Three Short Stories
By Martin Chambers
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2010 Martin Chambers
Discover other titles by Martin Chambers at Smashwords
The Character rebellion of 2009
Remembering Pablo
Time Machine
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
Chapter one
The Character Rebellion of 2009
‘Come in here,' I called, 'break is over and I need two of you for a scene with Pablo Neruda and his dog.'
'We don't want to,' one of them said. I'm not sure which one.
'We don't want to be secondary characters anymore. We want to be main characters,’ said another one. It was Cameron, a secondary student and brother of the protagonist’s girlfriend in a novel I am working on. I noticed most of his schoolmates were there and one of them was talking to the fish and chip shop owner from ‘Time Machine.’ Sara was drinking from a bottle of wine, a Margaret River Chardonnay. She was swigging straight from the bottle in a very unladylike way. Most of the older ones were sitting around a tartan picnic rug with a large wicker basket in the middle.
'You can't all be main characters,' I said. 'At least, not all at the same time.' I looked around at the group. Some were sitting down on the lawn, others lay indifferently in the shade. 'Maybe', I continued,’ if you do a really good job as secondary characters you can get to be a main. But not all at the same time,' I added.
'Why not? We could all be main characters. We could be a crowd scene.'
'It just doesn't work, OK.' It was then that I noticed Richard. He stood up from his place in the shade and sat on top of the wall. 'What are you doing here? You are a main character.'
'I was lonely. Anyway, I'm sick of it. I want to be a minor character for a while.' They all looked caringly at him as he said this. He lay back along the top of the wall, leaning against the limestone pillar and closed his eyes as if that was the end of it.
I noticed a thickset man in a blue singlet. He had tattoos on his shoulders and was bigger than anyone else.
'Who are you? You're not one of mine.'
'You might recognize me from West Side Story. Or Mad Max. I drove the truck.'
'What are you doing here?'
'Just hanging out while I wait for another role. It gets to be pretty dull,’ he said contemplatively. ‘And I heard about this, came for a look.' Someone handed him a chicken wing and he bit into it hungrily.
I was about to tell him to rack off, that he couldn't just turn up in a story but he gave me a sort of look, a fatalistic 'Well, I'm here now,' and before I spoke there was a rise of laughter from the other side of the wall. It felt like laughter at my expense. Richard sat up and dangled his legs over the other side. He was speaking to someone. I walked over, picking my way between characters who lay sprawled on the lawn. Some were picnicking, other talking. None of them paid me much notice.
On the other side of the wall a group of tiny people were sitting around a handkerchief sized rug. They also had a picnic. They had miniature bottles of wine and they were drinking from glasses so small that they were almost invisible to me.
Richard introduced me but I wasn’t paying attention because I thought I recognized them. The scruffy one, an old man dressed in rags, turned to me and raised a fist. He shook it at me but didn't say anything.
'I do know you! You are from that story by Cecily Scutt, from the book Lines in the Sand.' My voice trailed of, ‘I loved that story. You don’t know if they are real or if she made them up.’
One of them got up and ran off pushing a trolley, exactly like she did in Cecily's short story.
'Wow, how does she do that? They are all so true to their own character,' I was speaking more to myself but Richard was just next to me.
'She just knows how to… to… well…. Anyway, I'm off. If I stay here I'm going to end up as the main character again.'
'But you’re role here is nothing like....'
'Exactly!' And he gave me the same sort of look that the truck driver from Mad Max had given me. I noticed he too had left and I was thinking that was what good secondary characters do. Deliver their lines or do whatever they are supposed to do, then leave. They don't hang around cluttering up a story and getting in the way like mine were, lying around on the lawn so that I had to weave my way between them to get back to the studio. I sat at my desk, gazing out the garden. They were all still there, except for Richard, who must have gone out via the side gate. Perhaps he will make a good secondary. At least he knows when to leave.
I sat at my desk staring at the screen. Without any secondary characters there wasn't much I could write about, there was no-one to create tension, no-one to pose difficulties or stand in the way of the main character in their pursuit of whatever it was they were pursuing, and hence no way to carry the story forward. I stood up, opened the door and yelled out at them.
