BunyipoftheBlackwood

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)>

Red Sky Morning, continued.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

Solway called Tony Herbet at approximately eight thirty a.m.

He did not answer on the first ring, or the third ring, but rather on the seventh or ninth ring. Just long enough for Solway to wonder why he was not physically attached to his phone like everyone else in the modern day world seemed to be.

He also did not answer phones politely.

‘What,’ came the smokey, bourbon-soaked voice from the other end of the phone.

‘It’s Solway,’

‘Good for you.’ He sounded shifty.

‘Solway Endersans. We were in the swim team together.’

‘What year?’

‘There was only one year that mattered, you daft bastard.’

‘Okay good. That’s me, then. Who are you?’ Something clicked and a long slow breath hushed into her ear.

‘It’s… Oh for fucks sake, Tony. Do you do whatever it is you do, still, or not.’

‘That does not make any sense to me, and I don’t know what you’re talking about, and, I have to say I presently am doing things in a very dressed up way for the meaning of life in various countries so do not ask why I am dreaming this up as I go along.’

‘Are you drunk?’ Solway tried to wipe the grin from her face but was not succeeding.

‘Not at the moment, which I am not happy about, but I should be. What time is it?’

‘It’s eight thirty.’

‘Well, there goes that appointment. To what do I owe the pleasure, Solway?’

‘You could have started with that, for one. What are you doing today, Tony?’

‘Is this a trick question and do I need to call my lawyer?’

‘No, to both of them.’

‘Then I am probably free.’ 

‘Fabulous. Do you still fly?’

‘Yes.’ A sound like papers being shuffled echoed down the line. ‘Light planes only, nowadays, and it’s a very expensive pastime and I usually take clients for that very reason. As you can probably tell, I have lost about ten thousand dollars already today, but I do have a tank full of fuel so I may as well blow it on whatever hairbrained scheme you are going to start trying to sell to me. Annnnnd, go.’

‘My boyfriend is stranded in the middle of nowhere.’ Solway crossed her fingers.

‘That seems a very good reason for me to be flying today.’

‘I’m glad you think so. There are no airstrips nearby. Well, not where I left him anyway.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My point?’ Solway pursed her lips. ‘I just need to know if the area has been flooded or not, and if perhaps you could spot him for me.’

‘No problem. I think. Do you have the coordinates?’

‘No.’

‘Not helpful, Solway.’

‘I can show you the aerial map though, and I can give you road names, which is obviously not going to help much, considering you’re flying.’

‘You would be amazed at what I can do when given the opportunity. I can work with that. Are you coming to me, or do I need to come to you?’

‘Whereabouts do you live now?’

Things seemed to be looking up today, Solway thought. Tony only lived about twenty minutes away, although he had requested forty-five to get to her, which, in Solway’s head, was cutting into the time she should be spending with Hans getting a suitable four-wheel-drive, and the right type of air-compressor. She sighed.

Sometimes, she decided, she should possibly rely on other people to be able to think for themselves. Hans had already proven that to her early this morning when he had made her a perfect cup of coffee, and two pieces of toast that were not in the slightest bit burnt.

Definitely looking up, that’s for sure.

11/ Slopes

There is only so much one can do when camping on the side of a hill. The first thing one usually finds out is there are no flat surfaces.

Bart wondered how he had not found this out sooner. He admitted to himself that, when he had put the swag under the only wattle bush on this slope – which was possibly a lie, but he knew what wattle bushes were like by now and had decided to grow fond of them, he’d put it (the swag) facing up/down and had realised at some point during the night (when he had not thought he was a possum) his head was likely facing in the wrong direction. It had not occurred to him to turn the swag around – just himself, which hadn’t been comfortable, as the swag was definitely not built for that.

So, with great aplomb and little else, he looked around for somewhere better to put the swag.

The sun peeked through the clouds at him every now and again, just for fun, but it did not rain again. Unfortunately, because the weather seemed to be at that time of year where it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be yet, it had now become decidedly humid, and Bart, standing in the middle of a clearing by the side of a track, for the first time in a very long time, was contemplating removing his shirt.

This was not a choice he’d be making lightly, although the removal of said shirt would likely result in the word “lightly” having a completely different meaning.

‘I wonder what colour of floury or pasty I will be,’ he wondered, for he did not usually look at himself too much when having a shower, and had not considered what exposing certain parts of himself to sunlight might mean. That he’d never been described by anyone as floury or pasty (because they didn’t know what it meant) did not enter the equation.

Then, he wondered, if he did expose himself to the elements, if someone would turn up just as he was removing his shirt and think they had come across some kind of bushman peep show, because that might actually happen, and he was slightly concerned by that.

And then he wondered, if he was going to consider doing any filming at all, because he had actually been thinking about using his time wisely this morning, if waltzing around pale and shirtless like Gollum from Lord of the Rings would send the right message to people who wanted to go camping.

The answer to that was possibly not. Bart looked at the rest of the clothes he had packed. One t-shirt faded orange, two fleecy long sleeves too hot, one…

‘Bugger me,’ he said as he pulled the existing long sleeve over his head to put on the tee.

No one turned up. It was quite a let down. Orange had never been his colour, so he put it down to that.

Now, he thought to himself, scratching himself under the chin, I could either have a shave or I could set up the camp table on the least slopey-slope bit here somewhere, or perhaps get the shovel and see if I can dig one side of the table into the dirt a bit, and okay I’ll do that because I’m getting rather peckish, but first I need to water some shrubbery.

He rubbed his hands together and grinned. If he was lucky he might occupy himself for the entire morning and never even know how much time had passed although passing something right now would probably be a very good idea.

Off he wandered into the bush.

 He didn’t get lost once.

After Bart had set up the table, made himself a lovely cup of tea, and eaten a couple of boiled eggs (which had taken far too long to cook, in his humble opinion) he wandered down to the closest puddle, avoided looking for that fairy wren’s feather, and decided to check out his own reflection to see if he had become any more handsome in the last twenty-four hours.

He definitely needed to brush his hair. His mother would have admonished him severely by now and called him Mr Fluffy because Jesus Christ, what the hell had he done to deserve this? The bags under his eyes and the wildness of his, still-short-enough, beard were not going to get him on the front page of any magazines soon, that’s for sure.

Sunglasses. That’s what he needed. And a plastic surgeon, but he wouldn’t find one of those around here, and possibly a barber who had an excessive amount of hair gel available at half price, because that was gonna be the only thing that could fix his hair, and …

Sunglasses and a hat. His floppy hat, which had so kindly protected him from the elements, had been lost the previous day under circumstances his tired old brain no longer wished to think about. Therefore (and here he grinned, remembering a childhood maths teacher) he would have to see if Solway had left one of her many peaked caps in the fourby.

He also wondered, and not for the first time apparently, whether it might be a good time to have a shave, as having whiskery bits in humid weather could be extremely uncomfortable and he might get a rash, and nobody wanted that, least of all him, so if he was particularly lucky (not something he considered himself to be under the current circumstances) he might find a razor that perhaps, just perhaps, Solway had left behind, because that woman seemed to shave her legs under very strange conditions sometimes  and who knew, perhaps his luck would change, at least for today.

