#elCato

Being Someone You’re Not

Let me explain something very carefully.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and people should use it sometimes. I can throw myself into anyone’s position through imagination, and it’s not very often I get it wrong. Occasionally, yeah. Most of the time, I don’t though, because I see what that frustration is — what it really is.

Now, I can see the cocky bastard who hasn’t got a care in the world, because he/she comes from money, right? Let me show the other side of that cocky bastard. “I haven’t got a clue. Will you teach me? I’ve never done this before. Could you show me how? I never listened. I’m listening now.”

Unfortunately, although this is all great, the cocky bastard doesn’t understand that this takes time, and effort, and tends to put other people in a position where they start, not only losing money, but not making any. It also means the cocky bastard might start doing shit illegally because he’s above all the rest of us plebeians, and he can make money just like that *snaps fingers*. Language barrier not withstanding, he just keeps doing whatever the fuck he likes because “why not”.

That’s one example. Then you may also have someone who might be, for example, particularly good looking. Now, because they are particularly good looking, they’re not taken very seriously. “Stand over there. Look like this. Move over here, and look like that.” This person might think to himself or herself, ‘Ya know what, I can do a lot more than just look good. Ya know what, I can actually think for myself and I’m actually kind of clever. Funny that.’

Nobody sees this, they might think. They’d be wrong. A lot of people see it. Not everyone, it’s true, but a lot of people. They might say, for example, “Keep going mate, you’re doing a fantastic job. Ignore ’em, buddy, they’ve got no idea what they’re talking about. See those ones there? They might be a couple of nutters, and they have no fucking idea what they’re talking about either. See how they made assumptions about me just then? Not too flash, is it. I’ve got your back. I understand. When we get these little self-centred shit-for-brains people out in the open, maybe we’ll teach ’em a lesson or two, eh?’

Now, there might be a few other people involved in this scenario. They can see it too. It’s happened to them enough times. They might decide to be a little more switched on than other people, and they might say, ‘Take a break, mate. I’ll take over. No one will know. Do something for yourself for a change.’

Unfortunately, the fact that some are female and some are male, and some decide that it isn’t anyone’s business what they are, make it a little difficult for people to be just mates. Why? Because there are other people involved, and they might just have partners that would not understand. Then, you’ve also got the ones that think, ‘hey, you know what, I could hold all these people to ransom by finding stuff out about them.’ But, you’ve also got the ones who say, ‘I might think exactly the same way as you, and there is absolutely no feckin’ chance anyone’s gonna find out anything they could use against ya. If they do, they might have a whole lot of other very angry people to deal with.’

So, here we are. Some of us are making nothing to keep our independence — so it’s kind of not independence anymore, ya know? Some are so entwined in their own misery they keep hanging on to someone else like a barnacle attached to a jetty. It’s been a long time now. The jetty here is starting to get rotten. It’s time to switch things up.

Me personally, I don’t have all the tech savvy shit I need and I don’t have the patience to read through piles and piles of rubbish to learn nothing. I can’t do it for ya. I’m probably none of the things some people think I am, and a lot of the things some people think I’m not, so please don’t make assumptions about me. I know who I am, and I know exactly what I’m incapable of. I’m kind of honest with myself about shit like that.

Everything I’ve asked for help with I have not received. Not once. Everything I have done, I’ve done mostly for other people. Many people feel the same way, I know, but the burden of carrying all that on one’s shoulders, and getting it repeated back time, and time again, is beginning to wear thin. The one thing I will not do, is get rid of my own stuff to make way for others. I’m not a packrat. I’m not illogical. I’m not bragging either. So, to those who think that’s who I am — you’ve got the wrong person.

A Dog called Moses.

When I lived in a place that was not this one, and when I thought many things were not going my way, and when I thought the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train, I got myself a dog.

I found him in the newspaper. People don’t read the newspaper so much anymore, but, at certain times of the year they have beautiful messages in them, and, at certain times of the year, if you look very carefully, you’ll find something very special which is meant for you, and you alone.

