All posts by Princess Sparkle

Stray Animals – Angeline Swan

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Sydney, Australia – 0653hrs

Ivy arrived at work early.  She had slept fitfully after too many joints and too much wine – found it difficult to distract herself from thoughts of Andrew.  They had been together for five years – had lived together for most of it – and Ivy had finally found the courage to face what they had become – disconnected and desperate. Andrew had moved out of their Leichhardt terrace over a month ago – but his new apartment in Newtown felt suffocatingly close.  Ivy had become fearful of the inner west suburbs, her suburbs, expecting to see Andrew wherever she went.  So she stayed at home instead – smoked and drank herself into a stupor – or barricaded herself at work – surrounded by a concerning mix of crime and mental illness.  Her own mental state was worrying enough – anxious, cynical and reckless at a resting state.  Numb and detached when she had consumed enough of something, anything, to dull her senses.  She knew that work was an unhealthy way to avoid what was happening – but focussing on her patients’ problems was an easy way to escape her own existence.

She was trained as a forensic psychologist – something her mother regularly commented on.  You? A forensic psychologist? But she was proud of what she’d become and felt a sense of purpose through conceptualising her patients’ issues and trying to make sense of their complicated thoughts and behaviours. Ivy had been obsessed with crime since she could remember – encouraged by her grandmother – a woman she loved fiercely – who had introduced her to Edgar Alan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock well before her seventh birthday.  After a chaotic upbringing and an unconventional family, Ivy was not surprised to fall into the world of forensic psychology. On a good day, herpatients could be like little gifts, unwrapped to reveal something special and unique. But over time, they had left a stain on her – a white sheet turned grey.

Ivy parked in front of Bradford Prison – waved to a bunch of officers, out for a quick cigarette.  Opening the door of her new Prius, she felt the humid air catch in her throat, as sweat popped off her chest.  The city had been in a heat wave for days, the temperature edging 40 on more than a few occasions, hot even at this hour.  She closed her eyes and thought of the ocean nearby. Ivy could smell salt and inhaled deeply.  Decided to go to Maroubra Beach in her lunch break.  She had made this promise before but usually didn’t get time to follow through with it.  Ivy walked towards the Forensic Hospital where her office was located.  The Hospital was a metal structure built next to the Prison and designed to house mentally disordered offenders and those found not guilty by reason of mental illness – the most depraved and disturbed criminals in New South Wales.  The contrast between Bradford Prison and the Forensic Hospital unnerved her. The Prison was old heavy brick  – filled with history and hate but honest and predictable.  The Hospital was different – cold and stark, brutally modern – it felt unknown – its new shiny windows suggesting a secret that should be kept hidden. She shivered in the morning sun as she walked towards the steel doors.

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A box of possibilities – Cassandra Zoro

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

 

The Japanese have a saying that the sands of time run softly for those who shine golden light. This may well be true for the lucky ones, many people in Japan live a long and fruitful life.

In spring, cherry trees bloom and people gather around the flossy flowers. For some, falling cherry blossom symbolises the fleeting nature of life. Like grains of rice being sifted in a sieve, the blooms flourish then drift lazily down to the ground. Later they will wither and die.

One morning Haruko (“spring child”), a local Geisha girl, stood underneath a marvellous billowing tree, admiring the pink cherry blossom. As she stared at the beauty of the tree, a solitary tear trickled down her painted cheek. In the early hours of that morning, her beloved Grandmother Aiko had died.

Surrounded by family and friends, Aiko had rattled her last breath. But not before she had asked Haruko one last favour. We’ll talk about that later…

The sun was still rising over the vivid hue of pink cherry blossoms and towering Tokyo buildings. Jaunty skyscrapers coming in to view, looming out of the night’s shadows. It was eerily quiet – aside from the occasional last breath of a cherry blossom, as a falling flower drifted down to the ground.

Haruko sighed. She could taste life’s bitter discontent on the wind. She did not wish to continue the life she had. Serving men. Contained in the House of Geisha’s. Her wings clipped by the life she had been forced into. Servitude was crushing her soul, slowly sucking the life out of her.

Soon, as the city woke up, she would be expected to return to her daily regime. Cleaning, preparing, perfecting her painted face, dressing up, entertaining, serving guests. Being the “perfect” Geisha girl and living the life she was told to.

“I need a box,” she worried, clutching her Grandmother’s diary beneath her Kimono. Letting out a deep sigh, that just scratched the surface of her troubled mind. Sidestepping a cockroach, she pattered up the path. Back to the dirty alleyways of the city.