'Secondary characters are very important.' They ignored me.
I left them in the back garden. Sara was quite drunk. She had taken her top off and was dancing with Nathan who had her bra wrapped around his head like a bandanna. They don't even like each other. Cathy was sitting at the table eating cake. She was stuffing it in, open mouthed and talking loudly, a ring of cream and cake crumbs around her thin lips. She looked like an anorexic one of those sideshow clowns that move their heads from side to side while you try to drop balls into their wide mouths. Julia, who was supposed to be dead, was yelling 'down, down, down,' at Bernie, who had a jug of beer in each hand. Ian was flirting with the schoolgirls. If only they could all see how ridiculous they looked.
I walked from the house, childishly slamming the back and then the front door as I left. In the next street a lady opened her first floor window and yelled down at me.
'You can't let them do what they like. You have to keep them under control.'
'Who are you?'
'I'm Cecily.'
That was when I saw the little people again. They were seated companionably on Cecily's window ledge. The scruffy one raised his fist at me and shook it and the one with the trolley stood up and wheeled it angrily away.
'How do you do that?'
'You've got to create them properly. Keep them under control.' She shooed them away and leant out as if to talk more privately. 'And you can't write real people into it. You'll have to take me out.'
I was about to say that it was too late, she was already there, but I heard sirens and watched as a police car turned the corner near the school. There was gunfire, rapid fire like a machine gun, then screaming. People came running out of the school, teachers and kids all in a panic. I saw that some had blood on them, on their clothes, on their faces. Some were helping others who limped, or hopped on one leg dragging an injured foot or knee. Stupidly I ran towards the school, I don’t know why I did that, it was as if I was being controlled by some other force. Without thinking I ran to the shelter of the police car that had skidded to a halt across the corner. The gunfire had stopped but I sat low behind the car wondering what to do, where the gunman was. The car door opened and an attractive policewoman slid out of the car to sit on the road beside me.
'What's going on?' I asked.
'It's very serious,' she said, and in a deft movement she pushed her hands behind me and handcuffed me.
'It's not me!' I protested, and as if to verify that another burst of gunfire and screaming came from within the school.
'That is serious too,' she said, indicating the gunfire behind us. 'You'll have to deal with that yourself later. But for now, you are under arrest.' She smiled at me and I had the overwhelming sensation that I knew her.
'Do I know you?'
'I'm Thursday Next.' She smiled again, a smile that in another life would invite me to know her better.
'What are you doing here?' But it was obvious. As Literarytech's chief detective her job was to track down and arrest characters who wandered from their own stories, incarcerate them back in the books they belonged to. I had read about her in the Jane Eyre Affair. But why had she arrested me?
'You took that character from Mad Max. Against his will, he says. Our policy is to go to the source. Stamp it out at the beginning. So I have to arrest you until we can get the mess sorted out.'
'But,' I blubbered, 'he just turned up. My characters have been holding a sort of stop work meeting in the backyard. I have no control over them.'
She laughed. It was a seductive laugh despite my predicament, and it is funny how the mind can work so quickly because there was no pause between the laugh and when she spoke next. In that time I determined that if I did write her into any scene with myself I would not be handcuffed by her, cowering in the street behind a car with a crazed gunman shooting at us. Handcuffs and her in charge maybe, but not the gunman.
'And you’ve also kidnapped me. Jasper Foorde wants to talk to you.'
'But he's real. He wrote you!'
'I don't think you are in any position to lecture on who is real and who is not,' she said. 'You have characters all over the place. Main characters and secondary all over the place, some stolen, abducted, real people too, stolen or abducted. Do they even know they are here?'
I was about to defend myself, was thinking what to say, when there was another burst of gunfire from the roof of the school. We both turned to look, and I saw in horror that it was Richard. He had a line of terrified children along the edge of the school roof, was standing in front of them with the gun pointed high in the air.
I stood up, dragging Thursday with me.
'Richard!
