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Train

October 3, 2011 in T

By Christopher Thomas 

 

The tremor transmitted up from the ground through the sturdy wooden chair to Casey’s warm thighs and buttocks roused him from the dead-end contemplation of a conversation with Winona that will never happen. A graceless stab of his hand silenced the drone and extinguished the phosphor light of the late news update discussion panel show thing he had been looking at without really watching and certainly without listening. He had moved too quickly and failed to divine what they had been talking about so he could pretend to himself he had been paying attention instead of dwelling on some unrealised opportunity and thus avoid the self-recrimination of what was a sensible bedtime on a week night for an adult with a nine-to-five desk job.

As the rhythm of railway bogies rattling across expansion joints started its crescendo Casey lifted his great frame upright and steered it down the hallway toward an ironic bedroom scene where nothing more climactic than a change of clothes would or had ever happened. His gaze passed over the sideboard: his wallet, house keys, car keys, portable media player which was now five years old and unable to support the latest audio file formats. It didn’t matter because he could listen to music sufficiently well in the old formats and surely the determining factor was the speaker in the equally outmoded earphones plugged into the superseded electronic gadget. It wasn’t even an issue because he didn’t love the music rather than the memories of better days it evoked and he didn’t need high fidelity equipment to achieve that when he could still be halted on his track by a tinny dress shop monophonic speaker leaking ‘Give Me a Reason to Love You’ by Portishead into an echoey mall arcade.

“I just want to be a woman” ran through his head as the hem of his nightshirt dropped to his ankles and he smiled briefly at the pyjama gender dichotomy of nightdresses cut to essentially the same pattern before his mind wandered onto the track of how he came to be on the verge of negotiating his way into the bed linen when he couldn’t recall ducking through the doorway or the freight train passing out of earshot.

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Moment

September 29, 2011 in M

By Christopher Thomas 

 

There was nothing.

So ‘nothing’ was there that even to say there was a ‘there’ for it to be at, and a ‘was’ for it to be in, is a careless and confusing exaggeration of the situation.

This situation went on forever; but as there was no ‘was’ in this situation, forever took no time at all. That was fortunate because it meant there wasn’t long to wait for something to happen.

When something did happen it was the first thing to ever happen – though a situation did precede it, that situation was nothing. In exactly the same way as zero precedes one, there was nothing before the first thing happened.

But afterwards, in just a moment, there was space and time and all those good things.

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Knight

September 20, 2011 in K

By Christopher Thomas 

 

“You are ever in my mind, as the sun is in the day; and, as the sun does mark the days, my heart does seek the very days to forge ahead, and reforge our company,” said Sir Percival bitter-sweetly.

“Aye!” cried Sir Lionel – his brother Sir Bors, the Finest Knight, agreed saying, “Aye, we may recreate the company, that the company may recreate.”

Then the King, Arthur Pendragon, spoke with his majestic voice, “We many, who are sorrowed in the parting, myself not one of the least, are as the willow in countenance. However, we all are greater than our sum, invested as we have become. Sewn are the seeds of our willowy analogue, upon the waters which flow and have flown, surely to reap the greater returns, upon your return.”

At his side Sir Gawain, the Maidens’ Knight, echoed, “Upon your return.”

Sir Ector de Maris joined the chorus, “Aye, cousins, upon your return!”

Ensorcelled by affirmations, Sir Bors dared suggest a tryst, “Mortally we cannot pause, declare a rendezvous, and relieve our anticipation.”

“Indeed,” the King, Arthur Pendragon, assented and continued, furthermore, to bless the entreaty, “an apple island.”

Sir Lancelot du Lac, the King’s most Trusted Knight, avowed, “The breaking of our company has seen my broken-hearted days pile up.”

Sir Galahad, Lancelot’s son, and at once the Purest Knight and the most Gallant Knight, put out a cheer, “Percival, you have given identity to own our dolorous state. Return anon and there will be apples for vinegar.”

“The blacksmith and the ironmonger,” sang Sir Ywain, with percussive accompaniment.

Ywain’s cousin, Sir Calogrenant, boasted, “I have a shiny new visor, but none of your sport to put it to.”

Sir Ector de Maris rejoined the chorus, “Aye, apples, upon your return!”

Sir Percival sighed outwardly, “Golly gosh,” and confessed, “I am besotted. We’re all girt by the pimbles, and equally all render the condition tolerable, as its circumference is thinned by our juxtaposition,” and saluted, “To apples!”

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Concussion

September 13, 2011 in C

By Christopher Thomas 

 

“You said I died.”

