To lose a precious print!  Can, can we find it?  Frantically racing around Montmartre, all laneways, side-streets and a massive la trek.  We run back and forth when legs are not young and shoes are not trekkers.  To lose my Toulouse means we have to la trek for Lautrec.  I misplaced my print in one the le cafes or le bars, as we sipped strong coffee and weak beer, just to experience bohemian culture.  We stand out like elephants in tuxedos on a crowded iceshelf of fairy pengu

Raise eyes to the future, the flapping, torn cloth.  Lower eyes to the horror of young men being torn apart, strafed along the beach, bloodied sand spitting along bodies of wretched sons, into the hearts of crying mothers, choking fathers. Raise sounds of gagging, gurgling splutters, last gasps thudding onto squelching red sand.  Torn tunics and hearts dragging over barbwire, then spluttering in death. Raise scents of blood, guts, gore and the stench of piss and shit.  Finger

‘Yeah, I like tents.  I used to travel with my family, as a kid, up and down the NSW coast.  Even up to 10 years ago a friend and I would go camping.  Sometimes we would be naughty enough to venture as far inland as Tamworth.’   ‘Well, Kathmandu has a sale on.  Go buy one.’   ‘Triffic, a nice big one with bedroom and eating areas, maybe a couple of outside awnings.’   It’s now the 20s, we can go travel for a couple of days at a time.  Let’s see, that’s a good stove and the la

My job is to keep treasured foodstuffs safe but accessible to family members, and customers. One way to achieve this is to prevent decomposition through freezing and canning them in jars or using air-tight containers.   Another very popular method is to store them, whole, diced or mashed, with sugars and pectin of under-ripe fruit.   These methods are often used and reserved for particular people or groups that love to have foods and jams for many months after the growing sea

Dark hangs at the apex of the swing, holding, holding. Silence of the drop of dew, holding, holding. Petals gently shift, twist, hold….waiting. Green blade bends under her alitrunk and mandibles. Feathers shaken slightly as he sighs, his chest expands, and settles. He lifts his beak, throws back his head and cracks the dawn to his splitting laughter to break the still of dawn.

‘New Year!! What the…'   ‘I haven’t gotten used to the last New Year. To be truthful, I’m still flummoxed that it is ALREADY 25 years since the millennium... and 20 years since 1985 FFS.’   Reaching down I rub my knee, remembering that tragic New Year plane crash where I had to give the pilot heart massage while sword fighting the sky pirate with his own cutlass as he tried to set the bomb off. Boy, that’s the last time I’ll pay cattle class. That never happens in 1st.   Then

Sitting around, propping up and leaning on the variegated, woven, black jacquard, encompassing and enhancing it.  An eating place, a meeting place, a greeting place, a speaking, beseeching and weeping place, even a 1am sneaking place. Gathering annual quartos and new coasters of pretty coastal villages.  Cups of tea of Asian china, glass leaf-shaped plates of vovos and montes.  Kids toys and smeared jam, dim electric bills and yesterday’s news.  Little blue-glass figurine of

He sat and watched the fire during low, embers glistening and spitting as the oil wood burst tiny sparks. His mind was numb, not thinking, just wandering through pictures in his head and heart. “What happened? Why? I didn’t understand. He sat there, laid there, cried there, not knowing what was happening or what would happen. The sounds, loud, ear splitting burst of thunder. The smells, scents, vial toxins flooded their pit. He could smell them now, in the pit, in his pit, bu

Sitting at the dinner-breakfast table he would cluck and mutter whenever the story of the minute was flying about. Four grandies from 7 to 12 would all chatter at once while the mum fluffed and flittered from the galled kitchen to the table. Her mother always tried to help but was usually bustled out of a kitchen that only help one person at a time. Her grey hair all tightly curled with usually a bobby holding the curliest lock in place. Always smiled, always looked content w

‘What do you mean I don’t try? I’ve been called the most trying person that ever lived.’ Today I will climb over a fence, the barbed wire at the top is a bother, so I leave my clothes strung over it. It is a bit chilly, lucky my undies don’t snag or the cold weather would be quite evident. Running onto the tarmac isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Gee, those dogs can run fast. Lucky I got to the baggage truck in time. Only one nip on my left heel. Those carts aren’t so f