‘Right then.’ Bart stood up, didn’t trip over anything, and began to sort himself out.

He only questioned himself once or twice over the next four hours as to why he was so concerned about his appearance, but then reminded himself if he really did want to take some good footage, he should probably look a little bit professional, for a change.

Red Sky Morning

“Red Sky Morning” (Normally, I’d let a long-ish story like this sit for a while before turning it into something with a little more teeth. As I don’t have the luxury of giving it the maturity it deserves, I apologise. Perhaps one day I’ll pick it apart again and make it worth something. At this moment in time, and myself not a script writer, it reads more like something one might just throw out in eleven days, which I did. It is certainly not worthy of being a decent novel. Not yet. After this year, possibly not ever. We’ll see.)

Dawn had just begun to colour the sky when Solway woke up.

She’d fallen asleep on the couch, slumped sideways, a cushion under her neck and her head half hanging off the arm. It was not comfortable. She wiped the drool from her mouth and regarded the uncurtained window of the living room.

‘Oh God it’s morning.’

The notebook she’d scribbled everyone’s names in lay open on the carpeted floor. Most were from the television industry, but there were a few names from her time in the swim team years before, those who she’d kept in touch. One of those names stood out to her now as someone who might come in very handy indeed. She wondered if he still had his pilot’s license.

Her digital watch had gone flat. She scrubbed at the crusty feeling on her cheek and stumbled towards the bathroom. Her mobile rang just as she grabbed the door handle.

‘Solway, it’s Hans,’ said her brother, which was good as she hadn’t looked at the screen. ‘Are you up?’

‘Is this a trick question,’ she muttered.

‘Oh good. I have to wait for places to open before we can hire a four wheel drive, but I have found somewhere, and I’ve also found somewhere where they hire out portable air-compressors that are really not that big.’

‘Thank you.’ She wiped her eyes. They definitely felt crunchy. ‘God I must look like shit.’

‘Probably. Look I’m going to pop around in about half an hour, so have a shower and get dressed will you? I’ll make you breakfast.’

Solway perked up. ‘Will you? Awesome. What will you make me?’

‘Whatever’s in the fridge, I guess. Maybe not. Does it matter? Just have a shower.’

‘Okay.’ She lurched back towards the bathroom, bumping open the door with a shoulder. ‘I think we’ve run out of soap.’

‘Not something I can help you with,’ Hans said. He was beginning to sound slightly annoyed. ‘Can you hang up now please? I’m in my car and haven’t set up hands-free properly.’

‘Okay, whatever, bye.’ She put the phone next to the sink, remembered to shut the bathroom door, and got in the shower. It felt beautifully warm.

______________o______________

Bart crawled out of the swag and waddled down to the edge of the track, It was still very early and the sun had not yet risen. Splendid sat on the edge of a large puddle, looking at his reflection in the water. In his fingers, he twirled a tiny, fluffy, white feather.

‘What happened,’ Bart asked, his heart sinking. He sniffed at Splendid, who smelled sad.

‘Owl. It was Tawny. She’s quite territorial.’ Splendid glanced at him sideways, his beautiful brown eyes liquid with unshed tears.

‘Oh.’ Bart sat down and curled his long, prehensile tail around his feet. ‘Who was it?’

‘Elfie. She was my best layer.’ Splendid cocked his head at the sky and ruffled his shirt. ‘Three eggs. Every time. She’d get confused about what time of year it was though, you know?’

‘You shouldn’t have been up so late.’ Bart traced a line and a half-circle in the sand with one claw.

‘I know. She told me that. But, you know, with all the weather going on it was very exciting, and seeing her for the first time was quite exciting too, you know?’

‘You’re repeating yourself,’ Bart said.

‘It’s what we do. Part of our song, see. I know you see, Bart. Not many do.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Bart, and he meant it. ‘Maybe later we can hold a funeral for her.’

‘That would be nice.’ Splendid wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve. Most of the suit had turned brown now. ‘You should go back to bed, Bart. Possums are nocturnal creatures. You need to get up high.’ He stood up, shook himself and stretched his arms, knotting his fingers together above his head. ‘It’s time to wake up.’

Bart woke up. The sun had just started to rise.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

The feeling in his chest was an unusual one, and not something he’d felt for a long time. He could also feel it in his throat, sort of like a lump he couldn’t quite get rid of. He didn’t like it much.

Bart crawled out of the swag and put on his boots. The sunrise on the edge of the track had coloured the water sitting in the wheel ruts orange and pink. It seemed fitting.

Red sky morning, Shepherds warning.

Slowly, he walked through the dead leaves and scattered rocks to the bottom of the hill. Next to the water’s edge, impaled on a slender twig, sat a tiny breast feather. Bart sat down next to it and, for no reason he could think of, began to cry.

Two distant ravens started calling to each other, their harsh back and forth echoing across the landscape. Shortly after came some other bird calls he couldn’t quite decipher. Above him, in the low branches of a karri tree, a kookaburra began to laugh.

Bart swore softly under his breath. ‘Fuck.’

It didn’t seem enough. He stood up and turned around, staring back up at the hill and the stillness of the trees and the loneliness of the sanded track and the fallen logs covered with old scars from long ago bushfires.

‘Fuck,’ he said louder, and, ‘FUCK,’ again. His voice echoed through the bushland.

Nothing replied.

Carefully, he bent down and untwined the feather from its little stick. Just as Splendid had in his early morning dream, he twirled the tiny feather between his fingers, marvelling at its softness.

It’s natural, the voice said from beside him. This is what happens. He’ll get over it, eventually. He’ll find another bird and add her to his collection and he’ll move on. That’s what happens.

Bart didn’t turn his head. ‘Why?’

It’s just the way it is. Nothing has changed. Were you expecting a miracle? It’s just a bird. It’s not like it’s human, like you. Are you human, Bart?

He looked down at himself. He was not covered in fur. He did not have four legs, nor did he have a long, black, prehensile tail like he had in the dream. His eyes were not large and brown, and, although he did have an urge to start rummaging in the box of food he’d put under the wattle bush further up the track, he was definitely not a possum.

‘I’m human.’

Glad we got that sorted out. The voice was all business now. Right then. You need to get yourself some breakfast, consider what you are going to do with that vehicle, and decide how organised you need to be. You do not have a time frame for if and when your girlfriend is coming back, so you should probably come to the conclusion, and rather quickly I might add, that you could be here for at least another day. Make yourself a decent camp, and start living a little. Look after yourself.

‘I am looking after myself,’ Bart said, and he turned to see exactly who it was that was talking to him. No one was there.

‘I am looking after myself,’ he repeated. ‘I am.’

He sat down again next to the puddle and placed the feather on the rippling water. It floated there for a little while, and he said all the things that Splendid had told him about the bird it had belonged to.

Then he went back to where the swag and the vehicle was, and began to make camp.

Voices — Waitawhile

10/ “Voices”

 Bart could feel a headache coming on. The lizard had departed the swag, which made it a lot more comfortable, but now she stood directly outside of it and was yelling in his head.

