writing

“It’s an Oldy but a Goody”

Three people walked into a pub. Or maybe it was a bar. Perhaps it was a saloon, or a salon. Maybe they were just getting their nails done before they went to …

‘Three people?’

Yes, we’re being politically correct. They were going to a fancy dress party.

“A fancy dress party? Is that where everyone wears black ties and pretty gowns and stuff?”

No, it’s where one dresses oneself to resemble something or someone else.

‘Oh, okay, so it’s fake.’

No, it’s not fake. It’s a party.

“Right. So, are we talking political parties, then? Are they going to a political party?”

No, they are going to a fancy dress party, and they’re dressed to resemble emotions.

“Is that like emoticons?”

‘No, it’s like something one feels, right? Are you feeling me up?’

No, I’m talking about feelings.

‘Is that like feelers? So, bugs, right?’

“Does this have a point? I’m kinda getting sick of this joke.”

‘He’s not well. We should take him to the doctor’s.’

Did you want to hear this joke or not?

“I can’t hear the joke. I don’t have any ears. Maybe you should write it down.”

The first person writes the joke down.

“I can’t see that,” says the second person. “Maybe you should whisper it to me.”

‘Oh, that’s funny,’ says the last person. ‘Pity you can’t say that in public.’

Where do we go from here, asked no one. We can’t go to their house. They resemble donkey sit-upons. We can’t go to their house either/either. They’re personally affronted. We can’t go down there either. Everyone is upside down and everyone else knows they don’t exist anyway.

‘What’s personally affronted mean?’

‘It’s wot.’

“Whut?”

No, what.

‘Who?’

What was that joke about again? It’s on you. It’s on you.

“I don’t know what that means? Can you explain it to me?”

Apparently, I can’t. So, that’s the end of the story.

The Sea Eagle.

It had made a nest on top of the antenna — a nest which had been there for many years by the hill near the police station, so the white-bellied Sea Eagle found herself in the perfect position to see the Silver Gull land at the river’s mouth.

It cocked its head. The gull had a larger bird with it, which had just landed, and the eagle could not make out what kind of bird it was. It looked very similar to the seagull (which is the common name for the silver gull that had alighted on the beach) but it seemed, if not half as big again, at least a third as big. Why the sea eagle found this amusing, it did not know.

It flew down a little nearer, landing on one of the many sheoaks closer to the river’s mouth. These trees were coated with shag (cormorant) poop, and smelled awful, but it did not deter the eagle from watching the two birds as they made themselves comfortable by the large piece of driftwood sticking out of the sand.

They seemed to be having quite an animated conversation.

The Sea Eagle had never been particularly good at reading lips and the fact the birds did not have lips but beaks, made it even harder. All she could really hear, from her precarious perch on a tree limb (which was much too fragile to hold a bird her size) was loud and obnoxious squawking.

Perhaps they had found something to eat?

The smaller bird strutted back and forth on the golden sand, arching its neck and glaring down at its orange legs for reasons the eagle could not fathom. She glanced down at her own pale feet where her talons grasped the thickest part of the branch. Those birds did not appear to have talons. In fact they seemed to be wearing flippers, or fins, on their feet which, in her humble opinion, wouldn’t catch any decent food at all.

She’d never really thought about this before. If they couldn’t catch food in those ridiculous shoes, how the heck were they going to be able to eat anything? Perhaps it was the reason why the smaller bird (which seemed to be yelling at the top of its voice while the larger one stood there looking slightly nonplussed) seemed to be so angry?

‘Maybe I should go down to that beach and see what the heck is going on,’ the eagle thought to herself. ‘I can help these two ridiculous birds get some food, and then they can leave.’ 

She had already decided having new strangers in her town, especially birds she had never seen before (the taller one was really very odd-looking) was not something she felt comfortable with, especially if they were going to continue being as loud and as noisy as they currently were.

The silver gull tried to peck the bigger bird.

‘Right, that’s it,’ thought the sea eagle angrily. ‘I’m going in.’

She flapped her strong wings once and then twice as the springy branch underneath her bounced up and down, then let go with her talons and swooped towards the two gulls, scaring the bejebus out of them as she landed on the piece of driftwood.

‘What the by-crikey-Jimmy-Joe-Bobs is going on,’ she asked. ‘And who the heck are you?’