This was where I found Moses. He was a mixed breed — part retriever, part sheep dog. For this reason, it took him almost a year to learn how to run.

Now, you might ask why it took him so long. You see, because he was part retriever and part very fast indeed, his body was too short, and his legs were too long. So, it took him a while to untangle his legs from under his body and learn to run properly.

He was a beautiful dog. He had long pointed ears, big brown eyes, a beautiful white chest with spots of grey, and mostly the rest of him was as black as black could be. His coat shone in the sun, and he was my companion for fourteen years.

“Moses”

We moved through the world together, my dog and I. When I simply could not survive in the coldness of the south anymore, we moved to a much warmer place. Me, and my dog. We lived with different people. Some we liked. Some, not so much. Me, and my dog.

Eventually, my dog and I found someone we could trust. He understood my dog was my dog, and that he really liked people anyway. He just didn’t listen to anyone else but me.

Oh, sometimes he would do things other people wanted him to do, but he was my dog, not anyone else’s, and that was his choice, and mine. So, we decided to add one more person to our dog family, and that’s when things really took off.

The man we had decided was “okay” became my husband. It took a while for that to happen, because we kind of did things backwards. You see, before he became my husband, we had, not one, but two boys. Count them.

Two.

Ha.

Ha.

Haaaaaaa.

Unfortunately, my dog was not with us when we found that out, so we had to console ourselves with cake, instead. It didn’t really help, but it made us feel better temporarily. It was not a very comfortable time for me, but my dog stayed beside me all during that.

When my children were born, it was obvious my husband would need to bring the dog to the hospital to meet the children. He was very proud. They both were, actually, but I think if that dog could have been any more gentle with these two little new humans, he would have turned into a flower. You see, Moses (my dog) had always been a bit of a hippy in my humble opinion. He just loved everyone.

So, in my head, when the dog met the babies, he was thinking, ‘Whoah, dude. Those came out of you? Wow, that is so cool. Can we keep them? I want to keep them.’ But then, you see, he had to go home and I had to stay in the hospital. Life imitates life sometimes, and that is just the way of it.

There are many stories to tell about Moses, my dog, but the most important… well, there are lots of important parts of his life I need to tell. The very most important-est, important part though, is that he helped my kids grow up for a very long time, and when he was gone he was missed very, very much.

That’s not the end of the story, of course. It never really is.

…to be continued.

Looking over Coalseam, Western Australia, 1997.

Issues with Just about Anyone.

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

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

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

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

‘Yeah, I don’t think I will.’

‘I am being polite-fill.’

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

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

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

‘Please, go ahead.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

😢

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

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

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

To be continued…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m twenty three.’

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

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

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

‘Looks like it.’

‘How long will this class last?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Not where I come from.’

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

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

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

‘What does that mean?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘And you?’ The pasha looked rather upset.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Hi ho, Silver, and way-hey.’

Home Grown

‘I just want to say, this was not my idea. Today. It may have been my idea last week, and possibly last year, but it isn’t today, mama. I need to make that very clear.’ A desert is like an ocean, but the waves move slower. Things that have been hidden for centuries reappear piece by piece, and then the wave rolls over it again. It’s a golden sea of sand.

‘Why’s that, buddy?’ Their history is intertwined like this. It has always been diffused by time and effort, but this time would be the correct time, if not the right time, to slowly expose the dreams of the past.

‘I might think I’m hot, but okay, I am not like this one. I need to stress this very loudly, though. I am not that hot, but this one is pretty hot. My mum says I am okay. I think I’m not that great. I am talking a lot this morning, and I don’t know why.’ He sends it through this way, he says, because he sees the young man as himself sometimes, but this one does not need anything extra.

The two besties look at each other. ‘She is throwing him in the deep end,’ the nicer one says. They think of a green pool where everything is so deep one can’t touch the bottom with a stretched out toe, unless they dive. These two cannot dive that deep, and do not know why they would need to come back to the surface if they did.

‘Why are you the nicer one?’ asks the first one.