It sounded much like how his mother would scold him when he had been a little boy, and possibly because of that, he did not wish to hear it. He was pleased about one thing though, because the scolding and shouting was not directed at him.

It was directed at the man he now knew was called “Splendid”.

Splendid had indeed been close by, just as the lizard had thought He poked his head through the swag’s “doorway”, which had been rather rude in Bart’s opinion, took one look at him and the half-naked woman the lizard had been portraying at that moment and started laughing. He’d laughed so hard, bits of the blue suit began to fall off.

Then the man had stood up, looked down at himself, said in a very sad voice, “I’m molting” and had flown onto the lowest branch of the closest tuart, somehow, and started making strange peeping sounds – which, to Bart’s overtired and extremely agitated mind, was very disturbing indeed.

That had been when the shouting started.

You know better than to be up at this time of night you are a day creature not a night one why do you think I made you this colour you shouldn’t be this colour now anyway it’s the wrong time of year and where are your women question mark the lizard yelled in his head. She began to get larger at rather a rapid pace that Bart’s eyes could not keep up with. Her tiny hands, which were attached to extremely small legs, were waving about madly and trying to pull Splendid down from the branch he had alighted upon.

Don’t touch me, you old bag, Splendid said. I don’t even know you. You’re way too old to be my mum, and I’ve never seen you before in my life. Where’s the younger one? She’s much nicer and feeds me insects and stuff and this is honestly the first time I have seen you, so what do you expect me to do when you’re chatting up some caucasian-ish looking man in a tiny tent made for one?

Don’t you dare speak about him like that you, you, you bloody BIRD I made you Why aren’t you sleeping Everyone knows miniature wrens should sleep at night time and look at you grown up and larking about like some relevant object I don’t even know what I am saying who took my worms question mark I have no legs. Look Bart I am taking breaths.

‘Congratulations,’ muttered Bart.

Thank you see he understands what I’m trying to do what is wrong with you creatures I didn’t make you to be like this exclamation mark

My wives will beat you up like the wrinkly old lizard woman you are, you huge and not very pleasant meanie. Do not touch my branch with your teeny tiny arms, or I will peck you to death.

Bart wondered how the man would do that, when he, very obviously, did not have a beak. ‘I need something to eat. I’m way past my expiry date,’ he said quietly. Perhaps if he pulled his beanie back down over his head, everyone would go away and he could get some sleep.

Who’s that? The very feminine voice came from behind the tent. Ah HA! Found yourself another girlfriend, have you. Three isn’t enough is it? Look, girls, he’s chatting up some behemoth with no arms and legs. We’re really hitting the bottom of the river bed now.

The sound of three sets of footsteps came from both sides of Bart’s swag.

You’re kidding me. I was just about to go and get ready to lay a freakin’ egg and sit on it all winter and–

Oh stop lying, Elfie, everyone knows we don’t start the egg thing until Springtime.

Isn’t it springtime yet?

No. It’s autumn. Look, pull your feathers up and go and get Splendid off that branch before he breaks it. If he does that, there’ll be hell to pay, let me tell you, and wow, who is that huge and ludicrous creature with the really big yellow eyes?

I’m your mother you wren exclamation mark What is wrong with you avians can’t you see it’s nighttime who taught you all it was okay to be awake right now, don’t you know an owl could get you question mark do I have to do everything myself fullstop breath.

‘Right, that’s it.’ Bart stood up, then realised he was still in the swag. ‘Okay, that didn’t work.’ The five creatures now standing on the slope (three of them looking almost identical in their brown bomber jackets and blue jeans)  all stopped shouting and turned to stare at him. ‘Give me a minute,’ Bart growled. ‘I’m coming out, and I’m not happy.’

OoOOOooooh, said Splendid. Oh stop it, you’re scaring me. He grinned.

The lizard stood even taller. Not as much as I’ll be scaring you boyo oh look at me I must have swallowed an irishman at some point I wonder when that was it certainly wasn’t in the last seventy years or so. How could I have oh look Bart I breathed again oh I know what happened. She sat on her rather long tail, which curled like a spring underneath her. Never mind, long story, don’t worry I’m sure he was found later on. She blinked.

Bart noticed, rather belatedly he had to admit, that the lizard had three sets of eyelids. ‘Wow,’ he said as he scrambled out of the swag on all fours. ‘Does that make you a mammal?’

What question mark. The lizard shrunk slightly and looked at him with its great golden eyes.

‘You have three sets of eyelids. Did you know that? I wonder how many creatures have three sets of eyelids. I know cats do. And ravens. Maybe it’s a warm blooded thing.’ Bart scratched his head. ‘I don’t know too much about three sets of eyelids. What I do know though, is I am absolutely positive now that you’re not some kind of snake.’

I am pretty sure I told you that said Splendid, who had formerly been known as Superb. Don’t you remember me saying that she was not exactly a snake, I told you that, you moron. Wow. Nobody listens anymore. He turned back and looked at the lizard. Okay, I know who you are, and I know we are related but you shouldn’t be awake. You are possibly my great great great and a lot more, grandmother, which also makes you kind of his – he nodded at Bart – great great great and a lot more grandmother as well, which, when you think about it, might be pretty awkward if anything happened. Of course, he added quickly,  the relativity of that relationship is so lost in time it hardly matters anymore so if you did happen to get up to any weird and wonderful magical rumpy-pumpy business, then good for you and I don’t want to hear anymore about it because it kind of reminds me about hearing Dad help Mum make those eggs that time when I hadn’t quite left the nest early enough, but you know, I was a late starter, so there’s that.

‘Please stop talking,’ said Bart. ‘And whatever it is you mob are fighting about, could you take it somewhere else, try not to get eaten by owls, and… whatever. I’d like to get some sleep.’

You heard him isn’t he beautiful come on you little bastards I’m taking you back to the wattle bushes and in the morning you can all have some floating insects which I’ll make just for you and then Splendid can do some of his wonderful aerial acrobatics for you and everyone will be happy fullstop breath, Let’s go. 

(Just as a little aside here, thank you Delta, I thought it was Let’s go jogging, and I just heard someone think they thought it was Let’s go shopping. We do know, now, it was Let’s go, Jump In… at least, I think that’s what it is. I’m not allowed to look it up.)

Bart didn’t wait to see what they did next. He went back to bed.

As the voices got quieter he heard someone say He should be a naturalist or something

No, someone else replied, a naturalist is someone who looks at plants and animals. He should be a nudist.

No, a third voice interrupted. That is quite wrong. A nudist is someone who doesn’t wear clothes. He should be a… what’s a dictionary?

Is this a magic question and do I need a wand?

What’s a wand?

No idea.

Someone should look this up. They were definitely heading off down the track now. If I knew what looking something up meant, that’d be great.

Shush. I think I hear an owl.

Blessed silence, thought Bart, tucking himself into his sleeping bag. At last.

Worry, continued

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80> let me know if any of this sounds familiar, especially today. As I wrote it all back in March, it’s terribly exciting it all comes up as I post it, isn’t it.

Solway had written a very long list of people she’d never thought she’d speak to again. Many of them had job titles that not even she knew what they meant, but along with those job titles came experiences and fancy toys that Solway thought, if she asked very nicely, she might be able to get them (the people) to use to save Bart.

