Eltham Writers

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Midnight

Monty Goode was a book-seller by trade but on weekends he dabbled in art. The garden he lovingly nurtured with his partner, Arthur, was full of his efforts.There were twenty-eight mini clay Buddhas he had created one Christmas, all nestled amongst the Frangipanis, a mosaic bird bath featuring pieces of a china plate he had hurled at Arthur one night, and a series of plaster of Paris marsupials that stood together, a little sadly, after having sagged in the rain.
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Midnight

Midnight. That’s when they leave. Warm in her small black Golf, Laura checked her watch. Eleven thirty. She turned the radio up. ABC RN babbled on. She leaned back in her seat. The moon hung above the gumtrees—yellow tonight, like a welcoming light, the round one above a door to some other suburban life.  read more

Millie

The last time I saw Millie he was heading for the Left Bank. We had met for a cognac and an argument – the usual affair although so less frequent these days. We said our goodbyes across the road from the cafe and then I watched him walk quickly away, his jittery gait marking him out in the crowd. I never thought the back of his shabby, long brown coat would be the last I would see of my dear friend.
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Paris

Meaghan could just spot the Eiffel Tower from where she sat in the café. Framed neatly between the ornate gold lettering on the window, it symbolised everything she was feeling about everything right now — a huge brutalist dagger stabbing straight into the soul of the universe. Seriously, what prick brings his fiancee of two years to Paris, the rumoured city of love, to introduce her to his lover of six months? She shook her head as she thought back to the introduction to his “newer, hotter version of her”. His words. She thought of the two of them, entwined passionately, bare skin, writhing together, impaled on the tip of the Eiffel Tower after a tandem naked skydive goes horribly wrong. Meaghan smiled slightly for the first time in a week.

And this was the problem, everything here reminded her of them. Coffee was what she was drinking when the introduction to Mélanie had been made. The woman walking past the café in a béret? Mélanie surely wore one. The croissant in front of her? God knows what the two of them had got up to with croissants behind her back. As for that baguette the waiter has handing across the counter to that sylph…

It dawned on Meaghan that the café had gone quiet, pin drop quiet. She looked around at everyone staring at her — the mother holding her baby tight, the business man holding his briefcase like a shield, the waiter nervously flicking his eyes between her face and her croissant. She looked down at it to see that she had turned her freshly strawberry jammed pastry into something that would have seasoned homicide detectives rushing out for fresh air. Carefully placing the knife back on the table, Meaghan mumbled a “Merci, mon petite derrière” in what she believed was an apology. The café began to return to an appropriate level of hubbub around her as the world began to swim behind a upwelling of tears.

As the rainstorm of self pity began to burst, a face popped into view, nose almost touching hers. “Man, oui? Heartbreak?” Meaghan nodded gently, not wishing for the tears to start pouring out. The crockery rattled as the table was slapped with a resounding “Ha!!” In the time it took to for Meaghan to sweep a few escapee tears from her face, a whirlwind had deposited a figure of elderly elegance and two decadently size glasses filled with a dark drink to her table.

A hand extended languidly across the table, hovering there until Meaghan worked out it was to be taken in hers. The hand’s owner introduced herself, “Camille. Now, drink up. Heartbreak requires anesthésique in the near term, détermination in the long.” Camille retracted her hand and picked up her glass, motioning for Meaghan to do the same. With a “à la tienne!”, Camille knocked back the drink. Meaghan went to do the same and nearly choked as the brandy hit the back of her throat. Not wanting to look like she couldn’t keep up with Camille, Meaghan managed to get it all down. Languid was a now look she could go for.

The waiter stepped in, refilled their glasses, and in a mixture of french and english and floating waves of her hands, Camille began to run through what Meaghan assumed were her heartbreaks. From Jean to Oliver, Dominique through to Jacques by way of Serge, each accompanied either by a shot of brandy, a snort of derision, or a sigh of regret. Cyrano, Christian, Blaise, maybe back to Dominique, maybe a different Dominique. Aramis, Anton, Antoinette, Alexandre; Meaghan thought she was preparing to make her way through the alphabet. The brandies continued on, accompanied with more pastries, tears, cheeses, laughter, and a hearty stew. The hours passed as Camille went though them all, finally completing the catalogue as the sun set behind the Eiffel tower.

In the quiet then descended between them, Camille looked at Meaghan, “Et vous?”

