short-stories

Popcorn (continued). Bunyip of the Blackwood

Before I do the old copy/paste thing, I’ll tell you that a little voice inside my head told me I am tempting fate. I’m not tempting fate, mate. I am fate. Pull up your pants and let’s get on with it.

~~~~,~’~~~,~’~80>

Bart opened his eyes to a grey light creeping into a silent sky and a desperate need to relieve himself. The hardly visible glow of dawn made it almost impossible to make out their new surroundings. The previous night, aided by the vehicle’s brake lights, Solway had placed his swag in the wheel rut on one side of the track and now he quietly unzipped it, struggling to release himself like a rotund terrier from a rabbit-hole as he felt for his boots. You never knew if a little bitey would make a home in your footwear when you were sleeping rough, and it didn’t matter what you did — if you didn’t check, it would happen. He shook the boots vigorously yet as silently as possible, unwilling to wake his sleeping partner, then grabbed a nearby twig to poke in them as well.

Solway’s soft fluffy snores from the other single swag made him smile, but he didn’t let it distract him. He really needed to take a piss. Pulling on his boots, Bart stepped off the track.

Due to the fact the sun had not yet risen, and daybreak really seemed to be taking its bloody time, it remained dark under the low canopy of trees. Bart slowly stepped over saplings and dropped branches, flapping furiously at the stickiness of unseen cobwebs. He stopped. Should he face away from the road or towards the road when he went to the loo. Did it matter? There didn’t seem to be anyone else here, aside from a distant raven heralding the oncoming daylight. The track, once they’d come off the hill, had been terribly overgrown. Once again, Bart assumed it to be highly likely no one had been this way for a very long time. He could hear the gurgle of running water not too far away and shivered in response, then heaved a sigh of relief as he began to water the plants.

The sun was rising. Wattle bushes began to take shape before his eyes and tiny, unseen birds started to chirp. Solway had told him in order to get a real good feel for a place you had to take in all the sights, sounds, smells and be aware of what local wildlife to look out for. It made better footage, she said, if you at least tried to sound like you knew what you were talking about. He couldn’t smell anything except for the acrid stench of his own piss and he couldn’t see the bloody birds. He had no idea where they were. 

Somewhere in the trees, he thought. Which isn’t helpful.

A heavy thump reverberated through the soles of his boots. If he could explain it as a bang, he would have, but it was not a bang it was a really big thump and he didn’t know what the fuck it was and, if it could be anything alive, why he didn’t hear it again, or which direction it had come from.

It was not a kangaroo. Of that he was ninety seven point nine five and a bit positive.

Kangaroos jumped when they weren’t grazing. If he’d heard a kangaroo, or disturbed one, or whatever, it would have made more than one thumping sound, that’s for sure.

It wasn’t a branch. If it had been a falling branch, it would have had to have fallen from a very big fucking tree, and there were no trees big enough to make that sound.

Bart realised he’d been spraying the surrounding scrub as he’d turned, searching for whatever the hell it was and somehow, he’d become a sprinkler system and it didn’t matter. He needed to know where the fuck that sound came from — and the cracking sound that had just happened behind him. He lurched around again, tripped over the low bush he’d been pissing on, and landed on his arse on something decidedly prickly.

‘What the hell are you doing,’ Solway asked from above his head.

He let go of his dick. ‘Nothing?’

‘You are a fucking weirdo sometimes, Bart,’ she said, pointing a roll of toilet paper at him. ‘Do you need the shovel?’

He pulled up his fly and got to his feet. ‘No thanks, I’m good. Go do your thing. I’ll just head back to the Landy.’

The sun had fully hitched itself over the horizon as he reached the sand – the long shadow created by the four-wheel-drive nearly reaching his swag. His heartbeat began to slow as he opened the back door and started searching for something to eat, then the hush of footsteps on the track had him looking over his shoulder at Solway’s grinning face.

‘Hungry, are ya?’

‘I’m a tad peckish, yes. He pulled a cardboard box towards himself. ‘Did we bring milk?’

‘We did, it’s in the…’ She looked him up and down. ‘Are you trying to distract me?’

‘No?’

‘What happened back there, Bart?’

‘I heard something. God, I sound like a little kid in an American movie. Did you hear something?’

She smirked and shook her head. ‘Just you, falling all over the place. What scared you?’

‘Nothing? Okay,’ he sighed as she raised one perfect eyebrow. ‘Look, I know what roos’ sound like, and I know it wasn’t a roo, okay? I don’t even think there are roos’ around here. It was just one big thump, I didn’t know what it was, I got spooked, and then you turned up.’

She grinned again. ‘Are you going to get that box out of the back of the vehicle, or are you going to balance it there on the edge of the seat forever.’

‘Oh come on,’ he muttered. ‘I was pulling it out from under that friggin’ blanket when you turned up, and I am just about to remove it, if you’ll just give me a bloody minute and if you like, I’ll take it back to wherever it is you want to set up the camp oven. How’s that?’

‘That’s great,’ she replied, smiling even wider. ‘But you could have waited until I’d pulled out the table and set that up before taking out that bloody box. So, I guess you’re hungry.’

Bart sighed again, so deeply he felt his shoulders rise and fall. ‘I am hungry, okay? I got a fright, and I just want a biscuit, a cuppa coffee, and a sit, alright?’

‘That’s fine.’ Solway gave him a hug. ‘I’ll grab everything and get the kettle going. Why don’t you grab a bickie while I set it all up.’

the rest of that very short chapter, and a little bit more… (story completed in March 2025 over an eleven day period). You’re Welcome

He pushed her hand away. ‘No thanks. I can get up by myself.’ The sideways roll onto his hands and knees and the flailing grasp at a dining chair had him reconsidering those words a few moments later. He crawled to the wall, vaguely resembling a portly tug-boat in high seas with a broken motor. It must have set something off in his insides as well for, as he scrambled to find purchase on the smooth surface of the plasterboard, his backside let out what may have been in any other orchestral situation, a sliding trombone-like sound.

‘Fuck me,’ he heard from behind him, accompanied by a most unlady-like snort.

‘Shush,’ he said. ‘My body is obviously extrememememely excited.’

‘Apparently,’ Solway responded as he slowly lurched to his feet. ‘Okay. I’ve made an executive decision. Get the camera gear packed up. I’m going downstairs to check what supplies we have remaining. If I don’t come back, I’ve gone to the shops. We’ve got about forty-five minutes until they close, so I need to get moving.’

‘Okay. While you’re down there,’ he said as she strode towards the front door. ‘Could you see if we’ve got any…’ The door slammed behind her. ‘…Yoghurt… Bugger.’

