Category Archives: Gunnas-Masters

Write First, Clean Second – Hayley Butcher

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

This year, particularly in the last few months, the urge to write has been so strong, “write, write, write, write” is a constant whir in my head. When I close my eyes, a big neon sign lights up and says “FOR GOD’S SAKE WRITE SOMETHING” So, this year and particularly in the last few months, my house has been damn fucking clean.

I can’t start writing until I see a smooth clean freshly made bed, a gleaming clear kitchen bench, clothes tumbling in the washing machine. Oh god, I love the smell of jif in the morning. I can’t start writing until the clothes are away, until the cupboards are re-organised, as per instruction from Marie Kondo’s book The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up, until I have reorganized some furniture and fluffed up some decorative cushions on the living room couch. Take a guess at how many words I have written so far? Yeah, none.

“Today, I’ll start writing” but first l’ll clear out all the shit I’ve been hoarding for my entire existence from the spare room and create a modern Scandinavian inspired work space with a beautiful desk, comfortable desk chair, tasteful floor covering and an incredibly impressive fiddle leaf fig tree that I don’t kill. Because I can’t possibly start writing, I haven’t got an inspirational quote above my desk or a piece of abstract art that I painted myself in response to “how the ocean makes me feel” … no, I can’t write a word.

For the first time tonight – I ignored the dirty dinner dishes, half chopped vegetables, cold pasta on the stove, a half sucked mango pip and old coffee cups from the morning screaming “help us, we’re dyyyinnnggg.” I turned a blind eye. I ignored the voice in my head, “maybe just quickly pop those away and wipe down the bench before you write anything”. I walked to the spare room with my nose in the air and opened my computer. “Hmmmm, what are you doing with this room and desk that you don’t use, sure it wouldn’t help you’re writing to clear off this space, what is all this random shit? An old shell from a holiday in Tasmania? Some old scribbled notes? Vacuum cleaner parts, why don’t you use those more? They’d be good for vacuuming the car. Maybe you should go vacuum the car before you start writing? Wait you’re writing? Who are you? You can’t write with that stuff blocking your writer’s flow? There’s nothing Scando about this room at all … you can’t write with all that shit around can you?

Turns out I can and I just did.

Write first, clean second.

Go Back

This disease – Ms B 

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

This disease I have

I try to keep it in a box
Lid closed tight
I kick it under the table
The furthest corner
Sometimes I can forget
This disease I have
I try to keep it way down low
Down deeper than memory
Pushed further than tomorrow
I shove it from me and turn my face away
But
This disease I have
Doesn’t try to please
It reveals itself
It makes demands
As self-possessed and pitiless as the weather
This disease I have
Is immune to tears
Relentless
Remorseless
With rules of its own
Is it god?
******
Today is the Day
Today is the day I stop procrastacaring,
There’s now a high risk of verbose oversharing,
With new tools and tips and a freshly kicked arse,
I’m grinning my way through a heartwarming class,
And I’m watering seedlings of little ideas,
And I’m facing up now to some well-hidden fears,
And I’m feeling the stirring of someone I knew,
Some sleeping presence, somebody who
I think I remember and I know that I like,
I’ll find her, she’s waiting down deep in my psyche,
And I’ll bid her a welcome and ask her to stay,
Or at least come each morning – ten minutes a day,
For four days a week, how hard can that be?
(Though wearing a shower cap won’t be for me)
So I’m writing! And soon I shall look back and say,
Thank god that I realised, today is the day.
Go Back

Everybody’s On Drugs – Nevena Spirovska

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

Most people take drugs. Just ask your kid’s school teacher (pot), financial adviser (coke), or local politician (all of them).

From our morning coffee, to our wind down wine, to the occasional line or puff for a good time. Something so widespread should be considered rather ordinary and unexceptional, given that illicit drug use is a majority experience and the majority of that is unproblematic.

It’s common amongst conventional, successful, and privileged people. And most common amongst rich, university educated young people.

The paper-thin line which separates legal and illicit substances is as confounding as it is cruel; the law deems convicted illicit drug users criminals, so we treat them as such. We use demeaning labels, like ‘junkie’ and ‘deadbeat addicts’, to separate them from the normal people who take drugs.