With a heart fortified with brandy, Meaghan told Camille about her one and only heartbreak, her singular love, her fiancee bringing her to Paris only for him to introduce her to his lover. Camille smiled at her, “You’re still young, more time for heartbreak. Go, sleep, go risk your heart some more.”

Meaghan sat silently, digesting Camille’s advice. The moment didn’t last long as Camille started waving her hands at her. “Shoo, go. Don’t waste time. Break hearts, yours, theirs.”

Meaghan thanked Camille for the anesthésique, the stories, the company, and walked out into the street. Wavering as she walked, she made her way back to her Airbnb and collapsed on the couch. Sleep came quick for the first time since Mélanie was introduced. A deep, dreamless sleep of the very, very brandied.

Waking the next morning, Meaghan was hungover, but strangely clear headed. She showered, donned her sunglasses, and thought about toast. Instead, a cup of coffee was brewed and she sat on the couch, suddenly single, migraine at the ready, and perhaps with a new purpose in life, she let the morning sun warm her up. A thought bubbled into her head, she smiled a wicked smile, and pulled her iPad close. A quick search, a quicker purchase, and a quick transfer of funds from their joint account into her brand spanking new solo one, Meaghan was ready to text an old crush.

A few moments later, none the wiser to his new financial predicament, Meaghan’s ex’s phone chimed. An email, a gift from Meaghan. He showed it to Mélanie, who read it out loud. Let’s move on, it read, enjoy your time together. You should have an adventure, it continued, on me. Skydiving, you’ll enjoy it — to a point.

Mr Hoto

Mr Hoto looked out the car window and sighed. The smog was too thick to see through again. His vacancy light would not be turned on today.
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Daemon

The peal of the village church bells just managed to catch Phoebe’s hearing. She paused on the rough track as she heard them, counting out the rings for five in the afternoon. She had one foot still in the sunlight, one just inside the shadow of the forest. She waited as the pealing faintly permeated throughout the valley — bouncing off the stone walls, echoing off the sheep, before being absorbed whole into the massive oaks that made up the forest. They sucked up the ringing, forced it down into the soil, and gave none of it back. Phoebe looked up at the nearest tree, watching it for the slightest sign that it recognised the calling out of the church below. It stood, guarding the entrance to the forest, impassive to the world. It failed to stir.

Phoebe took that as a sign. Or maybe a lack of a sign. Maybe both. She’d been looking for signs in everything the last few days. The rooster crowing at dawn, that was a sign. A predictable one for sure, but a sign nonetheless. The next door neighbours cow facing in the opposite direction to most of the other cows in the village. That was a sign. An inscrutable sign that one. But again, a sign. It didn’t particularly matter what the signs were, they were all pointing in favour of Phoebe’s plan.

She took a quick swig of water, readjusted her pack, and stepped fully into the shadow of the forest. The path here was fairly even, well trod by gatherers and the occasional hunter as it began to weave its way through the trunks. Any sounds of the village were filtered out as the forest soaked it all up. She could hear her breathing as she went, the odd trill of birds up high in the canopy, her footfalls on the path, but that was all. She continued on.

The light in the forest slowly went from a bright jade through to a deep emerald as she went, the path slowly getting worse as she reached the limits of where the hunters and the the gatherers normally went. Phoebe followed the path as it narrowed and thinned until it became barely a thread of a track, marked only by stones placed carefully. The green around her slowly faded away as she continued on, the sun having set and the full moon now rising above the forest. The trilling had stopped and had been replaced by other noises, scurrying in the undergrowth, a growl here and there. Phoebe wasn’t concerned. The creatures of the forest had long learnt to steer clear of anyone walking this path this deep in the forest.

Phoebe reached the rock shaped humorously like a turnip and stopped. She looked carefully around her. From here she needed to take the alternate path, not the one marked by her ancestors, but the other path; the one the forest had marked out. She shaded her eyes from the light of the moon and before long she could see the line of glowing mushrooms leading off to her left, deeper into the forest. A quick swig and a readjustment, and she followed the mushrooms deeper in.

The trail of mushrooms took Phoebe around a small hillock before bringing her out into a clearing ringed with the glowing mushrooms. She sat on a tree stump just outside the ring and rummaged through her pack. Munching on an apple she found in there, she pulled out what she would need next – a thin rope and an axe.