\./   \./   

Pepe, after recovering from the huge bird landing so closely beside them, glanced at his smaller companions. ‘Uh, so this is Aaaargh, and the tiny one is Ambrosia.’

‘Ambrosia? Where?’ The sea eagle glared at him. 

She really was quite large, Pepe thought. He didn’t mean that in a bad way. She was just really big. Her wing span, something he’d noticed as she’d flown in towards them, had been at least two metres across.

‘The ladybird.’ He gulped. ‘The ladybird is Ambrosia. Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot, if we’re going to get picky. Which we’re not,’ he added quickly, noticing the hook on the end of the eagle’s beak.

‘A ladybird?’ The eagle cocked its head. ‘I haven’t seen one of those in quite some time. Where is this ladybird?’

‘On my back,’ said Aaaargh loudly.

‘She’s not deaf, you fool,’ hissed Pepe. ‘She’s an eagle. She’s got good eyes.’

‘How does that make you not deaf,’ Aaaargh squawked.

‘I don’t know. How come you’re blind, when you’re also supposed to have good eyes,’ Pepe hissed again ‘This is a sea eagle we’re dealing with, mate. I suggest you be on your best behaviour.’

The eagle ignored their chatter. ‘Where is this ladybird?’

‘I told you where she is. She’s on my back.’ Aaaargh began to jump up and down in a most unsightly manner.

‘Show me,’ the eagle demanded.

Pepe noticed Ambrosia crawl out from under one of Aaaargh’s silver-white feathers.

‘Hello,’ said the ladybird. ‘My name is Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot.’ She lifted her bonnets and wiggle-flew over to the eagle’s beak, landing quite carefully right on the end of the hook.

The white-bellied Sea Eagle crossed her great golden eyes slightly as she stared at the tiny beetle. ‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘It is nice to meet someone with good manners. I’m Leucogaster. Your companions are very noisy.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Pepe. He was beginning to feel quite cross. ‘I’m Pepe, and I’ve been very polite.’ He glared at Aaaargh. ‘It’s this not-very-nice gull that’s been making all the noise.’

‘I have too,’ said Aaaargh. ‘And, as I said, it’s because there’s weather coming in, and you’re standing around telling me everything’s fine, and everyone’s fine, and they aren’t fine, and we’re not fine, and we have to catch the next stiff breeze if we’re going to be on our way, so why you decided here would be a good place to stop is beyond me, Pepe, because we need to get Ambrosia further north before she falls asleep. You know what happens if she falls asleep, right?’

‘What happens when you fall asleep,’ the sea eagle asked the tiny ladybird sitting on the end of her nose.

‘When I fall asleep in the winter time I go into hibernation,’ the ladybird replied. ‘And when I wake up the world is like new again, which is wonderful, but,’ and Ambrosia wiggle-flew back to Aargh and landed on his head. ‘I forget everyone I’ve ever met, and I just don’t want to do that. Not yet. I’m not ready to forget things.’

‘Sometimes it’s good to forget things,’ the eagle replied quietly. ‘I try to forget all the eggs that didn’t make it, and I try to forget all the people who keep trying to remove my nest from the top of that big aerial back there.’ She glanced back at the hill. ‘And I just try to get on with living my life without being harassed all the time by people who don’t know what they’re doing.’

‘I understand that,’ Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot said from Aaaargh’s silvered temple. ‘But I have children, little people, to get back to, and gardens to visit, and aphids to eat, and I just ate my last one. Winter is upon us, and I’m just not far enough north to stay awake yet. I can’t go to sleep. Not yet.’

‘Then why did you stop,’ the sea eagle asked.

‘Aaaargh can’t keep flying, no matter how good a pilot he thinks he is,’ Pepe replied, wincing as Aaaargh pecked him on the shoulder. ‘He needs to rest.’

‘Then I will make sure we get you to where you need to go,’ said the Sea Eagle. ‘I have family, other Sea Eagles, all the way up this coast so we will be able to get you to a warm place, Ambrosia. I promise.’ She would have smiled, but she had a beak not a mouth, so smiling was not possible.

‘Thank you,’ said Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot, adventurer extraordinaire. ‘That is all I’ve ever asked for. When it does become springtime, I will try to make it all the way back to my favourite little person, and perhaps I will be able to bring children of my own.’

