australia

The Indian Ocean

I’m from W.A. That’s Western Australia, in Australia. We have the largest coastline on the Australian Continent.

I’ve never been to the topmost part of Western Australia. I’ve only been as far up the coast as Kalbarri, which, when one was born in the southernmost corner of Western Australia, a reasonable way. People I’ve worked with and are friends with have lived or are living in those higher regions of W.A, nonetheless, and the countryside is completely different to where I currently reside.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean. People don’t often write stories about it, or name things after it, or even wonder where it’s there half the time, despite it being the third largest ocean in the world (according to Google). That’s okay. Despite that it still exists, as do all the islands and continents whose coastlines are met by its waters.

The countries surrounding the Indian Ocean speak many different languages besides English, and I don’t think I could name them all. But, when we were kids at school, all those years and years back, we were told the most spoken languages (other than English) at that time were French, German, and Italian. At my high school (and primary school) down on the south coast, I learnt French. Spanish, despite its popularity, was not an option here.

When one wanders up the Western Australian coastline on Google Maps, or Google Earth and looks at the names of towns, and islands, one may suggest perhaps Dutch should have been offered as a language as well. I don’t remember it being offered as a language at my school. Maybe it was at others.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean or Western Australia in history either. There are far more exciting topics to discuss — like where Chris Columbus went, or who landed in New Plymouth, and how many different sizes of barleycorn there might be if one looked at them closely. I suppose it’s because, when all those really early explorers looked at our coastline they thought to themselves, ‘You know what, this place doesn’t look very friendly. I think we’ll head back home.’

Everyone is affected by the area they grew up in, and the regions they have resided in for most of their lives. So, I guess I’m just looking at a world map from my perspective, (and possibly the perspective of many West Australians) not other people’s, which is possibly why I wrote this short piece today.

Thanks for reading. Don’t get stranded on any reefs. We have a few.

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.’

Gumnuts, actually.

They are picked by the parrot and the cockatoo. You can tell by looking at them what type of bird has pulled them from the tree.

A red tailed, black cockatoo eats them one way. A white cheeked, black cockatoo eats them another way. They also fly differently. One is straight and glides, one flies like a wave.

‘You’re kidding me,’ says this one, remembering. ‘That’s what she said last time. Actual birds. That’s what she meant.’

The other one rolls his eyes. ‘Just like actual horses, you twit.’ He sticks out his tongue for good measure.

We wonder if they will decide to go and see the actual horses. They are ready to be seen as well, they say.

‘Can I stroke him,’ says the little girl to her mother. ‘Will he bite?’

‘No, darling, he is very friendly, he will not bite. See how he is now?’

They see this now.

I can’t write the name of the place because I could not see it clearly, but I’ve been there. The two boys are in the far paddock, a bay, and a chestnut. The chestnut stood once under a tree, his feet nearly in his own poo, unfortunately. He will come out from under the tree today, his head held high, and he will snort. If you look very carefully, you might even see him smile.

Behind him walks the older bay. Once he was a strawberry roan. He is very, very gentle and will see if maybe you have something for him. Be careful with his back, though. He is not to be ridden, and the owners of these two love them very, very much.

Before you get to them, you will see the “Magnificent white horse” and the dun, and maybe the young bay filly as well. Opposite the boys is the tiny black mare, and she is never forgotten by the people who visit her, even if it is not always her owners. At the very rear, you may be lucky enough to see the palomino, if she isn’t rolling around on her back in the sand.

I may be wrong about the palomino, because I did not properly meet her when I was there last. Maybe today she is standing at the fence and waiting for someone to come and see her. Maybe today she can go for a ride.

Issues with Just about Anyone.

So, we move on from this, and we move forward to the day some jumped up little upstart forgot to be pleasant and started giving an Australian woman a hard time.

‘That’s you, raisin bread,’ said the Australian woman, not in the least bit of ill-repute, but rather a good judge of character.

‘Okay, so I line my clouds with silver… um…’ The “raisin bread” of no uncertain heritage, according to him, decided to try to finish the sentence. It was not the first time this had happened. Apparently, according to him, he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about Australian people, but after the last year or so, he had definitely figured out not to push it.

‘Come, sit,’ he said pointing at a cushion.

‘Yeah, I don’t think I will.’

‘I am being polite-fill.’

‘Good for you, and I don’t know what you just wrote.’

