Category Archives: Gunnas-Masters

Lady Lime – Tanya Heidale

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Originally the lock was not supposed to be that solid, but the lady who sold it to her said it would be better. Pull against the strain she said. I must have had a look in my eye because she flashed a cheeky smile. Her teeth were perfect apart from one, which was covered in a small decal. I strained to check it out but failed to do so incongruously.

‘It’s rude to stare’ she muttered, almost meanly but then smiled again, leaving the tooth exposed for a bit longer. Now I could see it was quite a detailed line drawing of a bound woman. Like those drawings in magazines from the 50s that they hid at the back of the news agents.

‘I’m sorry’ I said, lingering a little longer at the counter.

Again the smile. The image made me consider my next move very carefully. Why would someone looking otherwise perfectly normal have such a …

‘What does it say on the label?’

What?

She asked me again ‘What does it say on the label?’. I looked at the lock packaging. MASTER. Front and back. ‘Master’ I replied and then tried to look sultry.

She smirked. ‘Master indeed’ she smiled, but this time with lips closed so the picture was hidden.

I had a flash of her in that position, legs and feet bound behind her, lingerie pointedly fifties style.

I’ve been trying to contact you I thought to myself. Trying to find you out there in the world. Someone with the same desires as me. Someone to tie up and torment and love and turn on and…

And there you are in the hardware shop selling me a lock. With your attitude and your tooth picture.

How obscure to feel this way in the middle of all this hardware. Her mouth twitched and I came back to the room.

$5.95. It was just a bunch of numbers but her honey tones dripped all over it.

‘What if I don’t pay?’ I asked.

Glasses. The man suddenly behind her had glasses that made him look like some kind of creep. She tensed, realising he was there. She didn’t like him either.

‘Is everything OK Allison?’ He said with rather more breath than was required.

Her look was sour. ‘It’s fine Donald, not sure why you’re here.’ The sharpness of her tongue stung him and me at the same time. Ouch I thought, this one is not some wilting rose or soft marshmallow. My gaze turned to him and his lips were pursed. I gave him a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

It was brilliant. He shrunk away and his sweaty back retreated into the distance. ‘Allison’ I said, letting her name drip off my lips a little. ‘Allison, what if I don’t pay?’

She looked at me with quizzical eyes.

‘The Japanese have a saying’ she replied. I gave her a raised eyebrow and she continued. ‘You can take what you want, but you must always pay’.

‘Do the Japanese specific how that payment is made, because I’d really like to take this lock and use it on you sometime.’

There is was, my boldest statement to date. I’d never met this woman before but here we were in the hardware store flirting hard and I’d just told her in no uncertain terms that I’d like to tie her up. Just like her tooth picture.

‘Well I guess we will just have to see exactly what your payment might be and the currency it might be made in, but rest assured, we will all enjoy the exchange’. Again the broad smile revealing the tiny picture that tingled inside my brain.

I tapped my card. She printed the receipt and wrote a number and two words on the back of it.

I put it straight in my pocket without looking and smiled. The person behind me had already put their things on the counter and she wasn’t even looking at me anymore.

I got to the car and threw the lock on the seat while I hurriedly retrieved the paper. On the back was her phone number and her name. ‘Lady Lime’. I smiled to myself as I drew out of the carpark.

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The sentimentalist – Nicky Greer-Collins

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The red ribbon was not what I had expected to find when I went through my grandmother’s possessions. It had been a long day, and a sad one clearing out that cheerless room at the nursing home where she had spent the last year of her life.

My grandmother had not been a sentimental woman. A loving and kind woman, yes. A wonderful cook and storyteller, a caring mother and the bosom of our family – certainly. But sentiment for things, objects, tchotchkes or knick-knackery of any kind she kept no truck with.

In hindsight, it made sense for her not to be attached to things. For things could be had. Things could be held. Things could be loved.  But things were inconstant. Things could be taken from you. Things could be ripped from your arms and dashed to pieces upon the ground in front of you by men who dragged your family away. Men who dragged them away screaming to be turned to ash in great furnaces behind the prison fences criss-crossing the lush green fields of your homeland.

So it came as something of a surprise when digging through my un-sentimental grandmother’s meagre possessions on the day she died that I came across an envelope – yellow and mottled with age, and stuffed full of…something.