Applying criminal penalties to people who possess and use drugs causes more much harm than than it prevents. It makes criminals of people who aren’t, leads to the stigmatisation of people who use drugs, and creates barriers to treatment and rehabilitation.

Our government refuses to reshape policy to respond to evidence and statistics, outcries from Alcohol and Other Drug experts, and needless drug related deaths. So what is the basis of our drug policy?

In Victoria alone, there have been four previous amendments to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substance Act 1981 since 2010. Each change claiming to reduce or prevent drug-related harms in the community. And yet there remains no evidence that these interventions have been effective at reducing drug-related harms in the community.

Our drug policy is outrageously flawed, outdated, and it’s dragging down people who use drugs down with it.

Drug use can be safer through standard dosages, transparent labelling and no contaminants.

Drug use can be as positive as it can be by decriminalising and de-stigmatising people who use drugs and addressing the drivers of problematic drug use.

Drug use as can be more ethical by taking drug profits from organised crime to fund services like schools and health care, and promoting personal responsibility among people who use drugs.

Drug use can be more honest if we provide drug and health education that teaches the pleasures and excitement alongside the potential harms of use.

We can advocate that drug use should not be a crime by voting for political parties with a drug law reform policy platform. We can publicly support the idea that drug use should not be a crime, pointing to Portugal as a successful, living model of decriminalisation. We can also donate their time and money to organisations that are fighting against blanket drug prohibition, stigmatisation of people who use drugs, and better drug policy. And most importantly, We should not look down our nose for what people choose to put up them.

Go Back

Whistle stop – Nelah Yarrum

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

The first time she saw the PE Teacher at age 5, she knew she wanted a whistle around her neck.

Maddy loved the sound it made and the immediate control the PE teacher wielded with the students just by blowing that whistle.

She loved PE, she loved how great she felt running around and when that whistle blew she knew she was onto the next exercise. She loved it so much, she decided right there that she wanted to be a PE teacher or an Olympic gymnast; she’d seen that on TV.

Maddy joined the school gymnastics team at age 7 and quickly emerged as a real talent. She continued her training into high school and she was excellent at the floor routines, the parallel bars but the beam posed the greatest challenge.

During training one day she slipped down the side of the beam whilst attempting a difficult summersault. Rushing to her aid was Josh, a team member whom she’d known since the beginning of high school.

Josh was nursing his own foot injuries and now with Maddy having fractured her ankle they started to hang out together. Josh had been learning guitar whilst he recovered and he encouraged Maddy to learn too. Together they learnt guitar and started to write some songs.

They uploaded a song onto YouTube; they never expected the response they received. First it was 89 views, then within hours 100,000 by the next day they’d amassed over 1 million views. They were two young teenagers, still at school and now they had a smash hit.

Within the month their families had heard from the producers of Ellen in Los Angeles, wanting them to appear on the show. They had become household names with an international hit song and their parents were setting up trust funds in their children’s names.

Maddy thought, perhaps being a PE teacher was no longer her destiny and she came clean with Josh about her love at a very young age, to wear a whistle around her neck.

Josh laughed out loud and said to Maddy, ‘perhaps the whistle can make an appearance on our next hit single!

