought, as she wiped the dirt from the outside of the doors and windows. She imagined she was Pippi Longstocking getting Villa Villekulla ready for her sea captain father who was coming home from an expedition. As she pulled towels down from the clothesline, she put her face to them and breathed deeply. They smelled like Mama to her. A mixture of detergent and the crisp cleanliness that only came from a day of baking in the hot sun.
At lunchtime, Girl packed a shopping bag with a thermos of Tang and a plastic container of fried cassava, rice and beans and walked down to the field nearest to the house, which hadn’t been cut yet, squinting into the distance to look for Brother among the sea of green. She took a deep breath and walked further down the dirt road along the edge of the field, holding the bag with one hand and brushing the leaves of the sugarcane with her other hand. As she wiggled her fingers in the empty space between one of the rows, a hand lunged forward and grabbed her wrist tightly, pushing her against the crops. ‘You’re late,’ Brother said, glaring at Girl, his face and chest centimetres from her own, the beads of sweat on his forehead hovering over Girl like they were daring her to move. She dropped the bag onto the soil and as Brother released his grip, she clutched her wrist and ran deeper into the field, weaving between the rows of sugarcane and looking for a path through the jungle.
*
Brother came in after the day of felling, slumping down at the dining table and turning on the television. His shirt was wet; the day’s heat had defeated him. On cue, Girl began cutting his apple. A little bigger, she thought, a little bigger. She put the bowl of apple in front of Brother and turned towards the sink to prepare the pitcher of Tang. Measure the powder carefully. Mix it into the water, just like Mama said to. Then a hard thumping interrupted her evening ritual.
She turned around to see Brother holding his throat with one hand and banging the other on the dining table. She dropped her spoon and stumbled backwards in surprise, catching herself against the counter. Kaa was gasping for air. His steely eyes demanded attention. Help me. Mowgli, you must help me.
Girl stood immobilised. She began to move forward but hesitated and turned back to the pitcher, closing her eyes.
Drink deeply but never too deep, Kaa. That is the way of the jungle. Mowgli watched as Kaa struggled for breath until finally, the snake fell to the jungle floor with a thud, its gaze fixed towards some distant place.
Girl opened her eyes and turned towards the dining table, swiping the tears off her face with both hands. Then she reached into a cupboard and picked up a packet of rice. Papa will be hungry.
December 3, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
T.L writes fiction, short fiction, poetry, and reviews. Her work has been published in Mascara, Cordite, Southerly, Best Australian Poems 2014, and Griffith Review, among others. In 2016 she won the Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature. Her second novel, Autumn Leaves, 1922, was released in August 2021 by Pegasus Books USA. She has a Doctorate of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University. She lives on Bidjigal land in Sydney.
Butterfly
A butterfly battles across Parramatta Road. It’s big and black, with white eyes on its wingtips. Even so, the wind in this storm-season is strong and each car and truck that rumbles beneath it sends fresh blasts to blow it off course. It tries to reach the other side of the highway, but it keeps falling, struggling up and then falling on to the road and almost smashed. Then it rises again, against the wind, against the traffic’s displaced air. I wait in my car and the radio blasts, a doctor from the children’s hospital in Kyiv, the broadcaster prompts him, the boy was six, he had bullet wounds, yes, in his chest, his abdomen, his head. The trucks are constant, the cars, the noise incessant. It’s not gridlock and the heavy vehicles, dirty after all the rain, barrel down the hill. The radio continues, the doctor’s words are scattergun, the baby had wounds. Yes. Shot wounds. Yes, the baby was shot in the head. They shot the ambulance. The Russian soldiers, yes. The ambulance called me. On the way to the hospital. The baby died. The butterfly crosses at the lights, where I wait, trying to get home before the next onslaught of flooding storm. The butterfly pushes itself up and up, black wings in a grey sky, up and up. The radio drones on, another city, another basement, I’m in Mariupol, still, I can’t get out. I saw them, my neighbours. They are on the road now, a mother and her boy and her girl. Before they were on the road, they went up, higher than the roof of the church, it seemed impossible, they went up and up, they were flying. Up and up, black wings in a grey sky, up and over the truck, over the next truck, it dips and is almost smashed, then it rises, it reaches the other side of the highway and the trees that stand staunch against the heavy, threatening sky.