Not that she was sure if Bart needed saving.

But, it might help her get some sleep knowing he could be saved if he needed to be.

Solway did not think she would be getting too much sleep tonight. Her stomach was turning over and over, just like her mind, which seemed to be performing acrobatic cartwheels around the fact she had left her partner in the middle of the bush all alone, possibly stuck in a creek without a paddle. She picked up the phone and searched up a name she had not looked up in quite some time.

He answered on the first ring. 

‘Hans Endersans,’ he said in a very official sounding voice.

‘It’s me.’

‘Long time no hear.’ Her brother sounded relaxed. ‘Could you make it quick, Sol? I’m on another call.’

Her stomach dropped. ‘Oh. Um… How long is the other call going to take?’

‘Not too long, I guess. We’re wrapping up shortly. I can feel it.’

Solway started to laugh. Her brother could always “feel” things, but he didn’t always get it right. ‘Would it help if I gave you a time-frame to wrap things up by?’

‘Could you? That would be great.’ She could hear the smile in his voice.

‘Fifteen minutes. If you’re not done in fifteen minutes, you owe me five bucks.’

‘You’re on.’

Feeling slightly better about herself, Solway decided to make a cup of coffee. She put on the kettle.

______________o______________

‘Put some clothes on,’ said Bart from under his beanie. It was a sentence he never thought he’d utter in his life, but here he was saying it, and meaning it, because this thing was not Solway, and he knew that because, before he’d pulled the beanie down over his face he had seen, quite clearly, that not only were its eyes extremely round and golden, but when it had smiled it had no teeth.

Which was not all it was cracked up to be, in his humble opinion.

Is that thought based on a dirty joke I think it is I don’t have clothes this is what I came here with I used a plastic poncho from your car do you have clothes I can wear then oh wait a minute she dropped something earlier on and I pulled it out of the wind  I’ll put that on okay I look like you now see if that’s better

Bart raised one side of his beanie very, very slowly and looked at the lizard.

‘Are those Solway’s knickers?’

I guess so am I wearing them correctly

‘No. They are meant to be worn, you know, down below… not on your head.’

You are wearing your knickers on your head

‘Nope, I’m not.’ Bart pulled the beanie back down to cover his chin ‘This is a beanie. It’s official headwear, in my humble opinion. What you are wearing is not headwear, it is underwear and you are meant to wear it on your under regions.’

My feet question mark I think if I wore these… do they go on both feet or just one there are two stringy bits do they go between my toes do I need to jump instead of walk you know I only just developed these legs and I do not think I have learnt how to use them yet

Bart could feel his cheeks getting very hot. He did not, under any circumstances, wish to remove the beanie.

‘Put one leg in one hole that one string makes and put the other leg in the other hole and make sure the cloth bit is in the middle and then pull them up your legs.’

He could hear shuffling. 

‘Pull them right up to the top of your legs and make sure they cover everything there if…,’ he remembered exactly how much those knickers he had bought Solway last Christmas did not cover. ‘…If you can. Don’t pull them too high though because..’ He heard a screech, which thankfully wasn’t too loud. ‘It might get uncomfortable.’

Now what

‘I think I can now probably help you find a blanket to wrap around yourself. I am coming to terms that you have absolutely no understanding of decorum, or how off-putting this is for me, so I am…’

I do understand it is perfectly natural this is what animals do to make more animals is it not I think I can help you make more animals but you are thinking this is not right because I am not Solway what an interesting idea are all humans like this you know there are many birds and animals that are like this so I suppose it makes sense okay I think I have a feeling what a blanket is and I can get it and I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. There I made a fullstop in my thoughts just for you and I have also warped a blanked around my hung on this isnt right something else is here its that bloody fucking splendid man he understand this better than you do where the hell is he it must have stopped raining I hope he has not bought the girls He has more than one

Bart pulled off his beanie.

Worry — Warri

Sometimes, when you’re young, you may not be completely aware of the lengths people will stretch themselves to, to ensure your safety. Sometimes, you do not see the time and effort they went to, to create something as simple as a wooden fish on a leather thong. Sometimes, it’s a life’s work to get out one hundred or so simple pages just to keep people happy.

It was many hours later Solway had been dropped off at the apartments. She had called the police whilst perched on Jenny’s lap as they headed up the highway, which was slightly amusing but not at the same time, and the conversation with Search and Rescue was ongoing as she’d quietly thanked Jenny and Ronald for their help (they really could not help any more than they had), retrieved the spare key from under the dead pot plant, gone inside, noticed how empty the place seemed without Bart there, and sat down.

The police and the follow up call to Search and Rescue had not been particularly helpful, the woman asking if Bart was in imminent danger, exposed to the elements or anything else that required spending a great deal of the state’s money to save someone who possibly didn’t need rescuing. 

Solway had answered honestly with “I don’t think so” to the majority of the questions although, she said angrily to the operator on the other end, how the hell would she know when it could be possible Bart was in imminent danger of being drowned by a large creek that had not been particularly large when they’d first got there.

The operator went on to say it could possibly be a situation where he needed airlifting, and did Solway think airlifting someone out of a possibly not too bad situation was worth paying for from the state’s coffers, even if the helicopter pilots might think it could be a lot of fun and keep them entertained.

The last part of the operator’s statement had Solway wondering if perhaps the operator had a partner who flew helicopters and liked to be entertained, but she did not ask as it didn’t appear pertinent to what she was asking. The next question Solway asked was this…

‘So, you are not going to help me then.’ It may have been rhetorical.

‘That’s not what I said,’ the operator replied in a very calm voice. ‘I am just explaining the logistics of organising your rescue party, when it is highly likely you could possibly do more, and do it faster, from your end rather than relying on us.’

‘I see.’ Solway said and even to her own ears her voice sounded kind of dead. ‘Thanks for your help. Do you have any suggestions?’

‘Unfortunately, as I do not know the full situation of your partner at this current point in time, it is not…. Oh buggerit. Look. If I were you, I’d see if I can get someone who could at least tow the vehicle back to the main road, see if you can get the flat replaced, and you guys would be on your way.’

‘That’s not quite as easy as you think it is,’ Solway replied, thinking of the extremely sandy track, the extremely gravelly, and not in a good way, track, and the extremely winding track they had first gone down which had lots of trees in the way.

‘It’s all I can offer you, and I shouldn’t even be saying that,’ replied the operator. ‘Listen, luv, I’m sorry I can’t help you, but unless this is an emergency situation, our hands are tied. I wish you the best of luck, and I’ve written down both your names and it’s in the system now, so if anything else occurs, call us back and we’ll know what to do.’

‘Thanks,’ Solway said because she couldn’t think of much else to say. ‘I appreciate your time.’ Before the operator could say anything else, she hung up and sat on the couch in the living room watching the empty screen of the TV for a very long time.

Then she headed for the shower. The warm water pelting her head made her feel guilty.

A little thought trembled into the side of her mind that she should possibly not feel too guilty because after all she had done all the hard work of walking all the way until she’d found those people, and been given a lift home through sheer kindness alone, but she was here, and Bart was somewhere three hours south in the middle of the first autumn storm for the year, and it just didn’t seem right.

