#acting

Chapter One — Untitled

Hans Endersans was not a happy man. He’d been to one too many “bored” meetings, as he called them, and each and every restaurant manager felt exactly the damn same to him. They were pretty, pretentious people, made to carry a tray of Cognac, or a semi-inexpensive bottle of wine, made to greet people at the door with a smile and a slight bow, made to pick on the harried, sweating kitchen hands and argue with the greatly feared chefs of the seven restaurants Hans now owned.

Not a one of them seemed to have the brain capacity for new ideas.

Apparently, thought Hans, this is my fault for not “allowing” them to sprout their rubbish into my ears for hours on end, or listen to their thoughts on a new type of whipped garlic butter, or allow them to be ashamed when I’ve told them it’s all been done before, but ….

‘Sure,’ he said loudly to the severely gelled woman at the other end of the table. ‘Whatever you think.’

She smiled and picked at the tablecloth in front of her with fingernails Hans would never have allowed in a commercial kitchen. ‘I’d like the thoughts of my fellow managers if you don’t mind, Hans.’

The other managers, who knew Hans far better than she did, held their breaths and leaned back, or held their breaths and slumped down, or held their breaths and …. He glanced at the man closest to him. It did kinda look like he was trying to dig a hole into the carpet with one patented shoe. Hans frowned, and tried not to let his baser instincts get the better of him.

There are no bones under the table. There are no bones under the table. The scowl deepened and he rolled his shoulders, trying not to glare at the ridiculous woman with the gelled back hair.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he asked politely.

‘I said,’ said the woman, not completely understanding everyone else’s reaction. ‘That I would like the opinions of my –‘

There came a chorous of positive responses arounfd the table.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Oh yes, what a wonderful thought.’

‘I am in complete agreement.’

‘Never would have come up with that one myself,’ said one participant, who nearly swallowed his own tongue after Hans shot a glance at him. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Too much?’

Hans tried not to grin. It had been a sarcastic comment, but he should not have found it amusing. He cleared his throat.

‘There we have it,’ he said, waving a hand in the air. ‘Are we done yet? I’m hungry. How about you bring one of your whipped garlic butter whatsits in and we’ll destroy it with some lovely crunchy bread rolls, and then you can all go back to what you should actually be doing and take the fucking day off because it’s Monday.’

‘What does Monday have to do with, well, anything?. The soon-to-be-fired restaurant manager asked from botox injected lips.

Hans raised an eyebrow. ‘How long did you say you’d worked in Hospitality,’ he asked. Did he really need to go back and check her resume?

Her mouth closed with a slightly gummy sound them popped open again. This woman had a death wish. ‘I know, traditionally we don’t open on Monday’s Hans, but…’

‘There’s a reason for that Nora. Tell me what the reason is,’ he said.

‘The reason?’

‘Yes, the reason. Tell me the reason we don’t usually run our restaurants on a Monday.’

‘Well, traditionally, we wouldn’t make much money I suppose, but –‘

‘You suppose?’

‘Yes.’ She sat up straighter on her vinyl covered chair, if that was possible. She’d already looked like there was a carrot stuck up her arse. Now it looked like it was a cobweb broom with an extendable handle.

‘Well,’ said Hans. Let’s just suppose I like making money, okay? Let’s just suppose that, shall we? Let’s not kick “tradition” in the arse, just because you have come up with this “new” and “amazing” whipped garlic butter which has never been done in the past, ever, apparently, by anyone else at all, and think about this sensibly for a change.’ He stood up. ‘I like making money, Nora. I do not like losing money. I also like to give my staff the occasional day off. How about you?’

Finally, it looked like the woman had grown a brain. ‘Oh.’

‘Oh, indeed. Speaking of staff, when you’ve pulled that one out of your backside, perhaps you’d like to come and visit me in my private office and we’ll discuss how much you like your career.’

‘Let’s see how those crunchy bread rolls are going, shall we,’ said the man with the patented shoes.

‘Let’s,’ said Hans.

Chapter One to be continued…

Flight

A plane appeared overhead at around eleven am. It went over once, turned rather gracefully, and came over again, dipping one wing once as if to say it had seen him.

Bart felt quite exposed. Had Solway been contacting some of those people he’d never met, to save his sorry arse? He didn’t know whether to be pleased about it or not. He decided he was pleased, and even waved as the plane slowly disappeared in a northerly direction.