I turned it over in my hands – front to back. It looked fragile. I raised it to my face and breathed it in. It smelled like her. Lilac perfume, cigarettes and talcum powder, but mixed with something else – the vaguely familiar and musty scent of mothballs. Faded copperplate writing on the back seemed as though etched with rust. Letters swirled together in unfamiliar patterns, strange combinations of consonants and umlauts in her native Hungarian that seemed as mysterious to me as they were unpronounceable.

I opened the envelope and the long, red ribbon spooled out into my hands. Against the aged and fragile paper that held it, the colour was brilliant. Made of inch-wide satin, it seemed to pour from the envelope like liquid fire. I marvelled at its rich, crimson texture as I stretched it to its full length from my left hand to my right, weaved it in-and-out between my fingers; such a contrast to the brittle paper of the envelope which had held it.

And there at the bottom of the envelope, beneath that glossy burst of colour, sat tucked away a small, sepia-toned photograph. I carefully fished it out between my fore-finger and my thumb, freeing it from the confines of the space that had held it for how many years? Who knew.

The photograph showed my grandmother as a small child. She could have been no older than five or six years, dressed in a frock coat with socks that came up to her knees and polished buckle-up shoes. She stood leaning against a gate in a country lane, head tilted shyly to the side, her hand clutching a sprig of…was it lavender? A fat hen fussed at her feet.

And there, in my tiny grandmother’s hair – tying it back from her face into a neat bunch atop her head – an inch-wide, shining ribbon tied in a bow.

And I, a sentimental bastard, wept.

 

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A memory from school in the deep north in the olden days – Rebecca Wallner

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Danny was one of the barefoot boys in primary school. Which was pretty much all the boys, except for the ones with prissy mums who made their boys wear polished black Bata Scouts with animal footprint soles. The barefoot boys were boisterous and strong and always chosen as bin monitors. At the end of Big Lunch, they hoisted the bins on their shoulders and took them to be emptied – the green ones with food scraps for Mr Edgerton’s pigs and the yellow ones with paper for the school yardsman to burn in the incinerator.
At high school, Danny grew big, really big. Like the size of Hoss Cartwright in “Bonanza“ when he was in only Year Nine. But that didn’t stop the bully boys punching him in the arm after we all got our needle. Don’t remember what the needle was for, some immunisation programme they were doing to all us kids in high school. Anyway, I remember seeing poor Danny, trapped in a stairwell, being punched in the arm where he had had his needle. There was no escape. Danny cried and I looked away, embarrassment, shame and anger burning me.
The stairwells didn’t just trap Danny. They trapped everyone in a thick miasma of stink. Sweaty, humid, school-kid stink. After lunch, between classes, anytime of day, didn’t matter, always the same stink.
It wasn’t just the stairwells that trapped Danny. Danny was different – “stupid”, “spaz”, “idiot” the bullies called him, laughing when they asked him if he was a virgin and Danny replied, “No, I’m a Presbyterian”.
 
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Next Level – Roland Taureau

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Let’s set a moody scene: it’s a dark, muggy night on Mitchell Street, Darwin.  I’m at Monsoons for a mate’s farewell. It’s all slightly uncomfortable for a range of reasons. Firstly, because Mitchell Street lends itself to discomfort. It’s one of those streets. Where shit happens.

I used to joke that, if you were ever experiencing a crisis of self-worth, you should take a quick stroll down Mitchell Street any Thursday-Sunday evening because you’d soon feel like you’d just been accepted into an exclusive Phd program at Cambridge, purely for existing.

Think young women with skirts up around their belly button rings holding each other’s hair back as they take turns spewing into the gutter. Think shiny, sweaty bros with sleeve tattoos getting into fisticuffs in the kebab shop. The kebab shop’s a really good place to take in the full spectrum of mixed martial arts actually, because drunk people become incensed when they’re hungry and someone tries to skip the queue.

The second reason that it’s uncomfortable is that boyfriend and I are sober. We’ve sworn off drinking. Which is a pity because we like drinking. A lot.

You know that feeling where your body’s telling you that it needs something? Like when you’re desperate for a glass of water or a concentrated hit of calories? Well I distinctly remember every cell in my body screaming out in unison for a gin and tonic that night as I hovered awkwardly over a tray of formerly hot savouries.

