Category Archives: Gunnas-Masters

Write the book you wish was there for you – Anni Moss

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

When he was 7 I did a phone call to child abuse report line. Apparently the police or some type of investigator was sent to investigate. Later after some pressure, I told my sister it was me. This went down real bad, I haven’t seen my sister or nephews since.
The weird vicious emotional scapegoating abuse of my nephew had been going on since he was 6 months old. His father was the leader of this, sadistic, emotionally abusive, tormenting, teasing and mocking his own son for fun.
My brother in laws behaviour was shocking and scary. But I like the rest of the family ignored it. Except for some cowardly wingeing behind his back, I too enabled the Abuse of my nephew.
It took me a long time to work out and wake up from a dream, a stockholme like syndrome, that my family outwardly well off, successful people, seemingly high functioning had a dark weird secret. My mum was some type of personality disorder, secretly she had scapegoated me, bullied me, violently hit me and like my brother in law a horrible bully to one child, but a better more loving parent to the other child/children.
Why was I allocated the family scapegoat role?

My dad breaks like fragile fine bone china under the weight of mums personality disorder, he has sacrificed me and my nephew.
Yes he chose peace at any price, fuck you all, I’m going to write the book I wished was there for me, and for my nephew, and work to set all the little Scapegoats free.

Anonymous

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Fuck you. Thank you. – Hilary Matthews.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Fuck you. Fuck you for looking at me in my blue school uniform shorts and my too tight ponytail and thinking “There’s something fucking wrong with her”.

I was walking with my best friend, the Arkansan tomboy, on our school oval. Each conversational twist marked with “I have a theory “ followed by a profound observation about life . She was a little older than me and she knew what it was to be grown up. I was desperate to know everything but she doled out her knowledge in slow agonising drips.  I was in awe of her and being in her presence felt like being in the sun for the first time.

You were a year above me. You were with a friend and I hoped you’d ignore us and head over the low school fence.

“Look at the lezzos.” you said to us catching my eye “Are you a boy or a girl?” you said to my friend between laughs. I was outraged because you were in my sports faction. So much for fucking solidarity.

For years afterward whenever I would walk past your house I would wonder what happened in there to make you cruel.  I would speculate about just how big of a loser you grew up to be.

Thank you. Thank you for telling me my weirdness was wafting out of my pores. Thank you for giving me my clue on how to describe it.

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Playing in a rock’n’roll band – Sophia MacRae

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Story started at 5.25pm on the M44. Finished 7.25pm at the Clovercrest Hotel, Modbury North. First set starts at 7.30pm
Not many people get to play in a regular 50s/60s rock’n’roll band. I mean, I know a few, and to me it seems like a normal kind of thing to do, but on a per capita basis of the Australian population in 2017, it’s a rather low proportion, down in the 1:50,000 or something like that – which makes classic rock’n’roll musicians sound like a detailed topographic map (insert joke here about contour lines and wrinkles).
Back in the day – before I was born – playing in a rock’n’roll band in a town like Adelaide was a pretty common thing. People loved to dance. There was no TV – or not much anyway. Guys and gals craved an acceptable outlet for courtship, and there were venues everywhere, every night, that gave the boys (and apart from the singer in some cases, they were always boys) a place to play.
What’s it like now? I am on my way to tonight’s gig, tenor saxophone at my side, sitting on the bus after attending the famous Catherine Deveny Gunnas Writing Workshop today. Dev threw down the challenge of submitting a piece by 10pm of the same evening after her workshop, and for me, a thrown down challenge is a red rag to a bull – and so, dear reader, here we are. I’d like to give you a glimpse of what it’s like these days to play in a classic rock’n’roll band.
Words can’t do it justice, of course. Especially not my words, with my phrases still overlong and clumsy, my style too high-falutin’, my ego pushing through the prose like a pimple on the chin. But hell, I have been tasked to write, and I will write about what I love, and what I wish could be written for me to read – the intangible joy of performing music and seeing people dance and the conviction that this is worthy and respected and needed.
The band is called The Decibells. The reportoire includes California Blue, Breaking Up is Hard To Do, Johnny B Good, Shake Rattle & Roll, Unchained Melody, Great Balls of Fire, Brown Eyed Girl, Doo Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo. You know ’em all. And even if you think you don’t, you actually do, way back in the amygdala part of the brain.

