Delighted to announce I’m the Brunswick candidate for Fiona Patten’s Reason Australia Party in the Victorian Election 2018.

Not left, not right but forward.

TUPPENCE A BAG – Kristine Kennedy

The hardwood door flew open with as much force as a solid oak door can. Several people in close proximity turned their heads towards the intrusion. A man stood in the doorway, his eyes darting frantically around the room, tie askew and the sleeve of his suit bunched up under his armpit where a skateboard was wedged. He finally found what he was looking for and strode over toward the bar, where another middle aged man was perched, looking rather more appropriate in a well-pressed suit, orderly tie and, importantly, sans skateboard.

‘What in shitting blazers are you doing with that skateboard Henry?’

‘What? Oh. This? Nothing.’ Henry dislodged it and leant it up against the bar as naturally as he could muster. He ran a hand through his hair.

‘Nothing? Don’t be stupid. You look a damn fool with it. Why do you have it? You didn’t ride it here did you?’

‘How long have you bloody known me Jarvis? Do you think, at any time in life, I’ve suffered an inclination to ride a skateboard? For God’s sake.’

‘Well! Explain yourself man. Before I, along with every other deadbeat and rubber-neck in this place start concocting our own ideas.’

Henry smoothed his hair again and carried on to his neck, tie and brushed down the front of his suit. ‘There was a minor incident on the way here, is all.’

‘Minor?’ Jarvis narrowed his eyes in a look Henry knew all too well. It meant – what the shitting shit have you done now you useless bloody ball-bag?

‘Yes minor. Nothing really. But why a grown man would ride a skateboard? Honestly. Nevermind. Forget it. Tell me again why we’re here please Jarvis? A bloody brewery in the arse end of nowhere is not my idea of a good time or good networking.’

‘So help me Henry, if I have to extinguish any fires relating to a ‘skateboard incident’ you can consider your trajectory within our party as straight, bloody down. You got me?’

‘Yes. Noted. Now. What’s this all about again?’

‘It’s about…’ Jarvis exhaled as a patient parent would when explaining something to a toddler, ‘celebrating job creation in the service industry. It’s about how our leaving the EU is bringing more employment opportunities to actual British people.’

‘I tell you what,’ Henry gestured towards a bartender who was skilfully carrying 4 pints, ‘she doesn’t look too bloody British to me.’

‘British people can actually be black Henry. In fact, quite a lot of them are.’

Henry grunted. ‘So what do I have to do?’

‘Simply read this speech I’ve prepared for you and then get off the mic. I do not want you answering questions today. I do not want you commenting on Trump’s visit to England. I do not want you commenting on any protocols re. meeting the Queen. In short, I don’t want you to say a single fucking thing that I’ve not written down here for you.’

Henry cocked his head to the side and smirked in a way that would lose countless votes. ‘I bet no-one speaks to Trump like that.’

Jarvis groaned.

‘No. Seriously. Everyone is terrified of him and so, they respect him.’

‘No Henry. No they don’t. Everyone thinks Trump is as dumb as bag of hammers. Why you would ever want to be held in the same esteem as him makes me wonder if you’re not also an enormous arse-trumpet.’

‘’Scuse me gents,’ the proprietor interrupted. ‘But the stage is ready, if you want to crack on with this?’

‘Thanks Nick.’ Jarvis said as he slid off his bar stool and gathered his briefcase. Henry slid off his barstool and gathered his skateboard.

‘Give me that you damn twat.’ Jarvis said while ripping the skateboard out from under Henry’s armpit.

‘Ow! The bloody wheel hit my nipple.’ Henry rubbed his chest.

‘Get up there.’ Jarvis ushered him up onto the small stage, which blocked the punters’ view of the microbrewery behind.

Henry fiddled with the microphone tapping and blowing into it until a piercing sound captured everyone’s attention. He ran his hand through his hair again.

‘Welcome, welcome. Thank you ever so much for joining us here at…’ Henry examined his paper, ‘Tuppence A Bag Microbrewery. I’d like to take this opportunity to firstly thank Nick, who has kindly offered this striking space for us all to come together and celebrate the return of service industry jobs to those who truly deserve them. The British people!’

Jarvis cheered heartily at this point, encouraging the beer-swilling throng to do the same. But it seemed that whatever reasons had brought them to Tuppence A Bag today, it wasn’t to hear a conservative Brexiteer spruik the upturn of national employment.

‘Before leaving the EU, our country was struggling. No. Not struggling. We were in crisis. A deep, morale-sapping crisis. Good, hard-working British people could not find jobs and times were lean. Well I’m here to say this: not any more my friends. No longer will we sit by while our jobs go to visiting foreigners. No longer will…’

Jarvis heard a commotion developing outside. He allowed himself a moment to peer out the window and saw a number of men, some sporting beanies, some sporting beards, all with skateboards, forming a tight, loud circle around presumably the instigator. More men arrived. More skateboards. Jarvis noticed the gang leader, the only man without a skateboard, pointing furiously at the Tuppence A Bag window.

He turned back towards Henry who was still holding court.