‘Oh good, I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out,’ said Aargh. ‘Now, where’s the nearest pub? I feel like some hot chips.’

The eagle huffed and fluffed up her feathers. 

‘Typical seagull,’ she said, but it was not unkindly. She turned to look at Pepe once more, her golden eyes narrowing. ‘What kind of bird are you, exactly,’ she asked. ‘I’ve never seen anything like you before.’

‘I don’t really know,’ Pepe replied. ‘I know my mum was a Silver Gull, but I don’t know who my dad was. I’m bigger than normal seagulls, but smaller than the Albatross and bigger than a Pacific Gull. I just can’t figure it out.’

‘Then you must be a very special bird indeed,’ said the eagle as she rose gracefully from the driftwood branch. ‘Come on then. Let’s go.’

Pepe blinked. It was possibly the nicest thing any avian had ever said to him. 

Whether you wear black shorts or sunglasses, have Supernatural tendencies, or like to run around yelling out code words with your cousins while you’re playing a game of pool, whether you like dressing up in skintight red suits, have hands with long scissors, or think you might be Out of Time, there is always a Sea Eagle, and always a Ladybird, and always a few raucous seagulls. You can find these birds in the strangest locations sometimes, and often where they aren’t meant to be.

That is the magic of storytelling.

C.S. Capewell aka Kate Capewell.

P.S. When we got our very first home loan several years ago, we were helped by a wonderful group of individuals from a number of different teams and businesses who helped us realise our dream. I will never be able to thank them enough. I still owe someone some chocolate, and I have never forgotten.

Kate x

For the original story of Ambrosia Honeybun Polka Dot, head over to the wonderful team at https://wildeyedpress.com.au

If you need insurance there is also a wonderful group you can get hold of, but they are pretty good at doing their own advertising. There are also a couple of wonderful banks, health insurers, and TV stations in WA and in the Eastern States you might want to watch if you ever come to Australia. There are decent people in the world, you just need to know what to look out for.

The year I turned Fifteen …

I had to leave home with my sibling and partner as the kids I was hanging out with were “Not the right people to be hanging out with”.

We moved to Perth and lived in Balga, and I did year eleven there. During that time, my sibling split up with their partner and my Dad asked me to move back home. It was a conversation I had with him in a public phone box. I said no, because if I did move back, I would only be going back to the things I had been doing before I left. It made him cry.

So, for a little while I moved in with my second cousin’s family before they said they couldn’t have me either, and then for the rest of the year I was fostered out to a family who also lived in Balga. It was during this time I resolved to rely on my own morals and not expect others to look out for me. It was also during this time I was introduced to a Youth Group run by the Catholic Church.

By the end of that year I was going to do Graphic Design at a Technical College but due to being a disruption to that family I was then moved to another foster family who lived in Heathridge. I got a job working at a newsagent in Whitford City.

One weekend, while I was away at a Youth Group camp, the mother of the Foster Family had a nervous breakdown due to the alarm on my digital alarm clock going off on the Sunday morning. It had not gone off the previous morning when I had not been there, but apparently it had gone off on the Sunday morning while I was also not there. I was blamed for this happening, and for causing the nervous breakdown of the mother — so I was taken to the local social workers house and stayed there for several months.

After a little while, as they really didn’t have enough space to keep me properly, I stayed at a half-way house. The eldest people, the ones renting the house, were twenty three and twenty four. I was sixteen going on seventeen, and the two boys that also lived there were fifteen and sixteen. They had had it worse off than me and had been sleeping under bridges, so this was a big step up for them.

After a short while again I rented a room from a man in Heathridge who was a truck driver and stayed there for a while, and when I had made enough money from working I moved out and lived with a gay guy my age and his sister. The place was a duplex and belonged to their mother. During this time I was retrenched from the Newsagents in Whitford City and got a job at a Newsagents in Perth, on Barrack Street. I was eighteen.

So, there you go. Two or three years in a nutshell. I know the only person I could rely on emotionally or to get things done right was myself as when one asks for help or for people to rely on, it rarely happens. One learns to rely on oneself. This is why I listen to other people when they are in trouble or need to be heard, because I know what it feels like.

