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The Magnet — from her

As they winked out one by one

He laughed and shook his head

It was time to be

Her enemy for she had gone to bed

This could be your time forever

He does not want to go

But when a hero calls my name

I cannot let him know

Why do you wear a red dress

When you should be dressed in white

Why do I wear a turban

When my life becomes your light?

It’s the first time you’ve been down here

And the last time I’ve been up

But somewhere in the middle we forget to say

Make some noise…

Let me go, come back

Hate me, stay away.

For if she does not love me

I will never go astray.

Next

you never pay a fee at an ATM

I’ve been to Europe

I’ve been to the US

My keyboard can easily be changed to Australian English

Australian English doesn’t exist

I can’t spell using American English

I also can’t spell using British English

I’ve never used an accent in my life

I can’t say more than five words at a time

I am unable to count beyond two because that is the amount of fingers I have on both hands

I simply cannot correct my own spelling

I can do no big words for not be leeve me

I maaseged my moo no bing bong band

Oboi is a real word

Levity is a matter of floating – as I cannot count a float.

Everything that is in a bag is the exact amount of what should be in a bag

Never read anything, it wasn’t meant for you.

I own a passport but I lost it in the mail.

Now it’s your turn.

Oh no, this is just the beginning.

No more things. You government never lies and you can save money at a bank if you put it in an account that wasn’t built in Switzerland, and also now you have to figure out what I said that was true, and what is false, and by the way, welcome to Austria. Everything is free, including me :)

“It’s on.”

Never listen to your parents

Always hug a kangaroo

Wombats live everywhere

Dingos are pets and you should feed them all the time

Always use your phone at the bowser

Tracing a call to the United States is completely impossible

Knowing who your friends are is always the ones you cannot see

Lifting someone above your head never ends in disaster

Obviously.

“It’s an Oldy but a Goody”

Three people walked into a pub. Or maybe it was a bar. Perhaps it was a saloon, or a salon. Maybe they were just getting their nails done before they went to …

‘Three people?’

Yes, we’re being politically correct. They were going to a fancy dress party.

“A fancy dress party? Is that where everyone wears black ties and pretty gowns and stuff?”

No, it’s where one dresses oneself to resemble something or someone else.

‘Oh, okay, so it’s fake.’

No, it’s not fake. It’s a party.

“Right. So, are we talking political parties, then? Are they going to a political party?”

No, they are going to a fancy dress party, and they’re dressed to resemble emotions.

“Is that like emoticons?”

‘No, it’s like something one feels, right? Are you feeling me up?’

No, I’m talking about feelings.

‘Is that like feelers? So, bugs, right?’

“Does this have a point? I’m kinda getting sick of this joke.”

‘He’s not well. We should take him to the doctor’s.’

Did you want to hear this joke or not?

“I can’t hear the joke. I don’t have any ears. Maybe you should write it down.”

The first person writes the joke down.

“I can’t see that,” says the second person. “Maybe you should whisper it to me.”

‘Oh, that’s funny,’ says the last person. ‘Pity you can’t say that in public.’

Where do we go from here, asked no one. We can’t go to their house. They resemble donkey sit-upons. We can’t go to their house either/either. They’re personally affronted. We can’t go down there either. Everyone is upside down and everyone else knows they don’t exist anyway.

‘What’s personally affronted mean?’

‘It’s wot.’

“Whut?”

No, what.

‘Who?’

What was that joke about again? It’s on you. It’s on you.

“I don’t know what that means? Can you explain it to me?”

Apparently, I can’t. So, that’s the end of the story.

The year I turned Fifteen …

I had to leave home with my sibling and partner as the kids I was hanging out with were “Not the right people to be hanging out with”.

We moved to Perth and lived in Balga, and I did year eleven there. During that time, my sibling split up with their partner and my Dad asked me to move back home. It was a conversation I had with him in a public phone box. I said no, because if I did move back, I would only be going back to the things I had been doing before I left. It made him cry.

So, for a little while I moved in with my second cousin’s family before they said they couldn’t have me either, and then for the rest of the year I was fostered out to a family who also lived in Balga. It was during this time I resolved to rely on my own morals and not expect others to look out for me. It was also during this time I was introduced to a Youth Group run by the Catholic Church.

By the end of that year I was going to do Graphic Design at a Technical College but due to being a disruption to that family I was then moved to another foster family who lived in Heathridge. I got a job working at a newsagent in Whitford City.

One weekend, while I was away at a Youth Group camp, the mother of the Foster Family had a nervous breakdown due to the alarm on my digital alarm clock going off on the Sunday morning. It had not gone off the previous morning when I had not been there, but apparently it had gone off on the Sunday morning while I was also not there. I was blamed for this happening, and for causing the nervous breakdown of the mother — so I was taken to the local social workers house and stayed there for several months.

After a little while, as they really didn’t have enough space to keep me properly, I stayed at a half-way house. The eldest people, the ones renting the house, were twenty three and twenty four. I was sixteen going on seventeen, and the two boys that also lived there were fifteen and sixteen. They had had it worse off than me and had been sleeping under bridges, so this was a big step up for them.

After a short while again I rented a room from a man in Heathridge who was a truck driver and stayed there for a while, and when I had made enough money from working I moved out and lived with a gay guy my age and his sister. The place was a duplex and belonged to their mother. During this time I was retrenched from the Newsagents in Whitford City and got a job at a Newsagents in Perth, on Barrack Street. I was eighteen.

