Flash!

First published at http://flash-frontier.com

Flight

“You. After school. Basketball court. Snap my fingers snap your neck.”

Kevin’s experienced fist thwacks his palm. A rainy afternoon scrap’s arranged to test the mettle of the new boy on the block. I’ve no choice, and at 3.30pm unwillingly comply. For too long I flail miserably, impotently. The repugnant young spectators bray. Then I see red, as they say. Thrash him. Give him a nose twister, a nasturtium. Cave Kevin’s face in. Bones splinter. Kevin sees red, too. Blood red, then grey. He crumples with an awful permanence. Something has shifted forever.

I freak out. Fight or flight? Fight and flight. Across the field, out the gates, into town. It’s rain-dark. Silverbeet-coloured trees, which are neither silver nor red, shroud the slick roads. I run fast, bouncing off strangers. Mist permeates their angry, sibilant voices with coldness and the white noise of tyres on wet asphalt becomes ugly. I would have welcomed the punch in the face – it was the threat of the punch that caused more damage. Peering back every few steps, through the inkiness, I feel sick.

“We want to see the colour of your fear,” he’d told me. Well, this was it: a boy tearing through blackness, all his light absorbed. I’m inseparably linked to the end of the world. Or think I am. Or want to be. It pours. The sky pounds a percussive dirge on the footpath. Bleak rhythms belt against the concrete. I’m still running.

Peeve.

Flash!

First published at http://flash-frontier.com

Toby

Toby’s in bed. He fights sleep. His memory remains vital, his memories many. He recalls childhood, the episodes and chapters that authored his life, as if yesterday. He recollects the time he listened to Badjelly the Witch on the large-buttoned cassette player. How the “ding-ding” of a triangle heralded an exotic foreign accent which instructed him to “Turn the page…now.” And how Mother, vanilla-perfumed, had cradled him, held the book in front of him and offered “Would you like me to turn the page, dear?”

Toby remembers a fever: he’d hallucinated Sesame Street puppets which crawled out of the television to attack. He remembers, too, he’d not told Mother that earlier he’d swallowed the bottle of banana-flavoured medicine in one delicious swig. And, with ever-present Catholic guilt, he recalls a day he played hide-and-seek. Paralysed with fear of discovery, he’d stayed rooted to the spot and pooed in Mrs Lockhart’s bushes. The stinky mess had smeared warmly, shockingly, down the back of his thighs.

From this bed, which roils senselessly in past and present tense, Toby reviews his edited, now abridged, life. Forty is too abbreviated. Reminiscence narrates reality. Morphine induces horrific visions. Faeces leak disgracefully from his colostomy bag. The triangle-like “ding-ding” of his heart monitor heralds – what? He barely contemplates the book in front of him. A pine-scented nurse places an antiseptic hand on his shoulder, asks “Would you like me to turn the page, dear?”

Framed Excerpt.

Flash!

First published at http://flash-frontier.com

The Greatest Show on Earth

I feel like the spindly drawings in the corners of pages of books, flicked
through to animate this two dimensional space I inhabit. Here I am
mid-stride. Poised…

My wife! She left me for another! What a Bozo he turned out to be. She
feared no one took her seriously. I cannot change the past. The future’s a
different story, which starts somewhere.

“You’re a clown,” she once whispered, affectionately.

At college, I learned that in summary, the visual joke brings on a quicker
reaction, but the verbal joke is more widely quoted and remembered longer. I add audio for effect. The punch line is always a fart. An arse-blossom. An amusing answer blowing in the wind.

“You’re a CLOWN!” She once accused, peeved.

People who suffer from coulrophobia bother me. I’m a sad cliché. Like a dyslexic man who walks into a bra, my life is laughable. A real hoot. Aoooggahh! Klaxon horns give me tinnitus.

“YOU ARE A CLOWN!” She once screamed, then slapped my creamy white face red.