‘I’ve lived here all my damn life and I could never hope to know every protocol surrounding walking with the Queen. He’s a target for the left-wing propagandists is all. Fake bloody news as they say.’

The door burst open.

Jarvis slunk out.

Sacrificial Tears – Jules Livingstone

Himari slumped herself down on the curved plastic waiting room chair resentfully, all arms and legs, with a heavy, defiant sigh. She knew she would have to sit, for however long – in this boring room, grey and grotty, until her parents emerged from the wide swinging door. Each night they did, looking more worn down and stressed, the lines of worry on their faces, less fleeting and more etched in.  Shooing her up from her sulky slouch with words weak in their anxious sweetness and thinly guarded fear her mother hissed:

“Quick Himari, we can’t keep waiting here all night, the doctors wouldn’t want it. Your sister is feeling better and wants you to come to say hello soon, so now come along quickly, we all need dinner.”

She slid off the now warm chair and looked absently at the old wooden curio cabinet, her silent companion, before reaching down for her bag, trudging obediently behind her parents to the car. The sliding doors whirred closed behind them and she knew that tomorrow would be another day after school spent here, just the same.

The next day, sitting there absently, she felt numb from the routine and her own unspoken fear; she couldn’t remember a day when they hadn’t come to the hospital, she had to sit alone and could not even get near the room to touch Yui’s leg under the sheet.  The wait seemed longer and there was a new, haunted look in her parents’ faces. She slid of her seat silently, coiled the handle of her dragging schoolbag around her wrist and followed them to the car quietly, her eyes watching their feet.

Yesterday something felt wrong, the waiting room looked somehow more grey. Her parents were gone longer and the noises of the nurses and the trolleys and ward patient’s call buttons, were fewer. They had been a sort of comfort, now that they were missing. Searching for distraction, she looked more closely at the cabinet. An old memorial plaque from the foundation of the original children’s hospital building, bronze, more modest and friendly than the steel one outside – she imagined the bustling and caring nurses before machines that beeped. She also noticed, sitting in the middle of old thermometer jars and medicine bottles of thick dark glass, a battered silver-coloured old flask. It seemed a little out of place –like something from the war, not medical or important, just like something to take on a hike or to work in winter. Up close she saw some old scratches and marks on it.

“It’s really very old you see,” said a new voice behind her. Taken off guard – after all wasn’t this really her waiting room so far unshared – Himari saw an old man, quite small, a little hunched smiling gently.

“I am waiting here too”, he said shaking his head sadly, “it is very hard for an old man to see a young one so ill.”

Himari didn’t know what to say – she thought it was hard for anyone but saying so might sound rude.

“I’m waiting for my sister Yuki to get better – she has been here for a long time now and I miss her. I come every day.”

“Perhaps she will soon, here special things can happen.”

“What do you mean?” asked Himari . Perhaps he had some news of her sister.

He nodded towards the thermos gently.  “Once upon a time a young girl was healed and that thermos holds the secret.”

“But its locked away! In the cabinet” cried Himari in a tone that suggested it wasn’t fair. Less than fair, cruel even.

“You don’t have to open it – in fact you must never do that. All you have to do is wish as hard as you can for the right thing and the thermos will make it happen.”

“Hmmm” said Himari, doubtfully, thinking, its not very nice to say something impossible that’s probably not even true!

She hoped her parents would come soon and that the old man might go away.

“Come on, Himari” sighed her mother in a dry slow whisper, “we all need to go now” and nudged her shoulder towards the door. Her eyes were red and dull.

Tonight the room seemed darker, without any corridor noises. Her father had stayed with Yui all night and Himari was scared.  She almost wished for the old man but felt sad when she saw the cabinet. Looking inside and thinking of all the sick people who had died here, she thought it wasn’t fair. Why shouldn’t she be sick instead of poor Yui? She began to cry, big salty tears.

As she did she noticed the marks on the thermos shaping into words. Only half thinking, she began to mumble them over and over through her tears:

“Hot tears of love,

Cold tears of sorrow

Sealed in shiny space.

Liquid sacrifice

To redeem health,

Unfreeze threatened tomorrows.”

Out of nowhere, seeming out of time, there was a crash – three adults came through the ward doors. Her parents and the doctor. Her mother was open faced, shining, arms outstretched.

“Yui is awake, she is almost talking, she smiled at us, looked for where you were. Our baby has come back!” She clutched Himari to her waist.

“We are very pleased for your family”, said the doctor less smiley and cautiously relieved. He sat down next to Himari and asked how she was.

“I’m OK, I’ve been reading the old thermos while I wait.”

“Aah, that’s old Haruto’s humble token to a doctor he was too poor to pay. Desperately he asked the ancestors to exchange his life for his granddaughter’s. He begged the doctor to accept his old Thermos promising that if he did, others who made the same wish could exchange his sacrifice too. Some say the magic words appear through tears.”

He slowly raised his finger to his lips and with a gentle smile reflected; “Sometimes patients suddenly get well.”

Jules Livingstone, 

Copyright 2018

jnlivingstone@gmail.com

Gunnass Grad 2015

Gunnas Masters 2016

Gunnas Standup 2016

Gunnas Self Publishing – 2017

Gunnas Retreat 2018