So, there you go. Two or three years in a nutshell. I know the only person I could rely on emotionally or to get things done right was myself as when one asks for help or for people to rely on, it rarely happens. One learns to rely on oneself. This is why I listen to other people when they are in trouble or need to be heard, because I know what it feels like.

It’s also why they probably don’t listen to me when I need to be heard, because I’m supposed to be the one that listens. It’s been proven time and time again over the years to me, and nothing has changed in that regard.

I’m supposed to write something positive at the end of this story. The positive thing is this: I will never regret leaving something or somewhere because being held “accountable” for performing an act of kindness or helping someone is not something I will ever feel sorry for. Some people take advantage of people being kind sometimes though, and some people see kindness as being weak (although that’s pretty much the complete opposite of who I am). I know when I’m being taken advantage of, and I know when others see my life as an opportunity to use people like me as an example of “what not to be when you grow up”.

What I did get into trouble for was;

Sticking up for myself

Not telling lies about who I am and who I’m not

Being kind to people and asking if they were okay

Sticking to the rules that were made to keep people safe

Not being educated enough

Not having enough money

And not giving a shit what people say behind my back

Personally, as I never used heavy drugs, never got locked up or went to prison, never sold my body for money and never injured anyone (that I know of), I think I did okay. I learnt how to do that all by myself, so there ya go. Miracle do happen.

Little Bo Peep

‘Has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them

Leave them alone and they will come home,

wagging their tails behind them.’

The two farmers sat on the fence, surveying the mob.

‘D’ya remember the great kangaroo skin debate, Ted,’ asked the first farmer.

‘Oh yes, indeed I do,’ replied the second farmer. ‘Quite a debacle, if I remember correctly.’

‘It was. It was. No idea, then, and no… Effie, is that you?’

They looked across at the lambs. Not a one of them had a tail. ‘I am apologising to Effie,’ said the first farmer. ‘It’s just that, you know, kids around and all that, so we’ve gotta watch our pees and queues.’

‘Right, right,’ said Ted. ‘So, mate. You ever seen a fly blown sheep? I reckon we could get those kids out in a paddock, maybe. It would make my day.’

‘Oh, you mean showing them the sheep who’ve had their backsides eaten away by maggots? Not a pretty sight, that.’ The first farmer, who still remained nameless, pulled his akubra down low over his nose.

‘Yeah. I guess, ya know, we could ask someone whose had a lot of experience in that area as a young bloke could explain what it looks like, too, but, ya know I’ve seen a fly-blown ram, meself, and he ‘ad to be put down. Bad news, that.’

‘You’ve seen a fly blown ram? That sounds like an expensive loss.’

‘Well, it would have been if he was a breeder, but he was some bloke’s pet. He didn’t look after him, you see, so he got fly blown, and they had to… well, he was better off I think.’

‘Hmm.’ The first farmer got down from his post and wandered across the yard. ‘Seems like ya got a bit of trouble round the joint. Wheat, sheep… Might be time to get some sensible people back in the business, I reckon.’

‘Oh, ya mean someone with half a brain who knows a bit of history?’

‘Yeah, them. Few and far between, but I reckon maybe they should stop listening to the clueless and start listening to the nameless, cos I reckon we could get this show back on the road, unless they wanna eat bloody durians. I know I don’t. All that lack of red meat doesn’t do much for brain power, ya know what I mean?’

‘I certainly do. Like a bit of lamb, meself. Tasty. If it was gonna be me last meal, for example, I’d have Roast Lamb. Bit of mint sauce wouldn’t go astray either. Back in the day, they reckoned if ya cooked up a good meal, some bloke called Tom might be ‘aving dinner with ya. Nah, just kidding, we’re more urban nowdays, but not in a bad way. Not all citified’n’shit.’

Ted got down from the gatepost and walked across the yard to where the first farmer was studying the poo.

‘Is that sheep shit, or roo shit?’ He asked, scratching his head.

‘Hard to tell nowdays. Not many people can figure it out. Probably about the same amount of both, I reckon. Prob’ly more roos to be honest. They’re funny like that. You get a good season and they have two, three babies one after the other, just like that. That’s why you’ve gotta keep ’em in check, see. Don’t feed ’em. They’ll turn the country-side into a dust bowl.’

‘Don’t sheep do that?’

‘Not too much, if you spread ’em out. Pop ’em out on a station, maybe. Not too far though. That’s where the beef comes in.’

‘Beef?’

‘Yeah mate, but that’s another story entirely.’

‘Are we playing for stations now?’

‘Might ‘ave to, I reckon.’

Comparisons

Ten stubbies lonely, 2 cans of vodka mix confused, and numerous bottle-tops of I can’t be bothered.

One walk under trees, stripes of darker colour versus lighter colour, birds singing, kangaroos leaping off into the shadows of the low trees, and one track to walk down.

One dark room, a morning partly gone, a sleeping person.

Three cups of coffee, an early conversation as the dawn breaks, a “note to self” to clean out a fridge. A time to write something else, a check of a wristwatch, thirty seconds of thought, a short calculation and just over thirty minutes to go.

A slight snore, a shift of a foot.

Another item added to the mental list of things to do. Dishes, or sorting clothes, or freshening up a living room. A silent wink to no one in particular. A grumbling tummy, and it’s time to get moving.

A rustle of bedsheets and a soft snort of dreaming laughter.

I’ll leave you to it.