He’d been making rather boring clips about the boringness of wattle, but the absolute gloriousness of what could live in it, that including many snails (which were white), birds (which were many colours), and a very large goanna who eyed him carefully as if it thought he might be rather good to climb up. The running away very quickly part, which Bart decided he should get a little bit better at, had been rather amusing when he looked back on the very wobbly video of it, and that had been just before he’d spotted the plane that had spotted him.

He was in quite a good mood. Possibly because he could no longer see the goanna.

Splendid appeared in his proper form just after the plane went, and didn’t change into a tall man in a blue suit gone brown at all. Neither did his two remaining girlfriends change into rather attractive women wearing bomber jackets. It was slightly disappointing, but settled Bart somewhat as he assumed he was getting better, mentally at least.

No one spoke in his head either.

He wondered how long it would be before Solway got there. He could kind of do with a cuddle.

Solway, driving along an unnamed highway with her brother in the passenger seat, wondered why he seemed to resemble some kind of large black sheep dog this morning. She should probably not have said that out loud.

‘You what now?’ Hans said. ‘Seeeeeerrriously?’

‘It is fair to say you possibly need a haircut.’

‘Now listen here, you cheeky shit,’ Hans said, not sounding in the least bit grumpy. ‘I’ll have you know that longish hair on men is the thing now, so there.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Stop laughing.’ He smoothed back his dark brown hair, and shook it, which made her laugh even louder.

‘You look like… well… like a labradoodle now.’

‘You can fuck right off, and watch the road instead of me, because, despite how physically attractive I might be, which I am I’ll have you know, you are supposed to look at the road when you’re driving.’

‘I am merely glancing at you occasionally,’ Solway replied. ‘For, after all, dear sweet little brother of mine…’

‘I am quite a bit taller than you.’

‘Don’t interrupt me… I have missed you a great deal, and it is nice to see my baby brother sitting next to me.’

‘It is also probably nice for your wonderful, understatedly beautiful, and amazing brother to pay for this rather expensive rental,’ said Hans, leaning back into the comfortable leather seat and closing his eyes.

‘It is nice,’ Solway agreed. ‘Thank you, again.’

‘You’ll pay me back, I’m sure.’

‘Unlikely.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ He smiled and Solway grinned as well. This is exactly what she’d needed.

‘Okay,’ she said about ten minutes later. ‘According to Tony, Bart’s not too far from where we left the road the first time.’

Hans sat up. ‘This is the part where I should start navigating loudly in the passenger seat, isn’t it.’

‘It really depends on how fast you want me to go.’

‘Very fucking slowly, if you don’t mind. If you could possibly not scratch the paint work, that would also be desirable.’

‘I’m not quite sure –.’ Solway said, slowing down considerably.’ – whether that is going to be possible. Hang on. Here we go.’

‘Oh. Oh fuck… Weeeeeeeeeeee,’ said Hans as they turned onto the uphill track and he began to bounce around inside the cab.

He sounded happy, and for the first time in the last however many hours, Solway felt not half as worried as she had been. After all, how can one be worried when one is doing things one absolutely loves to do – one thing being seeing if you can get your little brother to hit a part of his body against something pointy in an extremely expensive, well rounded (with no pointy bits whatsoever), four-wheel-drive – and the other thing, hopefully, retrieving her boyfriend.

________________o_______________ ( <– this is representing a rising sun, or a sunrise, or a sunwalk)

It had been some time since Bart had seen the plane, but not quite as long as when he started second guessing himself and wondering if it had actually been there for him.

Nobody did things like that for Bartholomew Branson.

Then he thought about the fact the plane had indeed circled back overhead, and had indeed dipped a wing, and decided not to argue with himself about it. He forgot that decision rather quickly though, and once again started the whole argument with himself in his head until he got to the point he was getting extremely tired of listening to himself, and if anyone could just turn up magically like they were supposed to, that would be grand.

He decided to make himself a long convoluted video on the meaning of life, but had only just got into the revelations of mysterious men on hilltops when a very large and menacing looking four-wheel-drive appeared around a group of tuarts and bumped slowly towards him, making hardly any sound at all. Bart thanked his lucky stars he had put on tracksuit pants three hours beforehand and even then, had decided changing behind a tree would be an extremely good idea, because if there was one thing Bart had, it was decorum.