‘Zis ees zee ole pointing.’ Raisin-bread raised the piece of paper he’d been writing on, and waved it dramatically in the air. ‘You know exactly why I choose this little doodle.’

‘Shall I teach you something now, or a little bit later on?’ She was wearing shorts today, which seemed a lot more comfortable than the suit and tie he had on.

‘Please, go ahead.’

‘So,’ she pointed at the very odd looking ear with little musical notes under it and an empty thought bubble. ‘A doodle doesn’t look like that.’

‘Oh no,’ whispered the bystander, who was trying desperately to hold up an overlarge spear. ‘She’s teaching him Australian again.’

She took the piece of paper from his hand and studied it carefully. ‘Yes, well. No it still doesn’t look like a doodle. I suppose I could turn it upside down. I’ll try that.’

The pasha frowned very deeply, his most magnificent eyebrows beetling backwards and forwards like a very hairy caterpillar.

‘Nope,’ the woman said. ‘Not that I condone this in any way, and I would rather not see it on your children’s exercise books, but a doodle is a… is a… you know.’

‘A you know? What is a you know? Like cards? I play cards. What does this have to do with a doodle?’

‘I suppose it depends on what type of card games you play. I do not like where this is going,’ said the woman. ‘So, stop that right now. Where the hell are these children I am meant to be teaching? You know, the ones that belong to you.’ As an aside, she reminded this pasha that many people might not raise their voice slightly in a questioning tone every time they asked a question. Sometimes, the question may not sound like a question at all. Sometimes, and she began to tap her foot, the question might sound a little bit more like a, ‘Go and find your children, because it’s time to teach them about the anatomy of the human body, and if that makes you feel uncomfortable at all, I’d probably leave the room while these new students learn. They get very giggly, so I’m told, when they learn this type of thing, and having their father in the room may be more uncomfortable for all concerned.’

As the pasha left the room he muttered, ‘I found out what a doodle was quite some time ago, but because my bystander holding the spear looks slightly woebegone, I will let you explain it to him.’

‘It’s a dick,’ said the woman. ‘Now you can go too. This will not get any better at all if you do not start behaving.’

😢

😀 — I will need to make sure nothing resembling this scene and story type  is coming out any time soon, because that would be most terrible, wouldn’t it. Especially if the remake had this exact twist.

The pasha shouted from the other room. ‘Please go ahead. I checked. But, you do you.’

Sometimes, he really needed a smack over the head with an extra large cushion.

To be continued…

Not too much later the pasha returned with two rather overgrown children wearing school uniforms that did not seem to cover up all the things they were meant to. This was fairly normal in the Western World, and these particular two children (whom the lady had already met) liked music.

‘I think you two can sit at the back of the class,’ said the lady. ‘I am pretty sure you have a fair idea of what I am about to tell the rest of the children. Where are they, exactly?’

The boy who seemed to have outgrown his school uniform raised his hand, which was very good manners indeed.

“I fink they got waylaid at the oriental express, miss,” he said. ‘Should we wait until they get here?”

‘I believe we shall. Meanwhile, you two,’ and she looked at them both severely over the top of her reading glasses. ‘…Can study your textbooks. There will be no silly business, so you…’ she pointed at the pen in the boy’s hand. ‘Stop trying to make a spitball and focus.’

The pasha had come back into the room and now stood in the corner, watching these first two teenagers with his arms folded. ‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ he said, and started playing with his phone.

‘I’m sorry, we don’t use phones in the classroom. Sir. Should I call you sire? I really don’t know what I should be calling you. You see, you have brought all these children to Australia, and I just don’t think we have started off on the right foot, have we. I am not quite sure who you are, but I do believe your leadership skills might come in handy for the children to understand what they are supposed to be doing.’

The pasha frowned, again most miserably. ‘Sorry.’ He gave her a rather fake smile. ‘Didn’t realise we were in church.’

‘We’re not. What we are in, is a classroom, and if the picture you were referring to of Chicken Jesus was what you initially meant, instead of the doodle written on a little piece of paper that you gave me, perhaps you should have said.’

Now, at that point the rest of the children filed into the classroom. There seemed to be quite a few of them, and they all seemed to have come from slightly different heritages.

‘Do these, are these… who are these people?’ The governess did not seem too concerned. She was just not sure how so many, very different looking children, could have come from one single man.

‘Oh they all had different mothers,’ said the pasha airly. ‘That’s all.’