A foul-smelling and turgid looking water was coursing down the back-alley. Haruko cursed as she jumped over a rock and mis-judged it. Tottering in her impractical sandals and stubbing her toe as she accidentally splashed down into the murky water. Dark splatters stained her Kimono.

“I need a box,” she muttered as she scampered on. Somewhere, a few streets back, she could hear clattering. The city was arising. She must hurry.

Back at the House of Geisha’s she slipped out of her sandals. Her fingers deftly rubbed at the muddy marks on her Kimono. She cursed. She could not wipe it off.

Oka-san wasn’t awake yet. This was unusual. “I may still have time,” Haruko thought, as she peeked into Oka-san’s room. The Geisha House mother appeared to have passed out on the floor. One too many sakes? A smirk spread across Haruko’s face. And there – just to the right of the snoring lady was an empty box, which looked just the right size. It lay discarded, as if fallen from her hand.

It was a difficult decision. If she accidentally woke the House mother, then she would have failed in her mission to fulfil her Grandmother’s last wish. She lunged for it and grasped the box in her sweaty hand. Backing gingerly out of the room Haruko whistled in relief, dropping her Grandmother’s diary into the box deftly and hastily scribbling the memorised address onto it.

What I had forgotten was string, she mused. To tie the parcel. Without a second thought, she did the unthinkable and pulled the red ribbon from her hair. Instantly breaking the rules of the House of Geisha. Her once neatly piled high hairstyle now ran amok.

Haruko tiptoed down the corridor and tumbled back out into the alleyway. Barefoot and fumbling with the ribbon she tied the box tight. Then ran for her life. The box swinging beside her as she set off. “Good morning everyone” the speaker system sounded out as she ran. The Geisha’s were being woken up. She pelted down the street.

This was it. Freedom. Nervously checking the coins in her pocket. Haruko had just enough to post the hastily packed parcel. She rounded the corner and joined the queue that was already forming at the post office.

Gingerly, Haruko placed the eccentric looking box on the counter. The counter assistant was too absorbed in dealing with the queue of people promptly, to comment on the quirkiness of the box or realise its importance, or notice the haphazard appearance of the Geisha girl. Haruko hesitated for a second before paying the postage. The box was on its way.

Haruko quickly turned on her heel, out of the post office door and made as if to start back towards the Geisha House. In the same instant the sun rose up as if to greet her, dazzling her completely. She turned her face the other way down the street, and in that split second a new world of possibilities opened up. Turning away from the sun, and to a new future, she ran.

Avenue of contradictions 

The beauty and the desolation,

Nestled side by side.

Gum trees flanked by tower blocks,

galahs and gourmet burger bars.

Demolition site. High Risk Asbestos.

glare the signs; as dust fills the sky,

And creativity dies,

on notorious Northbourne Avenue.

A place where dreams are being built,

Or smashed down; shattered forever.

The stillness of a summer’s evening:

The butterflies of discontent.

A fallen crane,

Sunshine on a shattered pane.

Starstruck and stained.

How can life be so beautiful and so pained?

Public servants and potatoes line the street,

This city is THE place to meet!

And yet,

And yet,

it sweeps complex history and secrets beneath your feet.

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Orange is a Secondary colour – Nicky Greer-Collins

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Orange is a secondary colour. It combines the primary colours of red and of yellow. Depending on what base note colour you choose – red? Yellow? – and how much of its complementary top note you add – yellow? Red? – orange can be a completely different colour.

But it will still be orange.

If you go to a hardware store, or a paint shop you will find a plethora of oranges. Burnt, light, dark. Oranges with pinky-yellow hues; blood red tones. Oranges that may, in fact be peaches or clementines or tangerines.

But they’re all oranges. They all started life as red and yellow mixed together. A dab of yellow, a dollop of red.

Orange can be found in the beauty of a sunset or in the heat of a flame. It might be the giver of life and warmth and safety. It might be the harbinger of death and devastation and loss. Orange is the colour of getting ready to stop and the colour of speeding up to make it through. Orange is the colour of the amber that suspends life in stasis for centuries. Orange is the colour of my son’s hair, which I breathe in deeply when I hold him to my breast and which is home to me.

Orange is bright and warm. It is the colour of citrus-fresh, and the umber of age like the softly-falling Autumn leaves. It is diverse, yet singular. It is composed of other colours, yet rhymes with nothing.

Orange is a secondary colour, but orange is so much more.

I do not need this sushi

By Nicky Greer-Collins 23/02/19

The Japanese have a saying, which roughly translated means ‘It’s moments like these you need sushi’.

I have never needed sushi. Not once in my life.