“I certainly did, sir. Head trauma from a motor vehicle accident. (Look at my finger now, sir.) The two in the other vehicle are on their way to R&I if they’re not there already. (Focus on my finger, sir.) You held on for nearly an hour before you passed over. (Now hold your head still and follow my finger with your eyes, sir.) Anyone else involved in the accident has either survived or was removed from the scene. (Very good, sir. Well done.)”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s entirely to be expected, sir. You died, which is outside your direct or indirect experience. Not only but also, you probably have a concussion that doesn’t help with grasping ontology. Sorry, sir, I mean, to be clear: you do have a concussion, and that probably doesn’t help with grasping ontology.”

“Did you save my life? Did you bring me back to life?”

“Yes and no, sir. As I said, you died. Nothing I could do about that, I wasn’t there, and if you hadn’t died we certainly wouldn’t be having this conversation now. However, once you had died I was able to prevent secondary complications. So, yes, I saved your life, but no, I did not bring you back to life. More accurately, I did not send you back, I kept you alive once you had passed over.

“So I’m not dead.”

“You are not dead, sir. You died, but just the once, so now I have the pleasure of your company here. Soon I’ll sign you over to Rehabilitation & Induction and the pleasure will be all theirs.”

“Is this the afterlife?”

“This is real life now, sir. Your forelife has ended and R&I are here to set you up for the real thing. Some people don’t cope well with the idea, sir, but the vast majority find the continued existence of other people they know have died to be quite convincing. So as soon as you’re patched up R&I will get in contact with some next of kin.”

“I died, and I’m still alive, but this is not the afterlife.”

“Please take care, sir. Some of the young people like to call this ‘Life 2.0’; there is no evidence of a ‘Life 3.0’ despite the obvious extrapolation. I did some good work this morning, I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

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Memories

September 9, 2011 in M

By Christopher Thomas 

 

Everybody was in the school production of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. By that I mean all my friends were in the production; and by that I mean we all auditioned and everybody who didn’t get cast was in the backstage crew. I was Scout Finch, which is probably why I remember it all so much more than anyone else.

Six months later Sigourney Trinh was reading the squad list for hockey. “Why aren’t you going to state trials?” she asked. “You’re the freak with eyes in the back of your head. How come they left you out?”

“I missed games at the start of the season for rehearsals, remember?”

“Yeah, so? I missed a game too ’cause of the play.” Sigourney was Mayella Ewell.

“But I missed three,” I said, “and we lost those three,” I muttered.

“I don’t remember that. Why did you miss three?” she scoffed, disbelieving.

“I was Scout.”

“Yeah, so?”

Six years later Marion Taylor was doing my makeup on the morning of my wedding. “This reminds me of ‘Mockingbird’, Mari,” I babbled. “You did my makeup then, too. I am so happy we’re still such friends after all this time.” I was feeling superb.

“What’s ‘Mockingbird’?” said Mari, pulling a face.

“‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, the play we did in high school,” I said (less than superbly).

“I wasn’t in the play,” she snorted.

“You did the makeup, I was Scout.”

“Who’s Scout?”

Have you ever had a conversation where someone has forgotten the events you are recalling, and they ask questions that imply it didn’t happen, and it sounds like they are trying to trick you, to make you contradict yourself, to prove you’re making it up?

No?

(Oh, wait. I see what you did there. Have we had this conversation before but I’ve forgotten so I’m behaving like it never happened rather than accepting you may have remembered something I didn’t and so you think we’re having one of those conversations right now?

No?)

So it’s just me then.

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Jealous

September 2, 2011 in J

By Christopher Thomas 

 

I did not know it at the time, but I fell in love with the stage when I was nine. I was taking jazz ballet classes which moved to the Royale Theatre for the holidays and then I was chosen for the school choral recital which also practiced at the Royale. For two months I spent four or five afternoons a week on the stage. Then jazz ballet moved back to the gymnasium and I was not chosen for the choir again. Two years later the Royale was demolished after a fire. I cried, once when I heard it on the news and again the first time I saw the vacant site, and I did not know why. I am glad I did not know I was in love back then.

When I say I love the stage I mean the space; not the audience or the spotlight or the applause. I love the sheer potential of what will happen there, based on what I know has happened there in that space, and on thousands of other stages, for thousands of years; that part of the whole which is more that the sum of its parts. I appreciate the sets, lights, costumes and makeup, scripts and choreography, and the other performers: they have great personalities – but it is different with the stage.

It is different with the people, too, of course; because they have their own loves so they know, or at least recognize it, in me. My husband gets jealous when I am performing, he is afraid he will lose me. Jack cannot bear to be backstage, waiting blindly for me to return. He also cannot bear to wait at home and, we now know, he cannot learn to cook, dance, sculpt or fight either. You can imagine how long it took for us to figure out what was going on. Now Jack watches from the audience. He prefers to sit near the front so as not to feel like a voyeur. People who remark mostly say it is romantic. I do not mind where he sits, I am not up here for the audience. Even if we are wrong, it has saved our marriage and we are quite proud of that, just between the two of us.