And now night had fallen, and there was nothing sensible she could do until the morning. The only thing Solway could think of doing was start making lists of all the people she knew, explain the situation as best she could, and hope that someone had the right gear and vehicles to get Bart back on the road.

She did not think she’d be getting much sleep at all.

______________o______________

Bart happened to be playing charades with a see-through lizard, who had decided to reduce its size and sit on the outside of the tented end of the swag because they had both noticed if it sat on the inside, things tended to get wet (including Bart, because the swag was not particularly big).

The lizard kind of reminded him of a picture he had once seen of the first creature that had apparently left the ocean and crawled onto the land. He wondered if that had been see-through as well.

Probably not quite as see through as I am now, the lizard thought very clearly at him, and I am thinking very clearly I think because this is just a little part of me The rest of me has flown around the world a couple of times to check on people who think they may need to laugh a bit more, and I am finding that I have learnt a lot of different languages to/for/night day and do not yet have the ability to make full stops which I believe were only invented so people could take a breath between thoughts which is something I don’t need to do

The game of charades the lizard had decided to play with him had something to do with Solway. It was highly likely the lizard had looked at Solway’s name inside Bart’s head and decided, seeing as they were speaking English and not any other language at this particular moment… had decided Solway’s name meant Sun walk – which it didn’t, but Bart didn’t have the heart to hurt the lizard’s feelings.

The idea of “sun walk” had appeared as a vision between them, and it had indeed taken Bart a little while to figure out what, or who, the hell the lizard meant, especially after it deposited a pair of very large imaginary rose-coloured sunglasses on his lap.

But, he’d got there eventually.

Now, the lizard was showing him a box of round chocolates covered in gold wrapping and putting them next to the sunwalk and, if the lizard could look at him inquiringly with its very large, completely round, golden eyes, Bart supposed that was exactly what it was doing. It also began to purr again, which made his boots vibrate at the edge of the tent.

He wondered if he should ask the lizard to stop doing that, because it did not appear to be doing the ground they were sitting on any favours whatsoever. He frowned.

The lizard looked at the ground, which was wobbling, widened its eyes even more if that were at all possible, and levitated almost exactly ten centimetres (if Bart had a ruler he’d have measured it, but was somehow assured that was the height and he shouldn’t be arguing), then showed him, once again, the vision of the sunwalk and the clear box of round chocolates.

The lizard added two little stick arms. One from the chocolates, and one from the sunwalk, which had somehow turned into a golden pathway. They joined together, little stick fingers intertwining.

Bart shook his head.

The lizard added what looked like a tiny penis to the bottom of the chocolates and looked at him again.

‘I know what the chocolates are. They’re Ferros’,’ Bart said. ‘Oh! I think I’ve got it. You are talking about Solway’s brother.’ He clapped his hands.

Solway’s brother was not named Ferro. Bart snorted. He also probably wouldn’t appreciate being portrayed as a box of delicious chocolates. What the lizard had portrayed was that Solway’s brother was completely opposite to his sister in colouring, and had dark brown eyes instead of blue. His hair was also very dark, whereas Solway’s was very blonde. If the brother and sister could be complete opposites in the way they looked, Bart supposed to the lizard’s mind, this was how it seemed. Sunshine and Chocolate. For some reason, this brought tears to Bart’s eyes. 

Solway and her brother had not spoken since shortly after Solway had met Bart and, he thought, he might be the reason for that.

The lizard put one of the imaginary chocolates in its mouth and smiled.

‘I see,’ said Bart, although he didn’t, not really. ‘Oh, no, now I get it, you think Solway’s brother has something else going on, right?’

The lizard’s smile grew wider.

‘Okay. Well. Are you trying to tell me now is the time Solway should be talking to her brother?’

The lizard stood up from its levitating, jumped up and down, and ran inside the swag.

‘Oh no,’ said Bart, thinking everything would get completely soaked.

It didn’t get completely soaked because, apparently, the lizard had thought all about that and decided to wear a plastic poncho, which had not been on it before, and had hung it up just outside the doorway, which had definitely not happened as far as Bart could tell, yet apparently now it had, and the lizard had decided to change itself to look quite a lot like Solway, and that was extremely disconcerting because it had not remembered to wear any clothes.

Bart did not know quite what to say, and decided, at least for the time being, it would be safer not to say very much at all. He searched around with one hand for his beanie, and pulled it completely over his head, and his face, and all the way down to his chin.

Phew, he thought. That’s much better.

Liar, thought the lizard.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

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.

“Up Shit Creek without a Paddle”

The Landy had stopped again, of its own accord. Bart contemplated the beach before him. The reason why he thought of it as a beach could possibly be the sand in front of the bonnet, and the water beyond the sand  slowly creeping out of the trees and onto the track.

The wind had decided to keep him company. She’d spread out a little bit, and didn’t seem as compacted around the vehicle as she had half an hour ago, and she seemed to be enjoying whipping up little ripples of water into the air and randomly throwing them at the windscreen.

‘I am very quickly coming to the conclusion that this weather has an incredible sense of humour,’ he said.

Random question.

‘What the fuck?’ He lurched sideways on the seat, nearly strangling himself with the seatbelt.

Oh, sorry. I’m back, by the way. The man ducked his head to look out the side window at the sky. Wow, she’s doing a good job, isn’t she? I think I like this one much more than the new one. She’s a hell of a lot bigger. I wonder if she can go all around the world?

‘Why?’ Bart frowned. That was what he wanted to ask this bloke? Couldn’t he think of a better question?

Considering it’s my random question, not yours, I’m not going to answer your question until you answer mine. I think that’s fair don’t you? Fairness being the operative word here, because I am beginning to think we don’t have that around as much as we used to. Not that I’d know, because… well I won’t tell you I’m dead because I’m not dead. I’m just kinda floating around at the moment, and I’m incredibly excited to have someone to talk to. Did I tell you not too many people come down here? Never did, to be honest. They knew it was a flood plain, kinda thing, and no one wanted to get their feet wet. Go figure. Anyway, what was the random question I was going to ask you?

‘How the hell would I know?’ Bart watched the water under the trees. It didn’t seem to be moving anymore, which was lucky. He looked behind the Landrover. The back end was sitting at the edge of the hill. It seemed a lot safer here, although he hadn’t ever felt particularly unsafe this entire afternoon. He wondered what time it was. The wind blew a little harder, giving the vehicle a bit of a shake. It felt like a dog drying itself after a swim.

Oh I remember now. Have you seen her eyes yet?

‘Who’s eyes?’ Bart glanced at the man. His eyes seemed to be smiling, if that was a possibility, which it apparently was, but his mouth was kind of thinned out, and one of his long knobbly fingers was trying to tap the piece of the door where the window went in, whatever that was called, and he didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it anyway, because the finger was disappearing into the door and not making any sound. His blue-clad knee was also jiggling, which to Bart’s mind indicated the man might be ever so slightly nervous about something, and this now made Bart feel a little bit nervous himself.

Her eyes. According to the old stories she’s got eyes, but no one has ever seen them. I was just wondering whether you had.