It’s also why they probably don’t listen to me when I need to be heard, because I’m supposed to be the one that listens. It’s been proven time and time again over the years to me, and nothing has changed in that regard.

I’m supposed to write something positive at the end of this story. The positive thing is this: I will never regret leaving something or somewhere because being held “accountable” for performing an act of kindness or helping someone is not something I will ever feel sorry for. Some people take advantage of people being kind sometimes though, and some people see kindness as being weak (although that’s pretty much the complete opposite of who I am). I know when I’m being taken advantage of, and I know when others see my life as an opportunity to use people like me as an example of “what not to be when you grow up”.

What I did get into trouble for was;

Sticking up for myself

Not telling lies about who I am and who I’m not

Being kind to people and asking if they were okay

Sticking to the rules that were made to keep people safe

Not being educated enough

Not having enough money

And not giving a shit what people say behind my back

Personally, as I never used heavy drugs, never got locked up or went to prison, never sold my body for money and never injured anyone (that I know of), I think I did okay. I learnt how to do that all by myself, so there ya go. Miracle do happen.

Bunyip of the Blackwood – C.S Capewell

Preface.

On a granite rock at the edge of the Southern Ocean is a footprint. Here is where it rose from the depths and came onto the land, when that land was soft, new and still warm to the touch, and when the sun had just begun to rise for the first time. This is where she began.

She wandered further north, but not too far, for the land was new and forming and this was simply a part of a much larger destination, but as it grew warmer in the sun, and colder on the ground, she realised she had to go down below the surface, and wait.

She has been waiting for a very long time.

One morning, when the sun was rising and sending the first colour into the darkness of the morning sky, just as it was beginning to head into a cooler season, the mud on the edge of the swamp shifted. It did not shift too much, just enough to cause a shiver up someone’s spine if anyone were watching.

No one was.

Off in the distance, the whine of what might have once been mistaken for a very large mosquito came closer, and the mud on the edge of the dried-up swamp shivered again. The old paperbarks leaned over it protectively, and the sticks and branches of older dead trees further into the vast, desolate landscape created small ripple-like waves. Bird song stilled. The land became silent. All the creatures of the dried-up lake seemed to hold a breath, all … Except the sound of that distant buzzing, coming ever closer.

Ever so gradually, what seemed like a hole formed in the wetness of the earth under the tree. Wider, and wider again, but it did not completely open. It was not quite a fissure, not quite a shaft. In actual fact, it seemed to have no depth at all.

It blinked.

... If you are interested in what happens next, please be forewarned this story is only available through accessing the paid part of this website. It is not based on historical fact, or dreamtime stories. It is a complete work of fiction in which no character represents any person or thing. Any resemblance to any movie, book or previous publication is sheer chance, and not at all related. Please do not continue this story if you have any existing beliefs which may cause you distress, or unintentionally frighten your children. Please do not continue this story if you find any resemblance to factual events or people, as they are not, and you might need to take a pill. Please do not continue this story if you are under the age of fifteen, are prone to behaving inappropriately at the drop of a hat, are criminally inclined, and do not have the ability to translate English to another language without messing it up entirely. This story is not for you if you believe in monsters under the bed, strange creatures in your living room, or dreamlike ghosties wandering about in the dark.

C.S. Capewell

Little Bo Peep

‘Has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them

Leave them alone and they will come home,

wagging their tails behind them.’

The two farmers sat on the fence, surveying the mob.

‘D’ya remember the great kangaroo skin debate, Ted,’ asked the first farmer.

‘Oh yes, indeed I do,’ replied the second farmer. ‘Quite a debacle, if I remember correctly.’

‘It was. It was. No idea, then, and no… Effie, is that you?’

They looked across at the lambs. Not a one of them had a tail. ‘I am apologising to Effie,’ said the first farmer. ‘It’s just that, you know, kids around and all that, so we’ve gotta watch our pees and queues.’

‘Right, right,’ said Ted. ‘So, mate. You ever seen a fly blown sheep? I reckon we could get those kids out in a paddock, maybe. It would make my day.’

‘Oh, you mean showing them the sheep who’ve had their backsides eaten away by maggots? Not a pretty sight, that.’ The first farmer, who still remained nameless, pulled his akubra down low over his nose.