‘Kitten,’ he cried, and actually tried not to, when the driver of the large, terrifying vehicle smiled widely at him from under a pair of wrap-around sunglasses. 

Then he saw the guy in the passenger seat. He sincerely hoped the man was Solway’s brother, whom he’d only met once several months beforehand, because if it wasn’t, he had serious doubts he’d be able to compete against him in any way whatsoever.

The man put up his hand, wiggled his fingers at Bart in a very unsatisfying greeting then leapt gracefully from the passenger seat while the vehicle was still moving (albeit extremely slowly) tripped over something Bart could not see, and landed face first in a wattle bush.

Bart decided he liked this man anyway, regardless of how good-looking he seemed to be, and, he decided if he was good-looking it was possibly, not obviously, but possibly because he could very well be Solway’s brother because good looks run in families, or so he was told once by a very angry drunk man at a pub.

He wondered why he’d decided to remember that now.

‘Hi,’ said Solway, rolling down the ultra cool, deeply-tinted, electric window of the driver’s side of the vehicle. ‘Wait until I turn this thing off, because I haven’t quite figured it out yet and don’t know which button I’m supposed to press.’

‘It has buttons?’

’It has! Isn’t that exciting?’

‘So exciting.’

 They smiled widely at each other while Solway inadvertently turned the headlights on and off. Her brother had rolled himself athletically out of the wattle bush and leapt to his feet with gymnastic preciseness. Then he spent the next five minutes or so wiping every little piece of dirt he could find on his rather expensive looking clothing off, checked himself in the passenger side rear view mirror, and exclaimed …

‘Oh hey, You’re filming.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Bart. ‘I am too. Do you want to be in it?’

‘No thanks. I have other obligations.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Not exactly, but yeah, I don’t know whether I can or not, as I’m not sure how it would affect my business contract, and I’d have to run it past my new restaurant manager and you know what, fuck it, okay.’

‘I think you could be my new best friend,’ Bart said from under Solway’s rather rough and tumble hugging.

‘Let’s not get too excited,’ said Hans.

‘Do you need a hug,’ said Bart.