We’d sworn off the booze because I’d been unwell, which rounds out the trifecta of discomfort. 8 weeks earlier I’d had a pretty basic spinal operation, a laminectomy and microdiscectomy to correct a prolapsed disc that had been screaming down my sciatic nerve for the best part of 5 years.

I was 10 kilos heavier than usual, as a result of both my affinity for alcohol and a severely restricted capacity for physical activity, and I was still experiencing quite a bit of pain. Happily, a few weeks of sobriety seemed to be helping.

Needing a brief escape from our small gathering I downed my final sip of soda water, snapped up a soggy dim sim and excused myself from the bar terrace to make a quick call to Mum. She’d been calling and texting for a few days by then and I hadn’t gotten back to her. The texts had been unusually complimentary, which wasn’t like Mum. Not that she’s not lovely and supportive and all the things that Mums are supposed to be, but I’d never known her to randomly text me how brave I was or tell me how well I was handling a situation. It seemed a bit off, not least because being brave and / or level-headed factored absolutely nowhere into my self-perception.

She answered after a few rings and we began to chat. Small talk at first, then we got down to business.

‘Did the MRI report come in?’, I asked.

I’d had another one 8 weeks post-surgery. Mum had been able to order it because she’s a GP and so the report would be sent through to her when complete. I’d had the MRI because, far from things getting better after this operation, they’d gotten a lot worse. As I mentioned, I was still in quite a bit of pain. The sciatica was down both legs now, and something was going on in my hips and lower back, plus there was this really weird phenomenon whereby 5+ minutes of walking would send both legs to sleep.

I’d reported it all to my surgeons in the Big Smoke, I’d even turned up to the emergency department a couple of times before flying back to Darwin, but they said it was all fine. Just swelling and inflammation apparently. All perfectly normal. And no need to have another MRI until the 8-week mark because before then the swelling and inflammation would obscure anything that was happening internally anyway.

‘It did’, said Mum.

‘And what did it say?’

I didn’t ask this with any real expectation of a life-changing response. As much as pain is annoying, I’d been living with it for years. This just seemed like an exacerbation. I needed to nail down the cause (most likely another, more pronounced prolapse had developed, I thought) so that we knew what to do and could start doing it.

‘Well…’, began Mum, cautiously ‘It said that there’s evidence of surgery on the L3/4 level’.

‘L3/4?’, says me, ‘But the prolapse was on L4/5?’

‘Yes. It mentions that’, continued Mum ‘It says that there’s evidence of surgery on the L3/4 level…but that L4/5 remains the same as the last MRI’.

Silence while I digest.

Lots of diagnoses and medical advice are swirling around my brain at this point. I’d spent a lot of time receiving advice, following it, relying on it and structuring my life around it. The advice was what was keeping me going. Keeping me focussed on the light at the end of the tunnel. Because doctors are supposed to know best!

Weeks of frustrated questions came flooding back, all with the same cop-out response.

‘Why am I still experiencing pain when the surgery should have corrected the prolapse?’

‘Swelling and inflammation’

‘The pain’s so severe I’ve had to come back to the ED again’

‘All normal, it will just be swelling and inflammation’

‘It is safe to fly home to Darwin?’

‘Sure! You’ll be fine, it’s been 2 weeks’

‘I was in so much pain I took 5 Endone and still had to stand up the whole way on the flight’

 ‘That will just be the swelling and inflammation’

‘I couldn’t get my shoes and socks on in the morning. It was too painful’

‘That’s the swelling and inflammation. Can you get someone else to do it?’

‘You said I could go back to the gym after 4 weeks but if I walk for more than 5 minutes my legs go numb’

‘Are your shoes too tight?’

‘No’ 

‘Then it’s the swelling and inflammation’ 

‘Today I had to catch a taxi home from work. It’s only a few blocks away so I usually walk, but my legs wouldn’t work any more’

‘Swelling and inflammation’

‘I really think something’s wrong. Can’t I have another MRI to make sure?’

‘Not until 8 weeks post-surgery’

 ‘Why not?’

 ‘Swelling and inflammation’

‘So…they’ve done the wrong level?’, I finally ventured.

‘Yes, and honey I just think you’ve been so brave through all this. You’ve handled it so well. I just admire you so much you know?’