Behind this scumbled visage of makeup, which radiates a cartoon sun, are tears. Mirth is infectious, like Ebola. On my deathbed, I think I’ll find that, actually, morphine is the best medicine.

…my oversized plastic clodhopper casts a shadow. Children perch on bleachers, peer under flapping fabric into the murk. They’re desperate for lightness. Ruthless absurdity enriches their lives.

A banana skin. I slip, flip, fall, land, fart. Hilarious.

Later, my fans depart: art distorts life; life funfair-mirrors art.

Framed Excerpt.

Tongues.

Our native language now. Is it local or is it digital? Code or chit-chat? We shared a common tongue once, you and me. Many times, actually, but I really mean Once Upon A Time. Similar stories. On the same page. Pages of our history were more like an epic romp. An historical page-turning bodice-ripping yarn. Then, one day, or night, or two nights or many days, speaking in tongues led not to silence but to schisms, to uncomfortable clicks and clearings of throats and cocked heads and blank stares as we lost our voices, as our voices got shriller and said less of things out louder, and made less sense and unravelled the very things we we're trying to mend through talking, even though when we started we didn't know they needed mending. Talk does that. Conversation unstitches the intimate fabric of relationships that have been left unspoken for too long or spoken of too much so they become threadbare. Don't worry though. These are easily repaired.  They require words as webbing, deed as the trees to which they are attached. But oh, what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to weave webs.

Ties.

What did he have to do to stop being the butt of Carl’s stupid jokes? Did he have to become a notorious alcoholic, first rate carouser, develop a callousness that erased all empathy, laugh in the face of other’s misfortune, embrace suffering, reject redemption, reach rock bottom at a rate of knots and not stop, ever, to finally register above dull-mocking on the barometer of his fair-weather friends?

Against all logic it seemed harder to ditch colleagues in adult years than as children, William considered. As children and teens it’s so abrupt. A decision is taken and acted upon. Grown-ups find it more difficult to cut ties.

Venn Diagram.

Flash!

First published at http://flash-frontier.com/

An irresistible force meets an immovable object.

YOU. ARE. SHITTING. ME! The pine trees too?!

Richard’s rising intonation peaked, piqued with indignation.

He was heightened, his brother remained grounded.

“Yep.”

“This hill, the track, the cottage, that hill, the wool shed…” He squatted to batten level, closed one eye and focussed into the distance: “…the hay paddock, and the FUCKING PINE TREES?!”

“Yep,” said James.

Richard leapt, full stretch, like the live wire had given him a jolt. James was still, forearms resting on a strainer post.

“NO. WAY! Are they going to carpet bomb the place? It’s a massive chunk. Massive. It’ll be gutted. Ruined!”

James regarded Richard. He’d visit what, twice, maybe three times a year? On the way to Matakana (Havelock North’s immature sister, James called it). Now though, as soon as the plans were finalised, he’d been up from Auckland like a shot. ‘Concerned’ for the place. Of course. Funny that. His unspoken but not unknown dreams of a subdivided ticky tacky toy town dealt a significant blow by a competing progress. You’d think gracious resignation would be in order. But no. One last roll of the dice.

“What about the cows and sheep?”

“Heifers and ewes’ll be temporarily moved. May get to run more stock by way of compensation.”

That was that, then. Richard sped away, perplexed, like he’d lost something he’d never had. James enjoyed the irony. The farm was secured a future as a farm. Albeit with a new motorway through its middle.

Framed Excerpt.

Flash!

Flash fiction first published at: http://flash-frontier.com/2012/04/20/april-after-the-party/ 

Orphans' Christmas.

‘Orphans’. All rounded lips, sibilants and breathy voiceless fricatives. The word has a softness which belies its hard factual edge. 

***

My brother and I wondered who’d rung the cops.