‘Oh.’ Bart wondered if he should tell this man what he had seen on the video yesterday afternoon. It might not have been an eye. It may have just seemed like an eye. That it had been in mud, and sitting under what had definitely looked like paperbark trees, of which there seemed to be absolutely none in this area at all, had him seriously considering whether it should be mentioned to anyone at all, and now, it seemed to him that this man, whoever he was, was definitely trying to get information out of him that he did not need to know, and if Bart did tell him, he thought it was possibly not going to end well. He didn’t know why he thought this. He just did.

‘I didn’t see any eyes.’

Why not? Oh fuck. That’s a word I just learnt from you, but I think it’s appropriate. She knows I’m here. The man’s body began to tremble.

‘Who knows you’re here,’ Bart asked, just as the wind started smacking into the passenger side door.

Your lizard friend. She doesn’t like me now, let me tell you. Infact, I am getting the felling fulfilling feeling she wants to eat me, but not too badly, under-snafi fring, wow, I better go.

And, just like that, the man disappeared again, the four-wheel-drive was pushed about five feet up the hill, and the rain really started pissing down.

Bart decided to put on the handbrake.

7/ Making do

Solway found herself sitting on a very apologetic woman’s knee while the woman’s husband frowned furiously at a GPS.

‘I’m sorry there isn’t any more room,’ the woman said for about the third time. ‘We were just heading home from a camping trip,’ she added, which was new information. ‘Ronald likes to take absolutely everything on a camping trip, no matter how short or long it is. He likes to be… –’   She raised her hands on either side of Solway’s head and made ditto marks in the air with her fingers. ‘ – Prepared. Don’t you, darl.’ The last little bit didn’t seem to be a question.

‘I think we’ve lost the signal,’ he replied, which didn’t make much sense.

Solway very carefully adjusted her backside on the woman’s knees. This was a little awkward. The front seats of this vehicle were bucket seats, and every other part of it seemed filled with camping equipment, which was possibly why the woman seemed to be apologising so much. It also now seemed that what she had just said may have been a little white lie, as the woman’s husband (at least Solway thought it was her husband, they seemed rather familiar with each other) had now stopped looking at the thing in his hand and started looking at his wife.

‘I’m not the one who likes to keep this vehicle filled with random camping gear, Jenny, you are. I mean, it’s fair enough that I seem to like getting all the latest new gear and like to see what it does and so on and so forth, but it’s not me who wants to keep it all in the vehicle. That’s you.’

‘Well, I’m not the one who leaves it all lying all over the living room floor and filling up the spare room with it all, and pulling it all out to play with every now and again. That’s you,’ she replied. ‘I think it’s better having it all together in one spot.’

‘Which happens to be this vehicle,’ he said. ‘Which, you know, we shouldn’t really be doing, because adding too much weight to said vehicle is a damn good way to get us bogged in hairy situations such as this one could be, and besides that, if we wanted to pick up random hitchhikers in the middle of the bush, where the hell would we put them? No offence,’ he said, grinning at Solway. ‘But I’m sure my wife’s lap is not where you’d like to be sitting right now.’

‘I don’t want you to feel like you’re putting your safety at risk by picking me up,’ said Solway, then blinked. Where had that come from? ‘I mean, not that your safety is at risk. I just thought I’d put that out there.’

The man, Ronald was his name wasn’t it, grinned. ‘I would be more concerned about whether your safety is at risk, ah… What’s your name?’

‘I think, if my safety was at risk,’ Solway said. ‘You probably wouldn’t be asking my name.’ She began to smile, then hit her head on the window as the woman underneath her adjusted her knees.

‘Sorry,’ the woman, whose name was Jenny if Solway remembered correctly, said. ‘I’m Jenny. This is Ronald, and please don’t turn around to shake my hand because there is just not enough bloody room in the cab for that to happen in a nice way and you’ll probably elbow me in the boob.’

Solway couldn’t help it. She started to chuckle. ‘I’m Solway.’

‘That is an awesome name,’ Jenny said. ‘Where does that name come from,’ she asked, just as her husband said…

‘Is that Norwegian?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cool. I think I have Norwegian relatives from way back in the day. Maybe they were Dutch. Can’t remember. That’s a cool name though. Do you know anything about GPS’s?’ He looked down at the little piece of machinery in his hand. ‘This thing is going haywire. It keeps losing the signal, and that’s just not something that happens.’

‘Why not,’ his wife asked.

‘Because it collects information from satellites,’ Ronald and Solway said at the same time.

Solway tapped her lip thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure whether we really need it though. I just want to get down to where Bart is, and get … Oh.’ She looked in the backseat of the vehicle again. ‘We can’t, can we.’

‘No, we can’t. Well, we can, but there wouldn’t be too much we could do. That’s why I was trying to get the coordinates, so I would be able to place a marker so we could make sure we came back to the right spot, kind of thing,’ Ronald explained. ‘I suppose I could make some kind of physical marker.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to put the marker at your entry point,’ Jenny said. ‘Rather than, you know, randomly half way down a track.’

‘Does this track veer off anywhere? Like, does it have forks, or pull off points, or random “I’ll just go this way today” mini track type things on it? Just out of curiosity,’ Ronald asked, ignoring his wife.

‘No, it’s just one straight line,’ Solway replied. ‘Well, almost. I mean it turns, but there aren’t any other tracks, not that I could see.’

‘Okay then. Well, we should be right.’ Ronald looked over his shoulder and out of the driver’s side window. ‘I’m going to have to reverse her up off the track so I can turn around. Not that I can see a bloody thing. This rain is insane.’ He scowled as he turned back to face Solway and the wife Solway was quite sure she was squashing into the seat. ‘Maybe we should wait until it stops so I can get a clear view of what we’re backing into. I’ve done this before, and it didn’t turn out well.’

Solway felt her heart sink. It didn’t look like they’d be getting back to Bart this afternoon. As lovely as these people seemed to be, they had their hands full and there seemed to be absolutely no way they could help make things better. Not immediately anyway. She stared out the window at the sleeting rain.

I hope that creek hasn’t risen too much. He’ll be in serious trouble if it has.

‘You don’t happen to have any bars on your phone, do you,’ she asked hopefully.

‘I’m afraid not,’ the woman underneath her muttered. ‘We lost bars as we were coming down from that siding further up on the main road. It didn’t seem too important at the time. I’m sure your partner will be fine,’ she added hurriedly. ‘These sort of things happen all the time, like Ronald said. He’s been in enough situations like this himself. Try not to worry too much about it.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Solway replied, not bothering to hide the distress in her voice.

‘I know how it feels,’ Jenny said softly. Solway noticed her husband’s face had gone very still. ‘Let’s get you back to where the siding is, and maybe then you’ll be able to start making calls. We’ll work out what to do from there.’

‘We can’t do that just yet,’ Ronald reminded them. ‘We have to wait for this rain to stop or we could end up in the exact same situation.’

Storm (continued), and Windy

Bart realised he was quite good at reversing. He hadn’t been going particularly fast, which helped, but now he was beginning to wonder how the hell he was moving at all.

‘It’s got a flat,’ he said to himself, remembering why they had stopped in the first place.