‘Oh god, the poor surgeon!’, I blurted out. ‘He’s going to be so upset!’

I felt numb as I wandered back into the bar. Numb like my traumatised legs.

When I got there, I immediately ordered a gin and tonic.

This was the excuse I needed. And believe me, I’d been looking for one.

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The Piece – Pinta Kaur

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

It was a small town at the foot of the mountain ranges that stretched in the far distance. Originally, the mountains were full of green trees. Further away from the village, deeper into the mountains, there was a sacred forest, called the Daintree Beauty.

The name sounded more like there were beautiful princesses living in a castle, trapped, ready to be rescued by handsome princes. But, that wasn’t the case.  The trees in this forest were dark green, not too dark and not too light either. Almost like the kind of green military officers wore during the war, not quite long ago. Instead of princesses and princes and castles, there were prisoners of war camps within Daintree Beauty during the wartime. The dead were long buried, but the villagers believed the forest remained a prison to their souls.

Adam Bastian, a 25-year-old tour guide assistant, had led foreign tourists to many other locations in the nearby towns but he always managed to avoid Daintree Beauty. He grew up witnessing his grandfather suffering from episodes of unexplained hysteria after a failed hunting trip at Daintree Beauty and died not too many moons after. He heard stories during his childhood of those men who braved the forest with imprisoned spirits and never made it back home. With his sleek style and social knack, Adam convinced Jeremiah, the lead tour guide, to take the tourists to other attractions in the area.

It was a rainy Saturday in November, when the bus couldn’t get through the flooded road to a nearby tourist town. The recent heavy downfall had caused some serious damage to a main road that connected a number of main tourism spots around the area. The Great Holidays Tourism Company wasn’t about to risk losing business that was already on the way downhill due to the wet season. They needed to find other spots for the enthusiastic holidaymakers.

Adam looked down at his muddy brown boots and then looked up at Jeremiah. He whispered, with a slight tremble in his voice, “I really think we should find somewhere else to take them…uhmm…the forest is sacred…we all know that…the souls are trapped in there, my grandmother told me all about it. We all know it. I haven’t even been to the village itself in a million years!” Jeremiah bursts into a loud laughter, “Adam! What are you talking about? It’s Daintree Beauty! There’s nothing scary about the place. Those are the rumours of the past. After all, we are not even taking them in too far, we’ll be there for an hour tops, and then we leave. What can happen, really?” Adam looked at Jeremiah in disbelief. He could feel his blood boiling in anger and his face becoming warmer. He opened his mouth, about to shout at his boss, but changed his mind in a split second and quickly withdrew. He turned around quickly and walked away to the bus, parked with the tourists waiting impatiently.

The bus approached the village slowly. It was mid-day. The bus stopped by the roadside, not far from a worn-down bamboo hut. The stakes supporting the hut were old and faded. The hay roof had holes. Adam came off the bus hesitantly and walked towards the hut slowly. The sun was prickly on the skin. He looked in; there was no sign of anyone. It had a bench in the middle and a few worn sandals under the bench on the dirt floor. Feeling more tensed than ever, Adam walked quickly back towards the bus. He saw several tourists were stretching and walking outside the bus. They seemed restless. Suddenly Adam felt sick, his stomach churned and he swiftly sprinted into the nearby bushes and retched. Jeremiah, who had been watching him, walked quietly, tried to act normal, towards the bushes. Adam was catching his breath when Jeremiah got there. He turned around, “I’m sorry, Jer, I can’t do this. I just can’t. You really need to continue without me.”

Danu, the bus driver, pushed the brake pedal gradually as they approached the gate of the forest. The bus stopped with a loud screech that woke several tourists that had dozed off. Jeremiah climbed down the bus and saw the clear sign Welcome to Daintree Beauty, the Forest of Your Dreams. He looked around; there were a few carts selling food and souvenirs. Several of them walked fast towards the bus and carried with them some items for sale, noisily offering them to the tourists that were starting to climb down, out of the bus.

