travel

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)>

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.

Storm (continued), and Windy

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

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

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

‘Oh, you’re still here.’

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

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

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

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

It’s better on soft sand, that’s why.

‘How do you know that?’

You read it somewhere, I think.

‘I read it somewhere?’

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

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

I’m not fucking genuses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘There’s a new one?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Are you alright?’

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

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

Windy

6/ Windy

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

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

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

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

Bart contemplated if today, he would be that idiot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He fervently agreed.

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

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

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

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

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

‘Fuck. Where the hell is my jumper?’

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

Ah, there it was, under the…

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

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

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

*stomp*

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

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

‘Oh great. Just great.’ She waved. 

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

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

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

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

‘Thankyou,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome.’

Rufus the Red

Rufus the Red did not have red hair, but where he came from it was prized. Munchie had not seen Rufus in a very long time, which may have been because the last time she’d seen the little bad-word, or heard of him, he’d been nicking money from a safe drop.

He’d actually nicked quite a lot of money over a long period of time, and the man named Sue had noticed it, and watched, also for a long period of time.

He’d been eighteen, old Ru-ru, regretted it ever since, or so we’re told, but it had never really occurred to him he might be called out on it the next time he tried to go back to Australia.

I might ask you if he spoke any languages in particular, wrote Sue to Munchie. Do you remember?

Oddly enough, I do, Munchie replied, for although he came from a country who highly prized those with red hair and his hair was black, and although many people from that country were not Christian, he was, but he still spoke Urdu, and English, very well indeed.

He’d also, before he got married, which Munchie assumed he was now, had managed to bed a few women quite a bit older than he’d been at the time, because he’d looked quite a bit older than he’d been at the time, although none of those women had been Munchie because she’d been his boss and had seen quite a lot of this sorts of carry-on over the years. Plus, it may be because getting Australian women had been a bit of a sport back then, especially when one happened to be living and working in Australia. And he had.

What he had not realised though, at that time, was just how difficult Australian women could be. He had got along quite well with Munchie, for he was rather amusing and intelligent, which was part of his charm, although the stealing four hundred bucks at a time bit was not.

Okay, thought Rufus, I did not realise Munchie knew I’d been stealing, so that completely messed up my idea of re-entering the country.

But had he re-entered the country? That’s what Munchie wanted to know.

Maybe he had, maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d thought about what was happening so close to home recently and he’d thought it would be terribly nice to get away for a while (until everything had settled down) and revisit his friends in other countries. Maybe, he’d also got particularly good at being a pain in the arse, despite his legendary status of being very handsome and not particularly wise, and said to himself….

‘Now, if I got hold of old Kate, she might let me go back down there again.’

He was wrong. There were quite a few people who did not know that Munchie actually did know the things and people that she knew, and a few people who had been very unwise in thinking her a good sounding tool to allow them back on to her home turf.

It had happened a few times, quite a few times in fact, people trying to get Australians to allow them back into the country, whether it be through sponsorship or whatnot. Sometimes, they’d simply contact people out of nowhere and say (and I’m rephrasing), ‘Oh hey, remember me, do you have work for me there?’ (The answer, in Munchie’s case, had always been no, and likely always would be).

Sometimes, even though Munchie had been friendly with quite a few people working beside her or for her, those particular people had never actually been friends or workmates, because friends and workmates never steal from each other or the business, and they don’t try to weasel their way out of it at a later date, either, no matter how funny or handsome they may be.

“How many people over the years have you known to be like that,’ someone who was definitely not related, asked Munchie.

‘Not as much as you’d think, but quite a few more than you’d wish for,’ Munchie replied. ‘And, I remember every single one. There have also been many people who think Aussies should be a lot more generous of their time and their wealth (haha) than they are because everyone is rich in Australia, despite the economy, and everyone gets their parents house handed down to them, just like they do in India (they don’t), and none of the women need to work because their husband’s look after them, so they may as well give their jobs to the people coming in to Australia, and “why the hell is this woman turning on me all of a sudden when I simply wanted to get her out of the way so I could give her job to someone else?”‘

Unfortunately, this is a fact in Western Australia and Australia, and possibly in many other places besides. Sometimes, the only way someone gets a job is actually because they’re very experienced, not as run down as people expected (or wanted) them to be, and also very aware of just how much jackshit has been done within a lot of places because some other people simply do not like lifting a finger.