When our parents drove south for their eighteenth anniversary, in late December 1988, we held an impromptu party. The lounge, where usually mum knitted as dad commented through newspapers, became a den of iniquity. Friends gathered. Thirty swelled to sixty. We roughly pushed aside the lush fresh-smelling Christmas tree. Music played. Pot was smoked, beer was sculled. Noise control visited, twice. Drunk kids lurched onto the street, hurtled over fences, traipsed through gardens and rolled semi-naked on front lawns. Neighbours’ tempers frayed. The cops came the next morning – later than anticipated, considering. 

I answered the door to a navy blue uniform. From under its severe peaked cap, a deep voice demanded an answer: “Ashley and Paul Adams?” 

A silent colleague stood unblinking beneath his own authoritative headgear. Scared, I recalled the night’s illegal activity.

“I’m Ashley,” my brother bravely admitted. His age advantage determined he speak first. 

The deep voice delivered a sucker punch. “We regret to inform you... .” 

It wasn’t what we’d feared. 

***

Now, every Christmas, a decorated tree’s scent evokes extant memories of that night: a former version of itself topples at our party while a larger remote manifestation simultaneously falls unseen across SH5 near Napier, failing to be avoided by my parents’ southbound Holden Commodore. 

‘Christmas’. After the party, the word’s joyous sonance belies its truthful dread.   

Colour Plate.

Flash!

Flash Fiction, first published at: http://flash-frontier.com/2012/06/28/june-hold-my-hand/




Hear our voices.

1.0 – The Great New Zealand Literary Vignette
The literary vignette has cancer of the eyes. Daring to look up from its
navel, gazing outwards, surveying You in preference to Itself, its
malignant words broadcast the true shapes of lives.

2.0 – Tall Poppy
“‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ was invented to avoid criticism. Success isn’t your
flaw; your personality is. You’re a jerk. Blaming your fall from grace on
‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’,” Jane mumbles to no one, “is another way you’re a
wanker.”

3.0 – 100% Pure Imperfection
David, who once won advertising awards and is now constantly anxious,
ducks around the corner to smoke a large bowl. Sweating, he returns to his
spot on Queen Street. “Y’know who I used to be?” he spits. He used to be
the small boy who’d fall asleep with his head on his sister’s lap. He
misses Jane.

4.0 – No.8 Wahine
Jane was a ward of the state during the 70s. Today she walks past leaky
homes in Waterview. Workers erecting a wire fence cat-call “Phoooowar!”
Leering men with calloused hands are something Jane’s always been used to.

5.0 – A Common Senseless Approach
Dad died in what was reported to be a home invasion. Brutal and
newsworthy. David learned this via a static-filled radio, between hisses
and scratches of analogue interference. The report was later amended: no
one else was sought in connection with Peter’s death. But by then, David
was already living on the streets.

6.0 – Hand of the Wrong Frightened Crowd
Northland’s forests, Southland’s fields, Westland’s bush, Eastland’s
hills, New Zealand’s homes are in this with us. Jane and David extend their
hands as cancer spreads from the vignette’s eyes into the Yous and Wes

Flash!

Flash Fiction, first published at http://flash-frontier.com/


An Aphonic Discourse
Silence screams an awkward glance over its shoulder to someone else who might be listening: the voyeur behind the musty drapes. I smell of those drapes, I smell sadly of their terrifying stories. I look under rugs of matted hair and insects for a trapdoor out of here. If it was a matter of communication it’d be easy, but the more said the less heeded. Skin and bones of sentences wilt lamely where they should stand proudly singing, freed of fat. Conversation is no bird tonight.

Hayley rocks on aching feet, stirs cubed beef into thick sauce, waits for her husband to come home.

Panic sets in. Peristalsis forces words to the surface. They hurt: the difficulty of their conception; their birth. Take them, sculpt them into what you will.

Unseemly custard-yellow foam innards spill through the oven mitt’s floral cotton casing into the pristine kitchen – threaten to overflow into the pot, spoiling the meal.