It’s got four “flats”, actually. That’s what you call those rubber things with no air in them under this “fourby” isn’t it?

‘Oh, you’re still here.’

The man with the big brown eyes and the blue suit beside him smiled. I never left. You just started ignoring me when you were congratulating yourself on what a good job you were doing. He leant back in the passenger seat, part of his back seeming to disappear into it. Not that I mind. Most people ignore me when they come out here. You just seemed to notice me when I woke you up. Have you ever thought about why?

‘I haven’t had much time to think about anything except going backwards,’ Bart replied testily.

And the fact you’ve got four flats, the man reminded him.

‘Why do I have four flat tyres?’ Bart stopped the four-wheel-drive.

It’s better on soft sand, that’s why.

‘How do you know that?’

You read it somewhere, I think.

‘I read it somewhere?’

Yep. That’s how it works. I’m still getting the hang on your brain but the more you think, the more I learn, which is kind of awesomeness.

Bart couldn’t help grinning. ‘Some of that was a little bit wrong.’

I’m not fucking genuses.

The wheezing cackle that escaped Bart’s mouth surprised him. ‘No. I suppose not.’ He looked out through the windshield. The rain was pelting down now, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger.

Pelting down? Like fox pelts? I do not see any of those around here. Feral. That’s right. Rabbits. Oh so this is right, cool and death defying.

A vision of red and grey furs softly thumping the exterior of the four-wheel-drive popped into Bart’s brain. ‘This is possibly the oddest situation I’ve ever found myself in,’ he mumbled under his breath.

No kidding. Oh hey, she’s coming again. Not too far away now. You might feel a bit of a shudder. 

‘What?’ Bart knew what the man meant. He was referring to the legless lizard thing he’d been talking about earlier. ‘I thought we left her behind?’

Left her behind? Not likely. You know, I think this isn’t the one I’m used to. The man frowned, and for the first time Bart noticed his magnificent eyebrows. I think this is the old one.’

‘There’s a new one?’

Well, there’s the one I know, and the one that’s a lot older than me. Haven’t seen her for… Well… I haven’t seen her. She went into the ground long before I came along.

‘I’m afraid to ask.’ Bart looked at the man carefully. ‘It’s kind of dangerous for me to ask this anyway, seeing as I’m supposed to have no idea, but…’ He took a deep breath. ‘When did you come along?’

When the land was still all joined up, that’s when. Might have done a bit of island hopping. Not too sure. It was a long time ago. Came down from the top to here. Took a while but you know, it happened. The man looked down at himself. Obviously.  I’m here.

‘So when did the “old one”, as you put it, come along?’

She didn’t “come along”. She was here the whole time. She kindly made this for us/you/me/ them. I’m getting misty. Mateship. Lingering. Obviously.

‘Are you alright?’

The man did indeed seem to be getting “misty” as he put it. Bart couldn’t find quite the correct term for exactly “what” the man was trying to explain, but he appeared to be sliding down through the vehicle’s floor.

Oops, the man said quietly, then disappeared. It was about that time the wind hit.

Windy

6/ Windy

The vehicle shuddered on its flat tyres then seemed to dig itself into the ground as the wind struck. It was almost like a physical thing had run up and surrounded him on all sides without Bart being able to see it.

He should feel trapped, but he didn’t. The funny thing was, if anything could be funny in this particular moment in time, the wind seemed to have come to a sudden halt. It wasn’t not moving, it just wasn’t going anywhere.

It was almost like a huge dog had run up, knocked him over and now bounced around and licked his face – or would be licking his face if it could get inside the cab, which it couldn’t.

Maybe it was more like one of the lions or tigers in one of those African safari parks that jumped on the roof and everyone sat inside and stared at it, titillated but reasonably safe until one idiot rolled the window down.

Bart contemplated if today, he would be that idiot.

He decided against it. It just didn’t seem like the right time for idiocy. Not at this point. Maybe later. He stared through the windscreen. The shrubbery on the side of the road, and he used the word shrubbery loosely when explaining wattle trees to himself, was waving around madly, the light branches bending steeply in the direction of the hill behind him, but the trees in front, where the wind did not appear to be, stood still, like nothing was touching them, not even a breeze.

He was finding it difficult to control his thoughts. They seemed to be racing wildly around inside his head, just like this wind seemed to be doing outside.

‘Just go with it,’ he said to himself politely, which was odd, but it also seemed easier if he spoke out loud to think what he really meant, because now if he kept his mouth closed the mental words were just leaping about with gay abandon and depositing themselves on his thoughts and making everything look, (well everything that was inside his head anyway) …everything look like someone had come inside and thrown around a pile of laundry without a care in the world, despite the open drawers waiting for them.

‘Smart move,’ he called to the wind. ‘I like you too.’

The wind sighed and hushed, then picked up into a gale, then screamed and lost its way and failed to be exactly what he wanted it to be, and then fainted, only to get up and try it all over again.

‘You’ve got some cool moves there,’ Bart said, although he didn’t know why.

Maybe you can play with me, and see where we go, and we can get up and fall down down and run around naked and freak out, and freak in and laugh our way to the top of the world and fall back down, and vertically hover like a moonbeam on a hot day and frequently decide we aren’t going to do this anyway

‘No problem,’ said Bart. ‘I have a feeling I should be slightly afraid right now. I can’t see anyone talking to me.’

Despite your efforts to be totally cool, your mother always sees you as a greasy haired vertical twig with a pot belly You should make sure to brush to the left and not to the right and send loving messages to bestial freaks from afar and western breathtaking breweries make good beer Maybe we should go to the pub

The words floated and shimmered around him as the wind blew, and Bart, being Bart, thought this was the possibly the most exciting moment in his life, aside from that time about nine months ago when he’d met Solway in the newsagency. He also wondered, and not so briefly, whether he should start the fourby up again and keep reversing until he at least got to the bottom of the hill, because he thought, if he stayed here, there might be a high possibility the creek, which was likely no longer a creek but a very fast moving river, would come up past the line of wattle trees and be on the track where he currently was, and it might be a bit hard to get out of there.

He turned the key in the ignition. Like a heartbeat in motion, which was a very odd way to describe a okay I’m just going with it then, the vehicle started up, put itself in reverse, and Bart looked over his shoulder simply for the fact it seemed like a good idea to look like he was actually controlling the very fast reversing of said vehicle, because if anyone was watching, not that anyone was, and saw he didn’t even have his hands on the steering wheel and perhaps was merely a passenger and not even a guide, they might think now was a good time to call the cops because Bartholomew Branson had probably lost his marbles.

He fervently agreed.

Then he decided he should probably place his hands gently on the steering wheel, like his driving instructor had told him to many years before, because if anyone happened to be reading this in their heads later in the day, not that it was likely as he hadn’t written it down, keeping hands on the steering wheel was a very safe thing to do, and the last thing he wanted, when he started up his vlogging business, was have anyone say that Bart Brand was an unsafe influencer.

