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Quell

October 13, 2010 in Q

By Emilie Collyer


“So Harold, how are things with you today?”

As usual, Harold’s gaze was directed to the patch of light on the grey carpet. Most days Clara snapped him out of this anti-social habit. Some days, when she was feeling soft, she let it pass. He was a man much weighed down by life.

“Quell, thank you,” said Harold on this day. “Everything is quell.” As he spoke, he raised his eyes to meet Clara’s with a quiet confidence.

Clara cleared her throat.

“Harold, you know that quell is not the right word for this context don’t you. What word do you think you really mean to say?”

“I mean to say that things are quell. I am feeling quite as quell as I ever have and I want to thank you, Doctor, most sincerely, for helping me become so quell!” Harold’s cheeks flushed red with excitement.

The clock ticked gently and from outside Clara could hear the call of nesting magpies. Such a beautiful song for such a violent bird.

Clara cleared her throat again, flexing her fingers around the cool surface of her fountain pen.

“Now Harold, let’s try that again. So, how are you today?”

The afternoon sun danced on Harold’s silver hair as he lifted his face, stretched out his arms and smiled the broadest of smiles.

“I am most magnificently quell!”

This outburst done, silence hung heavy in the room. Clara spoke.

“It’s swell you moron! Do you hear me, You’re swell. Swell. Swell! Repeat after me. I am swell. I am swell! Come on Harold.”

Harold’s lips twitched and he glanced towards the door. His eyebrows furrowed and his tongue thickened as he tried to hang onto the magical word in his mouth. But Clara was strong and beautiful in her anger and it was only through her good work that he had come so far.

So in spite of every quell ounce of his being, and at odds with the quell confidence that had brought him to this session today – with the intention of saying good-bye, farewell and thanks to Doctor Clara – Harold forced his tongue to the roof of his mouth and pushed out the word.

“Swell,” he whispered.  “I am swell. I am swell.”

“Pardon Harold? I can’t hear you very well.”

“Swell! I am swell! I am swell!”

Some forty-five minutes later the door to Clara’s office opened and Harold exited, a swell, broken man.

“Excellent work today Harold. Things are coming along very nicely. See you next week!” Clara waved her bright, chirpy wave.

And Harold stepped out in the street, eyes to the pavement, muttering his way into the spring afternoon.

“I am swell. I am swell. I am swell.”

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Rub

June 2, 2010 in R

By Emilie Collyer

‘Bald soccer players are fun.’

They laughed, the two of them. They always laughed. It was Dan who usually said the things to make them laugh. But now and then Toddy would make the effort.

Dan could often tell when Toddy had been sitting thinking up a funny line to say. Toddy would go quiet and when Dan looked over at him, he had a distant, slightly worried look in his eyes. When Dan could see that Toddy had been trying extra hard to come up with a joke or a funny line, he would laugh even louder and more heartily than usual.

On this occasion, Toddy was so encouraged that he kept going.

‘It’s like you could rub their head for good luck.’

Dan laughed but the words ‘rub’ and ‘head’ got inside his mind and all he could see was a swaying pink penis, Toddy rubbing the end of it, the giant penis getting bigger and bigger while Toddy laughed and laughed.

Dan stopped laughing abruptly, a tight bulge pressing against his jeans. Glad he was wearing Levis and not grey trackies.

‘Heads mate. Plural. It’d be heads, not head.’ Dan said this with flat authority. ‘More than one. Think about it.’

The tiny colourful people ran around on the screen and the gas heater buzzed. Toddy nodded, slowly deflating. No-one was scoring any goals.

‘Another beer mate?’ Toddy asked.

‘Yes mate,’ Dan replied.

Toddy left the room and things went back to normal.

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Crispy

June 1, 2010 in C

By Emilie Collyer


‘I hear she squeals.’

‘She would. Bush pig mate.’

Grant and Darren were sitting up late, muttering around the campfire.

Problem was, if I could hear them from my tent, Simon and Debbie could probably hear them too. Simon was a sweet guy but he had trouble getting laid. His new girlfriend Debbie was big news. I hadn’t met her yet because they’d arrived after I went to bed.