Rufus may be reading this passage in a few hours, or a few days, or in a few years, and he may be saying to himself. ‘Bugger me. She’s not wrong about any of that. I think I might have made a terrible mistake, again.’

He was a nice kid, btw the way, and I genuinely liked him, just as I genuinely liked a lot of the other buggers that worked with me over the years, you included “Terrence”.

What I do not like however, is people trying to take advantage, people stealing, and people trying to get out of working simply because they’re a female. It never really made much sense to me, and it likely never will. I also do not like people telling me they know more about the country than I do, or telling me to clean up blown around leaves in the middle of a rainstorm.

And that is most definitely part of the story.

By the way, I saw a falling star this morning, very clearly over my back fence just after 5am. It was a big one, and maybe they’ll talk about it on the news today.

Have a good one :)

The Indian Ocean

I’m from W.A. That’s Western Australia, in Australia. We have the largest coastline on the Australian Continent.

I’ve never been to the topmost part of Western Australia. I’ve only been as far up the coast as Kalbarri, which, when one was born in the southernmost corner of Western Australia, a reasonable way. People I’ve worked with and are friends with have lived or are living in those higher regions of W.A, nonetheless, and the countryside is completely different to where I currently reside.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean. People don’t often write stories about it, or name things after it, or even wonder where it’s there half the time, despite it being the third largest ocean in the world (according to Google). That’s okay. Despite that it still exists, as do all the islands and continents whose coastlines are met by its waters.

The countries surrounding the Indian Ocean speak many different languages besides English, and I don’t think I could name them all. But, when we were kids at school, all those years and years back, we were told the most spoken languages (other than English) at that time were French, German, and Italian. At my high school (and primary school) down on the south coast, I learnt French. Spanish, despite its popularity, was not an option here.

When one wanders up the Western Australian coastline on Google Maps, or Google Earth and looks at the names of towns, and islands, one may suggest perhaps Dutch should have been offered as a language as well. I don’t remember it being offered as a language at my school. Maybe it was at others.

You don’t hear much about the Indian Ocean or Western Australia in history either. There are far more exciting topics to discuss — like where Chris Columbus went, or who landed in New Plymouth, and how many different sizes of barleycorn there might be if one looked at them closely. I suppose it’s because, when all those really early explorers looked at our coastline they thought to themselves, ‘You know what, this place doesn’t look very friendly. I think we’ll head back home.’

Everyone is affected by the area they grew up in, and the regions they have resided in for most of their lives. So, I guess I’m just looking at a world map from my perspective, (and possibly the perspective of many West Australians) not other people’s, which is possibly why I wrote this short piece today.

Thanks for reading. Don’t get stranded on any reefs. We have a few.

The Challenge

I was employed in a roadhouse, many years ago, and had just returned to work. I’d suffered quite a bad injury which had affected my left arm and hand, and I was learning/teaching myself how to get some strength back into it. Some things had to be done slightly differently.

We had a new staff member, an older lady who hadn’t worked for quite some time, and when we were busy I’d kinda take over for a while because I knew how to do things quicker, despite my injury. What I didn’t know, though, was that she had a son.

The first time I spotted him, he was crouched down and peering around the corner of the counter. As I found out later, he was pretending to hide from his mother, thinking she was the one sitting on a stool having a short break. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t his mother, it was me. I raised an eyebrow at him and he stood up, his face quite red, and went and sat down, or moved away or something. I can’t quite remember. Perhaps he even left the building for a short while before re-entering with some other blokes. I am not really sure. It was a long time ago.

Anyway, I went back into the kitchen and said to the woman I was working with, ‘I think there might be some people here for you,’ as I’d figured out rather quickly from his body language it wasn’t me he was trying to surprise.

We both went out to the counter, where three of them now stood. A little bloke, another bloke, and the one who had been trying, not very well, to surprise his mother. Of course, I didn’t know it was his mother. No one had thought to tell me that.