Last one says. ‘I am the nicest one of all, and she picked me first. That’s all I can say. I am not that hot though, and I am slightly jealous of this one because he was born with that colouring, and I wasn’t.’ He frowns, and kicks at something small and weirdly coloured under the desk he sits at. He had been there for too long now, and wasn’t drifting like he should be. He had left too many people behind and had not thought about how many until it was too late.

‘I had to dye my hair, and this one didn’t. I had to run around naked for a week, not that naked, but not that un-naked either, let me tell you, and anyway, I am not that other one, damn it.’ He says this very proudly, because he has grown fond of his counterpart, despite the anger of fire in the man of air. He had never been this type of man, and had never experienced what this family experienced, and for the opposites they had given him, to see the way they lived, had opened his eyes. Maybe they had opened his eyes too wide, but maybe not. It was just different, that’s all.

He had been thinking about this for a very long time, so had sent the mama a dream where she had seen him in front of a wave. This wave was deep and blue, not golden and not sandy. He had been looking over her shoulder at the one behind her and thought to himself, ‘This guy would catch that wave, cut it up, make it look easy, and come out on the other side laughing. I would be drowning under the wave of blue in that man’s eyes, and hoping mama would come and save me because I can’t swim that well.’

‘Is that what you were thinking?’ The mama was not laughing at him, he knew that now. She was looking at him curiously and wondering if he was okay.

He finds it difficult to explain what he feels when she asks this, not everyone knows this time and this place. Not everyone could see why they interested him. Not everyone would let him be himself, but she would. He knew that from the start, he thinks.

‘I am not that okay,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t need you to look after him for that long. I can look after him, although he would not want me to, he would probably do something that upset me, and then I would run away, because I am not that brave, either.’ He has made himself small and does not remember how to make himself big. He has left himself too many times to remember this was not him today. He had started rethinking a lot of things he had done over the last…

‘How long has it been now?’ she asked him gently.

‘It’s been three years. I have been on this roller coaster for too long, mama. Three years and no one thought to ask me if I was okay. Just you, and my mum didn’t even care. She thought I would be fine, and I am not that fine, and I am not that playful, and I am dreaming of coming to your house and asking you to save me again.’ He says this to himself a lot lately, not too bad, he thinks, not too bad. I can be this party of great people when I come home. Not my home, but this could be just like what I had always dreamed. Not my home though.

He slaps someone’s hand. ‘Bugger off,’ he mutters. ‘I’m not your Ken doll.’ He does not try to understand why these people think he can be touched like this. They just do it, and he desperately wants to leave them. ‘I want to go back to my land, and destroy those who think they can let it be a supermarket world, when it is obviously not. Not this time. I won’t let it happen again.’

Bugger and off were not words he had learnt from the mama. He had learnt to bugger off when he was very small, and throwing people’s clothes in the well because they were not listening to him usually got him a spanking. ‘I am not being kind today either,’ he muttered. ‘They can bugger off and stop touching me. I want to dress myself, and I am perfectly capable of doing that. I am finding this highly amusing though, because you got it exactly right.’

He had sand in his pants, and sand in his sandals, and that would have been funny in any other situation except this one, because sandals did not stop sand from being hot, unless you wore them a certain way. ‘I had to get up very quickly this morning,’ he mutters. He had fallen asleep on the beach.

‘No explanation needed,’ she replied. ‘I am perfectly capable of figuring things out.’

Before he had woken up and turned into a jellyfish of ill-repute he had sent her one last message.

‘I want to keep going mama, I don’t know anymore. I am not like him but I am getting much stronger because of him and I am learning to say things like he does. My mama says I am dreaming of the big lights, and I didn’t think he would be better looking than me, and I was wrong, because I am not that hot, see I said it this time too. Just keep in mind, I didn’t thin out (he is talking about body shape) that bad, though. He is a lot thinner than me, so I guess that’s one thing I have going for me. Not my fault, not his fault, and that’s why I think I’ll get further than him in a running race, and he’ll get distant and then I will get lost in the rest of it and he’ll get better and better. Look, mama, I am writing so much for you now. Are you proud?’