‘No. I don’t. Do you have coffee? I’d like one of those.’

~~~o~~~,~’___oo__~~,~’**8)>

Making Do, and Bump xox

Bart decided he should probably set up some kind of temporary camp. Then he wondered, if he was going to do that, if he should wait for the rain to stop, or perhaps put himself further under the big, he glanced at the ones beside the track, tuarts and, he looked around a bit, jarrah, and marri.

‘Hmm.’ To put his swag under a tuart tree during a storm would likely not end well. Those trees had a habit of dropping branches just for the hell of it, and Bart did not want to wake up in the middle of the night (just in case he had not been rescued by then) squashed under an extra large branch that had decided to keep him company.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like tuarts. They were beautiful trees, and their trunks were particularly sturdy, which many people who had come down the hill through this forest had probably found out when they’d scraped their cars against them.

Once again, he silently congratulated Solway on her amazing reaction time to those killer trunks. She really was the most amazing person he had ever come across. Bart didn’t think many people would have handled a drive through the Australian bush at night time, on a track they didn’t know, quite as well as Solway had.

He smiled. How did he get so lucky?

Then again, he thought, he probably wouldn’t have made the decision to drive through a forest at night on a track he didn’t know, just to get somewhere faster. So, he supposed there was that.

But, he didn’t have quite the same adventurous spirit as Solway did and, he began thinking about this very deeply indeed, if “adventurous” was the actual word one might use. “Suicidal” perhaps. Or possibly “X factor”, which was what some numbnuts had decided to call those people who risked life and limb just to do something specky and extremely dangerous.

It just… Well… It certainly wasn’t his cup of tea, that’s for sure.

Bart considered himself more of a sensible person. It didn’t mean he did not enjoy Solway’s headlong, and often well-thought out, leaps of faith into the unknown, because he did. It was exciting. He just didn’t think, if he were somewhere by himself, that he would perform such acts because if he did, with his track record, he would more than likely find himself in deep poopies.

Deep poopies was not a place he wished to be.

Bart did not consider himself to be in deep poopy at this exact moment. He had a warm vehicle, filled with many wonderful things he could use to set himself up quite nicely, a full esky, and boxes of delicious num-nums that Solway had packed for him. The most delicious num-num of all was that block of chocolate sitting between the two front seats, that he had not touched all day, possibly due to the fact he’d been talking to people who weren’t actually there, and an extremely large “thing” that he hadn’t actually seen but knew had been, quite strangely, looking after him.

He was pretty sure it was the thing that belonged to that eye he’d seen in the mud. 

What else would it be? They’d come to this general area for the exact purpose of finding this eye, and that the “thing”, which according to some strange ghost man person was probably some prehistoric legless lizard, had sorta kinda turned up, and he certainly had not backed the Land Rover up onto this track quite as neatly as it had been without any external help.

Considering the fact the vehicle had not actually been turned on at the time, aided this thinking.

‘I’m not crazy,’ he said to the closest tree. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’

The tree did not reply, which made him feel slightly better. He decided to pull out his swag and find a more bushy looking tree, one that he could put the swag underneath and roll out and pop up the middle bit, and feel safe and cosy inside. Something perhaps, and here he sighed quite deeply, that resembled a wattle bush.

First of all though, he was definitely going to eat that chocolate. Solway had told him to reward himself with it, and that, he decided, was exactly what he was going to do.

The little giggle that escaped his lips as he began to unwrap the distinctive purple/blue paper might have been described by anyone else as slightly unhinged, but no one else was there, and the last thing Bartholomew Branson would describe himself as, and he hummed to himself as he put three squares of milk chocky into his face all at once, was unhinged.

8/ Bump

Solway decided that Ronald was unhinged. 

It sounded like his wife had decided that too.

‘Slow the fuck down for Gods sake man jesus christ this isnt a speedway,’ were the words coming from behind Solway’s head as the range rover scampered up the slope.

‘I’m not going to bother explaining to you, oof, why this is important, argh, fuck I nearly broke a finger, hmfph,’ Ronald replied through gritted teeth as they mounted the edges of the track. ‘This gravel is turning into a bed of marbles under the wheels, and I’m not talking about the kind with striations in it.’

Solway pondered that as they bounced over a low shrub. ‘So,’ she said calmly as the woman under her uttered another shriek. ‘You are talking about the round glass kind, that sometimes do have a kind of striation in them, that kids used to play with in the school yard in like nineteen sixty three.’

‘It wasn’t nineteen sixty three,’ Ronald replied, looping back onto the track and bouncing up the other side. ‘It was more like the nineteen seventies or something. Not that I was alive yet, but me dad showed me how to make those little mounds of dirt where, if you hit the marble just right with another marble, you’d get the first marble in the hole and win the game.’