‘Yeah. I guess, ya know, we could ask someone whose had a lot of experience in that area as a young bloke could explain what it looks like, too, but, ya know I’ve seen a fly-blown ram, meself, and he ‘ad to be put down. Bad news, that.’

‘You’ve seen a fly blown ram? That sounds like an expensive loss.’

‘Well, it would have been if he was a breeder, but he was some bloke’s pet. He didn’t look after him, you see, so he got fly blown, and they had to… well, he was better off I think.’

‘Hmm.’ The first farmer got down from his post and wandered across the yard. ‘Seems like ya got a bit of trouble round the joint. Wheat, sheep… Might be time to get some sensible people back in the business, I reckon.’

‘Oh, ya mean someone with half a brain who knows a bit of history?’

‘Yeah, them. Few and far between, but I reckon maybe they should stop listening to the clueless and start listening to the nameless, cos I reckon we could get this show back on the road, unless they wanna eat bloody durians. I know I don’t. All that lack of red meat doesn’t do much for brain power, ya know what I mean?’

‘I certainly do. Like a bit of lamb, meself. Tasty. If it was gonna be me last meal, for example, I’d have Roast Lamb. Bit of mint sauce wouldn’t go astray either. Back in the day, they reckoned if ya cooked up a good meal, some bloke called Tom might be ‘aving dinner with ya. Nah, just kidding, we’re more urban nowdays, but not in a bad way. Not all citified’n’shit.’

Ted got down from the gatepost and walked across the yard to where the first farmer was studying the poo.

‘Is that sheep shit, or roo shit?’ He asked, scratching his head.

‘Hard to tell nowdays. Not many people can figure it out. Probably about the same amount of both, I reckon. Prob’ly more roos to be honest. They’re funny like that. You get a good season and they have two, three babies one after the other, just like that. That’s why you’ve gotta keep ’em in check, see. Don’t feed ’em. They’ll turn the country-side into a dust bowl.’

‘Don’t sheep do that?’

‘Not too much, if you spread ’em out. Pop ’em out on a station, maybe. Not too far though. That’s where the beef comes in.’

‘Beef?’

‘Yeah mate, but that’s another story entirely.’

‘Are we playing for stations now?’

‘Might ‘ave to, I reckon.’

To add emotion to your writing

One needs to be able to express emotion through their writing, not just explain what something looks like.

I have tried, without too much success, to explain this to writing partners over the years because I believe, in order to be successful as a fictional writer, one must be able to connect with their own emotions. If you can’t, then what, exactly, is the point of writing a fictional piece?

For many, this is too much. They may get lost in their own words, or their own thoughts, their own beliefs, or their own lack of foresight. One might get so lost in their writing they don’t have time for the people around them. When they still do not learn anything about other people’s emotions, then the fault lies with them, not the people around them.

This doesn’t need to be simply about writing. It’s a truth in all societies. If you aren’t listening, you aren’t learning. If you haven’t got the guts to let yourself be mentally attacked, or be able to mentally defend yourself, then how are you going to learn to be able to express your own emotions?

Some people seem to think when one does not display emotion on their faces, they are not feeling anything. This is not true. For the most part, when someone isn’t displaying an emotion someone else can read, it’s because the person who is expecting this “display” has no understanding of what, or who, the person they are interacting with is.

So, they try to put their own emotions onto someone else. Do me a favour, don’t do that. If you don’t understand that person or who they are, even after years (or months) of them telling you exactly who they are, then walk away. You haven’t learnt anything.

Of course, if the person you are interacting with does not tell you anything about themselves, or simply repeats the same few words over and over again, with no substance to it, then they do not want you to know them, or anything about them. One begins to question, and very quickly I might add, whether anything that person has said is true. When things don’t add up, the questions may become more and more insistent.

That’s one scenario, anyway. There are several other things you can walk away with from this interaction. This person does not wish to know anyone else. This person does not, or cannot, interact freely. This person does not understand social interactions at all. This person has underdeveloped emotions and thinks everything they read or see is either completely untrue, or completely true. This person has been raised as a single entity without having to care for, nor understand, other people.