Go Back

The Beautifuls – Nelle Ritchie

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

I didn’t know how to tell this story. It’s hard and long and exhausting and it makes me want to cry and cry. The name means so much and I miss them so much. The lost, lovely ones that should be here but aren’t. And there’s no reason why that anyone can tell me. They just disappeared into thin air one day, as if they weren’t there at all. But for a short time, they were here (not ‘there’, ‘here’ I have to keep reminding myself). And I need to call them what they were, and what they still are. I could call them ‘the miracles’, but they are more how they happened. They are, and were, truly beautiful. Not to anyone else, but to me. Tiny little joys of wonder and delight and potential, and all gone so quickly. If they were here, it would be different, I would be different. Maybe my son would be different, my husband different. But they’re not, and we are the way we are.
I think about the flash of light when I first saw them – something of beauty created in something so sterile. How it all works I don’t know, but I am grateful for the science, and the scientists, and the cold, stark labs, the needles, the drugs (oh the drugs), the petri dishes, the tubes, the bloody speculum (even though for the most part I hated that shit of a clamp that threatens to split you in two), and for the doctors who really don’t know my name but invaded me nonetheless to give me my little darlings. I remember these things vividly, but mainly remember how thankful we were, and are, and try not to think back with annoyance, despair or anger.
Actually, it isn’t the process I generally remember, it’s the pain a long time afterwards, when the loss happens. The sharp, acute pain of grief. My first loss was the loneliest, the most despairing and is beyond words to describe. From my broken body and into my arms for a moment, to nowhere at all. How do you go from full to empty, with not having driven in between? The guilt of being the faulty vehicle that you would certainly return, not fit to drive. The second loss was close behind, sharp, painful. And oh shit, the guilt with it all. The third and fourth just added to my soul’s destruction. It was a long time before I came anywhere close to being me again. But not really me, a changed me. One that thinks about who they would have been, where they would have gone. I imagine full of life and spark, much like the bright fleck of life I first saw on the screen.

 

Go Back

Lady bugs – Josephine, PUMP Theatre

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

She might come back
It’s an unknown quantity
When you’re friends with a lady bug

She bounces from leaf to leaf
In the cabbage patch
She takes on moths and worms
Sometimes aphis, sometimes birds
Smashing holes in the produce
Then patching them up

‘Sun-ripened’

Tomato vines tethered on sticks
With Mums old stockings
It’s romantic, but practical
No room for emotion or fancy

Just get it done!
Dig the hole, put in the stake
Before the sun get’s too hot
It’s hard work growing vegies

Purely cathartic – my Dad’s release
From pain and arthritis
From screaming kids and Mum
Food for his family
Fresh on the table
It’s not fantasia
It’s pragmatic, it’s real
It’s pure homemade love.

Go Back

Prompt – Hayley Lee Allen

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

The first time I walked through a garden so desolate was when I visited my Aunt in Dubbo. I remember how hot it was that day and how I could feel the heat on the soles of my feet through my sandshoes. Was that 1982?  Oh god, memories flood back from that time as a poor child, as a troubled child from a broken and troubled mother. My Aunt had invited me to visit ‘for a spell’, she said, just while Mum got herself back on her feet. The grass beneath my feet was dry and each step crackled. Her little terrier scrapped around the yard and darted under the house, toward the only cool shade. There were no trees just some screen plant – quick growing, but unkempt. I looked at the sunburnt tag still hanging from one of the branches and tried to make out the words. Pittosporum, ‘simply the best for privacy’. 

Every day I stayed with my Aunt, things seemed to get a little worse, a little more frayed at the edges. I’d had no news of mum, so I kept asking, and the more I asked the more agitated she got. She’d just sit inside with the fan on her, smoking cigarettes and watching bad TV. I tried to find things to do. I walked around the adjoining streets, on the footpaths literally stamped out by tracks made over the years, bikes and boots; they hadn’t even got to concreting them yet. I tried to see who else lived in these quiet dry streets, but usually there was no one about. It got me thinking about the plant. About privacy. Why did these people shut themselves in? What were they hiding from.

At night, when it cooled down and TV sets lit up the otherwise empty looking houses, I would read. I had a few books with me, even in the rush getting here after Mum had lost it, I had managed to grab a few. They weren’t school books though and so I worried I was missing out. I remember one night after turning the last page on the first one, I picked up the little terrier, pulled him onto my lap and patted his matted hair.

His feet hurt, I could tell by his licking them. All that heat through the day practically boiled the tar on roads. I remember looking out the window, into the night, absentmindedly patting the dog. Without even thinking, I picked him up and strode out of the house. The night sky was vast, but sparkling with countless starts. I could see the milky way; I felt like could see into space. There was not a cloud in the sky. Never had I experienced that sense of vastness and it filled me with equal measure of wonder and unease. It was then I started thinking how I could potentially get out of there.

