Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Stories. Where do they start? I sit amongst a pile of my parents’ photographs, pouring through their life – images of tan lines, lipstick smiles, Dad in a French beret with a painted on moustache bent over double in a fit of laughter, foreign landscapes, poses, each one snatches of a second – what am I supposed to do with these boxes of memorial trophies? What do I keep? What do I dismiss and sentence to become landfill, to dissolve into particles of dust and dirt?
I Begin.
So many photos.
So many photos.
So… many… photos
I pick up one and toss it to the floor.
It flips and flutters landing with a light ‘Thwick’ on the carpet and so the pile of ‘Not to be kept’ begins.
It begins and grows.
The pile is scooped up and fuelled with guilt, these Kodak moments are tumbled into the wheelie bin. How callous and cruel am I chucking out their memories with the other refuse. My hand hovers, jerks goes to retrieve a photo, stops, plunges, stops, slams shut the lid!
I scoot inside, my eyes like sniffer dogs scan the room resting on objects. The scotch glass in the cabinet has a thumbprint…was that my dad’s? The dishes, the cups and saucers, the pots and pans, their DNA reside in every crack and crevice of this entire house. I turn to the chair, his favourite chair and want to see him nodding off after a family lunchtime feast. I want to see him do that stupid trick with his fingers where he extends his middle finger and the other digits fashion themselves into legs and they gallop across the table with him whinnying like a horse. I want to see my mum becoming so distracted with talk and laughter she curdles the bloody cream…I want…
Stop.>
Breathe.
Back to the photos. I smile a little smile as whispers of their life trickles back.
A grand hotel. A woman in a blue coat. Her breath, a dragon’s puff in the cold air. “C’mon Ken hurry up, it’s freezing out here. Christine don’t roll down the hill the grass is wet. Where’s Peter Where the hell ‘s Peter?”
A twig thin boy standing on stage. His mouth open like a hungry bird leaning towards the microphone.
“Christ almighty Adrienne did you know he was going to do this?”
“No Ken”
The dining room falls silent.
A mother’s breath stops.
A pure note fills the room with angelic feather-like brightness.
A mother’s breath resumes. A father’s heart beats plumply in his chest.
Tanned limbs, zinc creamed nose, a semi twisted smile in front of pristine waters.
“Okay, so this is a nudist beach is it Ken?”
“Um yes..I guess it is. So I’ll only take this photo of you now and when I finish we’d better take our bathers off so we don’t look like perverts.”
“ Oh for crying out loud”
Helmet clad, oar in hand, rapids tumbling in the background.
“ I feel like an idiot. The helmet’s coming off!”
“What if you come out of the canoe, hit your head on a rock, suffer brain damage and can’t wipe your arse?”
“ Rrrright…”
The helmet stays on. The man survives.
Wedding dress bundled in arms shy of the dew heavy grass. Father and daughter walk like brolgas towards the groom
“ You look beautiful Christine. Goofy, but beautiful”
Look at this. a babe in arms, screaming and squirming in red-faced defiance. His grandfather smiling fit to burst – fuelled and plumped up with love.
So many photos.
So many photos.
So…many…photos.
These survivors of the cull are littered across the bed. Most likely they won’t survive the next generational cull, but for now they are precious.