You ignored me. All I wanted was a quiet life. A few walk on roles.'
I tried to think what to say. He was obviously unstable and at any moment he could, if I said the wrong thing…children’s lives were in danger.
'Come down and we can talk about it. If you do this you will become the main character again.'
He looked around, up at the sky, into the distance, back down at me. It seemed like a while before he answered.
'I realized, y'know, that I was jealous. You wrote yourself as the main character when I walked off, and I was jealous. I think I do want to be the main character.'
I had to think quickly. Now he had changed his mind and I had just told him how to become the main character. In his condition he could do anything.
'Ok, Ok, that was what I wanted in the first place. I’ll put you back as the main character. But look. If you do anything with those kids I’ll write you back down to something minor. '
He looked derisively at me.
‘Like What?’
I pointed at the sky to the north. An airplane was visible as a shiny dart against the clear blue sky.
‘I’ll write that in as a terrorist suicide attack, a nuclear bomb going off. It’s a pretty unsubtle escalation but even I should be able to do that. Would make this scene be quickly forgotten…’ That got him thinking.
‘All right. I’ll come down.’ He halted as he was about to put down the gun. 'And I want the girl, Thursday Next.'
'Sure,' I called back, 'I should be able to do that by then. Can you get all the others back to work?'
'Easy,' he said. 'I'm the main character. I’m in charge.' He herded the schoolkids away from the edge and back into the building. When they came out of the front door they had gathered around him as if he were a favorite uncle or a sporting hero. He took the children to the teachers and they stood in groups of happiness in the playground.
Thursday and I were standing near the police car, handcuffed together. Richard walked over to us and I saw their eyes meet with just the hint of a smile from Thursday. Richard put his hand on my shoulder and a sudden chill ran through me. It was a chill of recognition, of the excitement of life and the joy of creation and the fear of death and realization of mortality and it was at once both the most thrilling and most threatening thing I have ever felt.
He said, ‘your characters can outlive you, but only if you overcome the jealousy of immortality.’ I gave him a muddled look. He added, ‘It’s a chicken and egg thing.’
Then he and Thursday walked off arm in arm and I was left alone in an empty street wondering what had happened to the handcuffs and the police car.
####
Chapter two
Remembering Pablo
Every evening we would walk the same way, Pablo leaning into the gentle rise of the street until the roundabout at the Fountain of The Early Pioneers where we would turn left and continue down towards the harbour.
We walked in the late sun that was only along one side of the street and on the way Pablo would talk to whoever was loitering in the warmth of their front yard. He was well known in his later life. Around the world he was famous but in our town he was known mostly for having lived here for so long. As I think about it now I realise he was probably stopping as much to catch his breath as for the conversation. After all, how many times can you discuss roses with the Widow Peron and find new things to say, or after a lifetime of words with Gabon, or Arturio, not realise that the weather and politicians will continue to do what they will do? Or maybe he stopped to talk with them for my benefit. I was always wanting to look around, investigate, the walk itself and all that was along the way of more interest to me than the destination. There was always something new.
At the tavern I preferred to remain in the courtyard while Pablo would disappear into the back room with Eva, his friend who served drinks and took orders for food from the customers. She always wore a black apron and smelled delicious, of chicken broth and garlic, spicy salsa or fresh bread. And of course, the rough red wine she served.
In the courtyard I’d move from table to table just to see what was happening. At that time of evening there would always be half a crowd and I knew everyone, and everyone knew me, although mostly by association with Pablo. I preferred to remain outside as the air inside was stuffy, filled with tobacco smoke and stale food. Even later when the rules changed and you could only smoke outside I would prefer to move to a table on the upwind side where the air was fresher and the smells sharper. The breeze was usually from the harbour and there was the smell of fishing boats, of fuel and fish and ice and rope and seagulls and the pungent sweat of men.
After a while, about the same time that the crowd was beginning to grumble about the lack of service and making comments that I didn’t understand about how Pablo had slowed down over the years, Pablo would reappear and we’d sit together in the courtyard listening to the cries of gulls and men at the fishing boats. Eva would bring him a wine and slip me a snack, her fingers smelling of stale wine and the days work, then we’d walk together, he again leaning into the slope and the street now in shadows from the street lamps.
