nature

Chapter Two __ untitled

Before Hans headed out that evening he took the newly hotmixed road to the top of the hill, parked his most recently acquired sporty little car in the cul de sac, and scowled at the windrows of dead trees sitting above him on the piles of sand. Nothing of any importance came out of his mouth because the words he was thinking were so vile he did not wish to say them out loud.

It took some time to control himself but when he calmed down, just a little bit, he opened the car door, pulled on the old elastic-sided boots he’d placed on the passenger side floor, and got out. He closed the car door as gently as he was able to in this current mood, shoved a cap low on his head and trudged up the recently made sandhill to the very top of what remained of the ridge.

The tree still lay where he’d last seen it, not yet whirred up into tiny wood chips, its horizontal trunk taking up quite quite a lot of space amidst the great, big, huge and very dismal sandy expanse where native bushland had once been.

He took off his sunglasses and stared moodily down the slope into his own backyard. He’d contributed to this, only in a small way he knew, but he couldn’t get out of it that easily because every other house below him had contributed to it as well and with all those contributions came loss, and what that loss looked like clearly resembled the shit he now stood in the middle of, wondering why the fuck he hadn’t bought himself an old rundown house in the middle of nowhere instead.

Hans sighed, then wandered over to the fallen tree. He felt like covering up its exposed roots with a blanket to give the tree some kind of dignity but that thought, he knew, was slightly ridiculous. Besides that, someone else would probably wander up from below the hill, look at him like he was a complete lunatic and possibly, knowing what people were like in this day and age, call the police for no reason other than the fact he’d likely made them feel uncomfortable.

He took a picture of the names burnt into the trunk and decided to take it down to one of the local joints the following day, the kind of place where they allowed you to blow photographs up and put them on shiny paper and then, when he got the chance, he’d frame it and go and stick it on Jake’s grave just for shizz and gigs and no other reason whatsoever.

‘Howja like them apples,’ He said to no one at all. Then he nudged the bottom of the tree with his boot and wandered back to the car.

Nobody else came up the hill, and he was not actually surprised by that at all. A bottle of bourbon, a heartache, and a plate full of fish and chips later, and he probably wouldn’t even remember it himself.

On the way to his dinner for one, Hans decided to call Solway.

For reasons he’d never been able to understand Hans couldn’t keep his sunglasses on when talking with people on the phone so, as he coasted down the hill from the cul de sac, he kept his sunglasses off, removed his cap, straightened his wavy, not curly, hair in the rearview mirror and cried “Solway” at the top of his voice.

Two seconds later, not that he was counting, she answered with a “Hans!”.

‘What are you doing,’ he asked.

‘Wondering why you’re calling me,’ she replied. There was a moment of awkward silence.

‘Is Bart there?’

‘Yes, he is. Did you want to speak with him?’ Another long expectant pause.

‘No.’ He stared out through the windscreen.

‘You called me, Hans.’

‘I know I did. What are you doing for dinner.?’

‘Oh.’ She signed softly. ‘We’re having dinner at home. You know, with the current economy and all that…’

‘Blah blah blah blah,’ he said rudely.

‘What’s up your arse?’

‘Nothing. The usual. Can’t I just talk to my sister on the phone?’

‘It would help if you actually talked.’

‘I am talking.’

‘Okay, well that’s fantastic. Are you going out for dinner are you?’

‘Yep.’

‘This is like drawing blood from a stone. What’s going on? You sound dumb.’

‘Well, you sound stupid,’ he replied in his most menacing voice.

‘Are we, like, five?’ Her tone was getting that exasperated edge he remembered so well from when he’d been a kid and done something evil and she’d had to clean up after him. ‘You’re upset about something. What is it?’

‘I’m bored.’ He began tapping the steering wheel.

‘No, you’re not. It’s something else.’ After a moment of silence he heard something metallic hit something else like she was stirring something. ‘If it’s about the fleas…’

‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about the fleas.’