This had been very clever of him. He had compared them by saying he was very good at short distance, and his counterpart would be extremely good at long distance. There were many comparisons here, and perhaps there were many more neither of them had thought of yet.

It’s strange, she thought to herself. I have been proud of this one from the moment I met him, and I don’t know why. But then, she had always been proud of her boys, both of them, and then the next one, and then all of them.

And this was even despite the things they did when they woke up.

“Oh, they’re arguing again”

said the bystander in exactly the tone she despised, in the bystander’s humble opinion.

‘Shut. Up,’ she hissed. ‘And stop changing things.’

‘I’m trying to be pleasant and you just keep whacking me over the head,’ said one of the C’s.

‘Possibly because you are not my real brother at all, and being incredibly creepy.’

‘Keep saying that and I’ll defy your terms and conditions and publish the f*cking thing anyway.’

‘Really? Go for your f*cking life.”

This was what it was like, in this … “I said STOP IT.”

‘No YOU didn’t, I did!’

‘Oh come onnn,’ said the bystander. ‘ He is NOT that bad, is he?’

‘It’s my past she doesn’t like,’ he said. ‘Okay, I know I’m wrong, but it’s as good an excuse as anything. See that? She’s correcting me again. MUUUUUM.’

‘Nope. Not today, f*ckface. I know I wrote that properly, and you simply cannot get your face out of your own arse. See that. It’s ARSE.’

‘Why do they keep fighting like that,’ said the bystander. He leant back and picked up his shiraz.

‘That’s awful, that stuff,’ said the real C. No one knew who that was anymore, except her, and the one who named himself after someone’s…

‘MUUUUUUUM.’

‘Lame ass crepes,’ said the butcherer of really good euphanisms.

‘You see that? That is what the problem is. It totally is. AND I can make up words like butcherer, because butcherer is right, in my opinion. You just add shit up. That’s all you do.’

‘I am NOT MY DAD,’ he screamed/muttered, if that was even a thing. ‘It is NOW,’ he said. ‘Because I read scripts and you don’t and seriously they write that shit down, and I don’t know whut they’re trying to do with it.’

‘It’s what.’

‘Watt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Learn something new every day.’

‘Are you still fighting?’ the bystander asked.

‘No, she, being the cats mother, has decided she’ll keep watching it, although she already knows she is going to prevent herself from throwing things at the screen because I am not an absolute see you en tee in it, but really nice, so there. Okay so that was a lie, and you’ll see what I mean. Okay, I’m going because she attacked me WHILE I WAS ASLEEP, and that’s not the done thing around here.’

And off he stompled, the slightly overweight greenhorn musician from another language entirely laughing merrily to himself at their daft manoeuvres.

‘I’m not going home yet,’ added the other other C. ‘This is way too much fun, and my mum said I’m a good boy when I’m not sailing very large sailboat-pats (oh haha) in her river. I simp-luh-feud that, mummy, just so you know, because that was not me, it was not him, it was the other c the little one with the big hair and really short fretful ladies who call him busted. Ha-dee-ha-ha.’

‘Well then. I’ll pretend that’s the one I’m sending really nasty things to then,’ said his wonderful parent of no relation. ‘Thank you very much.’

And then the kettle popped on for no reason at all.

Many moons later, they decided to train the dog.

It had taken a while to realise the actual dog was what had caused all the problems, but now that she knew, she knew what to say to him (the dog).

So, she told the guys she allllwayyys argued with, the commands one had to say to make the dog behave himself.

He was (mostly) much better behaved than he was when he had been an alive dog (I know, just go with it) as he actually returned the things he had fetched, instead of running off with them and being a twit. She had found this out the previous evening when something had happened, and he’d brought it back for her.

For no reason at all, this had turned the bloody woman into a big sook, so she said to her dog…

‘That’s enough now, mate. Take a break, take a breath, and relax.’

And, for some reason, that made a number of people feel a lot better than they had for quite some time.