Those walks were always the highlight of any day for me but of course now he’s gone and although sometimes I go by myself it is just not the same without him. I believe I loved him at least as much as he loved Eva in those days.
Early on, when I first came to live in the house, he’d be closed in his study and I’d wait near the front door where I could be helpful to him if he needed me, if he came out of the study for any reason, and also where I could see the front gate and watch what was going on up and down the street. Sometimes I’d have to warn him of an intruder but mostly we led a quite domestic life until late in the day when there would be the creak of his leather chair, the echo of its wheels on the boards as he pushed back, a groan as he stretched, and then the gentle squeak of the hinges as he opened the door. We’d greet each other at the door and he’s say ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Sometimes as we went he’d tell me about a poem he was working on, or about something he had read, or about how he couldn’t decide what word to use in a particular place and he’d walk along mouthing and saying a word or a group of words just for the sounds they made. But mostly we’d walk in silence and I preferred it that way because then I could run ahead and look at things that interested me without feeling I was letting him down.
The Fountain of The Early Pioneers was always one of the most interesting places. Behind the damp smell there was the unmistakable smell of rats. I am sure there was a whole nest of them somewhere nearby, but I could never find where it was. Their sharp smell criss-crossed all over the concrete of the fountain, across the street, into the garden beds and shrubbery and in and out of houses. As well as the rats there was the rotting food they dragged, the chlorine in the water, the chemicals on the garden, the fertilizer and sometimes fresh paint. The council men were always doing some sort of work on the fountain or the gardens but now that is all gone. They pulled up the fountain when they took away the roundabout and replaced it with traffic lights.
I remember the first time he let me run ahead without the leash and I ran straight to the fountain. I think it was the only time he ever got angry with me and for several weeks after that he would only let me off the leash after we had passed the fountain.
In the early days he would slip the leather leash around me and we’d walk close, me leaning into his leg unless I wanted to pull him over to the fountain or something interesting. Sometimes now I gaze up at the pegs in the hallway. His hat and coat are gone, but the leather leash is still there and I long for those days again, for the feel of the collar and the warmth of his closeness, his leg, the pull as we disagreed on the route to follow, and his idle chatter that was like poetry for me.
I even miss, dare I admit it, the dull times standing by the widow Peron’s yard with the nauseating smell of cats and roses, or the long discussions that I never understood by the wall at Arturio’s Villa. They have all gone too. They, and Gabon, all left before Pablo, one at a time that left him tut-tutting and sad.
Eva is still here. I don’t get down to the tavern very often but she comes up to say hello, brings me a snack. I look forward to her visits although she never seems to have much time to stay. Her visits and snacks will never replace Pablo and our walks together in the late afternoon. Except for the lack of walks my days now are mostly the same as they ever were. I lie by the front door watching the street, ready to warn of intruders. If I don’t look at the open door to his study sometimes I can even forget he is not here, but I soon find myself wandering into his study and checking his chair, his desk. The leather chair still smells of him, although it is fainter now.
Other people visit too. There is a man in a suit who smells of flowers and chemicals who often brings strangers. They walk from room to room talking in muted voices. Sometimes they measure things or bang the walls and sometimes they call me old and pat me as though I am going to bite them and usually I feel like I want to, but I know Pablo wouldn’t approve.
#####
Chapter 3
Time Machine
Sonya and I took the new TM to 2009 for a girly weekend. It’s the new one from Timetech and gosh it’s great. It is so smooth, quiet inside even at 100 hours per sec, with a great sound system. We listened to the whole of Prindeville’s third symphony then stopped in a small town on the south coast of Australia.