‘Yet here I am, talking about fleas.’

‘I don’t want to talk about fleas.’ He glared at the road.

‘I am trying to be kind, Hans. Don’t make it hard.’

‘I don’t want to hang up on you Solway.’

‘I know you don’t buddy. What is it?’

‘Nothing. You wouldn’t get it. I don’t get it. It’s okay. I’m okay.’

‘Now I’m worried. Where are you having dinner then?’

‘That fish and chip place on the foreshore.’

A rustling sound and a soft murmur came through the line. ‘Okay, I’ll come down. I won’t be eating, but I’ll come down, okay?’

‘Okay, Don’t look too attractive.’

‘Don’t look too… Do you want me to come down or not?’

‘Yes.’ He scowled and flicked on the indicator.

‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

‘Good.’ He hung up.

He felt like tossing the phone into the back seat, then felt like tossing it out the window. He put it on the leather passenger seat instead. It was going to be a shit night, and a shit meal, and everything was going to be shit. He pulled up at a stoplight and checked his teeth. Perfect, as usual.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t going to be completely shit. Maybe it would be okay. He wondered if they had tartare sauce.

to be continued.

Chapter One — Untitled

Hans Endersans was not a happy man. He’d been to one too many “bored” meetings, as he called them, and each and every restaurant manager felt exactly the damn same to him. They were pretty, pretentious people, made to carry a tray of Cognac, or a semi-inexpensive bottle of wine, made to greet people at the door with a smile and a slight bow, made to pick on the harried, sweating kitchen hands and argue with the greatly feared chefs of the seven restaurants Hans now owned.

Not a one of them seemed to have the brain capacity for new ideas.

Apparently, thought Hans, this is my fault for not “allowing” them to sprout their rubbish into my ears for hours on end, or listen to their thoughts on a new type of whipped garlic butter, or allow them to be ashamed when I’ve told them it’s all been done before, but ….

‘Sure,’ he said loudly to the severely gelled woman at the other end of the table. ‘Whatever you think.’

She smiled and picked at the tablecloth in front of her with fingernails Hans would never have allowed in a commercial kitchen. ‘I’d like the thoughts of my fellow managers if you don’t mind, Hans.’

The other managers, who knew Hans far better than she did, held their breaths and leaned back, or held their breaths and slumped down, or held their breaths and …. He glanced at the man closest to him. It did kinda look like he was trying to dig a hole into the carpet with one patented shoe. Hans frowned, and tried not to let his baser instincts get the better of him.

There are no bones under the table. There are no bones under the table. The scowl deepened and he rolled his shoulders, trying not to glare at the ridiculous woman with the gelled back hair.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he asked politely.

‘I said,’ said the woman, not completely understanding everyone else’s reaction. ‘That I would like the opinions of my –‘

There came a chorous of positive responses arounfd the table.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Oh yes, what a wonderful thought.’

‘I am in complete agreement.’

‘Never would have come up with that one myself,’ said one participant, who nearly swallowed his own tongue after Hans shot a glance at him. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Too much?’

Hans tried not to grin. It had been a sarcastic comment, but he should not have found it amusing. He cleared his throat.

‘There we have it,’ he said, waving a hand in the air. ‘Are we done yet? I’m hungry. How about you bring one of your whipped garlic butter whatsits in and we’ll destroy it with some lovely crunchy bread rolls, and then you can all go back to what you should actually be doing and take the fucking day off because it’s Monday.’

‘What does Monday have to do with, well, anything?. The soon-to-be-fired restaurant manager asked from botox injected lips.

Hans raised an eyebrow. ‘How long did you say you’d worked in Hospitality,’ he asked. Did he really need to go back and check her resume?

Her mouth closed with a slightly gummy sound them popped open again. This woman had a death wish. ‘I know, traditionally we don’t open on Monday’s Hans, but…’

‘There’s a reason for that Nora. Tell me what the reason is,’ he said.

‘The reason?’