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Petrichor

August 29, 2011 in P

By Christopher Thomas 

 

A single drop of icy rain struck the back of his neck. The thrill felt as if he had arched his spine although he had barely flinched, his body was too shocked to know how to react. The transparent pink petrichor of the granite arrived in the same instant, borne on the wind rushing up the mountainside to greet the clouds piling up behind the range. This forgotten sensation, recalling memories from years gone by, cleared the fog from his mind.

As he turned to face the west more drops fell on his face and arms. The large cold splashes of aborted hailstones thumped onto the tray and roof of the nearby ute. The dusty ground stirred and the scent of wet granite was overlayed with slippery red clay and a trace of powdery blue ozone. Younger days came rushing back to his memory and he was caught for a moment between the gay abandon of childhood and the responsibility of the real world. He felt an urge to strip down to his undies, to build a rock dam in a gully, to plug the leaks with sticks and clay, to imagine making it large enough to swim in.

His vigour ebbed as he slid behind the driving wheel. The dreams of a small boy receded as the thunderhead shadow advanced along the range. The granite petrichor had vanished, replaced by mud and sodden grass and steam. And when he closed the car door even those distant relations were banished from the cabin of sweaty work gear, tinted safety glass and baked vinyl. The wet track would be unsafe after such a long dry season so he cracked the passenger-side quarter glass, closed his eyes, listened to the rain on the roof and worried about erosion in the top paddock.

 

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Intarsia

August 22, 2011 in I

By Christopher Thomas 

 

Dorian McGee sailed through the automatic door on a precise trajectory and took the three steps down to the sunken foyer in one elegantly measured stride. He came to rest between Bastion and Irene, his two-sizes-too-big crimson chambray workshirt settled below the ragged edges of his denim cutoffs making him look half dressed (or half undressed if you prefer), and affected a pause for effect. It had none so Dorian flounced.

“Wha-at?” he sulked, noticing they were each holding a one hundred dollar note.

Bastion Mboto reached out to Irene with a swarthy calloused hand, reticulated with pale scars, sliding the two banknotes together and withdrawing with them both.

“Artistic craftsmanship for the win,” he declared softly. The green banknotes matched the pinstripe in his suit and trousers, the opals in his cufflinks and tiepin (sans tie) and his Converse Hightops.

“If Door does not sense the aura through his own entrance-mongering then the quality must be internal to the artefact and without extension beyond its own manufactured envelope.”

Irene Granger batted at Bastion’s hand in mock defiance. Her yellow and black Charlie Brown inspired mu-mu billowed around the colossus and Dorian ducked to one side.

“Y’all can spout a bunch of hoo-haa when you’re feeling proud, Bastion Michael Mboto. Door surely did do as you wagered he should, but that was no mandate for you to go attributing auras and envelopes to artefacts and what-not. Now you hush up and don’t taint the young man’s perceptions before he’s had even an opportunity to perceive them.”

Bastion caught her gaze and slid his index finger up his chin and across his lips. He pointed with his other hand at Dorian. Irene checked herself and turned to follow Bastion’s direction. Dorian stood entranced, hands paused in midair reaching towards the wooden installation facing the entrance of the gallery.

It was an image of a lunar module, with grainy resolution and cathode ray artefacts, recreated in marquetry. Barely an inch thick on its mounting, but with a dozen layers creating an illusionary distant alien horizon. Slivers of black pressed into fields of white, pale whiskers crossing shadows of negative space. As intricate as a jigsaw and as complex as tesseract. “The Eagle Has Landed” intarsia in balsa, ebony and 1968 Motorola television cabinet.

“Thi-is!” Dorian mumbled.

 

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Monkeys

August 8, 2011 in M

By Christopher Thomas

 

One: You are.

Two: No, you are.

One: Your face is.

Two: Your mother is.

One: She’s your mother too.

Two: I meant your real mother.

One: Your real mother’s in the zoo.

Two: She’s feeding your mother bananas.

One: It’s not nice to call your mother bananas.

Two: I didn’t say that, I said she was a zookeeper.

One: Yeah, because she had to learn how to raise you.

Two: At least she wanted to raise me, unlike your mother.

One: Then why were you adopted when your mother went bananas?

Two: My mother is not bananas. We adopted you from the monkey zoo.

One: My mother brought you home from the zoo by mistake.

Two: You followed my mother home from the zoo.

One: The zoo gave you to my mother for free.

Two: They paid my mother to take you.

One: You were scaring the monkeys.

Two: You scared your mother.

One: You scare yourself.

Two: You’re a monkey.

One: No I’m not.

Two: You are.

Etc.

 

 

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