We ate ‘fish and chips’ for just $10 at the wharf with a drink called Margaret River Riesling. It’s a wine made of fermented grapes, it tastes mostly of acid. The chips were very oily and salty. The fish was an odd texture. We ate it with our fingers, just tearing off a hunk and put it in like the locals do. Quite primitive. I could never live like this. Strange to think that we were eating something that was alive just a short while ago. They use real fish that they just take out of the ocean! Can you believe that? The people here also swim in the ocean, right in the same place the fish are. Don’t know what the fish do then. It’s got to be very unhygienic. The water is sort of cloudy with a hint of greeny colour. We stood on the wharf and could look down into the ocean and see the bottom with weeds and things on it.
The sky is so far away, a lost blue colour, pale, white near the horizon and darker overhead. Some of the clouds are pure white as well, but near the horizon they are darker, grayish like normal. On the other side of the ocean there are trees, these grow together in a completely random forest. Can’t make sense of it, it’s quite a way away but there must be ten different types of tree!
The wharf is made of real wood from cutting down a huge tree. Then they just slice it up. The wood surface has an interesting texture, a bit oily and rough. Warm, almost like it was still alive. We even took our shoes off and walked along it, up and down just to revel in the feeling.
#
Sonya and I have just got back from visiting the town. I was sitting writing this diary when a guy came up and offered us to join his Heritage Walking Tour for $45. He had seen us walking up and down the jetty (it’s called a jetty not a wharf) and giggling.
They use wood for lots of other things, like the side of the building here, but often they paint it. Everything is so full of texture and shape. I counted seven different types of paving material. They use them just to get contrast. It is so interesting but wasteful. It’s the same on their buildings, full of interesting inefficient shapes and colours and corners and things.
He took us on a walk all around the town with several other people. Sonya and I kept stumbling, what with looking up at all the things and then the path not being smooth. One type of path, called Brick Paving, was made of these small foot sized bits laid flat on the ground, so there are lots of edges. Makes a really interesting pattern, and not every pattern was the same. Some are red and others orange, or off-white, or grey. So much variety for no reason. It looks great though’, but you won’t understand me saying that.
He took us to ‘Devonshire Tea’, a sort of ceremony where we all drank a bitter warm liquid made from tree leaves, and ate these little cakes full of jam and cream, very fatty. It coats your mouth and tongue and takes some getting used to. Then you wash your mouth with the bitter tea and it’s really quite good.
#
Greg, the guy who does the walking tours, came back and offered to buy us a drink. We weren’t quite sure what that meant but we went to a ‘pub’ with him. This was a public building but dark inside, where they do more food and drink. Inside was more like a house from our time, lots of plastic made to look like wood or something else, but really smelly. A sort of salty, earthy, human smell. The carpet was all patterned, a swirling complex series of flower shapes, with circles and lines, all sorts of colours but the overwhelming effect was dark reddish. Greg told us it was wool, you know, from sheep! But we think he was fooling with us.
Beer is a sort of broth, tastes a bit like Promeal, that food drink they grow from bacteria. We didn’t realize it until later, but is has alcohol in it. We both got very funny. My head went dizzy and I was suddenly talking more and louder than I usually do. Later, a band was playing with old fashioned instruments, actually making the music as we where hearing it. Such a full and warm sound, you could feel it in your body as well as hear it. It really made me want to dance. Then they did a slow one and all of a sudden both Sonya and I got all sad. We ended up in the toilet hugging each other. She said she misses something but doesn’t know what it is. I said it was the toilet, we seemed to have to use it a lot. Then we ended up on the floor laughing hysterical, until I noticed the tiles. Some had little flower patterns painted into them and they were only a few cm across. All those joins. I couldn’t believe so much work just to make a toilet wall.
We stayed at Greg’s place last night. It was amazing. Firstly, at the front of it there is a thing called lawn. It’s made of lots of little plants, all the same type that he waters every few days with pure drinking water and then cuts it to an even length. You walk on it, or lie on it. It’s like a living greeny carpet, cool and smooth and prickly softer than carpet, and smells so earthy. It’s wonderful. I wish we could all have some.