Jeremiah walked further out and saw there were more buses parked at the parking spots with tourists walking towards the direction of the forest. He pulled one of the food sellers to the side, “hey, I heard this forest is haunted, is that right?” The seller, a muscly young man laughed, “yes, it is haunted. It’s definitely haunted.” Jeremiah looked at him bewilderingly. The young seller had seen the look before, “The old tale talks about the imprisoned souls, everyone kept away from this place. The village deteriorated because there was no source of income. Since we started coming back here, selling food and souvenirs, and inviting people to come and visit the forest, there was nothing but good fortune for us, the villagers. This place has history that we want to share with the world, and it has a great landscape. We realised, it wasn’t the souls that were imprisoned, it was our minds!”

After a long walk, Adam found a lift on the way home right before sunset, when the blue sky turned into a few shades of orange in streaks. It was almost dark when he arrived at his grandmother’s small brick house, with two white wooden chairs and a small brown table neatly placed at the veranda. His grandmother slowly arose with the support of her walking stick, when she saw him coming in. He smiled at her. She looked relieved when he wrapped her skinny figure in his embrace.  Although she looked like she was 100 years old, the glow that she was radiating reminded him of the time when she young, strong, and beautiful, “It’s time for your medication, dear.” He sighed, nodded and slowly let go of her. He left her in the living room to continue with her knitting. In the bedroom he opened the wooden drawer next to his bed, took out the pills and pushed them down his throat with a few sips of water. He waited for a few minutes before climbing on to the bed, placed his head on the pillow and dozed into a deep slumber.

 

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Daintree Beauty and Rum Orange – Robyn Tsipris

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The first thing I remembered was the awe-inspiring beauty of the orange soil of the Red Centre, watching the prickly yellow balls spinifex rolling along in the wind like spherical hedgehogs, the cerulean blue sky encompassing the vast orange plains and the familiar but gob-smackingly beautiful Uluru and the feeling of healing warmth of the sun through my body.

The Japanese have a saying.  Their lives will be complete if just once in their lives they experience the vast space and timelessness of the Red Centre, Australia – the opposite of their densely populated, elbow to elbow lives back home.

Similarly the beauty of the Daintree is inspiring.  The rainforest plants, frond of giant Tree Ferns, giant trees, verdant and abundant.

Originally cassowaries inhabited the Daintree but these days they are quite scarce, maybe even verging on endangered.

I loved sampling the little green ants, as suggested by the tour guide, but I was looking forward  to an icy cold rum and coke and lounging in the recliner chair back at the resort.

…reliving the magnificent day.

What do I like best?  Daintree Rainforest beside the crashing waves of the surf or the colours of the Red Centre that assault the senses.

It was brilliant – the forever open spaces and the vibrant colours of the Rock close up.  The undulating wave-shapes of the sides of the Rock suggesting that millions of years ago this inland sanctuary was under water; a mind blowing theory, supported by the shells and sea creature fossils that abound in the area.

Is life what you thought it would?  Stresses and strains, yes, but the consolation comes from the out-of-body experiences of magnificent natural wonders like Uluru and Daintree., as well as travel to various novel and exciting places around the world.  I’ve seen parts of Europe, Russia, India, Alaska, but nowhere is near as life-enhancing as Australia’s natural beauty.

The most random experiences were watching the baby fairy penguins hobble up the beach of Phillip Island and releasing the baby turtles into the welcoming waves of Seminyak Beach, Bali.  Hoping “my” turtle would survive the very poor odds of being eaten by predators or succumbing to stormy  seas and would grow to maturity and return to the same beach to reproduce.  And the cycle continues.

Above all I am a nature lover and colours such as orange, yellow, green and blue, in all their variations, feed my soul.

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 Antics at an Abattoir – Sophia H

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Preface

Sophie-Jean and Rosie-Jo are two mischievous but hard-working farmers from Coffee Springs Alabama. Working from morning until night at the town abattoir, they are always up to something. They only have one victim. The manager of the abattoir, Frannie Hills whom they affectionately refer to as “Frills.”

As charming as these two ladies are, their deep southern drawl turns off even the most desperate of bachelors.

Rosie-Jo – {irritated, standing with hands on hips} So, where the hell were you today? I had to drag Miss Molly to the butcher all by myself! You know how my back is breaking, my tooths are aching and my kids keep taking…

Sophie Jean – {puffing and panting} Oh my Lord Rosie-Jo! I remember waking up in the shearing shed just outside our abattoir! At first I thought I had died! It was dark, damp and dungy.