I stumbled out of my sleep daze and whispered to them to shut up.

‘Have you seen her Lou?’ Darren asked.

‘I don’t care what she looks like. You can’t talk about women like that.’

They shrugged. I slept badly.

I got up early to see Debbie crouched over the fire, wearing a black fleece hoodie. It was autumn, clear, beautiful and cold.

‘Something smells good. Sorry about those idiots. Did they keep you awake? Crapping on. Yum. Bacon.’

Debbie turned around. The hood fell back from her head. Her round, pink snout glistened in the dawn light. There was nothing cooking. No breakfast.

‘Sorry,’ I stuttered. ‘Um …’

Her black eyes spoke of loneliness and wisdom. It was a sweet, transfixing moment. I wanted it to last. But her little pink arms were slowly crisping over the remnants of last night’s fire.

‘Your …’ I pointed, awkwardly.

She snapped them back inside her hoodie and scurried off into the tent. The gentle thudding of tiny trotters echoed throughout the waking valley.

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Observe

January 26, 2010 in O

By Emilie Collyer

At a certain time each day, there is no shadow cast on the fence. The tree stands alone, directly beneath the sky high sun. It is proud.

And the gardener, at a certain time each day that he is here, stands before the tree in stillness. I can see by the alert frame of his shoulders that he is in some kind of reverie. He does not know that I watch him from the study window.

“Got to get rid of it babe,” my husband calls me babe. I do not approve but it is not my role to change in him what come naturally. “Before it gets too big. Christ, it’s already too big. Bloody dangerous. Strong wind, it’d smash right through the back wing.”

He is right, the back wing (as my husband calls it) is where my study is located. And were that tree to fall, it would no doubt do severe damage.

The gardener needs to get help in. It is too big a job for one man. I watch from the window as the three fellows do their work. The chainsaw whines and clouds of tree dust fill the air.

At the end of the day, the gardener stands to survey their labour. His posture is as erect as ever. And yet, I can see, by the slope of his shoulders, that hope has somehow left his body.

I ask my husband to fix a new work room for me, at the front of the house, where I can gaze out onto the lively street below.

We shut up the back wing of the house, using it only for storage.

There is nothing constant from the front window, on which to fix my eye. I simply follow the changing seasons, the shifting traffic of passers by. The shadows shift and change.

The gardener no longer winks at me as I had him his weekly cheque. His work remains steady, nothing overt in his practice changes. And yet slowly, surely, around us, the garden begins to die.

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Glimmer

January 25, 2010 in G

By Emilie Collyer

Tess stepped out of the Transport and switched off all power.

She enjoyed the darkness now. In fact, once she surrendered to the absolute nothingness, the dark side of the moon had proved to be a wondrous place. She was glad she had accepted the posting.

Each week, thousands of tonnes of electronic and mechanical detritus arrived from Earth. Her job was complex, but not complicated. Once she had the sequence down, she could pretty much operate the gigantic silos on automatic.

She grew to love the grinding rhythm of the compacters at work, crushing the rubbish into a fine powder before it was treated to remove all toxins and then released, harmless, to float out into the stratosphere.

When not on duty she liked to explore and that was how she had ended up finding that place of total blackness and silence – over on the dark side.

Where today, she stepped further than usual, her skin drinking in the velvet softness, her eyes in the blissful state where she could not tell if they were opened or closed.

Until suddenly, terror. Out of nowhere, interrupting her blackness, a glimmer of light. It flickered, intermittent, a faint glow catching the corner of her eye. She had never been so frightened. Nor so compelled. Treading softly, Tess followed the light to its source.

A solitary television set perched in the centre of one of the surface craters. She sat down, now mesmerized, as re-runs of 1960s comedy shows played. Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, F-Troop. Most shows she did not know, but all of them filled her with delight.

She sat, transfixed, and much time passed, so much so that she lost all memory of where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. This, here, was all she needed. This, now, would always be enough.

A

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