I imagine a time when my speech is sea and surges with regard for neither sand nor stone. Each lofty crest releases the finest misty nuance, brushes your face with meaning. Flowing from my lips, cold and thinly layered, water on a desert skin.

Unwelcome splinters of images of Brad cause her to flinch.

Your clothes I hate, your scent I hate, everything I hate. Love you? I can never love you.

Hayley vigorously attacks the coagulating mixture with a shallow steel spoon, her blue-black arm stirring in bruised, ever-decreasing, claustrophobic circles.

Framed Excerpt.

Framed Excerpt.

Ninety-nine.

From the collection '8 poems about me and you'.

Ninety-nine

of the infinite number of ways I might die

the spectre whose shape fills my deathly dull days

the ritual I'm drawn to despite what I've said

my stoic assertion 'I'm fine on my own'

my penchant for wishing to leave with a bang

involves only me warm in sun on my bed 

a view with soft sleep and no pain 

and the touch of another (i'll take it all back)

to not be alone at the end.

Teresa.

... "I know writers don't like to talk about their projects until they're finished. Put to bed... isn't that how you say it?" William blushed and felt a prickle of sweat in the small of his back. What did she look like asleep he wondered? "So I won't be nosy as to what it's about. Unless you'd like to share?" She raised her immaculately tapered eyebrows. They wriggled almost into the shape of an italicised question mark. A mocking tone; or Teresa was genuinely interested. He couldn't tell. Her eyes gave nothing away, were like glass buttons. And that innuendo, what's that all about?  He didn't dare answer his own thought in case he was wrong...

Experience.

The woman extended her lithe hand and gently clasped his swollen palm. She held it against her cheek. 'We're all dying,' she said, 'some more slowly than others.'  'The next person you see', I displayed to the man in a frenzy of swirling green neon letters, 'tell them that I asked you to remember and relay this episode so that you at least have a shared experience. I know how lonely it can get.'

Reflection.

He sampled the future in echoes of the past, made are were, before is even was.

He transgressed, then transgressed again. He overslept, shamefully overslept, his world reduced to the space between two sheets. Unsustainable, unacceptable as an adult. Frequently achieved. 

He did a wonderful impersonation of a reasonable man.

His mouth was a crooked scar on a plump face.

Lopsided and tightly incised. Shaving, he looked sullenly into his reflection, then cast his eyes down to the basin. The water was black, which is as natural a colour for water as any other. His mood was similarly dark, a tint so familiar, so frequently applied as to become its natural tone too. He longed for a lightness.

Read.

The book I picked up and found my Self in read thus:

I cannot be certain how long I stood in the same place, here on ice, in stasis, waiting for instructions on how to tame the words that flew from me and create with them a narrative of some reliability. Most likely it was squezzillion times infinity. I felt the urge to go and do things. I had the words and language surging crazily around me leaving neon green vapour trails, but they never seemed to form into a coherent and vital plot. I began to hallucinate. The moon waxed and waned on numerous occasions, which means something in your world, but was out of sync with nature and the fundamentals of time in mine.

Beginnings.

...Before I was born, people did not know who I was.

My conception was a work of art. My father had died only an hour prior, but his spermatozoa had the presence of mind to continue his work. Abstract Expressionism maybe, like the 'white-writing' of Mark Tobey or the painterly application of Jackson Pollock. Hundreds of intricate strokes that helped describe my form. An asemic continuum if you will. (And you must!) 

My birth was similarly a creation of fine art. My Mother had been a blank canvas until I was writ large upon her, and sadly, after months of incubating a life's work, she died delivering her masterpiece. I was extracted from my amniotic sanctuary 6 weeks prematurely. An over-proofed yet somehow under-edited baby boy.

Cover.

Work in progress of the cover for my yet to be published unauthorised autobiography, The Ghostwriter in the Machine.

Burn.