November 29, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Min Chow is an emerging Malaysian-Australian writer and second runner up for the Deborah Cass Prize in 2022. She works, lives and writes on Wurundjeri land. Her work has also appeared in the Life in the Time of Corona anthology and Peril magazine. She is working on her first novel.
Melonshine
Papa announced that I would start riding to school with Preeti.
Her, with the sticky eyes.
We had both been in the same class since the start of the year but we had never spoken. I could only remember her going blink blink blink in the corner and her sudden burst of cackles among the group who needed extra help in Matematik.
The battered white Proton Saga pulled up when it was still dark outside. Uncle Balan waved, “Good morning!”
Preeti sat in the front with the window rolled down, munching plain cream crackers from a plastic container.
She sang out, “Haiiiii, Lim Bee Hoon!”
“It’s Samantha,” I replied flatly, watching the wet biscuit paste tumble inside her mouth from one cavity to another.
Preeti blinked. “Sam-what?
“Sa-MAN-tha. My name is Samantha.”
We picked up four other people, all piling in the back sleepily, squeezing and trying to shrink ourselves to fit. The smell of starched uniforms and morning breaths filled the car, along with Uncle Balan’s hair oil and Preeti’s cream crackers.
A girl from a year below was practically sitting on top of me. I felt my warm Milo breakfast swish and swirl dangerously in my stomach. I focused on staring at the younger girl’s left hand clutching her water bottle, a curious map of knots and untidy sewing stitches that started from the base of her thumb down to her forearm.
The journey would take nearly an hour, on dusty roads past tall towers exhaling one long, continuous sigh after another into the sky the colour of the muddy drain that ran behind our house. The Proton sped past endless patches of disemboweled red earth, raw and seething as heavy machines and their claws continued their assault, thud-thud-thud.
Papa liked to use the word ‘development’ when we got to this stretch, back when he drove me to school. He said the trees were making way for important, well-known companies from the USA to give local people jobs. Even to those from the plantation, like Uncle Balan. They were friends, helping us out and we needed a lot of help. Bright foreign names appeared on these big towers that were built in what seemed like weeks. I recognised only Mattel from the boxes of my old Lego sets and Barbie dolls.
My favourite part was when we drove past the airfield where the Australian fighter jets were parked, gleaming under the smoked, watery sun. The air force station had been there for many years. Long before I was born, long before Papa arrived. He said the Australians too were friends, like the USA. They came to help us fight off the bad guys as they had more power, more weapons, more everything.
I saw these Australians sometimes at Berkat, the first department store with air-con that opened just a few months ago. They’re just stopping by, Mama absently said to no one in particular. The airforce families lived over on the island, near the beach, where their children went to a special school. I imagined 10-year olds like me with names like Debbie, Luke, Glenn.
Once past the airfield, the Proton finally pulled up in front of the school foyer just as the bell went. We tumbled out of the car, dizzy from the heat and Uncle Balan’s sharp lane changes in shift change traffic. I wiped sweat off my upper lip with the sleeve of my white shirt and caught a whiff of hair oil.
*
“Mama,” I said as I set the plates on the table. My father ate at the factory canteen most nights of the week.
“Can I please not go in Uncle Balan’s car anymore?”
“I can take the school bus, like Suzy and Tina. It’s very safe.”
Mama didn’t say anything. A moment later, she came over and placed a hand on my cheek. It was warm and damp, and it said, be a good girl please.