It still ends up being the same thing, though. If one is unwilling to even write about one’s emotions, then the interaction with others is unsatisfactory to those others. So, choose your words carefully when you write. Understand the context of a situation when you write. Don’t jumble up words with no meaning, don’t go into extremely long definitions of the shape of a clock, or the shape of a keyboard, or the colour of a cup. Don’t tell me in long, flowing descriptive sentences of what the cup feels like either. Show me why it’s picked up in the first place. Show me the exact moment the person picking up that cup is feeling an emotion. Give me visual cues in your words of where that person is at emotionally, mentally, or physically.

Here is one perfect example; it’s sitting on my desk, staring at me, the bright yellow paper curled up on one corner. The words are scraped onto the page with a very clear hand and the letters of the name have been corrected once or twice to make it obvious whose name it is.

The name itself is not important because it doesn’t pertain to this exercise, but the rest of the words exert such a pain in me for the feelings of the person who wrote it I find it difficult to stop myself from bursting into tears. The reason being is because I know that person so well, I feel a small piece of my heart break off at those three simple words.

“Cheapskate has cancelled.”

Now it’s your turn.

“Listen very carefully …”

‘I will say this only once.’

Too many times I have been approached, and each and every one I have turned down.

The hand I offer you is the right one. This is the hand my brothers and sisters use to help me up, and this is the hand I use to help them up. I am quite capable of using this hand, but don’t ever take it for granted. It’s only a helping hand. Every one that tries to see something in me I am not, will be turned away. That is all there is to it.

Do you understand this now? My playing with you never goes beyond that. I have never gone back on my word. I will not do it now, not for you, not for anyone. If I give you safe harbour, this is what you must understand. Deceit does not go hand in hand with the destination. This is what I have been teaching with my brothers and sisters, and this is what I’m telling you now. I have never taken, nor will I ever take, advantage. I will not seek others either, for that just isn’t my way.

I hope this makes it clear to you. My life is my own, but my left hand is the one I will always be with, because that is also my strong hand and I’m quite attached to it. He is my partner, my life and has always been my destination. He loves me, and I love him, and although this changes over the years, I am not planning on leaving my life partner.

Over the years, when I have had to move my ring to a different finger because that finger was too fat (I am so not kidding, it was being ring-barked) I had far too many come to me and ask things they should not have asked. Even with the ring on the correct finger, I have had far too many come to me and ask things that should not have been asked. When they begin to realise this, they might begin to understand. I can play a part, sure, but you’re not going to get any more than that, and I’m not going to do anything like that for you. It’s highly likely you will be treated as the fool you are, if they think this is possible.

They are not nice people.

My friends are not my enemies. They know me very well, and so they know that here I speak the truth. Not too many can say this, and I have understood their pain. These are my brothers and sisters. They move with me towards something that is a lot more pleasant than what is not us.

So, my last question to you is this;

‘Are you happy?’

You say you are happy. This is good. It’s time for you to go, and be happy, like you said you were.

This is the time for me to say to my son, ‘Lead the way.’

He will learn this, too. And he will lead the way.

Don’t be concerned by that. When he leads, he will not be any of the things that make him bad. Not at all. When he leads, he will have a destination, and that is what is important to all of us.

Rising of the Sun

I will show you this story in his true form, for this is who he is.

Let me guide through the long grass. Can you see him up ahead? This is my Brother. He waits for the sun to rise between the two hills, and he has been waiting for a very long time for his sister to come home to him.

I am here. Do you wish to move forwards with me, one by my side? For he is not for you. You are very brave, yes. My brother is not interested in doing the wrong thing. He is here for protection, and I need to help him home today. We need to watch the sun rise together.

Brother, please be patient.

He bows his head as he waits ahead. His shoulders are bunched, but he takes a breath and rests his arms on his knees.

”Don’t you dare make me look back there,” he whispers fiercely to me, and I grin, for this is directed to me, not the one by my side.

‘She does not understand you yet, brother. She has not come to speak of the timeless love to you. Not yet. But, she tells me she is willing to listen. It will help her craft.’

Brother two is taking me aside, and not in an unkind way. What you must understand is that he is many to me, as I am many to him, and I know which one has taken his place on the way to him.

‘I do not want to get in the way,’ this one whispers, and he is frightened.

‘You do not get in the way. For me, this has always been my brother, the other half of my soul. The one I love in a different way is sleeping. Do you understand?’

This tall one is sad, but it is not his time.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I see now you are waking my brother from the sleep of the guilty and he was not taking care of himself.’