After 20 years of marriage Brad hardly engaged his wife in anything more  complex than the rituals of a comfortable friendship. He and Hayley seldom fought, and it seemed to her that Brad was tired and damp, and couldn’t become incendiary even if he tried. In fact Brad was something of a peacemaker between her and Verity. He detested the fuse of conflict that mother and daughter were able to light, burn fiercely and then extinguish, as if he were afraid that it may get out of control and that things said out loud might burn the family unit and cause it to disintegrate.

Colour Plate.

Psyngularity.

Plastic people

with plastic souls

are more complex than you imagine.

Story.

Newly published short story available for download at:


http://bit.ly/xarDzc


Download it. Read it. Go on.

Crunching.

He'd begun to feel a dislocation from everything that had felt familiar and pleasant. Simple conversations were now crunching and stressful; he was missing a beat. Did others recognise this in him? Did they too feel this way and it was life marching naturally forwards. Age letting us know that age mattered. Were they observing and commenting on how out of step he was or was this paranoia a symptom of his state?

Sale.

there's a garage sale in a seaside town

this Saturday, 7am start, NOT BEFORE!

plenty of bric-a-brac:

candlewick bedspread, books, dining table and 5 chairs 

(one missing – don't know what happened to it),

tools, clothes, an old television (still goes)
a telescope, hammock, map of the coast,

a birdcage, briefcase, electric lawnmower,

some pick-up-sticks and a deck of cards (complete!).

little will sell;

the buying happens over the road 
at the new red shed –

where guaranteed warranties 
are as cheap as chips.

but never mind! 

the locals still 
will come along

to natter, to chat,

to complain a bit 

about this and that;

(price of milk, price of fuel, price of progress).

"sub-divison up the way's coming along at a rate of knots,"

they'll say, 

one judgmental eye 
on the bright concrete driveway 

snaking behind
the bulldozed section past 

'weatherboard' (kitset) houses

blocking the sea, the horizon, the view 

beyond tables laden with 40 years 

of domestic history,
and one judgmental eye 
on the overpriced 
used cutlery.

Instinct.

Memory at 1 day old sounds implausible, but it was so for me. Even if you have now forgotten incidents of that time, at that moment you would remember from second to second. Otherwise you would not learn. Some instinctual and automated responses are built-in, like breathing, crying when hungry, fear of harm; along with these are memories that teach us to shape external influences for a desired response. I just happen to have excellent recall. Some do. This is both a curse and a blessing. The detail of my first breath is as graphically disturbing to me now as that of my first word. That word was 'Help'. Besides, the evidence shows that even if we can't process meaning, our brain is conscious. It remains conscious for up to 30s after decapitation; it may even have happened already. This could be the last sentence you...

Aphonic.

They say he is a closed book. He’d say, if he could, that he is devoid of Words and Language. People attempt to prise him open; to study his contents for fragments of meaning; to read him and know what makes him so. But he knows he’s an authorial fraud; his pages are empty, his contents non-existent. Life is narrated for him; writes itself, it seems. He crafts no Words and Language of his own. He is an impostor in another’s text. I ask him, ‘Does this mean anything to you or is it all just words? This poetic prose pared to lean syntax, the satisfied sigh of the last line, the simple beauty of the story – is it soundless or does it speak to you? He does not reply.

Fame.

Mine was a symptom of a larger malaise. The vast loneliness of humankind produces an endless longing to be heard. An individual's obsession with their perceived birthright to be lauded, and granted 15 minutes of fame, is merely a lament out loud. Everyone always striving to give a 'shout out'. Look at me! Listen to me! A desperate plea for someone, anyone out there listening for their call, ready to hear them, admire them, attest to their existence. For silence is emptiness, is death. I needed to feel again to be inspired, to be exhausted, or I may as well be dead.

Asemic continuum.

Resolution.

My 2012 resolution is to consistently post an entry on this blog each day, for one day only, starting Jan 6th. After that, it will be random as per all years prior. 


** Update: I have achieved this and am content. 2012 is looking like a breeze would look if you could see it.