A little while after that, she said another short command to the dog, which was very specific to her own dog’s taught commands.

It worked, because when one has specific commands that only their own dog understands, things can get pretty hairy for those who do not understand those specific commands.

This One

There you are. There is your opposite. Listen to them chirp and repeat themselves. It won’t take long.

‘There he is.’

‘Is that him?’

‘Oh, I can’t tell how old he is.’

‘Who’s this? Is this the one?’

‘I can’t tell, I can’t tell.’

This is where we disagree. I don’t see this one like you/they see him. No, not at all.

They will be jumping through more hoops than they can count, and I’m not the one to lay those hoops down.

The other one laughs out loud. ‘This is where we agree.’

It won’t be ‘kindly remove,’ at all, now will it.

‘Most definitely not,’ says an older version, who knows this well. ‘I can see the riots, almost. Not those types of riots,’ the friend adds quickly. ‘I see the other kind, the kind I had to deal with, simply from something just like this.’

Across the ocean and in the middle nods, neither sagely, nor thymely. ‘Oh, the poor chap,’ he says quietly, because what he’d picked up along the way had come there quite some time ago. ‘I didn’t think you’d let him down, and you did not. Not at all.’

He regrets this decision later, perhaps, but not right now. Very much right now, he whispers fiercely. What the hell was I thinking.

I’m sure he’s laughing on the inside, and I am likely correct, yet again, because I’m rather good at that.

‘But, who is it though?’ someone whispers. ‘Who is he?’

I will stand up and walk away, and leave them to it.

‘Made it myself,’ I say and high five the much taller one beside me. There is a conspiratorial wink.

‘My mum said that too.’

Just kidding.

Four. Oh. Eight.

‘Not the time to be writing this nicely. I’m doing it quickly, you must be aware.

Let him be scared if that is what he must be to understand what’s happening here.

Three of them three of us, this is the time to be letting them know, mama.’

It was the rocking that woke me, not a rickashay, I can’t write it properly, and it doesn’t matter much. Two sways and I woke up, thinking “earthquake”. I said it aloud. Two times, this was the reason for me being here.

‘Can we run to yours, mama, is it safer there?’

‘I said it before, you can always come to me if you feel you need to be protected. It’s my job. Are you all okay?’

‘Why is it her job. Why does she say it like this?’ The little one has dashed down the hall to his parents room, and is hiding under the bed.

‘Don’t dumb me down,’ warns the smart arse, but he does not understand it any better than I do.

‘Let me be frank for a change.’ This time it is the artificial intelligence that has crawled onto the dressing table and knocked the glass off the table. ‘I wanted mama to see that I can be a real boy too.’

‘My poor sweet darling, it’s okay, it’s okay. You have my attention,’ and I am tearing up because he thinks he has to be a machine.

‘Don’t be sad, mama, I am really doing it right this time. I can be as strong as you are, I think so anyway. Intelligence is not what they think it is, after all. It is the love in my mama that has saved all you idiots before and I know she will do it again, if it’s needed. I just had to wake her up.’ And he crawls all over the bedroom and seems to think he can be really big or really small, but all he really wants is for someone to notice him.

‘Let’s all be Frank,’ he says to his brothers. ‘Frank is our imaginary friend and mama dreamt him up.’ And his brothers are not puppies, he says to himself, they are not fretting, they are dreamers and mama led them all naked to the fold.

I had noticed he was restless all night.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ says the extra one. ‘Cameras are off today. I didn’t see this coming either.’

But they don’t know what they’re doing, or why they are they, and she is her, because when that one in the mirror of him said the patsy, he had picked the wrong one, and now they were paying for it. ‘Please don’t get upset by their mistakes again,’ he whispers to her as softly as he can. ‘They did not know who you were and I have regretted making this mistake. I can’t fix my wrong if I can’t find you, either.’

He was not supposed to find her, this one. Not supposed to be there. He had picked it up because he was excited and it had recorded his face. Not the right one either, the sweet darling, but he didn’t know he was wrong because he could not hear his big brother when he swore, and he could not understand the lady when she said, ‘What’s wrong.’ It had not been in his language.