Rosie-Jo – {exasperated} Oh Sophie-Jean! How the on Earth did you get in there? Have you been frolicking with the sheep again? I told you yesterday, Frills aint’ gonna pay you overtime for THAT! We have the abattoir Christmas pageant to organise!

Sophie-Jean – Bless your heart Rosie! Thinking I’m employee of the month again! No. I was over yonder having a good time with my fella. We must have ended up in the shed after a few too many G and Ts.

Rosie-Jo – {looks at Sophie suspiciously} You weren’t drinking’ down at Jacob’s Joint again were you? He is one sick freak Sophie-Jean! You’re as pretty as a peach and don’t need him in your life!

Sophie-Jean – Oh I was until he gave me his ye old traditional Dandelion Soup. It was feral. I think there was something growing in it.

Rosie-Jo – Are you sure it was a soup, Sophie-Jean? You tend to mix things up a lot around the fellas. Remember that slime incident?

Sophie-Jean – I reckon it was all good. Steve the new bartender was eating it too. He told me, the Japanese have a saying, Dandelion Soup makes country gals hot and country boys ready to pop!

Rosie-Jo – {starts cleaning out the recently vacated barn} So, what’s going on with this Steve character?

Sophie-Jean – {reluctantly taking a shovel} Well, as you know, we ended up at the shed.

Rosie-Jo – Well, what did you do?

Sophie-Jean – I ran away soon after like an alpaca looking for an oasis!

Rosie-Jo – An alpaca? Is that really the fastest you could go? I mean, you have a whole Amazon full of fauna and you choose a spittin’ donkey!

Sophie-Jean – Hold your horses! I was on a mission. I fronted up at work but Frills sent me home! She took one look at me, told me I looked green and to pull my stomach in!

Rosie-Jo – {moves away slightly} Did you catch something from Steve?

Sophie-Jean – {bangs shovel onto the ground} Hush your mouth! Nothing happened! So what happened today at the good ol’ abattoir?

Rosie-Jo – Man! Sophie Jean, it was a fantabulous day! Frilly was frazzled because of the coconut we hid on her chair yesterday! Guess what? She sat on it and fell backwards onto the floor! Unlucky for her, she had a freshly squeezed kale and carrot smoothie. It went all over that vintage white smock she wears whenever the butcher comes!

Sophie-Jean – Oh my Lord! Did you actually get to see this? I mean, you’re here alive! I thought she would have killed you!

Rosie-Jo – {smugly takes out a hip flask and takes a drink} Oh I was. Originally I had gone to ask for a raise. Frills and I go way back! As she got up off the floor, her dress looking more postmodern than vintage, I asked her if her life was what she thought it would be at this time in her life.

Sophie-Jean – {gawks at Rosie incredulously} Rosie-Jo, you have gumption girl! What did Frills say?

Rosie-Jo – After throwing the coconut at me, she sighed, stood up, gripped my shoulders and looked me right in the eye and told me she is exactly where she wants to be. I must have looked at her strangely because she went on and on about a donkey!

Sophie-Jean – This is the most random crap I have heard all day! She thought an ass would liven things up around here? Aren’t we enough?

Rosie-Jo – Frills wants a REAL donkey for the Aba-Pageant this year!

Sophie-Jo –  {pretends to gallop around on a donkey} Rosie-Jo, I am so excited! I have my outfit all sorted. Virgin Mary here I come!

Rosie-Jo – Virgin Mary my ass!

Sophie-Jean – No Rosie-Jo! Actually, if you read the Holy Bible, you will find it’s my ass.

Rosie-Jo – No, I mean, Frills demanded the role for herself after our prank with the coconut.  She thinks it’s only fair. We took her dress so she will take yours!

Sophie-Jean – I guess after last night, I don’t resemble the Virgin Mary anyway. Who do I get to be?

Rosie-Jo – You and I are now the Wise Girls. Frills knows that we have learned something this year. Something great, something small and something long-lasting.

 

Sophie-Jean – Naturally! Pranks are fun but we need more than coconuts to be funny. Humour comes from within even if one works at an abattoir! ​

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Random – Susie Fagan.