Not that he’d ever been an influencer of any description, but if he became one, ever, he’d rather be one for good rather than bad, and this seemed like the best possible moment to think that.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

Solway had just come to the conclusion she did not like rain. The rain had stopped some time ago. It had just become really windy, and not in a particularly good way, because her clothing had been soaked through and now she would have to take all her wet gear off in the middle of a track on the side of this very long slope, and try not to let any of her clothes blow away while she was attempting to put them on. She unslung her backpack and let it drop to the ground.

She did not stop to wonder why she was thinking in very long sentences. It was too bloody cold for that. She thought, in fact, that she should probably be thinking in very short, vertically challenged, sentences, because the shivering she currently experienced made her brain think in static, up and down, stop start, beeping machine-like thoughts, rather than long flowing thoughts, and now she had just repeated the same idea in one thought, which would be highly unlikely under any other circumstance because the training she had done before becoming a weather presenter did not allow for that sort of thing and…

‘Fuck. Where the hell is my jumper?’

She stomped a foot down on a dainty pair of knickers someone had thoughtfully placed in her backpack for no reason at all. Letting her underwear fly off into the sunset didn’t seem like a very good idea.

Ah, there it was, under the…

‘Goddammit.’ Bart had also put what looked like a very cheap, but extremely practical, plastic poncho in a side pocket, and if Solway had noticed it earlier, perhaps she would not have found herself in this current predicament.

The predicament being; half-naked standing on a slope covered in short prickly bushes in the middle of the afternoon.

She’d put her jumper on first and then perhaps get out of her jeans and attire herself in those very comfortable warm, fluffy looking tracksuit pants that were not going to fly off into the sunset at all.

*stomp*

Solway sighed. Well. Hopefully someone would get some use out of that sparkly, frilly, lace covered and not in the least bit practical, pair of underwear one day. They certainly seemed to be enjoying the weather, floating around in the breeze like a large demented butterfly. She pulled the jumper over her head.

‘Ooh-hoo-hooo, lovely.’ The warmth was immediate and indeed rather lovely. She unzipped her jeans. A large, black range rover appeared over the rise in front of her. The driver began to grin. Solway, literally, had just been caught with her pants around her ankles. 

‘Oh great. Just great.’ She waved. 

It seemed appropriate and if she thought about it (which at this point she didn’t really want to do) it was probably better they’d appeared in front of her. If they had come up behind her they would have got a full display. As it was though, and she could count her lucky stars for this one, she was semi-squatting and the rather large jumper she had, extremely fortunately, just put on, disguised the fact Solway Endersans was currently wearing no underwear. The vehicle stopped.

‘Need a hand?’ The man grinned, then winced as the passenger Solway had only just noticed, smacked him in the arm.

‘Don’t be such a wanker, Ronald.’ The woman got out of the vehicle and strode towards Solway, a thermos in her grip. ‘I’ll stand in front of you, if you like, while you put your trackies on, then we’ll discuss whether you have sugar or not, and why the hell you are out here in the middle of nowhere.’

Solway smiled. It felt like the first genuine smile she’d made at another human being aside from Bart for quite some time. The sudden tears in her eyes were probably from the wind rushing down this slope and she wiped them away quickly with the hand not holding onto her forgotten jeans.

‘Thankyou,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome.’

Bunyip of the Blackwood; Chocolate and Direction

After making absolutely positive Bart had the car keys, Solway left. There had been no particular ceremony in it, or passionate goodbyes – she’d just gone. It was a bit of a let down, in Bart’s opinion. He’d checked on her departing figure a couple of times as she’d walked off along the track, but somewhere between the rise and fall of hillocks he’d not even known were there, she disappeared.

‘Well, I can’t stand around here all day waiting for her to come back,’ he thought, although that’s exactly what he had in mind. ‘I’ll clean up, I suppose.’

He did the dishes, pulled everything out of the back of the Landy, repacked it again (and much better, he thought – he’d always been told his spatial awareness was off the charts), then unpacked it all again when he realised he couldn’t get to the things he wanted as easily as he thought he could. It seemed practicality was a part of packing for camping. Who knew?

Well, he did. Now.

Bart checked his watch. Great. Only an hour had passed. Pulling out the little winding mechanism on the side, he gave it several turns, and tapped the glass for good measure. How would Solway fare when her own digital watch ran out of battery?

Christ, he was being dramatic again.

‘Nobody cares, Bart,’ he said to the trees, then sat down heavily in his camp chair and stared at his boots. ‘Nobody cares.’

God he felt bored.

Maybe he should go back down to the creek again and have a real good squizzy at it? Maybe he could get some mood shots in black and white from his phone? Ooh! Maybe he could do micro shots or whatever it was they were called, and get real closeups of some of the different flora and fauna around the place. He looked around. Not that there was really much to take any good shots of, unless you really liked wattle leaves.Maybe there was something a little more interesting the way Solway had walked?

Bart stood up. He’d just got an idea. Maybe, like those old explorer types did, he could follow the creek a little way, see if it turned anything into like the landscape he’d seen where that (even now he didn’t want to say it was an eye, but it was, goddammit) eye was, and get some photos down there. Then, at least, when Solway came back, she could get some video, or make his photos into video, or something, and they could do stuff with it, and post it on his channel, and maybe, just maybe, someone might find it interesting enough to tell someone else, and maybe they might just get somewhere for a change.

First of all, though, he might just grab himself a cup of tea.

And, maybe, a little piece of chocky.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

She’d finally reached the bend. How long had that taken? An hour and a half? It hadn’t looked that far on the map. Solway adjusted the straps on her backpack. Her legs were getting one hell of a workout in this soft sand. It would be nice to be able to walk on the hump between the ruts in the track, but there could be snakes, so it wasn’t a risk she was prepared to take.

Sunscreen had begun to get in her eyes. It stung. She pulled her cap down lower. One foot in front of the other. It’s the only way she’d be getting anywhere.

______________o_______________

He’d decided against the chocolate. He’d made himself a nice cup of tea and cupped the metal mug in his hands as he sat quietly in the shade, the brim of his floppy hat drawn low. On the other side of the track, past the harsh line of sunlight reflecting off the sand, colour flickered next to a sapling. It was a perfect shade of electric blue. The tiny bird bounced from one less-than-exciting leaf to another, little head cocked on one side. It seemed to be looking for something. A slow smile formed on Bart’s face as three more little birds popped out of the bushes. They were varying shades of brown and seemed to be quite friendly with the first one. Each of them darted off in slightly different directions, like a little gang of pickpockets. He grinned. 

‘Cheeky little bastards,’ he said softly.

The first bird, so tiny that if it were in Bart’s hand he’d be able to cup his fingers over it without even touching its feathers, looked over at him inquiringly. It didn’t seem in the least bit afraid. Bart supposed it was because the little man had three girlfriends. Tough little chicks, he thought, then smiled to himself. 

I could make this into a movie.

In the movie, the male bird, a fairy wren if he remembered correctly, would be riding an electric blue motorbike, and the three females would be strutting around threatening people with… Hmmm. Bart stroked his beard. They’d be threatening people with tiny caterpillars that squirted green gunk when you squeezed them.

I should write this down.

He frowned. I should be taking photos, that’s what I should be doing. Fuck.

He stood up, the camp chair collapsed and just like that, the four little birds disappeared.