Inside the rooms are so large and he’s got seven of them. They creak as you walk around, the whole house is alive with noises. In one of the rooms there is a fireplace where he burns wood. Yes, real wood from real trees. It makes such a warm glow in the room, reddy and more orange and sometimes a hint of a blue flame, not at all like our picture heaters. The smell is unbelievable and dry. It is the smell of all the things you can’t put a name to, a smell of things you once knew but have forgotten. Good things. It felt like I was connecting to a primitive self from my ancestors. The fire is mesmerizing even though it does nothing, we sat looking at it like we all sit around the multimedia unit. We talked and talked into the night about all sorts of things. Occasionally Sonya or I would say something and Greg would look at us strange, or laugh. He has all these little bottles of drinks. One made from potato that tastes like raw heat, one made from Aniseed that tastes chewey, one called coffee and cream, my favorite. Another tasted like hot oranges. Liqueurs, he calls them.
Today we are going with Greg to visit the country farmland.
#
Oh my God. So much to write about I just can’t get it all down. My pen is too slow. We ate real oranges and real apples and saw live sheep just wandering around a field. Hardly any factories, Greg says most of the food here comes from farms where it just grows on trees or the sheep and cows that just wander around. Sometimes they die in the fields and they just leave them there! There was a kangaroo killed by a car and they had just left it to rot by the side of the road. The smell was disgusting. Greg said we were gross when we said we wanted to stop and look at it. It had small while grubs living in it and birds pecking at it when we left.
Oranges are about the size of a ball with a waxy tough skin. You peel that off and then eat the inside. It is very messy, sugery sweet to taste. The juice squirts out into your face or eyes, onto your clothes, but it is divine. Such intense pure orange flavour. Apples are harder, green, tart and sweet and you just eat them, first you polish the outside on your shirt, then just bite into it. You have to take small bites or it is too intense and juice froths out of the side of your mouth, like it starts not sweet or juicy and then you’ve got all this sweet apple juice in your mouth. We had so much fun.
We went for another walk around town. I must say we are getting used to it and we both feel totally safe. We met an old lady walking down the street. I just stopped and stared until Sonya snapped me. This lady was so old, all wrinked, no surgery or anything. They do have Botox but she obviously didn’t use it. What got me most tho’ was that she had this frame that she leant on as she walked. She would lift it up a little, slide it forward, shuffle up to it, rest, the do it all again. How she didn’t stumble on all the uneven paved paths I don’t know. Imagine being that old that you need a frame like that. I nearly cried, it was so tragic, no-one to care for her.
Tomorrow Greg is going to take us to an old Whale Station, where they used to kill whales and then cut them up. So barbaric.
#
I cannot write anything to describe today. I want to scream. Greg drove us to the old whale station. A museum, pictures and movies of killing and slaughtering whales. The little ships would go right up to whales, who didn’t attack back or defend themselves.
But the most amazing thing today you are not going to believe. Greg said lets go for a swim, so we said yes. When he asked us if we wanted to go to the textile beach or natural, or course we chose natural because that’s what we are here to see and I didn’t really know what a textile beach was. I expected it would be some sort of manufactured indoor beach like home. We couldn’t believe it. Everyone was there without a skerrick of clothing on! So, we took ours off too! I was shaking, excited, scared. I wanted to hide but eventually got used to it. The sun felt warm all over my body. We lay on the sand and let it warm us. Little tufts of breeze caressed us. We had lazy conversation, lying there in the nude like it was nothing unusual.
But then! Greg said lets go for a swim. Still in the nude! I felt like I was flying, soaring, totally free. The water was clean and cold and touched me everywhere. I almost had an orgasm, I swear it. Unlike the baths at home, the water is moving, swirling back and forth and you can feel it touching your skin. Little waves wash up and down the beach and we went along in them. The water grabs at your hair and skin and tickles and chills, but eventually you just forget the cold and it is so much fun. I wanted to do it forever.
Greg said we had better go back as our skin was so pale and we would get sunburn. We walked back up to the carpark and then he said that Sonya and I had better put our clothes on, but it felt so nice that I didn’t want to. I noticed that everyone else in the carpark was clothed again and they were looking at us, so I waved. Greg got all ashamed and held a towel around me.