The apple core was tossed out of the clearing and she set to work. Tying one end of the rope to the stump that she had been sitting on, Phoebe tossed the other end over a thin tree and bent it down to her. She tied a knot there, part way along the rope, and taking the free end of the rope and her axe, made her way into the centre of the clearing. She gave the rope a quick pull and her knots held. She took this as a sign. A sign the she could tie knots well. Phoebe looked up to the moon and waited, listening carefully, ignoring the sounds of the forest around her, and as the moon reached its highest point in the night sky, she heard it.

“Join us.”

Phoebe could just make the voice out from under the earth. It was expected. She stood still and silent and waited.

“Join us over here.”

Phoebe could hear footsteps now, just beneath where she stood. She could hear them walking in circles, trying to find her, pausing now and then as they quietly called out to her.

“Join us. Join her.”

Phoebe finished tying a small noose in the end of the rope and waited, listening to the footsteps as they closed in on her. She felt them as the stopped just below her, boot to boot. Phoebe waited. She could her the rustle of clothing, that fine rustle of silk, as the creature beneath her crouched down. She could hear the dirt begin to move as a hand began to push its way though the earth beneath.

“Join …”

As the creatures fingertips broke the surface, Phoebe pounced. She shifted her footings and plunged her hands and the noose through the earth, dropping to her knees to force them through. Slipping the noose over the creatures feet from below, she stood up again to bring her hands back into her world, making the noose tight as she did. Phoebe sprinted toward the tree stump she tied the rope to before, pulling the axe from her belt as she did. The tree that the rope and been thrown over shook violently as the rope whipped and pulled. Phoebe took that as a sign that she had caught the bastard and brought her axe down hard on the tree stump, severing the rope.

The bent tree straightened up, causing an explosion of earth from the centre of the mushroom ring as it pulled her into the world the creature from beneath. Phoebe looked at the creature dangling now from the tree, her knots holding fast as it struggled, its fine blue and gold silken robes whipping around as it tried to free itself, its gossamer wings beating out a hurricane as it tried to get them clear, the creature screaming threats to shred the one that did this.

Phoebe stalked up the fairy with her axe and held the iron blade just shy of its face.

“Don’t move, or I’ll push this iron through you slowly. Where. is. my. sister?”

My Name Isn’t Solstice

Sally always hated the winter bonfire.

“Solstice!” her mother shouted from the other side of the house. “Have you got your robe?! And your coat? And your boots? It’ll be cold out.”

“I’m not going,” said Sally. “And it’s Sally, not Solstice. Solstice is a made up, crappy name.”

“What?” her mother, Griselda, was at the bedroom door now. “what did you say?”

“I said I hate the name Solstice. I get teased about it at school. The other kids say it must be the name of a dishwashing detergent. You can call me Sally from now on.”

Sally swallowed. It was not like her to defy her mother, who tended to be overwhelming. But she was 16, and she sensed the time had come.

Griselda was, for once, lost for words for a bit, then found her voice. “Why would you want an everyday, boring name that everyone else has? Do you want to be a sheep? Solstice means….”

“Yes, yes, I was conceived on the shortest day of the year,” said Sally, in a monotone. “And I should be blessed with my individuality bestowed on me….but Mum, I hate it.”

Sally paused for a minute to gather her courage. “And…..and I don’t want to go to the bonfire.”

Griselda, dressed in a tie dyed heavy long green dress, black boots and a hippy knitted hat that tamped down her long purple hair, just stared at Sally, her black eyes boring into Sally’s in the usual intimidating way.

The look of disbelief rapidly dissolved into anger, like a bank of blackening clouds rolling across the sky.

“You WILL come to the solstice,” said Griselda, her voice rising alarmingly, taking steps towards Sally, who was sitting on her bed, her back to the wall. “It’s important to me, to your brother Element and to Bronson….”

“I hate Bronson. That’s a shit name too,” said Sally, her own anger bubbling up alarmingly. “He’s a bully and a shit. How long have you been seeing him now? He’s not my Dad. And his real name is Brian. And your real name is Nicole.”

“Solstice, this is NOT a conversation for right now,” said Griselda, her teeth now gritted, and her fists closed at her sides. “We are going to go to that bonfire. We are going to dance. We are going to chant….”

“….and smoke a lot of weed and drink a lot of goon….’’ Said Sally, rather nastily, she knew, but she also felt a shot of joy. “You know it’s just a crock of shit, all that hippy bullshit, Mum.”

“Do NOT call me Mum!!! It’s Griselda……

“Nan told me it’s a made up name. Your real name is Nicole Irene Cockburn. Pronounced Coburn. You went to a Catholic school. Nan says you’re a drug addict. I want to go and live with Nan.”