A pub discussion   ‘Up to my bloody armpits. It doesn’t bloody stop. Everywhere you look is his face. Just like his sister ole Horseface. He is everywhere! Since his mum finally dies – and thank Godfrey for that – he is on all things. I tell you what, I’m not going to lick the back of his head. It was bad inuff with his Gerry mum let alone his tree-hugging bald spotted noggin.’   ‘Did you see that red pain thing? It looked like it had been defaced by protestors before it was

‘Cabbages cabbages where do you keep the cabbages,’ Chef blustered and bluffed his way through the storeroom. ‘You can’t make a slaw without cabbages.’ He grabbed the chicken, and cutting it into pieces, thrust it into the pot along with the garlic, onion and the sesame seeds, garnish, spice and soy.   The hot water was added and it all came to a bubbling brew while he dismembered the red cabbage and thrust the dices into the cauldron.   Adding salt, pepper and paprika he mix

“Get out of my way” gruffed the mountain as he barged through the shopping mall, forcing his trolley past and through a gathering. “Fucking tourists. Don’t just stand there chatting, this is for walking not for standing around chatting. Haven’t you all got places to be instead of in my way?”   “Well, I never” bustled the older lady, trying to manoeuvre her shopping cast out of the way, only to have it jag into his path and force it into his gut.   “Oh, for Christ’s sake, ya b

‘No, no that’s not how it works’ flustered Polamo Nopendero, his cheeks reddening and jowls wobbling. ‘I said it is MY decision who gets to eat the cupcakes first.’ His chubby fist with sausage fingers slammed onto the tea table making all the cups, plates, and saucers bounce in unison, like mad Irish dancer in an Irish jog.   ‘But Polly,’ said his stork-like partner ‘the cup cakes are for everyone, it doesn’t matter who gives them out.’   ‘But I wanted the one with the big c

‘I want to be one’ Tommy blubbed. ‘I want to be a big one, a bright one. One with a big tail and bright wings,’ he sniffled, whipping snot over the back of his hand. ‘Mummy let me be one, I wanna I wanna,’ jumping up and down on the spot so mummy’s tea and cucumber sandwiches bounced on the plate and sloshed into the saucer all at once.   Mummy tried to push the white triangles back together, rescuing one of them from its soggy saucer resting plate.   ‘Mummy mummy pleeeease’

There was a time when I used to travel a lot – I mean snails do a lot of travelling. Most people don’t know that. But, we have houses and very little luggage and food can always be gathered, and eaten on the way. It’s a lovely lifestyle. I remember once after I slithered inside a wooden crate full of yummy lettuce. I munched and munched until I fell asleep, all cosy and warm.   It was a long time in that crate, but with food and dark warmth, it was lovely. I just ate and sle

Octopus’s Garden is a very shady grotto. Cedric hides in the back and nibbles on small larvae and crustaceans he has gathered this morning. He has his pipe and slippers and his favourite coral armchair, the one with the round boards so he can rock back and forth, watching the vista of the reef just outside his door/window.   He has been here for many years, is well known for his poetry and short stories, and his once-a-month storytelling at all the swimmy kiddies in the area.

Always wanted to be called “Bradley.” Don’t know why but “Bradley Bandicoot” always ‘flows’ for me.   My parents’ birth-named me “Marmaduke”. Having that yelled out as a cooee allowed all the other bush creatures to titter and giggle.  When you have a long snout and often get mistaken for a water rat, having a silly long name sets you up for ‘their’ jibes and guffaws. So, I have settled on “Bradley”!   The alliteration of BB has a certain ring to it, in my ears.   I remember,

“Singlas, I want Singlas.” He squirmed in his seat on the back of the shopping trolley, reaching out for the single bananas.  He knew he could have those now and not wait for his mum to feed him at home. “Yellow, I want a yellow.” His mum grabbed a big one, knowing it would keep him quiet for a little while.  She peeled it and shoved it into his dark pink sticky hands.  He almost choked jamming it down his own throat, making ‘num num num’ noises as he chewed it and made chub

Rustle, bustle, muscle. “Got to push through all this undergrowth.” Bartholomew winces over the sharp rocks, as prickles and thorns hit him in the legs. “Got to find more smelly things.” Getting hungry now, he bustles and scuffles his way through the long-grassed paddock.  Another prick on his legs makes him yelp and dance just as he picks up the scent of something moving up ahead, someone to eat. “Yep, that smells great!” A caterpillar, maybe a mantis, anything, as he yelps