The weather changed the next day, a dark storm rolling in across the wheat fields. I had looked far into the distance, and could see the columns of rain pouring down. The sky got progressively blacker and the previous night’s idea of running away seemed to get rolled up in the clouds themselves only to be rained back down on me later. I had run about the hot brick house as the wind picked up, closing the windows. My Aunt didn’t seem to notice; I recall her faintly snoring at that point.

Next minute, there was a huge crack, and I knew the storm was upon us. The terrier lost his mind, barking, startling my Aunt, parking himself at her feet, yapping. I had cowered at the noise, but recovered enough to think of the next steps I had to take. I had never seen a storm loom so large – I didn’t know what to expect. I called the local cops just to check in. I dialled the number, only to get a recorded voice, “Please check the menu. 1 for an emergency, 2 for a complaint…” and so on, so I slammed the phone down. I checked every window twice. I grabbed the little terrier, more for my own comfort and safety than his I think, and sat down in the corner of the kitchen, bracing for the storm to hit. I realised then, I was going nowhere.

 

Go Back

Beyond Words – Kerrie Chapman

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

The first time Jen saw Joe, she couldn’t explain what she felt. Was it recognition from a previous meeting? Had they gone to school together? Played in an orchestra together? Met whilst travelling the world? Or was it that she recognised something inside herself in the look that they shared? A sense of knowing that can only be found face to face in someone’s eyes? Not online, or in a text message.

Jen felt herself at a loss for words. She was generally pretty good in one to one conversation, however, was feeling particularly shy tonight and glad that she and Joe were amongst a group. She felt the temperature drop in the retro bar where friends and strangers had gathered for a birthday celebration and pulled her thin black cardigan around her shoulders. Gathering her long brown hair to one side, her hand caught on the red sequined choker she had chosen to match a simple black dress with subtle red and gold lines thinly patterning the fabric, giving the Melbourne uniform of black a little colour. What was happening to her? She smiled shyly at Joe. “So, how’s your day been?” she asked, encouraging light conversation so she could clear her head.

Joe was talking, however, Jen wasn’t hearing the words, just the sound of them, softly spoken, soothing, familiar. It had happened to Jen before, meeting someone that she felt she knew, but had never crossed paths with. It was difficult to believe that these occurrences were a coincidence. She played with the red sequined choker she had worn that night. It was an unusual accessory choice for her to make as Jen liked to blend into a crowd. 

Recently though, she’d made a decision that anything that she didn’t use or hold deep sentimental value for needed to be gifted, recycled or discarded. She’d picked the choker up at a night market in Bangkok, and it reminded her of a more adventurous time of feeling free and like she could reinvent herself every day. Life had become too cluttered, and Jen wanted simplicity. She felt overwhelmed by the weight of material history that held memories of life events that were now so long ago that she could barely remember them as having happened to her. 

She had only one regret in discarding part of her history. Jen had moved house more times than she could count, each time picking up her box of cassette tapes and storing them in her next home. She never opened the lid, just shifted the box from one place to the next. She didn’t even own a cassette player, and after a long day of packing, moving and unpacking, a few years ago with an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia from owning too much “stuff”, she tossed the box into the garbage instead of into the back of her car, rationalising that music was available online.

Whilst the music could be replaced and found as mp3’s that took up no space, she missed the feeling of popping a pen or pencil into the cog of the tape to make sure it was wound tight, and never quite knowing what track was going to sound through the speakers of her stereo when she hit play. 

Jen pulled herself back into the moment. She often found herself distracted by thoughts of music, seeing it as the soundtrack of her life. She regretted discarding the tapes, for those precious mixtapes would never be mixed quite the same again, and many were gifts that were now gone forever.

The group she was with were talking amongst themselves, and Joe hadn’t seemed to notice her lack of words. They had shared a few more smiles and glances whilst Jen’s mind had wandered. The dim lighting and upbeat music playing in the background gave a happy and relaxed feel. The décor was of gentle green and orange tones that were warm and reminiscent of a time gone by, but not yet passed. The lamps glowed purple, orange, red and yellow, and had character, not like those mass produced Ikea lights that lit up every space these days. Jen realised that what she liked about a place was how she felt and she wanted her home to feel like this space did.