Griselda strode across the room and held her hand up as if to slap Sally. She looked like it was a supreme effort to resist. Griselda dropped her hand, hard against her own thigh. She grabbed Sally’s arm and pulled on it. Sally resisted, and Griselda tried to drag her out of the room.

“F–k OFF Mum.”

“Come on. Bronson’s getting the car ready,” said Griselda. “I’m getting Element from his room.”

“Element doesn’t want to come, either….MUM. That’s what I’m calling you now. And if you don’t split up from that f–kwit Branson, who groped me last week, by the way, in the lounge room, I’m definitely going to stay with Nan. Nan’s already said she’s filled out the forms to send to child protection. I told her about all the enemas, the colonscopies, the dope you guys smoke, the goon, the times you pulled me out of school to do tie dying and forest bathing, the witch meetings we had to go to….’’

“Wash your mouth out, Solstice. I am not a witch. I will NOT have you talking like that. Come on, let’s go to the bonfire. It’s winter solstice! There’ll be kale chips! And kombucha!”

“It’s Sally, Mum. My name is Sally! Sorry but I can’t take it anymore. Nan told me that when you were 16, you ran away from home. You couldn’t hack Nan and Pop’s straight lifestyle so you ran off to a commune with your boyfriend Genesis. Whose real name was Brad, from next door.’’

“So consider this my running away. I want to go to school. Go to uni. Get a good job in finance. Earn a lot of money and live in the suburbs. Drink wine and gin and tonics. Have children and …and…. Get them vaccinated. And they’ll call me Mum, not some crappy made up shit name like Solstice…..’’

Sally was sobbing now, prostrate on the bed.

Griselda sighed loudly, and groaned. She turned on her heel, left the room and slammed the door.

Bronson was hanging around in the living room, in his tattered robes, his hair and beard long, his feet bare. In one hand was a lit spliff, and he dragged on it, not concerned by Griselda’s agitated state.

“Hey babe,” he said, as though he’d just woken up, which he probably had.

“What’s up?”

“Eh!” sighed Griselda, loudly. “Solstice cracked the shits over the bonfire, I think we’ll have to go without her. She was yankin’ my chain, threatening to run of and be a square. She’s at that age. I was a shit, too at that age.”

“yeah babe”: said Bronson, giving Griselda a kiss and stroking her arm. “She’s a teenager, man, she’ll be OK.”

And with that, they rounded up Element, and headed off to their friends’ farm to the bonfire, and where Element, being 10, was still happy to run around with his friends, scare the chickens and goats and chuck all sorts of stuff into the fire.

Solstice

She kissed his head a thousand times but he did not stir from his deep, adolescent sleep. The mother in her wanted to shake him awake and make sure he understood every possible thing. But somehow, she managed to stand back and more like a guardian angel, trust that her love would flow into his dreams.
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Pie

“Here in the Manangadang Valley we value tradition and authenticity above all else. Our methods and ingredients date back hundreds of years – well our ingredients don’t. They come up on a truck every Tuesday and Saturday from Bellingary. But the way we deal with them draws on ancient methods, honed by generations from all over the Valley and still standing up to scrutiny today.
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This Year’s Hellhound

Vilstrax’s wings ruffled slightly as the two soggy tennis balls and half of a well-chewed brick rolled to a stop at her boots. She glared up at Kobal, her eyes glowing red in the pre-dawn mists.

“What in the name of all that is unholy is that thing?”

Kobal’s leathery chest puffed out with pride.

“This year’s hellhound, master. I stitched it together myself.”

“It’s an abomination.”

“Thank you, master. I’m also quite pleased with this year’s creation.”

Vilstrax closed her eyes and thought happy thoughts while she counted to ten — spit roasted unicorn, the pleasant aroma of brimstone, over boiled Jerusalem artichokes on toast — before again regarding the creature that Kobal had brought before her.

“And what, prey tell, did you stitch this years effort out of?”

“Ah, master,” replied Kobal, giving one of the hellhounds three heads a scratch under the chin. “After reviewing what went wrong last year, and the issues with the year before that, I went with a much more stable breed this year.”