‘Yes, the reason. Tell me the reason we don’t usually run our restaurants on a Monday.’

‘Well, traditionally, we wouldn’t make much money I suppose, but –‘

‘You suppose?’

‘Yes.’ She sat up straighter on her vinyl covered chair, if that was possible. She’d already looked like there was a carrot stuck up her arse. Now it looked like it was a cobweb broom with an extendable handle.

‘Well,’ said Hans. Let’s just suppose I like making money, okay? Let’s just suppose that, shall we? Let’s not kick “tradition” in the arse, just because you have come up with this “new” and “amazing” whipped garlic butter which has never been done in the past, ever, apparently, by anyone else at all, and think about this sensibly for a change.’ He stood up. ‘I like making money, Nora. I do not like losing money. I also like to give my staff the occasional day off. How about you?’

Finally, it looked like the woman had grown a brain. ‘Oh.’

‘Oh, indeed. Speaking of staff, when you’ve pulled that one out of your backside, perhaps you’d like to come and visit me in my private office and we’ll discuss how much you like your career.’

‘Let’s see how those crunchy bread rolls are going, shall we,’ said the man with the patented shoes.

‘Let’s,’ said Hans.

Chapter One to be continued…

Adventure Weather

Have I told you about the warri?

It’s the type of wind that gets under your skin and makes the kids a little wild. It sets the horses running down a paddock rolling their eyes. It sends the roos into the dense scrub, and it tells the grownups they need to start tying things down.

Some get a little fractious when the warri picks up and the trees begin to sway and whip their branches. Some, like my funny old cat (sorry, middle-aged cat) like to chuck maddies around the house and tell me the clouds scudding across the darkened sky have just dumped a shower of water. Those clouds are moving so quickly though, they don’t have time to keep raining in one place. They need to move on.

When the warri starts to sing, we listen. She calls around the corners of a house, or moans up a sand track so old it has made its own hollow in the dunes. This is really the only time she can sing, the warri, and so we let her sing and tell her how beautiful she sounds.

Sometimes, when we do that, she stops, she hesitates, almost as if she is saying. “What?” It’s as if she doesn’t want us to compliment her on her sound. Perhaps she is used to people being afraid of her, and for someone to say she sounds beautiful makes her question whether she’s done it right.

But… she’s the wind. She’s the warri. Everything she does is right. How could it be wrong? When she hears this, she dumps more tears from the sky and might think to herself, ‘This is good. Let’s move on.’

We should never take her for granted. She can be a little destructive, and if she has warned us she is coming, we should have listened, and we need to be careful of where we drive and where we sit if we’re outside, and where we need to keep ourselves safe along the roads.

This is a good day to build cubbies and forts inside, and take away all the special things that can be broken and hide them in cupboards. This is the type of day the children will want to go outside and let the wind flap their hair and spray their faces with water. Sometimes, for a short while, we might let them, but only if it’s safe. Otherwise, perhaps we will allow them into the biggest room in the house to make their special games of hide and seek and let them plunk away on an old toy piano.

It’s the warri.

Why This?

Perhaps,

It’s the glimmer on the water

A thousand quicksilver mirrors dancing over breeze-blown ripples

Reflected below in lightning streaks of gold

The tightness of salt-encrusted skin, baking on a gritty towel

Amidst the surprisingly pleasant scent of warm sunscreen

It’s the swift gasp when one bursts from the waves or

The sweet drag on muscle as we navigate tide and current

Confident in the body’s strength

‘

Or maybe

It’s dark thunderheads on the horizon and

wind-whipped particles of sand peppering our faces, twisting our hair

And,

with an indrawn breath, the rush of ozone and salt

That lets us know there’s an adventure on its way . . .

And, more distantly, the crash and boom as the ocean throws herself wildly at the land and we

Are home in bed, lulled to sleep in the knowledge we are safe.