The driving force of the band is Geoff on the keyboard, a highly strung sweetheart of about 70 years who dyes his hair, meticulously organises our sets and gets the gigs. He’s been managing rock’n’roll bands and playing in rock’n’roll bands since before I was a twinkle in my mother’s eye. Billy is on guitar and vocals, and I reckon he’s cruising about 75. He does the Little Richard numbers, rips them out like he’s 25. Sometimes he misses a double chorus or a return to the bridge, but who cares! John on drums is another septegenarian pumping it out, he has not missed a New Year’s Eve gig in 57 years – except for 2015.

I met him while doing jazz gigs, he swings hard, and has played with everyone in Adelaide. The other Geoff is on bass guitar, also a jazz guy with a day job and a family, he sings the high falsetto back-up vocals behind Angie. Angie is our lead vocalist, a no-nonsense nurse and sensational self-taught singer who has been doing rock’n’roll bands for years, and actually switched bands to join The Decibells because she needed LESS gigs and more family time. There’s Travis our dedicated sound guy, a Vietnam vet with a made-to-order trailer behind his Holden Captiva V packed to the brim with sound gear that makes sound good. Gotta love a good sound guy.
And then there’s me, on tenor sax, invited to join the band a couple of months ago, and loving it.
Why? Because the feeling of locking in with a group of humans on stage with no words necessary, making magic happen with three chords, simple words, a driving beat, with a room full of middle aged people (and let’s face it, some of them are officially and delightfully OLD, no two ways about it!) and they are dancing, dancing, dancing to these classic tunes – well, it is the best feeling in the world. It’s like amazing sex, it’s like catching up with your girlfriends from way way back, it’s like the first few days with your new first born baby when everyone is coming over and giving you love and casseroles and gorgeous tiny onesies, it’s like being at a great gig, except it’s even better, because you’re in the middle of it, making it happen, creating that connection.
That’s what it’s like playing in a classic rock’n’roll band.
END
Encore – This was handwritten on the bus on the way to the gig, and typed on an iPad during the first and second set break. It’s now time to get back on stage!
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Tokyo Jonno – Jane Keehn

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time Jonathan visited Japan, he thought he would stay a bit longer than his friends.

Stay and find something – a soulmate, or just himself.

He loved the city – the people – the absence of litter.

The order and tidiness opened up something in his heart that hadn’t been there before travel.

He only felt ugly now whenever he’d run into other Aussies on the Metro, so he started avoiding places where those sleek, loud Hipsters would hang out.

This new philosophy took him to lost laneways and hidden paths that only locals knew about.

Jonathan began dying his faded, blonde hair black. Now, he wouldn’t immediately stand out as a visitor.

This night he lay on his hotel bed reaching for his Metro Pass, long neglected on the bedside table. Maybe this hadn’t been the best investment of his Yen.

“I can’t find it…” he moaned to himself. “I can’t find the right path.”

“Hang on, Mate!” His little brother would have said, “Can’t you just go with the flow?”

And so, with his brother’s words in his head, Jonathan edged off the bed and out of his slowed-down tourist brain and headed for the neon wisdom of Tokyo.

The black of his hair gave him a solemness and weighed down his skull and his thoughts.

He didn’t feel Japanese and yet his Australian thoughts were slipping from him each day.

Jonathan navigated towards his favourite restaurant where he felt welcome and safe.

He slipped off his shoes at the entrance and waited to be seated.

The staff remembered him even with his new black roots.

The food came fast and its aroma smelled of future hope, but its colours reminded him of something he’d lost years ago.

A love.   A life. A youth.

He was surprized when tears sprung from underneath his eyelids as he ran for the door.

“Where are my shoes?” he asked no one as he fumbled onto the stairwell without them.