She wanted space for new memories, distance from some old memories whilst still holding some of the ones she cherished. Not being materialistic, and an experienced backpacker who could live indefinitely out of a bag she could run with need be, this overwhelming amount of “stuff” that she had accumulated was starting to feel like a heavy weight holding her in place. She thought of a tin of coins and notes sitting on her dresser. It contained the currency of countries she had visited over her many years of travel, in hopes of returning there again. Did she need those?

Finally, Jen looked up and made proper eye contact with Joe, fully present in the moment. “I feel like we’ve met before,” she said softly, leaning in towards Joe. “Me too,” said Joe, “We haven’t though, have we?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Jen. 

They continued to look at each other shyly, using their eyes rather than words to communicate in the noisy room with its layers of music, conversation, clinking glasses, closing doors and trams passing by. “Hey, do you know this song?” asked Jen. “Yeah, hang on, I need a second,” replied Joe. They both looked at the speaker above as if it held the answer.

“Jamiroquai!” exclaimed Joe. 

“Yeah, one of my favourites, ‘Canned Heat’.” Jen smiled as she answered.

“Hey, we should dance,” suggested Joe, moving gently towards Jen and unimposingly guiding her towards the dance floor. 

Jen hesitated as she looked out to the uninhabited yet inviting dance floor. Sometimes it just took a couple of people to start something new. Jen followed Joe under the sparkly lights and found herself in this song, which held so many memories for her. Dancing when no one was watching. On the side of a road in broad daylight to keep warm whilst hitch hiking in Finland. In a hut in Norway when she felt alone and depressed. With synchronicity on the eve of her 40th interstate at “No Lights No Lycra” with some of her oldest friends. There was something there, in the absence of words and in the presence of music, that provided a connection that went beyond. Beyond anything that words could convey.  

Go Back

The student – Mya Stevens

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

The first time she saw it, her heart stopped. How could something so amazing, so beautiful, be on this earth? How was such perfection possible? She’d never seen a sword like this. To her, living in this little Japanese village surrounded by beauty for the last seven years, perfection and tradition had become commonplace. But this…the shape of its hilt, a pommel with a beautiful gold signature weave, the gleam of the blade in the sunlight. It was perfectly balanced; the weight of the hilt was the exact weight of the blade. She should know, she’d held plenty of swords – and knew how to use them.

The temperature dropped suddenly, with a cool and sinister breeze from the south. The village had, up until now, been enjoying a brief spell of sunny spring weather. But this quick lash of cold made her suspicious that this was in fact an omen. Why had the wind changed upon her holding this blade?

Whilst on an expedition to Hong Kong with her Sensei, he had given her a two dollar coin. She had stared at it in her palm for so long. He instructed her to do whatever she wished with it; but her choices would be noted. She could keep it, spend it on frivolous things, buy food or give it to someone needier than herself.

It was difficult to believe that anyone could be needier than she. Having come from extreme poverty in the outskirts of Hiroshima, scraping together enough for even one meal a day was commonplace. Her only toy growing up had been a cheap plastic whistle that she’d found on the side of the road. Having never seen one before, she was quite startled when, by accident, had blown into it and heard its voice. She still carried that whistle around with her as a token of the days before she left that horrible place. Family that treated her like a stray dog. Associates who used her in any way necessary to earn quick cash. She would one day have vengeance, and the whistle’s song reminded her of the promise she’d made herself.

Her Sensei was a wise man who had met her by accident. He found her bloodied and beaten on the streets of Okayama, the city closest to the village where he taught his students. She struggled for many years after joining his college, and suffered from terrible claustrophobia. Instead of sleeping inside the traditional paper walls with the other students, she would choose to sleep outside on the deck – in case she needed to escape without warning. The screaming through the night was not missed by those inside. The memory of being raped and enclosed in a garbage receptacle on its way to the processing plant had ensured a lifetime of nightmares and mental issues. She was by far the most damaged of his students, but this did not mean that she could not achieve greatness. A tremendous power was within this girl, everyone knew it. It was his responsibility to guide her towards light and truth, rather than allow her be eaten by remorse and revenge.