‘Are we winning the game,’ Solway asked quite seriously. They did seem to be making good time up the slope.

‘So far so good, but don’t count your chickens,’ Ronald replied which for some reason had his wife break into a fit of giggles. He glanced sideways at Solway. ‘Private joke,’ he said.

‘Fair enough,’ Solway nodded, staring ahead into the growing darkness. ‘Jesus, it’s getting dark early, isn’t it?’

‘Yet another reason why we should be getting out of here. We left the kids with their grandparents and don’t have any way of notifying them that we’re going to be about four hours late home, and knowing my mother, oof…’ His head narrowly missed the window. ‘She will be preparing herself for an almighty row with my dad about whether we’re dead and have gone to heaven or hell yet.’

‘Is she Italian?’

‘No, she’s Scottish. Presbyterian to be exact, and very fond of calling on the Almighty when something goes in the slightest bit wrong.’

‘How the hell can you two be so calm when this is all happening,’ Jenny said breathlessly from under Solway’s arse.

‘Probably because we can both see where we’re going and you can’t.  Not really anyway,’ Solway replied kindly, in her opinion. She adjusted her grip on the handle above the door frame. ‘Don’t worry, I can see the crest of this hill.’

‘Well, that’s just great,’ Jenny replied. ‘Because if I remember correctly, there is a dip after this hill, and then we have another one before we get to the road. Someone give me a jube or a wine gum. I feel the need to suck on something. They’re in the glove box,’ she added helpfully.

Solway began to laugh, then let out a slight shriek herself, which she quickly covered up by opening the glove box.

Sometimes it was better not to see where you were going.

 ______________o______________

The rain had stopped, and Bart was not quite sure how long it would last.

Doing his best to be fast and agile, which he had never been particularly good at, he grabbed a swag out of the back of the four-wheel-drive and carted it over to the lowest, sturdiest tree he could find.

It had a good canopy.

Bart rolled the swag out, congratulating himself on the fact he’d left the bedding inside (pure laziness he had to admit) and that everything would be perfectly dry.

‘I am a legend in my own lunchbox,’ he said proudly. He’d often wondered what that saying actually meant but today it seemed appropriate. It also seemed the wind was coming back, which meant the rain would be here shortly which meant (and now he was beginning to understand the signs) that “she” was definitely here because his thoughts were becoming slightly more garbled than they had been five minutes ago.

‘Oh dear,’ he muttered and grabbed some tent pegs out of the inside pocket of the swag. ‘It may very well be a long night.’

The reason why he thought it was going to be a long night, was because the dark clouds that had been covering the sky all afternoon, were getting increasingly darker (which he had not believed to be possible) and were becoming a definite shade of charcoal or pewter, or some other shade of really, really dark grey.

‘Gunmetal grey,’ he mumbled to himself, thinking of a car he’d once owned. That had been an extrememememely dark grey, although it had also been shiny, and the sky he was comparing the colour to was not shiny, although that very loud crack of thunder he’d just heard was about to make it very shiny indeed, in his humble opinion. He started banging in the pegs with a rock he’d found on the side of the track. After doing that, he ran back to the vehicle, grabbed the esky and a box of food, ran back to the swag, put the esky beside it, the box as far under the bush as he possibly could, hopped inside and hoped for the best.

The Landy lit up.

Oh this was getting exciting. 

It wasn’t like the Landy had caught fire or anything, but it was kind of etched against the background in a sharp relief of light, and behind it, just briefly, he saw something really, really, really big that seemed to be lying on the track, looking at him, and, if he was reading this right, giving him a very large and very friendly smile.

It didn’t seem to have any teeth.

We could be really friendly right now would understanding this help if I got up and hopped in your pocket do you have a pocket, how about we just get naked and fly around on broomsticks okay not broomsticks, and why do we need to get naked, okay we dont his nose was  bigger than your gummy him dead okay well so we do this get it right, big not mine, okay but…

Bart blinked. It was still there.

I don’t know why I should climb over your freshly made up vehicle when I could just float on it, or slide underneath it and like I said, I’m an I but I’m not a you, and you should be pleased to see me and maybe you can call me mum, because nature is not what you think it is boyo, and an irishman once got in my turban, as I thought getting and swaddling babes and indestructible not my humming frightful man

Well, he supposed, that possibly answered a few questions he didn’t know he had. ‘Would you like a piece of chocolate?’

My mum told me to brush my teeth and I bet you didn’t and chocolate, what’s that, sounds sweet yummy in my tummy okay well then I guess that’s a yes