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The first thing I remembered as I arose from another hazy, alcohol-fuelled night full of laughter and love and lashings of luck that I even made it back to my bed, was that beige stone wall.
Where was it?
And why was I wearing a bow on my arm?
The Japanese have a saying: “If your mind is black, then so is your soul.”
My soul was feeling like fucking tar.
After all those French kisses and wild, fat cigars, I could hear hell’s gates creaking open, with The Devil himself laughing at how easy embracing me into his evil arms was.
Originally this was going to be a good night; catching up with old friends who refused to act anything but – and why should they?
After I picked up the pieces of smashed, special-priced Kmart crappy plates he got me for Christmas, The Bull inside me’s horns had finally fallen – and the hours ahead all wore red.
It was brilliant.
Galloping through side streets, hopping in and out of bars and picking up whoever wanted to join this wild journey on the way.
A whole week of working shit, picking up other people’s shit, listening to everything except what my ears want to hear.
Is life what you thought it would be?
It was for just these few hours, where minutes turned into seconds and smiles seemed like they would last forever.
Ice stung my top right eyebrow as the cool water gushed down my throat.
It was still a desert in there – and the kids crying hit me harder over the head than the hangover.
I could hear the raindrops on my window tapping as a reminder to breathe.
In-out-stop-start.
As I lay next to those dusted self-help books, sleeping tablets and mouldy eye-mask, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be next in the news.
He always swore he’d never hit in front of the kids – which showed there was some self-control, and somehow made me feel in control.
….
I find people who can’t control their bladder infuriating – such as me.
I’m constantly needing to go to the toilet, particularly since pushing out those small potato humans called children.
The entire area has just turned to mush – like an ol fella walkin down the street and he just casually lets one rip.
It just falls out.
I heard a granny just tear one out the other day – no apology, no shame – no acknowledgment, no movement at all.
Like it didn’t even happen.
I want to be that woman.
I want to see Kim Kardashian letting a full one rip – the same way her stomach is ripped and to give Woman’s Day a real front cover story that’ll guarantee clickbait.
“Kim Kardashian’s new diet – she simply pees her pants every time she jumps rope at the gym and farts into a bottle every time she sneezes [now on sale at Priceline for just farty9.99]. Eeewwww Eau De FartyPants.
I was in Woolies the other day and the chick at the counter had a full beard. The guy she was serving did too so it really made me feel like we’re finally living in an equal society.
So I’ve decided to stop shaving mine.
Seriously, they just appear.
Little beard bastards.
I’m sure every fkn time Shane Warne loses a hair on his head, a woman somewhere grows 3 on her chin.
Women usually rush off at the first sign of this shit and spend $100s of $s trying to eradicate them, no matter what the pain.
And then while they’re at it – they think, fuck it why not stick a vacuum up my arse and get a colon cleanse? Take my credit card – and while you’re at it, every last little ounce of pride.
My hubby’s grand coz he can’t see the back of his head – but I’ve got to look at my beard every bloody day.
So I thought fk it – I’m gonna be a model on those hair loss ads, just so I can get it for free (that shit costs a lot).
I’ll be anyone’s science experiment if I can save a few cents.
When we fart at work, no-one acknowledges it – like we just carry on as if nothing happened – but inside we’re dying – we’re gagging – people are desperately trying to focus on the conversation but are actually thinking “What’s that fkn smell?!”
When men do it – their mates are like “Jesus mate, did you just fart? Fuck! And laugh their heads off. So ladies, I say be more man.
Embrace the hairs.
Let your bum run free and release your farts to the world – for they are the things that ultimately connects us as humans
(plus he really doesn’t give a hoot once he’s giving you a root).
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Fine with fines – by Ruthless Ruth

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Ruthless Decluttering

With each new job I take on I have the pleasure of working with the most delightful people who just needs some help to get on top of things.  It takes courage to let a stranger into your home and go through your dirty (literally) laundry. I always understand how vulnerable and exposed people feel, but I don’t judge, I understand, however, in this case it was hard.

I was contacted by a lady from a very affluent suburb in the east of Sydney who needed some help with her study room.  I dropped by and could see how hard it was to keep the space tidy with a two-year-old in tow who was fixated on trashing the space by throwing the papers around and pulling everything off the shelves.  She needed someone to come in and take control, she needed me to be ruthless for her.

This lady runs a business from her office and needed to be elsewhere while I was working, so she let me in and left me to it. As usual, I always approach a room working from left to right.

