The Avian Rig Veda

Not much had changed in 50 years. Clea lay on the bed and watched the ceiling fan wobble, moving hot, humid air around the bedroom. The broken air conditioner lay on the floor next to the fly screen. From her balcony, the Malabar Coast stretched north and south with the tropical Kerala jungle running down…

The Axminster Interchange

From her designated seat in the dining room, Linda could see past Tanya’s blue rinse on Table Chizzlewick, that the Bougainville was only a week away from exploding in purple near the Garden of Memory, where the Dementia patients sat. The tables were named after Charles Dickens’ characters. Linda had sat at Table Pip for…

The Storm

I was still reading Batman comics and had just battled my way through Joseph Conrad’s, ‘Lord Jim’, when my mother married a dentist. Peter was 55, smoked Panatela cigars and was an officer in the navy during the war. On his 35’ wooden yacht, the Edie Rex, he still acted like one. I was 12….

Angels and the Fire

We fire up the truck to bury Matty. Christine and Kat in the cabin and me, Tug, Mop, Saccharine, Bruce and Special K, hanging off the back. Matty’s old heeler, Brew, stands on her back legs, looking over the cabin at the cane speeding by. Saccharine Tendulkar and me toss a coin to see who’ll…

The Inheritors

Sing with me darling wife and my little kinder surprises as our old car meanders on bald tyres back to the rental shack on the treeless side of town. Out bid again by the Inheritors. This is the 33rd Saturday house auction we’ve been to, surrounded by young, anxious bidders. We’ve been looking for three…

Waiting for Settlement

And another thing, I was walking down the road the other day and I smile at this young woman. She’s 17 or 18. Looked liked she fell from the top of the ugly tree and hit every branch with her face on the way down. But we’re all God’s creatures, know what I mean? Forgive…

The Deep End

It was Brenda Furbow’s retirement as the aqua aerobics instructor at Southpaw’s Gym and Pool, which saw Christine Bigalow hire a replacement who the aerobics patrons said debauched school girls and kicked Guide Dogs. Brenda had plans of her own. A series of strokes immobilised her drooling husband and with a deft stroke of the…

The Torch

Fifty green army reserve tents run in two parallel lines for 100 yards on a gentle hill surrounded by heavily wooded eucalyptus trees. The hill faces south and on a good day, when the morning mist lifts, the ocean glistens one inviting mile away. Every year the army reserve runs a bush camp to practice…

Leaf Blower Man

Leaf Blower Man’s a spry old bugger in his mid 70s who stands six foot in his slip-on shoes. He lives across the road in a second floor apartment with his wife, who’s the splitting image of Joan Didion in her late 60s, with a pixie face and steel grey page boy bob. Penny waves…

In the Forests of the Night

Charlotte stood behind the glass display counter as the erotic fantasies rolled through her head. Spring was coming and wedding rings were the hot ticket item at McKenna’s Jewellers. The diamond rings sparkled on black velvet mats in the display windows, as she arranged the tiny price tags. A man in his early 30s smiled…