Next minute, a pink girl straddling a pink motor scooter crashed around the laneway, missing Jonathan’s bare toes by just this much.

Above the beep of her scooter horn, the pink girl screamed, “Watch out!”

She slammed on the brakes, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You tell me – I don’t know” Jonathan answered into the air between them.

She took off her helmet and softened her face, “Are you okay?”

“It’s music. Life is like music” Jonathan almost sobbed. “It can strengthen you but it can also take your heartbeat away with its grief!”

He didn’t really know what he was saying.

The pink girl kicked down the stand on her scooter. “Maybe stand over here?”

She led him off the lane to the curb. “You seem to be having some kind of Tokyo, touristy crisis.”

A small gasp squeezed from Jonathan’s mouth as he looked into the pink girl’s eyes.

Her eyes took in his dyed black hair and foreign sadness and she was surprized that she wanted to know more about this stranger who she’d nearly run over.

“Why don’t you tell me all about the music in your life over a drink?”

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Tindersphere- Ms Skoobington.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time i hooked up with somebody from Tinder it was an exploratory and investigative experience..,a little challenging as well to meet a stranger for possible intimate intercourse but after 5 shots of frozen Polish vodka and numerous spliffs…. The dude was located in a suburb of decency, i consulted with my housemate and he confirmed there would be no rape dungeons in that part of the world, “great” I said as I wrote his name down and the street he had given me to leave with Paulo. “Ok this is his mobile number and address, I’ll send you a text when I get there so you know its cool”, “Ok, and if it’s not I’ll have to call Maya and we’ll come and rescue you”. Oh how very chivalrous, I thought, and people thought chivalry was dead. So I toodle off, find the street and call the Captain Swinging Jib, I can’t even remember his name at this point (it’s been a month after the fact) but he told me it was the house with all the gravel out front..it was actually the house opposite the house with the gravel out the front…I found it and found him standing outside. “Hey” I casually tossed out, there were smiles from either side and he opened the back door for me, the garden was chaotically horticultural. His house was the only one in the flash street that had horticultural chaos as a theme, the rest were all perfectly manicured with shiny regularly polished vehicles of international extraction astride clean clean concrete. He didn’t have a hunch back but he exuded the vibe of a man with a hunched back, under his cockney cap there was a smile but all i could think of was Riff Raff from Rocky Horror but it wasn’t a bad vibe, there was not a feeling in my gut that I shouId make some polite conversation, have a smoke and a drink and then get the fuck outta dodge. If I could get an orgasm not administered by my own hand then it would be mission accomplished (and not in the George W. Bush sense of the phrase).

“I can’t find it” he said, “I thought I had the extra shot glass but I must have put it in storage with everything else so we will just have to share”, hmm, well a that’s a quick way to develop and display some level of intimacy from the get go. I entered the sparsely furnished space, “Yeah, the house needs re-stumping so I had everything put into storage that i didn’t need”. “Hang on” I said, “what is that oxygen doing at the end of the couch?”..my head wrenched back to our initial conversation the night before and the snorting strange laugh he had, I saw the oxygen and imagined he was like the Dennis Hopper character out of Blue Velvet, there was after all a mask attached to a tube attached to the canister..”nah, it’s helium left over from a friends kids birthday party and i was blowing up balloons”. I had sent the text to Paulo confirming my vibes were ok, for a second the David Lynch ambience was a tad unsettling but the Polish Wodka lessened it’s chill. Descending into one of those cheap 70s vinyl couch (mustardy colour, anyone in a share house over the last few decades knows what I’m talking about) covered in a white flannel sheet (real classy) we got to chatting, chugging and smoking. We got down to business after sufficiently lubricated.

Where are my shoes..they had been pushed under the cheap vinyl couch while he had fucked me forcefully from behind, just how forceful would be revealed in 2 days when the black black hand prints bruised into my chest had appeared.