So, when they left and we went back into the kitchen, I said to my fellow staff member, ‘Who’s the one with the nice arse?’

She thought I was talking about the other bloke, the one not her husband, and the one not her son, so she said another name to me, with a questioning tone behind it. We discussed what he looked like and I said…

‘Nah, not him, the younger one. The one wearing the footy shorts.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded quite surprised. ‘That’s my son.’ And, you know what, there might have been an exclamation mark in that sentence.

‘Oh is it?’ I said. ‘Well, he’s got a nice arse.’

After some thought on my behalf, and not in the least bit sorry about telling the woman her son had a delectable backside, I asked for a little bit more information.

‘Oh he’s very shy,’ she said. ‘He had a bad accident himself, and when he’s at home he doesn’t really go out much.’

‘He’s shy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh well, we can fix that,’ I said, and I wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to his mother, before adding, ‘How old is he?’

He was around four years younger than me. Me, being the practical type, thought well, blokes are meant to die (not always) slightly earlier than their feminine counterparts, so if we got married (yes, I’m laughing) if we were lucky, we’d die around the same time. Now, you must remember this little piece here is a joke, and I do have quite a dark sense of humour, so please do not take that the wrong way.

On the piece of paper I had written my name and phone number, as ya do, but I had also written a short instruction of how he was going to pick me up on a certain day and take me to the movies.

‘I don’t think he’ll take you up on that,’ my fellow employee said, looking at the piece of paper. ‘He really is quite shy.’

‘Okay,’ I said, and added three more words.

‘Do you think that will work?’ she asked.

‘Of course it will,’ I said. ‘No one wants to be beaten by a girl.’

I was right. No bloke in his right mind would back out on a dare. Not one like that, anyway. His mother took the note home, handed it to him, he started laughing and not too much later he picked up the phone and gave me a call.

The rest is history. We were engaged eight months later. There is, of course, a lot more to this story but some things, I think, are nobody else’s business.

The Discovery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gumnuts, actually.

They are picked by the parrot and the cockatoo. You can tell by looking at them what type of bird has pulled them from the tree.

A red tailed, black cockatoo eats them one way. A white cheeked, black cockatoo eats them another way. They also fly differently. One is straight and glides, one flies like a wave.

‘You’re kidding me,’ says this one, remembering. ‘That’s what she said last time. Actual birds. That’s what she meant.’

The other one rolls his eyes. ‘Just like actual horses, you twit.’ He sticks out his tongue for good measure.

We wonder if they will decide to go and see the actual horses. They are ready to be seen as well, they say.

‘Can I stroke him,’ says the little girl to her mother. ‘Will he bite?’

‘No, darling, he is very friendly, he will not bite. See how he is now?’

They see this now.

I can’t write the name of the place because I could not see it clearly, but I’ve been there. The two boys are in the far paddock, a bay, and a chestnut. The chestnut stood once under a tree, his feet nearly in his own poo, unfortunately. He will come out from under the tree today, his head held high, and he will snort. If you look very carefully, you might even see him smile.

Behind him walks the older bay. Once he was a strawberry roan. He is very, very gentle and will see if maybe you have something for him. Be careful with his back, though. He is not to be ridden, and the owners of these two love them very, very much.

Before you get to them, you will see the “Magnificent white horse” and the dun, and maybe the young bay filly as well. Opposite the boys is the tiny black mare, and she is never forgotten by the people who visit her, even if it is not always her owners. At the very rear, you may be lucky enough to see the palomino, if she isn’t rolling around on her back in the sand.

I may be wrong about the palomino, because I did not properly meet her when I was there last. Maybe today she is standing at the fence and waiting for someone to come and see her. Maybe today she can go for a ride.

Issues with Just about Anyone.

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

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

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

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

‘Yeah, I don’t think I will.’

‘I am being polite-fill.’

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

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

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

‘Please, go ahead.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

😢

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

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

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

To be continued…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m twenty three.’

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

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

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

‘Looks like it.’

‘How long will this class last?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Not where I come from.’

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

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

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

‘What does that mean?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘And you?’ The pasha looked rather upset.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Hi ho, Silver, and way-hey.’