I don’t dig seaweed, I like my rice fluffy-not-sticky and I hate ‘fishiness’. Nevertheless, I completely relate to this odd little mantra; this quirk of Japanois. I relate to this saying because this saying doesn’t relate to sushi at all. What this saying, this ‘it’s moments like these you need sushi’ really relates to is putting something in your mouth in order to shut down a conversation. To cut off a question; to conquer curiosity.

If chatter veers too wildly into the unknown, or if the pleasant hum of polite conversation is derailed by substance or uncomfortable questions; then curtly nodding and quickly adding ‘it’s moments like these you need sushi’ is really code for ‘we’ll talk about this later’.

And about that, I know plenty.

For as long as I can remember I have been the curious type. I question, I prod, I poke. I need a box – I could fill ten boxes – with the sum of my curiosity. At any given moment; about any given thing, so many  curiosities or questions can pop into my head that I need a container to catch them.

I don’t have a box, or ten. I don’t have a container. But I do have notebooks. Lots of them. I have stacked them on shelves in my living room. I have crammed them in closets, I have piled upon pile upon pile. Some are so ancient, they have been tied together with string lest they fall apart at the very seams. Others are neat as a pin or new as the day they were purchased. Whatever the case, whatever their condition they all contain the questions and thoughts that spill out of my brain and onto the page where they remain, caught in a moment or stuck in a second when my curiosity just would not quit.

The notebooks have been my safety. My security. I carry them with me for months and years until their pages are full and I pile them upon my piles, and begin again from the beginning.

That is why it was a difficult decision for me to gather up my piles upon piles, pack them into my car and drive down to the beach on this clear and crisp morning to burn them all. Just woke up, looked at the notebooks looking at me, and decided to let them go with the flames, turn to ashes and float away on the wind like so much dust.

Of course what I failed to anticipate, of course what I had forgotten, was how much of *me* was wrapped within those pages. How much of my lifetime I had invested into scribbling and scribing my thoughts; my curiosities between the covers of those cherished tomes.

And so I find myself standing on this beach in front of this pile of notebooks, box of matches in hand but frozen in the act. I am stuck between can and cannot; of ‘let go’ and ‘cling desperately to’.

It feels like a good morning for everyone but me, as I struggle with myself.

And then at long last, I strike a match.

I do not need this sushi.

And I am free.

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Small piece – Linda Young

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Lizzie came to Glasgow in the Glasgow Fair holiday. On one of the two sunny days in Glasgow every July. She had never really understood why it was called the Glasgow Fair. Because it wasn’t. Fair was not a word that sprung to mind when describing even the flashiest parts of Glasgow in the 1940s. No matter how sunny.

Lizzie had been in Glasgow for a few months. Standing in front of the window, her hand wandered to the now swollen belly. It was the reason she had come here.

 Jimmy, with his Derry accent, sharp suits and full wallet had talked her into coming here with him. Talked into giving up her life in Skye. Giving up her body to his baby. She wasn’t exactly unhappy. But she wasn’t happy either. She was starting to get the feeling that Jimmy’s wealth – all the comforts of her life – were, as her Auntie Agnes would have described them, ill gotten gains. In short, she was now pretty sure that Jimmy was a gangster.

She would never ask. He wouldn’t answer anyway. And he’d get that look. The one that made her feel that if she wasn’t carrying his baby, she might find herself less than gently handled.

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Suburban River – Laura David