We had moved to the bedroom..well the empty room with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a cabinet to keep the sex toys snug. The whole transaction was quick, I think. I was so exhausted after bagging my needs that really couldn’t be arsed returning the favour, in truth i just wanted to drift off into satisfied slumber..which is, well i was gonna say rude but the thought uppermost in my mind was what the fuck could happen if I ain’t completely compos mentis. The next minute we were back on the cheap vinyl couch. We talked some more and I realised this guy had taken way too much ecstasy in the 90s while banging and raving high in Nepal, shagging senseless in Shanghai. I had gathered 5 orgasms on the end of his cock which resembled a stick of cabana.

We talked about politics and music, if somebody can chat with knowledge about the music of my mind and the politics of the globe then i can probably fuck them, even if they do give you a bit of a Riff Raff from Rocky Horror vibe. It is just kinda like a servicing, pure and simple. Only required at 10,000 km intervals. And that’s fine & dandy.

 

 

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Healthywildand50plus – Shirley Bode

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

This is the intro to a health and fitness related e-book I am writing that links to my blog and my fb business page.

I’m a blogger and a part-time health coach and a full time working for a wage woman and a mother and a lover and a pet owner (my dog George is a therapy dog so he also works for his dog bikkies).

I am writing a self-published e-book to help people (mostly women but hey, I won’t discriminate against the rest of the population!) achieve their health and fitness goals. I’m really fit, active and healthy and my family, friends and colleagues are always asking me “what’s your secret?” Well, there is not one secret, but there are strategies you can put in place to help you set and achieve your health goals and I’m here to help you.

I’m not a doctor, well I am actually, but not that kind of a doctor – I’m a Phd doctor. What that means is that I’m a really good researcher and I have spent a lot of time researching and reading and analysing loads of information and research studies and filtering out the rubbish and the fads.

I am a Health Coach and I take an holistic view of your health and fitness and will show you how you can achieve the healthiest you imaginable.

About me

I am a 58-year-old woman, I have one grown up daughter (she is pretty awesome) and I live alone with two dogs and a cat – so not alone, I do have my furry friends, but no other human co-habitant at the moment, but I’ll keep you posted if that changes! I do have a boyfriend/partner/lover and he is gorgeous and has great guns and occasionally I can coerce him into coming for a run with me… I have loads of friends and great colleagues at work (yes, I do have a day job and my health coaching is my sideline business and my absolute passion in life). I run and compete in fun runs (yes, I know – where’s the fun in run?) I like competing and raising funds for worthwhile charities. I also like to run past people younger than me, smug for sure, but what a confidence boost! I love hiking and living in Western Australia we have some awesome hiking trails, Bibbulman Track anyone?

I try to swim around once per week because swimming is an all-over body workout and doesn’t put any strain or stress on your joints. I aim for around 20 laps of the 50 metre pool. And because I am a dog owner I have to take my pooches out for regular walks at the park or alongside the river near my home.

I have recently taken up dance classes (the aforementioned boyfriend has coerced me into learning Cha Cha and I am surprisingly reasonably good at learning the steps and not crunching his toes -mind you I’m only in beginners’ classes!)

When it comes to food I aim for healthy and fresh. Mostly plant based foods (I’m not a vegetarian, but full respect to those who choose that lifestyle) I eat a lot of vegetables, fruit, lean protein including non-animal protein like tofu and quinoa. I make my own muesli for breakfast with oats, nuts, seeds and add plain yoghurt and berries when in season. And yes, I do eat carbs, we need good healthy wholemeal carbs as part of a complete diet. When I use the word diet, I do not mean diet-fads, I mean your daily intake of food in a balanced and healthy way.

Do I take supplements? Yes and no, well kind of yes. I take a Berocca (effervescent multi-vitamin) if I’ve been out with the girls the night before and had a few champagnes and yes I do drink alcohol; not a lot and not every day, so I’m not about to make you give up your wine, but I will ask you to think about it and whether it’s having any kind of a negative impact on your life. The other supplement I do take is a Vitamin C tablet daily – mostly because I’m superstitious and think they’ll prevent/minimise catching colds at work. My workplace (I work at a university with thousands of students and hundreds of co-workers) is a hotbed of germs and bugs in the winter time and many is the meeting I’ve been in where a half-dead colleague is hacking up a lung on the meeting room table!