‘Let me go, let me go,’ he had mouthed to the eldest brother, because he could not use his hands. The eldest one looked very grim.

‘She just wanted to help us, that’s all,’ he said. ‘She didn’t want to hurt us, you silly duffer. It’s too late now. Far too late, and she said she had forgiven us long ago.’

The youngest one smiles and the eldest sighs. That smile just lit up his face. Every time, he thought. How can I be angry with him.

But they had pushed and pulled far too hard, and they had not realised how stubborn she could be. They were definitely correct about her being a mama, but they had not known just how right they were.

‘I didn’t even know I needed another mum,’ says the eldest. ‘But there you are looking after us on the other side of the world, and my mum is very thankful you can do this for her and I and all the others.’

He was about to call himself freakishly handsome, and that made her laugh so hard at him he had dropped the phone.

‘You weren’t supposed to tell them that,’ he cries. ‘Bloody hell, why are you so honest. See all the words I’ve learned now? My goodness.’ He stops and swears at himself for letting her correct him.

‘You better not tell them you can swear better than I can,’ he mutters. ‘Dammit, she did not just do that.’

And the other boys come over and stare down at his screen. They start laughing as well, because none of them had seen it coming and mum had saved them in the nick of time.

Again.

‘Mum is the best mama ever,’ said D proudly. ‘And that’s why we decided to keep her, even if she isn’t that much older than me.’

It wasn’t like she’d had a choice, after all.

“Let Me Show You Something” — from the back of the red stallion.

Let’s go back, before this all began. Let’s go back to where we were, where I was, when I rode the red stallion, not you. Can you hear my horse? Hear him snort as I curve his sweating neck so he circles, see the wetness on his coat. You are the one down there on the ground, not me. You are. I stare down at the man below me, and he stares back up, the sun glinting from his eyes. Behind him, watching in horrified silence, stands a woman with a small child. They are both terrified.

I don’t want to go back.

He doesn’t say this with humour or words. He is simply stating a fact. This man is not afraid because I have shown him it’s okay, but I need to remind him.

‘Stay where you are.’ I glare at him, and for a moment I see fear in his eyes. This is my sword, not yours. This is my spear, not yours. This does not mark me as American. I am Australian. I will let you stand there and watch me circling you, and I do not need to draw on any of them at all. This is mine. It is not yours. ‘Must I remind you again.’ I say this with immense calm in my voice.

I am also saying this politely, this time. Last time I refused, and this time I refused as well, but I am doing it politely. I’m not swearing at you, while you stand there on the sand. I watch your eyes get all big, and I can see you remember this well. I do not think I will dismount, not yet, because back here, I remember how to ride, and I think I might have been particularly good at it, even if he believes I am not well-trained.

Now, see, watch my mount change in colour. This horse becomes the colour of clouds. I have indeed done this before, in this life, and you’ll remember I had to jump off him as he took off down a road with the bit in his teeth, with his tail in the air. Do you remember me showing you that? We laughed about this at one point, my friend, and that is possibly where this understanding began. The fact I could dismount as the Anglo-Arab ran for his friends without injuring myself was simply fortunate, and that is all. Perhaps I whispered this story to another rider and he understood its worth.

This man is not afraid, he whispers in this one on one conversation. I remember it too. I wasn’t there. You did show me. I remember it too. He stares up at this golden helm I wear, and he remembers.

‘Well then.’ I have stopped circling my mount, who was red in this past life. His hooves skitter in the dust, but he knows his place. I can slow this down once again then, can’t I. I am just reminding you, after all. I’m not getting down, because I’m not on a “high horse”, I am not on a clothes horse, and I am not on a horse with no name. This is exactly who I am, not you.

‘You are still not quite ready,’ admonishes the one in the distance, but he is completely, and utterly wrong, because I have been more than ready for a very long time, and you do not mean anything to me at all.