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

  1. I live by the river in what was once part of Melbourne’s great green wedge of suburbs. Not quite sure how you would describe it now. The parks remain along with the 60s brick veneers with their lemon trees and cement, and the 80s plaza where you can buy ricotta in four different delis, and somehow get your number plates stolen whilst trying to avoid the tables of old Italian men doing not much, whilst their wives continue to do everything. And there are also the big boxy townhouses and the promise of the new ‘transformational road’ that will cut under the river and the large swathes of bush, that becomes so dry in summer that the air itself feels brown and cracked and weathered.
  2. On walks by the river, I let my dog loose off his lead, except on the hottest days when the low hill of brown grass carries the risk of snakes. Fellow dog walkers leave handmade signs on poles and benches warning us of sightings ‘(“we saw a big one here at 10am”), and there are also the whispers we share amongst ourselves about emergency vet visits and dogs who are bitten when nosing under the bushes, particularly in the driest stretch of summer.
  3. I walk in the evenings, always to clear my anxious mind. The kookaburras have multiplied over the last 12 months, and the screech of their laughter will always break through whatever I’m feeling. My smile is open and unconscious.
  4. When it rains heavily, the river is a chocolate milkshake; thick and moving fast. One year, half the park was subsumed, bridges lost under the water, and it was a wonder. Nature taking the suburbs back. In cooler months, we’ll wonder down and wade in the shallow patches, and every Autumn I’m surprised to find myself warmed anew by all that yellow and will rip branches off to carry chunks of flowers in my pockets.
  5. I battle with fear in the park. I love the peace of walking at night, and yet now once the sun is gone, something primal kicks in and my racing heart and head take over; I need to get to the road immediately. One time I wore a large torch strapped to my forehead, determined to not let this fear entrap me. Yet on this very night, a man wondered out from the bushes completely nude, and strolled oblivious by my side. My dog was little comfort.
  6. People feed the cockatoos so that by the middle of the day, the bridge is lined with a guard of puffed up creatures whose pointed tongues terrify me. We had a cocky called Charlie growing up, who loved my dad above anyone. Dad would take him down to the house he was building, gently kiss his open beak, and let the bird drink out of his own coffee cup. When Charlie glimpsed me, he would immediately turn on his foot and charge, carried by swift, stumpy legs, his neck and beak stretched out. His toes would claw across the tiles in a dogged chase.
  7. In the heart of the park, across the bridge and around many meanders, there is flat plain where big kangaroos lie about, and rise on their haunches and tremendous tails. In the news recently, a woman told how she had been attacked by one and barely survived. I remember she was small and thin and shaking, with muscled arms.
  8. On a trip to Tasmania years ago, I learnt that wombats (stupendous creatures) are the only animals whose poo is ‘cubic’ in nature; enabling them to mark their territory in little wobbly pyramids. I feel like a proper naturalist, when walking with my children I am able to deftly identify these pyramids of poo. We are delighted to be shared holders of this secret knowledge.
  9. Every Spring, there is a time when the council gardeners mow over the park’s expanse of glinting yellow flowers, no matter how beautiful. This angers me so much that I fume for days. How do they not realise how that sheet of yellow lifts me each morning in a moment of sublime.
  10. Sometimes after one lap, my dog will stop at the park’s entrance and refuse to move. I walk on. He stays. I continue to walk. He lies down. We play this game. I sometimes win. Sometimes he does.

 

 

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How wood eating insects intrigue – Wintry Snowflake

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The Japanese have a saying, ‘life’s path can be seen in an insect eaten tree branch’. I’ve always looked at squiggle’s marks on a tree where an insect has nibbled away and wondered why do they choose the path they choose. It is the taste of the wood that drives then, the divots in the grain that direct them or is it just that they are always following where another has been before. If faced with a daunting wood knot in front of them, do they go over the top or around. Does the texture make them choose a different path and why do they never seem to go in a straight line?

If they do weave around does that mean life is directionless and is a straight line the way to go? Or does weaving through life allow us to have varying and different experiences? When I stare at the wood filled with meandering marks I can’t help but be intrigued and captivated by the windy path that twists and turns with no real purpose. I see varying sized chomps through knots and the creation of diverse and wacky shapes.

Originally I thought a straight line would be better, more direct, efficient, structured and streamlined. But then I wondered would going in a straight line mean that I would merely repeat the same thing over and over again and would monotony and boredom settle in.  Even worse, what if the first experience was unpleasant and repeating that experience over and over again would mean a life of continued pain. So could you somehow guarantee a good experience and then just repeat that over and over again? Or would that get boring too? Would you end up craving excitement and diversity somehow?

Those wood eating insects chose to wonder and create patterns on the wood that at first glance could appear directionless but on closer investigation actually allows one to make many choices along the way. These many choices can help one focus moment to moment. Do I turn left, do I go over or through the knot? Perhaps making decisions moment by moment is actual trick to creating one’s life path.

You don’t always need to know where you are going and how you are going to get there, but maybe you can feel your way through and trust that at each moment you are making the right decision. Some decisions maybe pleasant and some not so pleasant. Either way the accumulation of all those decisions time and time again take you to where you want to go.

For now, I am going to continue to stay off the straight line and meander moment by moment trusting myself along the way. It will no doubt create a pattern in the wood that will spark and delight my heart and with any luck, other hearts too. So thank you wood eating insects for showing me a new way.

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The Coat – Michelle Bowler 

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Flora

Nelly always seems to know just what I need thinks Flora as she unwraps the birthday present from her sister. A warm green winter coat.

When Flora passes away the coat gets stuck in her wardrobe for a while and then gets taken to an op shop.

Cathy

Cathy thinks the coat is beautiful and will be perfect for winter. Dark green, made from wool. Big shiny green buttons. Long but not too long. Well looked after. And it’s the op shop’s half price day for students so it’s only $15. She likes the coat so much that she puts it on straight away. And it feels like the coat sighs as it wraps around her. Cathy has to rush then. She spent too long browsing and trying on coats and knows Nick will be pissed off.