‘Not the guilty one, either,’ I say to him. ‘Please get out of my way. I need to watch the dawn with my brother. He was silenced for too long, through no choice of his own, and that time has passed now.’

My brother looks over his shoulder from up ahead.

‘Hurry,’ he whispers. ‘Dawn is coming.’

So I say to the young one. ‘You must understand. This is my brother. He can give you friendship, sweet girl, but that is all he gives you. You may sing to him, but this man is not for you. I understood this from the first time I came home to my brother. He is your rising song now, too, but it may take you some time to learn him.’

I lean down now, because my brother is on the grass in front of me, and I kiss the top of his head. He is very clever, and very swift, and is not afraid to let other men make decisions.

‘It’s time to watch the dawn,’ we say, because the first bird is singing.

‘Which bird do you hear,’ he asks, but he has heard it too.

They do not know which bird it is, and it does not matter to me and my brother. This is the right time of year for these birds, right now, and I must go outside to watch the dawn.

‘Do you want to go home now, little one,’ I ask the small child, for my brother is ready to raise himself up.

‘I do not know the home of this man or woman is,’ the little one replies. ‘Are they people, or lords, or ladies, or?’

‘They are simply people, and they are lovely people. They have kept you safe for far too long, and it is time to leave these people alone.’

‘I never disturbed them. I just watched and waited and left them all alone. Have I been so bad?’ The little one is sad now, but she/he never really understood. ‘I haven’t been bad, I just wanted to know what they did there.’

My brother, who was silenced for far too long, lifts his head. ‘No,’ he says, and it is this finality that has brought us here. ‘No. I can hold them back for as long as you require, my sister, but I will not allow them to destroy our peace of mind. I am here to take away the darkness and bring them into the light. I am here to share the dawn with my sister, who has helped me for far too long, and I am strong enough now to show these people the way to go home. They cannot have our flowers, they cannot have our children, they certainly cannot steal our ladybugs/ladybirds away, and it took me far too long to realise what they were trying to do to us, my sister, and they will never, ever keep us from telling the truth.’

The rising of the sun is displayed on our old hats. It is an Australian signaller who brought us to this point, and it is an Australian soldier who will bring us to safety. Always.

And, as always, our brothers sit between the two hills, and behind the hills, and on the ridges, and down in the gullies, and sometimes our sisters do too, and we will never forget the sound of our own, beautiful, National Anthem.

‘Thank you,’ my silenced brother says, and he says it softly, and he is never afraid to cry.

‘Pull your hat down on the eastern side, sis, and the sun will not get in your eyes.’

“Pull up a Cloud”

said the distant demon.

‘What, now? I’m doin’ ship.’ The Angel of downward mercy sat in a little green office and looked at her watch.

‘Yes, now, for God’s sake. I’m probably gonna go to bed soon, or something, I dunno.’

‘Fine, then.’ She pulled up a cloud. ‘What’re we lookin’ at?’

‘That up ‘imself charlatan up there in the Northern ’emisphere.’

‘Oh him. Yes, well, ya know. Doesn’t speak English. Kind of like me, sometimes, kind of like you too, I reckon. I feel like I might go off on a tangent, if ya don’t stop me.’ The Australian angel’s cloud started to float off, just a little bit. The, ah, British angel grabbed his hook and pulled it back towards him.

‘You’re floating off again.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a habit. Possibly why I’m an angel.’

‘Good point. Anyway, see ‘im up there, the one who reckons he’s the real angel, just ‘cos he was on some show for… ‘ow long was it?’

‘Bloody long time, I reckon.’ The Australian angel rolled her eyes. ‘Reckon’s he’s some kind of Great and Wonderful regally appointed whatsit, or something. Wanted to be professional at one point, so I hear, but they wouldn’t let him. Heard that one, myself. Some Texas ranger and another bloke of indistinct heritage, but not really, said if they couldn’t laugh at stuff, they’d put him in a distinctly… anyway. He likes arsehats. Something about he couldn’t talk for a week, later on as well, but you know, that’s what happens when you’re talking waaaay too deep for someone who doesn’t usually sound like that.’

‘Are you in trouble,’ asked the “British” angel. ‘Hmmm?’