Vilstrax thought back to the year before last. Kobal had stitched together the hellhound from two cocker spaniels and a dachshund. It had not been a creature that inspired fear in the general population. Indeed, one of the smaller humans tried to adopt it. Last year’s hellhound, Vilstrax had to admit, had potential. Kobal had stitched it together out of three kelpies. It was fast, liked to chase and bite its prey, and lasted about four minutes until it tried to chase five rabbits at once. Even as a demon responsible for the unspeakable torment of humans, Vilstrax still internally winced at the memory of that mess. She couldn’t blame Kobal for playing it safe this year, but still, Hell has standards.

“Kobal, what did you use?”

“Labradoodles, master. Quite popular and very intelligent. Hypo-allergenic, too.“ Kobal gave the hellhound a good scratching under the ears. ”Aren’t you a smart girls, yes you are.”

Vilstrax regarded the brick at her feet. Perhaps using Kobal as a baseline, then yes, the hellhound was a smart girls. This was going to be a long ritual, fortunately it was a long night. Best to get on with it.

“Kobal, release the hellhound!”

Kobal squatted down as best as his skeletal frame would allow. He whispered something into each of the hellhounds ears, their eyes lighting up a dull glowing orange as they received their instructions. Finishing, Kobal stood and gave the hellhound room as it began to sniff the air, its three majestically curly heads working in unison as it triangulated an elusive scent. It wasn’t long before the three heads were in agreement and this year’s hellhound took off in pursuit of its quarry.

Kobal and Vilstrax took off after the hellhound. She wasn’t sure what it was hunting other than a human of questionable quality, but the hellhound had locked onto something. It made its way down the small street that ran through the small village that they had selected for this years ritual, sniffing the ground and the air and the bit in between as it went, following the invisible trail that had been left behind. Eventually the hellhound slowed and began following a path up to one of the houses. Vilstrax and Kobal followed it at watched as it began pawing at the door, determined to go in. Vilstrax grinned a grin of too many needle-like teeth as she unsheathed her sword. Kobal pulled the hellhound back from the door as Vilstrax strode up to it, her sword lighting up in flames as she did so. She barely broke her stride as she kicked the door clear off its hinges.

The hellhound rushed into the house, snagging a jacket on on of its heads as it did so. It bounded up the stairs in a clatter as it dragged the coat rack, four coats, and an umbrella as it homed in on its prey. Vilstrax and Kobal followed, the light from Vilstrax’s sword illuminating the way. At the top of the stairs, they found the hellhound scratching away at a door and again, the door flew inwards as Vilstrax barged through.

The hellhound bounded onto the bed within and began nudging and slobbering on the sleeping occupant who awoke to a three headed hound and a face with more teeth than necessary grinning at him. Before he could scream, Vilstrax had the suddenly awake human by the throat and lifted him up until his hair brushed the ceiling. The hellhound began chewing his pillow.

“Kobal, what is this human most foul guilty of?”

Kobal sniffed the human. “Murder, master.” A quick lick of the humans leg, “The murder of millions, master. The worst of the murderers in this village.”

Vilstrax regarded the human in her grasp. It didn’t look like a warrior, a slayer of millions. She looked around the bedroom. She’d been in the bedrooms of those who had slayed millions. This was not one of those. Plus, surely if there had been a murderer of millions up here, she’d still be stuck down below sorting through the immigration paperwork.

“Kobal.”

“Yes, master?”

“What, praytell, is this human the murderer of millions of?”

With a fingernail the length of a breadknife, Kobal poked the human. “Yesterday he committed genocide, master. He stamped poke and he squished poke and he poisoned poke until there were no poke more poke left poke.”

Decapitated teddy bears, an ice cream van at a playground on a hot day that had no ice cream left but continued to play that damn music in to eternity. Vilstrax was rapidly running out of happy thoughts.

“Kobal, what did this human murder?”

“Those little tiny black creatures, master. That scurry across the earth. He poke murdered them.”

Vilstrax closed her eyes. When she opened them, the fire in them had gone out. She flicked her sword and the fire on that went out as well. She took in the havoc that the hellhound had caused in the bedroom, the pillows were destroyed and it had somehow tangled itself up in the doona. Its purpose finished, it was snoozing happily on most of the bed. She gently lowered the human back onto the bed beside the snoring hellhound, apologising profusely for disturbing his slumber and offering the hellhound as compensation.

“Kobal,”

“Yes, master?”

Vilstrax threw Kobal through the window just as the sun crested the horizon. He was dust before he the hit the ground. The sunlight shone on the curtains as a breeze gently billowed them, allowing fingers of light to play over Kilstrax’s form as it began to crumble.

“We’re fired.”

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