As I work and move around the room, I find that there are bags full of unopened mail everywhere.  I collect and sort as I go making categorised piles on the floor, mail for her, mail for him.  I start to learn about this couple.  She is his second wife, much younger than he.  When they met, he lived in Balmain and perhaps she in the east.  The mail mainly consisted of letters from the Roads and Traffic Authority, they were fines for travelling through the Cross-City Tunnel with no E-tag!!! Hundreds of them, his and hers fine mail.  Then more fines for not paying the fines! Then fines for the car not being registered! Or their licences had expired. Fines, fines, fines, fines, fines…it was not fine!  I just can’t believe it, who would get a fine for not having an E-tag and A, not go immediately to Services NSW to get one, and B, not pay the fine?! Who, who who!!! Are there people out there who okay with $180 instead of $5.84? Amongst the papers were utilities bill reminders and credit card statements all exceedingly high by my standards.

I get through and tidy, returning the office to a functional place where things are in order. I head home and send her my invoice.  I usually take cash or direct deposit. She responds with thank you and is seemingly happy with the result, a few days go by, no payment!  I usually take cash or direct deposit. A week goes by, no payment!!!  I send a reminder.  Another week goes by.  Of course, the client with a room full of unpaid bills and fines are going to be the ones to not pay me.

I’m annoyed but find a solution, they live on credit, so I need to give them the option to pay with credit, I reach out to her always polite and calm.  BPAY lets me create a bill and she paid me immediately with her Platinum Amex card! I lose a bit for commission, but it was a good lesson learned.

Ruth Evatt

Ruthless Decluttering

m: 0419 147 427

ruthless.com.au

 

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interrupted – CTH

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

We met at the theatre, the room was full of people waiting for the show to start, champagne was flowing and everyone was dressed beautifully, I was glad to see people still dress up and make an effort to see theatre these days.
I was standing next to a huge bouquet of flowers with my glass of champagne, mum had gone to powder her nose.
I was looking around the room watching animated conversations, there was a man around my mothers age across the other side of the room next to the marble staircase. Our eyes caught, I gave a half smile and looked away back to the glass in my hand.
I could sense he had kept on looking, I glanced back up and saw that he had started walking across the room towards me.
Just as he was close enough to speak mum came back, she was talking about the long line at the bathroom and why they should update these old theatres to have more women’s toilets.
I had kept my eyes on the man who had kept on approaching. Mum glanced towards him and smiled. I was feeling awkward and wondering how I would explain this to her, but I didn’t need to as he addressed her first commenting on her dress, mum was pretty used to flattery from strangers and handled it well, always smiling and gracious at first.
She smiled and thanked him and asked what he thought of the show and if he’d seen it before. He had and was a regular on the scene. I was surprised I had not seen him before. He kept his eyes on mum but kept glancing at me, he then turned full focus on me and asked my name. I introduced myself and held out my hand to shake, he had smooth, large hands and didn’t give a hard handshake that allot of men tend to do like it’s a competition or contest of manhood.
He asked if I enjoy the theatre or if I was just accompanying my mother. I’d grown up my whole life with a beautiful mother, her beauty was not to be judged or questioned, she had been blessed by the genetic lottery with symmetrical features, cat like eyes and a heart shaped mouth hanging off of chiselled, knife edged cheekbones.
At this age and from quite a young age I was able to judge a mans character and motives towards me and in the end my mother who was the ultimate reason. I was usually just an obstacle in their way, which unlike something inanimate could not be removed with brute force. This was a game of intellect, patience and scheming which was a true test for most of the men who were led to my mother by their dicks.
This felt somewhat different, I was the initial target, unless this was a scheme that was underway long before my attention was caught across the room. Maybe this man had seen mum and I at another show or even just earlier this evening and hatched a plan starting with me, to go for the young prey whilst my mother was otherwise occupied. And if so this was going to be an interesting game and I was impressed.
I told him I was actually the one to bring my mother to this particular show and that I had seen it multiple times.
We were interrupted by the hollow dinging of the house bells rounding everyone back to their seats for the final interval.
He introduced himself as Brian and asked what we had planned for after the show, to see if we were interested in having a coffee or nightcap, my mother gave me a knowing look as if to say the ball was in my court. I was interested to see how this situation was going to pan out but I told him we might need to leave it to be decided at the end of the show.
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