We had Devonshire Tea again this afternoon. This time I had a thing called Muffin with Coffee. The muffin was sweet with chocolate bits in it. Coffee is sort of chocolate, but milky and a little bitter, earthy. It is excellent to have a bit of coffee then a bit of muffin. At the Tea House the old lady with the walking frame was there by herself, so we sat with her. Her name is Edith. She told us all about her early life. She’s 86 years old and came here in 1952 with her husband. He died 12 years ago so she’s all alone now, her children have moved to the city and only visit at holiday times. I told her about my first nude swim and she said she can remember her first nude swim too. Only hers was 60 years ago in South Africa on the way to Australia with her new husband. She said that was what got her pregnant and so I told her you don’t get pregnant that way.
They still have the democratic voting system. Every three years Edith gets to vote, along with everyone else she has an equal say. We were always taught it was such an inefficient three yearly change of government. There are also regular public meetings and there is one tonight that Edith has told us about, so were going to go. Anyone can go and have their say! She is trying to get a crosswalk over the busy road so that people can cross safely. Incredible as it seems but it made so much sense!
Last night you should have heard all the yelling and anger. And yet we felt completely safe. Even Edith got up and said stuff. They had several votes and now they are going to build a crosswalk, and not chop down some old trees, and put a safety fence along the cliffs near the old whaling station. All because people demanded it!
The room was alive with people, the air inside was warmer, thicker and despite all the anger and raised voices it was great. I couldn’t sleep last night I was so excited. I was wondering why we don’t do this at home and then I was wondering how I could start a meeting like that. And then I realized I wasn’t looking forward to going home because we live in a world of efficient sameness.
Here, the air is grittier, smellier. We walk outside into the sun and it burns on our skin, we feel the wind in our faces and it blows our hair about. It chills us like a thousand icy needles, tiny skin deep pricks of cold. But the wind carries also a curiosity to get around corners just to see what’s there. Wind is not a machine movement of air, it is haphazard, swirly, it gusts into every nook and cranny. We wear local clothes made of rough fibre that scratches the skin, but it makes you tingle to feel it. Then we take them off and run into the ocean and your whole body wakes up to a whole new thrill.
Everything has more texture. Foods made from animal and fresh vegetables in an amazing variety. Prepared and eaten in subtle combination of colours and tastes and textures. Fruits that are so sweet and juicy. Every moment is an adventure. It is not only that it is all so new to me. Living here there is so much choice. Yesterday, Edith couldn’t decide if to have a muffin or a cake with her tea. I bought her both, and she said it was ‘wicked’. I love being wicked.
But more than any of that is the sensational feeling that people can affect the world they live in. And if we affect the world we live in now, what of the future world? I mean, suppose Edith hadn’t gotten the crosswalk approved, and someone got killed by a car, so in the future they didn’t marry and have children, and that those children who may have been, would have been if Edith didn’t get up and have her say, those children might have been my great grandparents. Perhaps the future is not as certain as we are taught. I’m trying to get my head around this, but suppose I could do something here to preserve this life into our time, so we can eat those fresh foods and swim in a cool clean ocean and all the stuff they do here. Perhaps we can all have a wondrous and sensuous life, enjoy the pleasure of variety in so many things. Am I going mad? Just to think that?
#
Sonya and I argued last night. We never argue, but I was trying to explain things and it just got out of hand. Like at that meeting, I suddenly felt it was important to say what I was thinking, and I wasn’t scared of the anger so it all came out. She has to go home for work so she’s taken the TM and left me here. By the time you get this letter, well perhaps you will never understand, perhaps things have already changed and you didn’t notice. Enjoy life, feel things, speak up, try newness. Maybe you already do. Or maybe I failed and nothing has changed. Whatever way, know that I am happy to have tried.
####
Martin Chambers is the author of four books. The Canoe and Kayak guide to WA, and Island Life, a natural history of Penguin Island, are available in print from bookstores or from his website. Bulk Goon is available in print or eBook at Smashwords. His books,short stories, travel articles and poetry can also be found at his website. He lives in Perth, Western Australia.