Being a good girl was the easiest on Sunday, my favourite day. When Papa wasn’t too tired, he took us in his treasured second-hand Nissan on the ferry across to the island. The island was where we belonged, our future forever home. We were leaving the mainland behind and moving over in a year. Papa said the same thing last year but there had been a delay with his promotion to ‘corporate’. But it was going to happen. One hundred per cent. He would be the first local man in the factory to go this far.
There was always smiling and chatting on Sundays spent on the island. Nothing would upset Papa, Mama’s eyes danced and her shoulders dropped.
We ate in Western restaurants with air-con, their windows drawn tightly shut so it was dark even during the day. There was a tealight candle and a vase with a single plastic flower on every table. Papa ordered Fish and Chips, Minute Steak and Spaghetti Bolognese without fail. I preferred chicken rice, but I would pick at the chips and say things like “This is so delicious!” and “I could eat this every day!”.
After that, we visited the supermarket that stocked imported products, where many airforce families shopped for jars of Vegemite and chocolate shaped like frogs. Mama bought a packet of Tim Tams once as a treat for Chinese New Year and stored most of them in the fridge for over a year before they had to be thrown out. Mostly, we drove around the airforce neighbourhood near the beach looking at houses. I pointed out luxurious features, real or imagined, lying within the lacquered gates.
“That one has a balcony! Maybe even a pool!”
“Next year,” Papa said in his jolly Sunday voice, one resolute finger in the air, “we’ll have something grander.”
*
One morning, Preeti held a small black tube as I climbed into the car.
She caught me staring and said, “I’m keeping it for Amma. See? She says the colour is bright and lovely. Like me.”
Preeti’s Amma worked for an airforce family on the island and came home once a month. She cooked and cleaned for them and called the adults Sir and Mum. Mum had given her the lipstick for Christmas, even though Preeti’s Amma was Hindu.
Preeti uncapped the tube revealing the crayon with a flat top and sniffed greedily. She handed it to me, gesturing for me to smell it. I turned the lipstick tube over in my hands. Melonshine, it said on the little shiny sticker at the bottom.
The tube turned up everywhere with Preeti. She showed it to everyone in class, fiddled with it even when we were meant to stand still at Assembly. Uncle Balan had spoken to Cikgu asking special permission to allow it.
I started rolling my eyes and soon Suzy joined me. It wasn’t as if Preeti could do anything with it. Make-up was forbidden, except when we got to perform at the year-end concert. Girls like Preeti didn’t get picked for that.
Preeti trotted behind me as we were heading out to recess. Suzy and Tina raised their eyebrows at each other.
“Lim Bee Hoon! What are we playing today?”
“My name is Samantha,” I hissed.
“Cikgu doesn’t call you that. Your name is Lim Bee Hoon-lah.”
“My friends call me Samantha.”
“OK. But I’m not calling you your fake name.”
She parked herself on the grass near the edge of our circle without taking care to cross her legs. We could see her underwear and I made a show of screwing up my face and pinching my nose, making Suzy and Tina giggle.
*
“There are too many of us in the car. It stinks and I can’t breathe the whole way.”
“The windows aren’t even automatic!”
“She’s a bit dumb in class too. She doesn’t even know what’s eight times nine. Eight times nine!”
I went blink blink blink, by then an impression that I repeated almost every day. Unlike Suzy and Tina and my other classmates, Mama didn’t laugh and said enough.
I was still moody on Sunday when we left to see the new bridge. The Nissan joined the massive queue of mainland families eager to cross what they were calling one of the longest bridges in the world. A real global treasure, right here at our doorstep. Papa usually preferred silence in the car until we got to the island, but he popped in a Michael Jackson tape and drummed his fingers to the beat on the steering wheel. He could have waited in line the whole day.
Two hours later, we reached the gate and paid the toll. As the window rolled up and we passed into the transit area, I felt something shift in the car. Mama cleared her throat and glanced at Papa. He smiled at her and changed gears purposefully, climbing the freshly painted tar as Michael sang why why tell ‘em that it’s human nature for the third time. It was so new and modern, not one pothole in sight we could have been part of a blown-up Lego set Mattel from USA made right there on the mainland.