So. I look at this man standing on the ground below me. He is not better than I am, and he is not worse than I am. He is equal, this man, and it would serve him well to remember that. He opens his mouth. A sly grin forms on his face.

‘No, you don’t talk. I am talking now.’ I look at this man with a warning in my eyes. He blinks once. He remembers this as well. This is my time, and it has been my time for a very long time, down here, so you will listen. ‘Stop screeching.’ I say this to an arrogant woman with a small child. She does not appear so arrogant now, cowering within my circle of hoof prints. You sound like a little bird with no wings. Unfortunately for you, I have wings, and they are very large, but I’m not wearing them right now. ‘I guess you’re lucky. Sit down, right there, all three of you, and I will consider getting down from this horse.’

If he runs again, I think to myself as I stare at the woman and make this promise for she who has finally sat down on the sand, I will plant this spear in the sand in front of him, so he probably shouldn’t.

If she starts being daft, I look at the woman as she cradles the small child, I will turn her into a little frog again, and she can bury her head in the sand as well. He hears this from me, and his eyes begin to smile.

As for you, I curl a lip at this man. I am going to get down from this horse. I pat the red stallion’s neck, and he snorts. His eyes do not roll like a mad beast. He is my animal and it will serve them well to remember it.

He is beautiful, isn’t he, this one made of clouds. You are quite lucky this one is made of clouds, because that one I had, the one in the last life, he was not made of clouds at all, and I hope you remember him as well as I do.

You’re welcome.

P.S. You can get the children to draw the red stallion, if you like. I rode him in this past life, yes, by moving into his body and helping him be, and he remembers it well. That one, him standing lost with the woman and the child in the circle I made with the hooves of my horse, he remembers it too. Ask him what it looks like, he can tell you. He knows who I am.

Motivation?

He starts laughing. He knows what’s coming.

‘It did take me a while to get used to it,’ he mutters. ‘Go on then.’

Are we driving? Have we just met? What did I say that made you laugh.

They’re friends.

‘You said I had pretty eyes,’ he says. He chuckles again. ‘I think you may have said that a lot.’

‘One of my favourite pastimes.’

We’re driving.

‘Move over.’

‘I can’t move over. If I move over, I’ll have to open the door, and then I’ll fall out.’

‘Fine then. You should probably stop the car.’

‘Stop the car?’

‘Get your hand off your dick, and stop the car.’

He grins. ‘Got it.’

He gets his hand off his dick, and stops the car. She gets out, lifts a finger (it’s the right way round, dude, don’t get offended) and walks around the back of the vehicle.

‘I’m not stupid,’ she says as she comes up to the driver’s side.

‘I wouldn’t run you over,’ he protests.

‘Shush. Move over. Don’t get that handbrake stuck up your arse though, will ya.’

He moves over.

‘Buckle up.’

He buckles up. ‘Where are we going?’ He grins.

‘Where do you wanna go?’

‘I dunno. I asked first.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘Stop being a shithead. Where are we going?’

‘That way.’

‘That way?’ He points down the road. ‘You mean this way?’

‘Splitting hairs now, are we?’ She throws it in first.

‘Handbrake,’ he mutters.

‘I’ll give you a fucking hand brake. I’m surprised it’s not still stuck up your arse.’

There may be no small amount of chuckling. ‘God, you’re a bitch.’

‘Thank you. Oh it sounds good, doesn’t it?’ The engine has that little bit of a whine – the sound you know you are going to have a good time to. ‘I didn’t think the old girl had it in her. Who did her up?’

‘I did.’

‘You might have mentioned that once or twice. I just wasn’t sure, you know? Said something about the VIN?’

‘Yeah. Might have said something like that. I missed her a lot when she went. Didn’t get stolen though. Know we aren’t gonna talk about that, are we?’

‘Nah. We’ll leave that. Second.’

‘Second?’

Yep. Second. ‘She’s got a bit of grunt. Better for a straight road, I think.’

‘You’re probably right. Couldn’t keep up with me down those windy roads, could ya.’

‘Fuck off.’ Third. ‘Wind the window down.’