‘

But it could be memories

Of a toddler’s dimpled bottom staggering towards the water

Arms high, fingers plucking the air in anticipation

Or simple treasures, like spiralled seashells in sandy palms

Weathered glass, smoothed and curling wood or

Footprints glanced over shoulders, and other footprints read

Temporary stories that wash away with the next high tide

‘

It could be all those things and

Perhaps its more

Maybe there isn’t a reason at all.

Get a Hairy Dog up your Eclipse

Approximately an hour or so later after Bart had made everyone hot beverages, including himself although he definitely did not need it, he began to relate his very strange spiritual journey of enlightenment to Solway who listened politely while writing things in her ever-present notebook.

Hans just looked at him oddly, cocking his head this way and that as if Bart could possibly be some new type of chew-toy. After about twenty minutes or so of silence, Hans decided to speak.

‘A wren,’ he said. There was no emotion to the two words that had just come out of his mouth. To Bart, there seemed to be some expectation he was supposed to reply to that.

‘Yes?’

‘Is this some kind of kids’ story?’ Hans picked a leaf from the forest floor and began to fold it methodically  into small crunchy pieces. He did not break eye contact with Bart once.

Bart stilled. He wondered if he should be clearing a path for a quick escape if he needed to. Hans did not appear pleased with him at all and, he supposed, if he were listening to his own sister’s (he didn’t have one) partner talking in long exotic phrases on the virtue of speaking with tiny blue birds, he might very well be contemplating their quick demise for the sake of maintaining a gene pool of sanity in the family line.

He decided not to respond and, very bravely he thought, stared back at Hans although his hands and legs were beginning to feel slightly shivery. He swallowed. It was unavoidable. He hoped the motion was disguised by his… dammit he’d shaved off his beard.

A slow and rather unpleasant smile began to form on Hans’s face. ‘Please,’ he said gently, which was not at all reassuring. ‘Go on.’

Bart licked his lips. His mouth had become rather dry. ‘Do you like bacon?’

‘What?’

‘I’m a tad peckish, and I thought I’d make some bacon and possibly eggs, although I’m not sure how many are left, and maybe do some toast, which might require a small cooking fire, but I think it’s okay as the fire ban should be over and we did get an awful lot of rain just recently if you didn’t notice, so I assume we won’t be breaking any laws, and where do you think might be a good spot to clear some of this stuff out of the way for a cooking fire. Do you know which way the wind is blowing?’

Hans cocked his head again, and his eyes began to glaze. Bart hoped that was because he was thinking about bacon, as he was quite sure he got a very similar look on his face when he thought about it.

Solway rose gracefully from her camp chair without knocking it down, walked across to where her brother sat, and pushed him over. Bart was quite sure that only worked because Hans’s chair was the one he had sat on yesterday and it had a habit of collapsing, otherwise Solway’s push against Hans’s rather large and burly shoulder would not have achieved much, except for taking his extremely intense gaze off Bart, which was possibly what the aim had been.

‘… the fuck,’ Hans muttered from behind a pair of upright expensive running shoes and extremely white socks.

‘Stop being a prick,’ said Solway succinctly. She turned and looked at Bart. ‘You… oh.’

An extremely tall man in a feather brown suit had appeared beside her. He patted her gently on the shoulder then wandered over to where Hans had just begun to untangle himself from the camp chair. The man didn’t appear to have any feet.

Why hello there he said without moving his lips.

‘Who the fuck are you,’ said Hans, pulling an arm from between some entangled canvas.

Today, said Superb, not offering him any help whatsoever, I’m your best mate.

That was the moment Bart noticed the light was changing.

Eclipse.

Oh look, said Superb, glancing up at the sky with his beautiful brown eyes, She’s eclipsing.

Hans began to growl. It was a very deep growl and it seemed to suit the very large, dark brown, boof-headed dog he had just turned into. Bart was unsure whether he was an Akita, a Malamute or something else entirely. He glanced sideways at Solway.