Her Sensei always seemed so happy and relaxed to her. This was in stark contrast to her black, eaten soul which would never rest. As far as she was concerned, her life was coloured one way and there was no going back. He would try; the beautiful, Buddha-like man that he was, and she adored him for it. But in her heart knew it would never work.

Finally, on this day, she received her first weapon. The Sensei’s students had to work and study for many years before a weapon was granted to them. This was her day. She had been so excited about the promise of something beautiful and pure being hers, and truly earned. It was so unbearable that she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. And now, it was in her hands. Its beauty. Its magnificence.

But what did the cool wind mean?

The fellow students felt it when she held the sword. She glanced around like a cornered animal at her fellow peers, knowing that they all knew. She dreaded looking upon her Sensei’s face. But her eyes found his and it could not have been worse. His usual bright, forgiving features now showed sorrow and, for the first time, fear.

What had she done? It was not her fault that the wind had changed. Did it mean anything? She knew it. Her peers knew it.

The moment stretched an eternity; time was frozen. She knew now the one thing she had to do. The only thing she could do. After seven years in the loveliest place she’d ever been, surrounded by the most accepting souls, taken in from the cold. She turned to the village gates, and ran as fast as she could. What waited for her on the other side she did not know.

 

Go Back

The fan and the $10 dollar bill – PJ

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER  

The first time was the hardest. It got easier after that. Or maybe it was just that the shock had worn off and she knew what to expect. It didn’t mean that she liked it or wanted it, just that it was easier. Easier to remove her ‘self’ from the situation. Her body was going through the motions but her mind was removed. She was running through a field of wild flowers or flying through the air like an eagle. Anywhere really…anywhere but here.

The green fan lay on the dresser. She got up from the bed and walked towards it. The temperature dropped as evening fell. She closed the windows and pulled a silk gown around her body, tying it at her waist. He had left a $10 bill next to the fan on the dresser. It was also green. Green used to be her favourite colour. Now it just reminded her of where she was; what she had become. Her old life was a distant memory. Sometimes she wondered if it was real or is she had dreamt it.

She picked up the fan. It was difficult to believe that she had been so happy when he first gave it to her. He had seemed so generous back then. Fun even. He tried to make her laugh often. He wanted to please her. Or so it had seemed at the time. She was too young to realise what was really happening. Too young, or maybe too stupid. Her parents weren’t much better. He had sucked them in with his smooth talk and promises of a better life for her. His lies.

She flicked the fan open and waved it back and forth in front of her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror of the dresser.

Claustrophobia gripped her and she ran to the window and threw it open again. She felt like she had been a prisoner in this room. In many ways, she had. She only left to use the bathroom and eat her meals. This was her life now. She hated it and she hated him. She hated this fucking green fan. Hated the way it made her feel, the memories it dragged up.

Happy and relaxed, that’s how she used to be. She didn’t recognise herself anymore. Wasn’t sure who she was now; what he had turned her into. Right now, she felt like a caged lion, pacing. She had accepted this as something she had no control over but now she was starting to feel something else. Some hidden strength that she didn’t know she had was starting to push its way into her conscience. She was starting to feel something.

Finally she felt that maybe she had a choice. It might not be a great choice, but it was her choice. She could take the power over her life from him. It seemed so simple now. She knew what she had to do. She went to the open window and carefully climbed up onto the window ledge. She looked at the street below. She heard the birds singing and felt the warmth of the sun caress her cheek. She thought of her parents back in their little village in China. She wished she could be there now. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and jumped.

Unbeknownst to her, a cart carrying a load of hay was passing just as she jumped. She landed right in the middle of it. No one was more surprised than she was. She sat up and her eyes found the window that had been the opening to her world, receding into the distance. Her heart pounded and she wasn’t sure what to think. Nothing made sense. She had thought her life was ending but now it seemed it may just be beginning.

 

 

Go Back