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IN HER FOOTSTEPS – Liz Blizzard

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Untold stories of long forgotten women,
their journeys, and the pursuit of gold.
The stories about my great grandmother Kate Herry, passed down to me by my mother and grandmother were incredible. I thought: What an amazing woman!
After months of searching online, and at the Public Records Office, and travelling to the places the family lived…the Buchland Valley near Bright, and Coopers Creek near Walhalla, I discovered many more stories, some deeply shocking.
One was about the attempted rape of Kate, aged 9, in 1871. At the PRO, I copied the actual  notes from the rape trial held in the Sale Courthouse, which was presided over by Judge Edmund Barry.
And Annie [O’Donnell] Handforth, Kate’s mother, was jailed for insanity in 1882! Annie had sailed from Ireland to Melbourne at the age of 17 to help her Aunt [and her 4 children], whose husband had died on arrival in Melbourne.
 After marrying goldminer James Handforth in the Buchland, Annie and James [with 3year old Kate and Martha, aged 1] walked approx. 350km to Coopers Creek in Gippsland. Annie had a baby at Woods Point on the way. Before Annie had been jailed, 5 of her 10 children had died. A few months after the funeral for their 14 year old daughter and 4 year old son, who both died of diphtheria, her husband James was declared bankrupt. Annie died of ‘insanity, refusal to eat’ at the age of 52.
I was proud to discover my great grandmother Kate’s signature on the 1891 Women’s Suffrage Petition. She lived until she was 92. She was a strong, determined and caring woman who worked hard all her life and helped many people.
So many pioneering women’s stories have been forgotten, or ignored. I decided to paint about my women ancestors and their families.
I’ve been painting this series of 24 large works for more than 3 years, and they will be exhibited in June 2017 at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Although the paintings are about my family, they are also representative of the struggle and hardship that many pioneering women endured – birthing and raising children in difficult circumstances and environments, the walking and travelling; and being tied to their husband’s ambitions.
I want to place these stories at the front of my own history.
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unfinished – J.Alexander

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time I saw this little boy was the only time. The memory of his face rests close to mind, ready for retrieval.

At the time I was looking for new sights, sounds and smells trying to regale a once animated but now indifferent self. I was like a hollow shell which held no sounds of the ocean when held to an ear. Like a ragged husk with spindly legs which moved in a regular, yet stagnant, habitual momentum to a barely beating, died in the arse heart. Travelling life’s currents and tides aimlessly, unrecognisable amongst the floating plastic debris of humanity. Bitterness had been bleached to a void, but the sadness lingered, worn as a heavy, drenched, oversized coat. Dismal at best.

I was god knows where, just another strange place which held little attraction, other than, there were more sounds of nature than that of people. Solace in nature is what I longed for. I had walked for miles before encountering the small village. With no desire to connect I kept moving, my gazed fixed upon the path ahead.

For some reason my eyes rested upon a child. Instinctively I felt there was a rarity here which set him apart. Upon seeing me a huge smile expanded his peach like face surrounding his shining eyes with crinkling lines. His spontaneous eruption of happiness caught me off guard and I found myself smiling back.

He threw his head back and cackled at some secret jest, his laughter echoed around me and tickled the sky. Tears of laughter rolled down his rosy cheeks and drops fell from clouds above which rumbled and quivered like a huge, cuddly belly racked with mirth. He laughed on, tummy held tight by chubby hands. Rain fell, droplets heavy upon the crown of my head, slam, slamming, slamming. I stood motionless, smiling at the boy, strangely mesmerised. The rain continued slamming into me, pounding, pushing, as if making space for my own laughter to arise. The boy continued to roar, unfettered by any self consciousness and now rolling from side to side. How absurd I thought yet how undeniably contagious it was. I could not help but to join the laughter, escalating to a hilarious pitch at the fact that there was actually nothing to laugh about, other than the joy in watching another laugh.