She appeared to resemble some type of white Siberian Husky and Bart was quite sure, although she was looking at him with her blue eyes and wagging her fluffy and slightly curly tail in a very friendly fashion, this was not the place he was supposed to be right now. With a short and not in the slightest, masculine squeak, he ran up the nearest tree. 

All hell broke loose.

Hans had grabbed the camp chair between a set of rather large canines, shook it roughly, tossed it out of the way,  and began snapping at one of Superb’s legs. Superb grinned, performed an extremely acrobatic backflip, and landed on a branch on a tree opposite Bart. Solway, it seemed, had just started getting dive-bombed by two rather attractive females in bomber jackets which made absolutely perfect sense in Bart’s humble opinion, aside from the fact it was Solway and no one should be attacking her at all.

‘Oi,’ he hissed at the two women performing very odd limp falls at the extremely agile white dog. ‘Leave her alone.’ He wrapped his prehensile tail about the branch and grabbed some gumnuts.

Not to be mistaken for hunky nuts said the voice beside him. It was the lizard. She seemed to be winking, or perhaps had mislaid one eye, and that, in Bart’s rather fretful mind, was possibly because the sun, as Superb had mentioned, was indeed eclipsing and…. His brain went blank.

I thought you see I reyes no what I mean is she I was helping you and Understanding so many things at once as simply not for human minds to think about too deeply because raining water was the resonating factor in this eclipsing moment in time was I assured it would work question mark not exactly and yet here we are. The lizard smiled widely. She still had no teeth.

Help, thought Bart.

Let them sort it out it will all be over soon and then you can go back to your very unextraordinary life and no one will know the difference except you three and that’s the way we tell fairy stories here do you like it question mark

Why am I thinking in dollar signs, thought Bart.

That’s just the way of it apparently I went through your wallet while you were sleeping and money things seem rather important in this modern world of yours and you do not seem to have much of it did you know your cameras are still rolling because they are I wonder if they can see us in this tree question mark fullstop exclamation period

Bart decided to throw gumnuts at the very large dark brown dog standing on its back legs and scratching madly at Superb’s tree. The dog ignored him.

Ditto said the lizard for no reason at all.

Bart decided to throw gumnuts at the two reasonably attractive females in bomber jackets who were “attacking” his future wife with what resembled manoeuvres called a “tin soldier” which usually involved a pool. He didn’t throw his nuts too hard, because he didn’t want to hurt them. They seemed rather fragile, he still felt quite saddened by Superb’s recent loss, and he didn’t want to make it worse than it needed to be. He also felt like giggling insanely again but didn’t think now would be a pertinent time.

Solway appeared to have remained very intelligent and decided, right at the moment one of Bart’s terribly aimed gumnuts narrowly missed her ear, to crawl under the very expensive four-wheel-drive Hans had hired only that morning.

I’m feeling quite frisky, said one of the wrens, lifting herself up from the most recent limp fall and flapping her arms. Who is that dark brown, deep chested, boof-headed, very large dog trying to bite Superb’s legs?

I don’t know, replied the other one, preening herself under one arm, which looked decidedly odd. He should turn back into a man now so we can find out, because it just doesn’t seem fair that here we are, looking like people, and there he is, looking like a dog and uh oh I think Superb might have just overheard us because he is giving me a very serious face which I have never seen before.

Really, said the first wren. How interesting. It’s a shame it’s not springtime then, isn’t it? He’ll just have to deal with it.

You’re not going to get anywhere with him because he’ll just turn back into a man and you’ll be birds, and tonight if you are both very lucky, we can find you both some mud and make a really cool house in the middle of a wattle bush, Superb called.

I would feel slightly mollified by that said the lizard pointedly to the two women in bomber jackets.  Also I am not quite sure what millo molly great I’ve lost it not now weary friend do you want a gumnut question mark the lizard asked from beside Bart on the long, very thick and not in the least bit unstable, branch.

I’m good, thought Bart.