~~~~,~’~~~,~’~80>

2/ “Popcorn”

Solway demanded they start back to the campsite as soon as possible when she’d returned from the supermarket, despite the fact they’d be driving into the night. Their hasty departure had been a little too exciting, especially when accompanied by questions Bart couldn’t answer.

‘I don’t even know where it is,’ he said as she shuttled him to the old Discovery. ‘It could be bloomin’ anywhere, Sol, we were all over the southwest escarpment on the weekend.’

‘We’ll find it,’ she’d replied, almost throwing him towards the passenger door. She ignored his masculine mutters of surprise. ‘Just get in the car and put on your seatbelt.’

‘I am NOT a child,’ he muttered, hunching down in his seat and refusing to suck his thumb.

She’d ignored him and started the engine.

By the time they’d hit the bridge two hours later, Solway had made the decision to go offroad.

‘We’ll take this one.’ She slowed and nodded at a fire break rising beyond the reflective posts. ‘Might be a little bit faster getting back to where we were last.’

‘You don’t even know if that’s where it was,’ he protested but again she ignored him.

That’s when things got a little hairy.

He’d always trusted Solway, but after the hour and a half drive into the oncoming night, it was almost like something possessed her. The headlights of the Land Rover waved crazily over the darkened scene as the trail entered a local forest. Low bushes began to scrape the side of the vehicle and slid underneath the chassis with inhuman shrieks. Bart became quite sure his life was at risk — despite the fact they were only doing about ten k’s an hour.

‘Do we know this track,’ he asked. ‘Doesn’t look like it’s been used for quite a while.’ He peered out the window at very large trees and dense shrubbery. It looked very dark out there.

‘No,’ Solway answered, and he noticed her grip on the steering wheel changed. ‘I don’t want to break a thumb,’ she muttered at his silent question.

Bart blinked furiously and turned off the radio. That’s when he began to feel like popcorn in a frying pan.

They lurched and jerked over holes, his shoulder hitting the door with frequent abandon. He was quite positive it would bruise his sensitive skin. Branches swiped at the windscreen, scarred trunks of the occasional eucalypt leapt up in front of them, and it seemed only Solway’s impressive reaction time was stopping them from hitting anything at all.

He was not sure whether he should tell her he loved her, or ask her to stop. He settled with holding onto his seat and the handle above the door for dear life.

They finally came to a halt after a descent onto level ground where the sand that had slowly replaced the firm dirt of the hill became too soft. Solway’s grim face, after a quick inspection of the vehicle with a flashlight revealed a flicked-up branch had pierced the back tyre, had him assuming they had not yet replaced the spare. They’d have to doss down here for the night.

~~~~,~’~~~,~’~80>

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.