creative-writing

Very Large Snakes.

Early 1990’s – Albany, Western Australia.

The walk back from the pub that night was never going to be fun. I had a long way to go. Having the little vermin off the wheat ship following me was even less fun.

The yank had stepped down from the side of the shopping centre, down from the light, and onto the semi darkened street.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked. He could see this little bastard just wouldn’t go away, and didn’t like taking no for an answer. He may also have noticed I was beginning to size the little creep up, because, although I didn’t want to, I was going to have to kick the cunt in the nuts if he didn’t back off.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. 

‘You said we could have one beer together,’ the little prick of a man said.

‘Changed my mind,’ I said. Now, the state of mind I was in wasn’t angry, and it wasn’t sad, it was just more of a “I don’t want to have to hurt this guy just because he’s an idiot.” Regretful, I suppose. Yeah, regretful.

He kept following me though, trying to keep up, pleading with me. I kept saying no, but he wasn’t listening. Seems to be a thing over where he came from. They don’t take no for an answer over there.

Now, I could run, I was taller, and I don’t mind walking in the dark either. I knew where I was going, which helped. This little fuck had no idea.

It was about halfway along the avenue beside the oval where this little wheat ship sailor noticed there wasn’t gonna be any more lights.

‘How far your place is?’ He may have been thinking it was closer. I hadn’t lied to him. He was wrong in thinking it wasn’t as far as I said it was, and I was most definitely right.

‘We’re only half way, so I suggest you turn back.’

‘I just wanted to drink beer with you.’

‘Yeah I don’t think so mate.’ I am pretty sure he had begun to read my face now. It would be easy to lose this fucker in the dark. I think he had only just begun to realise the dark was what we’d be walking in if he kept on following me.

He gave up. There was no winning for this one. No winning at all. I won, and if you wanna know why, it’s because I was prepared to keep going. I knew where I was, I knew my location, and I was gonna keep moving until I got home.

My home, and this breed of man’s home were in two very different directions. Mine was several more k’s in the dark, his was back on a grain ship, which, if he continued to follow me, was something he would possibly never get back to and see the light of day again.

That is the entire point. It’s not about keeping up with the Joneses. It’s not about waiting for the sun to come up either.

It’s whether you are afraid of walking in the dark.

I’m not.

The Discovery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Real Dream

He says, ‘This is what she saw, when she looked at him on the floorboards.’

She stands there, behind the camera, watching. He is over there, on the other side of the room. Is it a room?

Not really. Not really a room. This is where he lifts his head. You see that. He’s not short. He’s not little. The little one with the darker skin pops his head up in front of me, and his green eyes shine. He is laughing.

‘You see it now,’ he says. I saw it before, I am saying this quietly. I didn’t repeat how they did it, the others would not let me.

‘I couldn’t say I had a crush on him,’ she says. ‘We needed to work together.’

He claps his hands. There are people behind him. The cloths of silk float in the warm breeze. He looks over and tries not to grin. He purses his lips and lifts his chin. He does not say begin. He just nods.

‘I am not stuck here. This is the place between. They always move between this place, and the next place. We just keep drinking our red tea.’

It is very hard not to laugh now.

‘He’s a bloody cheeky shit,’ I say to the one in my dream.

She laughs. ‘I know. I had to work with him.’

it is easy for us to communicate here. We understand all of the each, the others, perfectly. I say it this way, for it is not just the girl who showed me her thoughts. There were three people, and each of them had something to say. I couldn’t write it better than that either, whispers are the right hand. This is just the truth of it.

The little one is dancing behind them now. Behind us. We are the ones watching.

He can’t keep still, the one over there. Everyone is dancing and it’s very hard not to join in, he thinks, and you can see it in his eyes. He lifts his hands, holds them out and laughs.

‘We do it this way, you see/they don’t see.’ They do not have the left hand/right hand. We have that and have shared.

I nod, and the girl beside me is crying. ‘I can’t do this without him there,’ she says. He is not just my friend, she thinks. She will be okay. We know this. He is calming to her.

‘Your “partner in crime”,’ I say, and I hug her in the dream. ‘It will be okay. We are not the only dreamers.’

They heard it elsewhere, too. They decided to show it with the young one in the north. He thought it was wonderful, he said. It took a long time to get there, though. Perhaps too long, he thought once. He doesn’t think so now.

They couldn’t get a boat with a sail shaped like a fish fin. Not like that one. They had to make it up, they said.

The one who writes this story to us, here in the middle of the bottom of the world, as he calls it, wanted “Hakan” to be beautiful in his own way. ‘I didn’t know, quite know, how to fix this particular scene so it was acceptable. I had to ask the man who did the music.’

So, they sent the dream. They sent it, and today I will write the truth of it.

The shining silk sails of cloth that floated in the breeze, the dancing people, the happiness of simply being able to do this one thing, to act it, to write it, to sing it and to share with our friends in the south through the arc of a moon.