Yes that’s why we chose you, well more specifically I did but you are also sensible despite your rather exotic imaginationings which I think as I am definitely beginning to regain an eye should be a new word in this english language of yours fullstop period and other ridiculous things

The sun did seem to be regaining some strength, Bart noticed. He sighed, very deeply for a possum, and decided to crawl down from the rather safe branch of this tree before he fell down or his soon to be much heavier body mass broke it.

He watched, with an emotion he was unable to define, from the relative safety of his swag as everything, very slowly, began to turn back to normal. This was around the time he came up with his dastardly plan.

______________________O__________________________~~~// ~~~II** :D

It took a few moments for Solway and Hans to reassert their humanity. It took a few more moments from them to slowly come to face the reality that perhaps, just perhaps, Bart might very well be telling the truth.

Bart took advantage of their obvious confusion by making his way swiftly to the camp table, lighting the little camp oven, throwing a frypan over the flame, quickly adding some cooking oil, and tossing in a few rashers of bacon.

‘How hungry are you,’ he asked casually as Solway crawled out from under the really flash, brand new, amazingingly cool, four-wheel-drive.

 She didn’t say anything. She looked at him with wide blue eyes, then looked at her brother who currently seemed to be examining his fingernails and some very deep scratch marks on a tree trunk, then glanced furtively up at a branch where a tiny little wren sat, looking at them both.

‘You owe me a chair,’ Bart said airily.

‘What,’ growled Hans, then scowled  at the tangled piece of canvas and metal poles and cleared his throat a couple of times. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You owe me for the hire of that four-wheel-drive.’ He stalked, stiff-legged, over to the real flash, awesome and in no way scratched deeply down one side, four-wheel-drive. ‘Oh no,’  Hans whined, then sprawled over the vehicle’s bonnet, tongue lolling. He slid off neatly and stared at the scratch.

The man seemed to have come to his senses quite quickly.

Not.

‘How about I make you a bacon sanger instead,’ suggested Bart.

Hans smoothed back his longish hair and straightened his very expensive t-shirt. It looked like he was trying not to wag a non-existent tail. ‘Alright.’

‘Awesome,’ said Bart, and it was awesome and everything was awesome and he felt awesome and he laughed a little bit under his breath because this would make a great story to share amongst themselves once these two got used to the fact they had, not only contributed to Bart’s amazing and wonderful bush experience, but had both been rather large and fluffy dogs for at least, well, he didn’t know how long, but it had been long enough.

As the bacon began to frizzle in the frypan, he casually wandered over to the camera on the tripod which, he noticed, still had a little red light on it, and switched it off.

‘Perhaps we’ll have a look at this when we get home,’ he suggested to Solway.

She smiled in a wobbly way, pranced over to him and gave him a very large hug, bottom wiggling slightly. ‘Perhaps we will,’ she murmured into his ear and not licking it once. ‘Perhaps we will.’

It took some time for her and Hans to start behaving normally again. Bacon helped.

Epilogue

As most things do, life went back to normal. Bart, Solway and Hans managed to get the spare tyre onto the Discovery without too many issues, pumped up the other three tyres, thanked their lucky stars (which seemed to be a theme) that none of the rims had been damaged, and managed to get back on the road within a reasonable time to be able to make their way back home before it got too dark.

Hans slept on their couch that evening, and no one mentioned the infestation of fleas that had Solway and Bart putting that couch out for verge collection a few weeks later.

They may have, eventually, come across some people who decided their way-too-funny and fabulous story might require someone turning it into a movie. It might even have been a bestseller, if he found the right people to share it with. He probably did, because Bart was particularly good at that kind of thing.

I would say they lived happily ever after, for they more than likely did, despite all the normal everyday things that happen to people in their everyday lives.

Hans even found a girlfriend who could deal with his not-at-all over-inflated ego eventually. She seemed nice, in Bart’s humble opinion.

And there we have it. The end of the story. If there is another story, it might very well be meant for another day.

Fullstop

“Bastards”. heroes are always heroes and we all love them very much. We just don’t call ’em heroes.

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.

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 — 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.