A few months later when Cathy takes an intervention order out against Nick he snaps. He chucks all her crap, including the stupid green coat, into a box and dumps it at the Salvos. Take that.

Trish

Trish is dropping off old baby clothes at the Salvos when a green coat catches her eye. It looks like something her partner Cathy would wear. Trish can imagine Cathy wearing it when she walks round the lake with Charlie and Rosy in the pram. And she’s right. Cathy’s eyes light up when she sees the coat. ‘This was my coat. Nick must have taken it to the op shop when I kicked him out. I loved this coat.’

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aerogramme – Lynn Andrew

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

The Japanese have a saying….
To “save face” and not “see face”. They send their stories of the landscape, snow and cherry blossoms, the importance of family and honor. they write to hear stories from fellow humans who walk on the other side of the world. They wait for the aerogramme with anticipation. They gather together to hear about poisonous snakes and spiders and consuming fires and droughts. When the words are read out loud they feel the heat of the fire and the desperation of the drought.

Originally I thought…
The letter was from an admirer or a mysterious relative who had left not money but a challenge or an adventure in a remote and faraway destination . I held the aerogramme and turned it over in my hands feeling the edges and imagining where it had travelled from, the hand that posted it, maybe wrinkled with past knowledge and secrets. Was the sender looking behind them as they slipped the letter into the box. I kept it sealed for an hour then a day , then the weeks passed . I couldn’t bring myself to open it.

Open the window…
If I cant bring myself to open it. I need to set it free. I cannot have it sitting by my bed, on the table, the bench, in my car, beside me ,in my pocket, where it mocks me to open it. I fold it into a paper plane and unfold it several times, refolding it to make it streamlined and swift I teeter at the window… Next minute the wind turns back on itself and the aerogramme shaped into a plane comes back at me refusing to fly out landing just behind me. was this a sign, a sign of what and why wouldn’t I open it . was it fear of disappointment or excitement and too much of that to deal with, or perhaps worst of all the solving of a puzzle, the end of the mystery.

This is not what I was expecting……
I grappled with that unopened aerogramme for weeks , I called in sick for work. It followed me around the house out walking , to the shops. It consumed my waking and my dreams. It was no different from any other day that I had not opened the letter when I finally did. It had been sent to the wrong address another person was meant to be the recipient . It was an ordinary letter detailing an ordinary holiday written without imagination, nor inspiring me to visit the place where it had come from.

What I learned….Is that anticipation, desire ,fear, magic ,intrigue are best left enclosed to be anticipated, desired, feared and imagined.

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Purple IPod – Bryony Cosgrove

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

There is nothing random or out of place in a Japanese dwelling. There is little storage space and there is certainly no clutter now that Marie Kondo has taken hold across the country. Everything has a place and a correct order. Life must be orderly.

The smallness and storage efficiency of an IPod appeals, as does the ability to plug in and listen in gracious isolation when commuting. The device creates a neat barrier that separates one from the surrounding environment. The familiarity of selected music on a crowded shinkansen can lull one to sleep. Heads down, no need to make eye contact. Peas in a pod. And then two schoolchildren sitting across the aisle from me, one earbud each attached to a sleek purple IPod between them, begin to bicker. I have never seen such disorderly behaviour in Japanese children, and certainly not on a train. Other passengers begin to take note and the sleepers awake. The Japanese trait of following instructions and not interfering looks set to be upended on this occasion.

The dispute has been caused by the IPod. It is on shuffle, playing a selection of music over which neither child has any control. Out of order, and therefore very untidy. Tracks are being pulled out of its storage at random. A distressing experience for Kondo kids. The IPod is switched off suddenly and put away in a school satchel, and the children gaze out the carriage window as an orderly silence descends once again.

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The Creep – Carolyn Thompson

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

It starts to creep in. Usually in the early evening when all the domestics are done and the kids are finally in bed.
All that’s left is to throw my legs up on the lounge, sip my tea and flick through the channels looking for something mind-numbing to watch.
It’s just the flash of a thought that sets off a pang of dread. A twinge of fear that you know deep down is starting to spread and strangle your insides like a runaway vine through the garden.
It’s easily pushed aside this time of night. There’s still plenty of the mundane to preoccupy your mind. The never ending mental list of to-do’s.  But you know it’s there and that it’s going to come knocking.
And for me it’s usually at two or three in the morning. With a jolt it yanks me out of my slumber and pins me to the bed. Crushing me under its weight and rendering me helpless, hopeless, until it the sun pulls it from me as it rises in the sky….
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