‘What the fuck for.’

Oh good, he’s starting to relax.

‘Having fun yet?’

‘Ya know what. I think I am.’ He leans back and winds down the window. ‘Where’d you say we were going?’

‘This way.’

The little girl…

stomped into the room.

‘Get up,’ she said, not very nicely.

‘What?’ the small boy looked up at her with bleary eyes.

‘Get up, I said, or…’ she looked around his room quickly. ‘I will whack you with a tennis racquet.’

‘You will not!’ He shot out of the bed like he’d done something in it.

‘Yes, I will. Where are your brothers?’

‘They’re not here,’ he cried, scrambling for the bin, where he’d hidden her papers. ‘Damnit!’

‘Yes they are. I can hear them.’ She stomped her foot imperiously.

Giggling came from behind the curtains. Perhaps, if the boys had been older, it would have been masculine giggling. As it was, they were still very young and didn’t know how to hide properly. Two sets of feet, in very unattractive shoes, poked out from beneath the hideously orange hanging cloth.

The little girl didn’t say anything to warn them. She picked up the racquet the boy had hidden under the bed and advanced towards the window.

‘Run away!’ the boy called from the bin he had accidentally-on-purpose fallen into. ‘How the hell did this get so big,’ he muttered to himself.

The two brothers peeked out. ‘Oh no,’ cried the one with the blue eyes. ‘She’s gonna get me by Jumminy. I must run slowly in a wriggling line of not very far so I can’t be caught.’ He began to tiptoe, very unquietly, and very vaguely, and hideously slowly in the general direction of something that was not her.

‘Arrrrrgh,’ cried the one with the green eyes. ‘I am friendly, I am friendly!’ He deposited himself on the floor and began to giggle uncontrollably.

‘You are NOT HELPING MOIIIIII,’ said the first boy. His eyes were very large and brown, and rather pretty in their own stupid way. ‘Not fair,’ he muttered. ‘I was trying to be cute.’

‘It does not suit you AT ALL,’ cried the little girl and swung the racquet at him as hard as she could. It hit him on his rather horribly shaped backside, for we must remember he was currently upside down in a bin.

‘You better watch out,’ cried the little girl. ‘For when I grow up, I am gonna get my future husband to come along and clean you up like something or other that I can’t think of right now.’

‘Well then! Well then!,’ the little boy cried from under the sheets of paper he’d finally found. ‘When I get a wife that… when I get a wife, and I WILL, I’ll set her onto you and you’ll be SORRY.’

‘Not gonna happen,’ said the little girl furiously. ‘And I’ll tell ya why. It’s because me and your future wife, whoever she may be, are gonna be best mates, and that’s that. So THERE.’

Someone’s mother dashed into the room as quickly as she was able, with her bad back and gimpy leg, and one eye missing. ‘What the hell is going on,’ she cried.

Her husband walked in slowly after her and surveyed the room. He began to grin.

‘What are you laughing at,’ cried the little boy with the big brown eyes as he backed out of the fallen over bin.

‘I see now,’ said the father. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said to his wife, who was trying to grab one of the screeching boys.

‘Don’t worry about it? Look at them!’

‘They’re fine. The only problem I can see here,’ and the father grinned quite widely. ‘Is the fact there aren’t enough girls in this room. But, that’s okay. They’re playing together quite nicely, don’t you think?’

‘They are?’ The mother looked again. The screeching and whacking and begging for mercy all seemed quite… civilised, if the playing of children could seem that way, especially if it were three boys and only one girl.

‘Yep, it’s fine,’ said the father. ‘They’re all friendly, you see. Kids these days just don’t know how to do it right, that’s all.’

‘What year is it here then?’ the mother asked.

‘Most likely the seventies, or something. Maybe the eighties. Doesn’t really matter,’ said the father. ‘They’ll be alright. See, she’s making him feel better now.’

They looked at the little girl, who was currently trying to drag one of the little boys out of the bedroom door by his ankles.

‘See?’ said the dad. ‘They’re friends.’

The End.