It wasn’t mine anymore, that husk, the empty shell. His childish spontaneity was not extraordinary of itself but the power of his smile and laughter was. I had felt the honesty and authenticity of his happiness.   There were no derogatory overtones, the laughter was an equaliser, a healer of melancholy. A sense of restoration filled my empty heart space.

Happy new year to me! Really? Though it was not new year I recognised the potential for a new beginning and wanted to envelop it wholeheartedly. I began to be fearful the unexpected glimpse of happiness was temporary and the heaviness would return. And then I realised I had a choice in how to perceive things. I no longer wished to feel the weight of the wet coat – the lightness of the laughter was invigorating.

The rain had ceased and caught in the emerging sunlight, water droplets sparkled. “Is that yours, that bag?” I asked as I walked towards a crumpled wet sack on the grass nearby. The child laughed again as the wet bag stood up, shaking the rain from it’s coat. “That’s my dog” he replied, laughing heartily as he danced playfully about dodging the attention of a leaping, but still very wet dog.

unfinished….. time up….Dev’s rule

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She was fire – B.F.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Fuck the ice-water cool she’d been taught was the only acceptable way to be
Constrained in a container so tight it was as if someone was forcing the fullness of their weight down on her chest
Where only the tiniest splashes were permitted to escape
Heavens forbid anybody else felt uncomfortable
She was fire
A roaring storm of unapologetic flames
Packed with the burning desire to scorch the soul of all those who were brave enough to enter her world
Setting them alight in a way that would be seared into their soul forevermore
Permission to be all of who they are
Authentic
Raw
With zero apology
This is who she was
And nobody would ever extinguish her flame again
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The Whiting – Orania Theoharidis 

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Takeshi and I bob up and down on the deck of a restored, aluminium dingy. The air is cool and the odour of dead fish is wafting through the boat. We huddle together for warmth, but it’s not yet dawn, and I have to squint to try and trace the outline of Takeshi’s face. But it’s futile in this darkness. I am deprived of all my senses and all I can feel is the relentless swaying of my body as we drift over the black saltwater that heaves and swells underneath. I capitulate to the darkness – to the emptiness of the open sea. There is a subtle and strange peace when everything of unimportance and irrelevance is rendered black. As we bob up and down on the waves, I start to feel a bit queasy. Take holds me tightly, so tight that I can feel the heat of his body. A radiating, pleasant heat. Out here, we are just two animals surviving – rocking and swaying on the waves.

The darkness is penetrated by the first rays of morning sun that trickle into the boat. Through the narrow beams of radiating light, I see the tip of Take’s fishing rod start dancing – and right on cue, the fish start biting, as if playing their part in nature’s orchestra. Accepting his cue, Take is jolted into action. He clasps the cold, rubber handle of the fishing rod and steadies his body for the battle ahead. It is still dim. But now there is enough light that I can vaguely make out Take’s silhouette as he fights the fish. His hand moves mechanically as it controls the reel, winding and releasing. The tip of the rod, bending and straightening, like an obedient puppet, yielding to the will of the puppeteer.

The fish must be nearing the surface now, but it’s difficult to say – peering into the black depths provides no clues. I lean over the wobbly boat with a net, ensuring the fish doesn’t make a lucky escape. Abruptly, the blackness is pierced by a shiny, glowing creature that flails and fights to escape. But I am too quick. I haul the creature onto our boat. It thrashes about on the deck but stands no chance now. Take secures the shimmering, slippery body with one hand, and with the other, mercifully drives a sharp blade through the magnificent creature’s head.  It stops flapping. It simply stops still. With a cursory toss, Take flings the corpse into the cool esky. I steal a glimpse of the whiting’s face as she lies in an icy morgue. She stares at me – the shock of being hooked still lingering in her eyes – or is that my shock simply reflected back at me? Cruel I think to myself. Or is it? Caught locally from the middle of Port Phillip Bay, she is a decent size and would have led a good life for a fish. She will be our lunch later, and we won’t bag more fish than what we can eat. In the darkness I muse: perhaps the world would be a less cruel place if we all engaged in this type of honest cruelty.

 

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