‘And have you all decided to stay in Australia?’

‘Not sure yet. Thinking about it. Maybe. Maybe not. Do you people do harems here? Asking for a friend.’

‘I’m afraid not. You see, this is a Christian based country, and what your children may have had to do in other countries, they will not have to do here, if that’s what you mean.’

‘It was exactly what I meant. Good to know. I suppose I’ll be sending at least three of my boys home then, said the Pasha, who did not look in the least bit confused.

‘I suppose you will. Meanwhile, I will have to teach the rest of your children about safe sex.’ 

The woman moved to the board behind her and let the rolled up poster unfurl. ‘This is a picture of the female human body. Now, who here can tell me what this is?’

Two of the girls fainted, one threw up, and another one looked decidedly green. The two Western children at the back of the classroom were laughing their arses off and high fiving each other. Apparently, they had never met before.

‘’Hey,” said the boy, touching the girl on the arm. “I’m Argus. Pleased to meet ya,” he stuck out his hand and the girl raised an eyebrow. “Meat to please ya,” he added, grinning.

‘Fuck off,’ said the girl, very succinctly.

‘Children.’ The pasha was aghast. ‘We do not swear in classrooms. What the hell is wrong with you?’

‘You said Hell,’ said the tiny teenager lying on the ground, fluttering her eyes (she was the one that fainted). ‘That’s blasphemy.’

‘It is not,’ said the teenager from a much brighter place. ‘My mum says hell all the time, and she says all sorts of other words too, so I guess it’s not blasphemy anymore.’

‘It is where I come from.’ The girl stood up, quite aggressively for a teeny tiny person. ‘You should not say it.’

‘And how old are you, dear,’ said the educator at the front of the room.

‘I’m twenty three.’

‘That’s not exactly a teenager. Aren’t you a little old to be fainting in a sex education class?’

‘No. This stuff is evil. My husband would never do anything like that. If he did, he would go to Hell.’ She peered around the room. ‘And that’s where you’re all going.’

‘Looks like I’m sending that one home too,’ said the Pasha conversationally.

‘Looks like it.’

‘How long will this class last?’

‘As long as it takes for certain people to understand the difference between our country and the ones they have left. It might take quite some time.’

‘I hope that doesn’t mean I’m going home as well,’ said the pasha, fluttering his rather pretty eyelashes.

‘Well. I guess we’ll just have to say goodbye, then,’ the teacher replied, smiling quite broadly.

‘Are you going to set me up with any girls or not,’ he demanded.

‘What makes you think I’d set you up with any girls. Isn’t that something you’d do by yourself?’

‘Not where I come from.’

‘Well, isn’t that why you wanted to move?’

‘No. Where I come from, people do that for me.’

‘Then I do believe you’ve come from the wrong place.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Where I come from, which is here, in Australia, and the era I come from here, in Australia, we tend to meet people face to face just like those two kids snogging at the back of the classroom are doing right now. Oi!’

‘Hmmm?’ The girl looked up. She seemed a little out of sorts.

‘Go find a bloody room you two. This is not the kind of thing we do in a classroom.’

‘Find a room?’ The pasha looked shocked. ‘Wait a minute. Are those my kids? There’ll be none of that here by golly gosh and crikey.’ He walked a little closer. ‘How old are you two again?’

‘Um, I’m like twenty three,’ said the boy, trying to pull the girl’s hand out of his pants.

‘And you?’ The pasha looked rather upset.

‘I’m um, twenty two,’ said the girl, frowning most furiously at the boy. ‘Oh hey, did you wanna go to the beach?’

“Sounds great,” said the boy. “Let’s go.”

“I’m just not quite sure whether those two are brother and sister or…’ The pasha looked at his notes. “Oh,’ he said. “I see. I think one of them might have come from a castle down the road.”

‘I seee,’ the woman looked at him severely. ‘Still in the dark ages are we? Swapping princes, and all that?’

‘And princesses, occasionally.’ The pasha smiled. This time, it looked far more pleasant. ‘Sorry about that. I missed a hundred years or so there, maybe a little bit more. Okay, maybe not the dark ages, but it did sound good when you were saying it.’ He blew on his fingernails for no reason at all, and rubbed them on his dinner jacket. ‘Thanks for that.’

Saddles can be most uncomfortable when one doesn’t know how to use the horn. It’s actually where one puts the rope.

‘Hi ho, Silver, and way-hey.’