‘Okay, then.’ Bart slowly pulled the packet out of his pocket and smiled to himself. The more he thought about what this giant legless lizard (and she did indeed look like a legless lizard) had thought at him, the more he was beginning to understand she was pre-empting what he was thinking and thinking it for him.

She also seemed to want chocolate, which he began to unwrap… ‘Oh’

A very long, thin, and extremely pink tongue had suckered itself, for want of a better word, onto the chocolate and taken the whole damn thing under the vehicle, along the ground of the sandy track (which did seem to have slight puddles of water on it now) and pulled it back into the extremely large smiling mouth of the creature before him, which now, if he was not getting too confused, seemed to be resting its very large chin on the roof of the four-wheel-drive and creating quite a dent in it.

Not bad for an hour and a half of doing not too much at all when you could have been sensible and just got the point of wrestling, hindering, and crepe paper doilies Many think I’m dreaming from the great mind after the fact was where were we hello mummy and we’re sending renditions and we ass that’s arse and we did not human Fred Fuddly

‘You seem to be getting a little mixed up.’ Bart smiled, feeling the urge to scratch the thing under its chin. ‘Are you lonely?’

I am awake now when  I slept for many thousands/millions of years and  I do not think this is where I am supposed to be and you had a dreaming man here before he wants my precious eyes and he cannot have them and he has disguised himself as something SPLENDID  now and I will look for him and sweet mother of god boy can you hear me now you should run away as fast as your fat little legs can carry you just letting you know Bartholomew you are a very nice man and she will be fine she is with other people and they are saying you will need to wait and that’s okay and I will keep you company, I can shrink down and warm up your bed

For some reason, Bart felt very safe indeed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let me take my boots off.’

The lizard began to purr.

“Pull up a Cloud”

said the distant demon.

‘What, now? I’m doin’ ship.’ The Angel of downward mercy sat in a little green office and looked at her watch.

‘Yes, now, for God’s sake. I’m probably gonna go to bed soon, or something, I dunno.’

‘Fine, then.’ She pulled up a cloud. ‘What’re we lookin’ at?’

‘That up ‘imself charlatan up there in the Northern ’emisphere.’

‘Oh him. Yes, well, ya know. Doesn’t speak English. Kind of like me, sometimes, kind of like you too, I reckon. I feel like I might go off on a tangent, if ya don’t stop me.’ The Australian angel’s cloud started to float off, just a little bit. The, ah, British angel grabbed his hook and pulled it back towards him.

‘You’re floating off again.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a habit. Possibly why I’m an angel.’

‘Good point. Anyway, see ‘im up there, the one who reckons he’s the real angel, just ‘cos he was on some show for… ‘ow long was it?’

‘Bloody long time, I reckon.’ The Australian angel rolled her eyes. ‘Reckon’s he’s some kind of Great and Wonderful regally appointed whatsit, or something. Wanted to be professional at one point, so I hear, but they wouldn’t let him. Heard that one, myself. Some Texas ranger and another bloke of indistinct heritage, but not really, said if they couldn’t laugh at stuff, they’d put him in a distinctly… anyway. He likes arsehats. Something about he couldn’t talk for a week, later on as well, but you know, that’s what happens when you’re talking waaaay too deep for someone who doesn’t usually sound like that.’

‘Are you in trouble,’ asked the “British” angel. ‘Hmmm?’

“Hmm?” Not really? Well, yes? No? Not right now? It’s the weekend. Everything knows nothing much happens on the weekend. It’s not the weekend where you are though, is it?’

‘It might not be yet, no.’ The Not-to-be-deterred “Jumped up wanker” of a “British angel” inspected his cloud. ‘There’s a hole in this bit. I’ll have to get it fixed after your thingy that’s coming up.’

‘Speaking of holes,’ said the Australian angel, grinning widely. There wasn’t a hole to be seen. ‘What are you sitting on, when you sit on your cloud?’

‘What do you meeeeean?’ asked the other angel suspiciously.

‘Asking for a friend. Just checking on something. You don’t mind me asking, do ya?’

‘Heroics will get you nowhere,’ the other angel replied testily. ‘Kindly remove your hands from my buttocks.’

‘Oh well done! Now… is that a front bum, or a back bum?’

‘You are in so much trouble now! Let me tell you about my great aunt Fanny!’

The angel who’d had a rug pulled out from him wandered up and sat on a distant cloud.

“Came over last week,” he said, very unconvincingly. “Maybe not. Maybe I came over last year. Goddammit, maybe I haven’t been there yet. I don’t understand you people!”

‘That’s what I thought,’ said the Australian angel. ‘I also thought you may have decided to, ya know, help out at some point, seeing as I asked a few times, but it appears that I’m not important enough.’

“I never said that!”

‘That’s true. You didn’t. Didn’t say much at all, ak-choo-ally. Oh well, never mind.’ The very small Australian angel started to putter away on her old-fashioned, slightly pink, slightly green, slightly orange, have-I-made-my-point yet, fluffy white cloud. ‘It’s only a little place, after all. Can’t fit too many passengers.’

The sound of distant sirens made her frown. ‘Just letting you know, it’s not getting any better around here. I think we could all do with a little help.’

The Discovery.