Soon, we were on the bridge, cruising above the water. My stomach fluttered like on the rides at the pesta, only this was much better. We were practically flying across the strait! The tiny stubborn strip on the map that had kept us apart from the island, now linked and forever changed. As the crest of the bridge appeared before us, the sea too had transformed, from the colour of mucus to a sparkling turquoise.
Papa’s mouth hung slightly open the entire time. Mama kept looking over at him and back at me, her pale hand on her throat while she swallowed several times. At the top, dwarfed between the towers that reached into the sky in the bluest shade of blue, the Nissan sputtered twice, as if in awe. The journey was over in less than ten minutes. It was the fastest crossing to the island we ever made but it felt like we had gone much, much further.
*
Suzy and I were trying a new game. We sat on the ground under the cool, deserted Blok D stairs, with our pinafore skirts pushed up. We were taking turns running our fingers down each other’s lap. The first to give in to the tickle and laugh would be the loser.
It was funny at first. Suzy’s fat fingers tiptoed up and down my lap, tripping over themselves and it was hard not to giggle. When her turn came to sit still, I pretended to play the piano on her lap, with extra sound effects. We had just gone twice when Preeti appeared and plopped down next to us without asking.
She studied us for a little while before putting her lipstick tube down and cracked her fingers until a few of them popped. With a tongue out in concentration, she raised her right fourth finger and hovered it above my lap. She looked at me briefly and when I didn’t say anything, she placed the finger on me. So gentle was the landing that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been looking. I froze as her finger started trailing upwards, light as an insect. It carefully carried on north to the middle of my lap before it gained speed and slid towards the edge of my underwear.
Suzy too had stopped moving, her eyes wide and glittering in the dimness. Preeti’s breathing was the only sound we could hear. The same softness now descended, silky tips of a make-up brush skimming downwards over tiny bumps that had sprung up on my skin. I felt hot and cold all over, a fever almost, like the kind I got sometimes with the shower head. The kind you didn’t want to stop.
Suzy jumped back suddenly with a yelp. A thin puddle had crept slowly to the edge of her shoe. I stood up, thigh still tingling and stared down in shock as a stain bloomed across my pinafore skirt and fluid pooled in my white ankle socks. I felt the wetness, just as the sharp, sweet tang of acid hit my nostrils.
Preeti’s finger was still suspended in mid-air when I turned to look at her. In the near-darkness, I just about made out her eyes. Blink blink blinking the terror away.
—
Papa heard from Uncle Balan at work and didn’t miss a beat when he got home. When he was done, he pushed me into the storeroom and latched it shut from the outside. I couldn’t reach the lights, even when I climbed on top of the stack of old newspapers. I sat sobbing, fighting off the hug from the darkness around me, the black creatures emerging.
—-
“Inside or outside today?”
I smiled brightly, “Let’s play inside today.”
It was Preeti’s turn, and she went looking under the desks and behind the cupboard. Anyone else could see there was no one hiding in those places. I waited in the wings, alert and ready.
Uncle Balan arrived late that day to pick us up, after everyone else had gone. He seemed distracted and deep in thought, so I guessed he was no longer upset. The girl with the stitched hands was jerking about next to me, confused if she was meant to sit back or lean forward. I pushed her back and a fold in my skirt fell to one side, exposing the back of my leg. She gasped.
“You should cover those hands up with gloves,” I snapped at her.
Nobody said anything in the car for a long time. When the car came to stop at the lights, Uncle Balan pulled up the handbrake and twisted fully in his seat to stare at me. I could see he was mad, perhaps even madder than Papa had been the other night. I turned away, my heart beating so loudly I could hear it over the motor engines around us. A kapchai throbbed next to us, carrying a younger boy sandwiched between his father and mother, an Ultraman bag from Berkat over her shoulders.