“Hmm?” Not really? Well, yes? No? Not right now? It’s the weekend. Everything knows nothing much happens on the weekend. It’s not the weekend where you are though, is it?’

‘It might not be yet, no.’ The Not-to-be-deterred “Jumped up wanker” of a “British angel” inspected his cloud. ‘There’s a hole in this bit. I’ll have to get it fixed after your thingy that’s coming up.’

‘Speaking of holes,’ said the Australian angel, grinning widely. There wasn’t a hole to be seen. ‘What are you sitting on, when you sit on your cloud?’

‘What do you meeeeean?’ asked the other angel suspiciously.

‘Asking for a friend. Just checking on something. You don’t mind me asking, do ya?’

‘Heroics will get you nowhere,’ the other angel replied testily. ‘Kindly remove your hands from my buttocks.’

‘Oh well done! Now… is that a front bum, or a back bum?’

‘You are in so much trouble now! Let me tell you about my great aunt Fanny!’

The angel who’d had a rug pulled out from him wandered up and sat on a distant cloud.

“Came over last week,” he said, very unconvincingly. “Maybe not. Maybe I came over last year. Goddammit, maybe I haven’t been there yet. I don’t understand you people!”

‘That’s what I thought,’ said the Australian angel. ‘I also thought you may have decided to, ya know, help out at some point, seeing as I asked a few times, but it appears that I’m not important enough.’

“I never said that!”

‘That’s true. You didn’t. Didn’t say much at all, ak-choo-ally. Oh well, never mind.’ The very small Australian angel started to putter away on her old-fashioned, slightly pink, slightly green, slightly orange, have-I-made-my-point yet, fluffy white cloud. ‘It’s only a little place, after all. Can’t fit too many passengers.’

The sound of distant sirens made her frown. ‘Just letting you know, it’s not getting any better around here. I think we could all do with a little help.’

Last Year…

I noticed something very disturbing on someone else’s Instagram. It was a comment I wasn’t meant to see, but I did, and it was regarding me. This is where you guys get to see how messed up some people are.

My husband and grown up young men, all over twenty three, had liked something of mine. It was not a bad thing at all, it was a hook for a story I was going to tell, but what I saw in response to all that, was someone saying, ‘What’s she done there. Who are they? Her boyfriends or something?’

it wasn’t quite those words, but it was pretty damn close.

Now why would someone do that, or say that? Because they do not understand what families are. They do not understand people at all. They have had absolutely no experience in being in a family group. They are physically and mentally unable to distinguish between family members and “Boyfriends”.

I might have reacted to that, because that sort of behaviour is something that needs to be reined in. Drastically. I would say every reaction I had to these people after that was completely justified, because they were not nice people at all.

When some evil little cow who is so caught up in being in the limelight, and being on camera, and being all these wonderful things, turns around and says something like that, you have to see there is some kind of breakdown in communications. There is something wrong with them. They have no idea about the outside world, they have no idea about what real people are like, and they are so disconnected from reality, everything is a “game” to them.

I could see the problem there. These people had no social skills. They didn’t understand how to communicate properly. They had no idea about “real life” people. And, they had ruined someone else’s perfectly good reputation simply for being pathetic, jealous, nasty little people.

If this sounds familiar to anyone else I know, or anyone I have spoken with in the last twelve months, you need to let me know here, because this is the kind of stuff we are trying to eradicate if we can’t reform it. This is why I asked, requested, but never pleaded, for some kind of game, scavenger hunt etc, as it had been done in the past, to show these people what it was like if they actually got themselves outside and had some fun.

Being locked inside has done a lot of terrible things to young people’s minds, and being constantly on the internet with misleading information has created so many societal problems, including a huge rise in mental health issues, that something needs doing. Ask any pharmacy what they sell the most of in the last fifteen to twenty years and they will tell you the rise in people taking antidepressants is so steep, that sometimes they’ll run out of a certain product and have to recommend another.

So, maybe sometimes, those people who live in cities should get out of them and see the real world, and maybe sometimes there should be a ban on social media on people’s devices for a day, and maybe sometimes, people just need to disconnect from the internet altogether, just to give their mental health a break — because if they don’t, they will be more inclined to be getting angrier with misinformation, sadder with the handling of that misinformation, and more likely to rely on electronic products than using their own common sense.

It’s a logical conclusion, don’t you think?