When one is not on foot, and the trees one is trying very hard to avoid are rather close together, trying to get from one place to the next, just to find the sandy track one has finally arrived at is in the wrong place, one might feel slightly peeved.

If it is in the middle of the night though, one might decide to grab the swag, remove one’s boots, and set up camp right there, in the middle of the track.

‘I’m not particularly fond of this spot,’ he said to his rather tall companion. ‘Can we not go on a little further?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she huffed. ‘I got you here in one piece, and if you want to find it, perhaps staying in one piece is a particularly good idea. Go to sleep, for God’s sake. I’ll film you tomorrow.’

‘Can’t we talk about it now?’ He scratched his beard. He’d never been particularly good at these things, but he knew, he just knew, if he could find the place where the drone had spotted that very interesting, very large, blinking whatever-it-was, his career would sky-rocket.

‘I know where you’re going with this,’ she replied. ‘But many people wouldn’t. There’s no reception there and I think it might take a few missed turnoffs just to reach the right place. According to the map, there’s a little inlet, tributary type thing just up the way a bit, so perhaps when it’s daylight and we can both see where we’re going, we’ll go and check it out.’

‘Excellent.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I think this would be much better than emptying sewerage tanks for a living.’

‘Yes well. In my experience, being behind the camera instead of in front of it, is what I’d rather do. But, you do you.’

The Toreador (a fiction)

‘If I may say, yer ‘onor, my mount has become quite demanding.’ The toreador looked down at his horse. ‘A flaming beast indeed,’ he muttered under his breath.

The horse arched its neck and stamped its feet. Its hooves had been trimmed, and oil applied.

‘Silence,’ demanded the person at the fence. ‘There will be no shouting in this court.’ Their face had become as red as the horse’s coat. The mumbling of the people dulled to quiet.

This horse had been marked on both shoulders, and stood under a tree to keep out of the sunlight for longer than he’d expected. His older companion rolled expressive eyes and stuck out his tongue for good measure.

‘I really don’t feel like being a toreador today,’ said the toreador. ‘Can someone else look after him?’

‘He’s your horse,’ said the other rider. ‘I think he wishes to have some exercise.’

‘Perhaps in the evening then, when it’s cooler,’ suggested the toreador hopefully, then grimaced as he noticed the trembling of the horse beneath him. ‘Bugger. He’s going to be a pain in the backside. Perhaps I’ll take him for a short stroll around the paddock instead.’

‘I do not think that will be enough,’ said the rider of the dark bay.

As if to prove that point, the bay sighed, very deeply. He had been bitten enough by the young maniac beside him over the last few weeks, but it had not ruined his own good nature.

The horse wished the toreador to take him to a bull. He lifted his head and snorted. This time it was the toreador who sighed.

‘The bull always comes to us, you idiot,’ he said, raising his spear. ‘Now for goodness sake, calm down and start dancing.’

to be continued…

To Simply be a Tree.

There is often the assumption when a child is given a part in a school play that if they are in the position of acting as a tree, it is simply to include that child in the experience of being onstage.

Think about this.

I know when I look at trees, they are not still or unmoving, unless there is no wind. They do not stay exactly the same colour, unless there is no sunlight or rain. They do not stay the same size unless they have been pulled from the ground.

One might get a particularly precocious child who may ask, ‘If I am a tree, then what kind of tree am I?’

The teacher may respond, ‘You are simply a tree.’

Simply a tree? What does this mean? How does one simply be a tree, when there are so many to choose from? But, the child, if they decide to be less argumentative than usual, may think to themselves, ‘Okay then, I am “simply a tree”.’ And they will look at a tree and see how its branches sway with a breeze, how its leaves may shiver and shake, how, depending on what type of tree it is in the child’s mind, it might lose a leaf occasionally or perhaps all at once.

The teacher, depending on how tired or not they are, may look upon this child and think to themselves, ‘This is a wonderful idea. Why have just one tree in my play, when I can have an entire grove of trees that change with the seasons, that give us the idea of light and movement, seasons and weather, simply by being trees. I can work with this. I will make this play both magical and realistic, simply by adding trees.’

Many years later, someone may come across this child or these children as adults and ask them, ‘Did you have experience in acting as a child?’ and the former child or children may answer with, ‘Yes, I was a tree in a school play once.’

It is the intelligent and thoughtful person who hears this response and may think to themselves, ‘This person played the part of a tree. I am really quite envious.’

‘How wonderful it must have been to be a tree,’ the person might respond.

Being a tree is a wonderful thing indeed. One may not use their voice as others use their voices. One may not be moving around as others move around, but one is still expressing things through movement, however small, and through language, however different.

All this from simply being a tree.