Alone in my room, I retrieved from my bag the prize I claimed at recess. I uncapped Melonshine and dabbed the glossy red on the back of my palm. It turned brown on my skin like rotten fruit, and I kept pressing the flat top of the stick into it to make the colour shine red again. I decided I would keep it for a day or two, just long enough for Preeti to miss it. In case her Amma returned and asked for it.
Preeti didn’t turn up the next day, or the one after that. One week passed and Mama told me that they were putting me on the school bus because Uncle Balan couldn’t drive me anymore. I shrugged and carried on with my homework.
When no one was looking, I let myself into the storeroom and locked the door behind me. I twisted the tube open with my fingers and felt the blackness breathe unhappily on the back of my neck, down my bare arms and my thighs, like Preeti’s fourth finger. I brought the tube close to my nose. I smelled the sugary wax and pressed the stick to my mouth, imagining the places the colour had touched.
November 23, 2022 / mascara / 0 Comments
Peter Ramm is a poet and teacher who writes on the Gundungurra lands of the NSW Southern Highlands. His debut poetry collection Waterlines is out now with Vagabond Press. In 2022 he won the prestigious Manchester Poetry Prize. His poems have also won the Harri Jones Memorial Award, The South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award, The Red Room Poetry Object, and have been shortlisted in the Bridport, ACU, Blake, and the Newcastle Poetry Prizes. His work has appeared in Westerly, Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, The Rialto, Eureka Street, and more.
The Sedulity of Soldier Crabs
Red, red is the sun,
Heartlessly indifferent to time,
The wind knows, however,
The promise of early chill.
—Matsuo Bashō
It’s Boxing Day and the sun climbs a lattice work of cirrus clouds, dripping like treacle in the early afternoon. The sandflats are rinsed with the voices of a hundred children and the air teems with the smell of last week’s storm washing through the estuary after its journey down the Woodstock and Stoney Creeks. The inlet runs emerald green and blue in the deep places and three channel markers meander their way towards the point like a set of mis-thrown darts.
Whiting like razors
In the water; each one cuts
A new memory.
II.
This is Yuin country, and it remembers a time before its wealth was burnt in the lime pit at Dolphin Point and hauled by the Burrill Lake Timber company to Sydney; its cedar, iron bark and mahogany forests floated out to sea. A plaque on the Princess Highway recounts how the rock shelter on the lake’s edge makes children of the pyramids and the language the king used to claim the geology of the place—the basalt and siltstone forty million years in the making.
Fourteen cormorants
Take wing; time written cursive
In pages of sea grass.
III
Now, my son’s fingers are little clumps of sand in mine and we run ankle deep across the bar—legs lurching like the loose brush strokes of an infant artist. The pools and pockets of water gleam like the scaled side of a great bream for hundreds of yards before us. He says I’m a sea monster; a shark, an octopus, a crab or whatever he wants me to play. All he knows is the next footfall, and more often, the fall of laughter and salt and the cast net of his father’s arms.
Onshore, paddle boards
Consume the car park, staking
Out their own claim.
IV
I grasp at his arm before he lands on the blue back of a lone soldier crab—an ancient of days, his bone-striped legs the first to walk this water. Sitting. Still. Sifting the sand against the budding toes of my boy. There’s music in the dactyls of his claws, in the iambs of his movement, in the breath of my toddler. Together, they share the notes of time, a semibreve on the boy’s lips—a pause, a new sonata strung in his mind. But he wants to squish it
—Feel the crush of bone
And shell in the webs of feet.
There’s so much to learn.
V
The wind winds us up, it blows purple on our skin and black on the faces of a pair of pied oystercatchers, who pry the sand for the living, weighing the hour like Anubis, with beak and feather. Still, the crab remains. Long after we’ve passed. Out there—a relic of the tides, the small cadences of the cosmos marked in the milky way of its shell. We finish by skimming on the board, the boy riding it like a comet over the water, and I, collapsing Phaethon, at the reins.
Coolness in the shade
Of the wind. Always, the end
Begs quiet and time.