Table grapes still sit. The light lights and warms the grapes. Grapes still green in bowl.

There is no choice.  No way off this planet, no charts to guide him back to safe environments.  The escape-pod is his survivor, friend, companion, parent and protector.  ‘Mother’ protects him, feeds him, fosters him, teaches him, finds and collects water from the water-table.  It doesn’t rain.  Dew rises to the surface when one of the moons pass and draws it from the groundwater aquifers.  It’s exciting to watch thousands of batbirds swooping or thundering grumblebums chasing

She sat on the table watching her mother cook. Her five-year-old legs dangling and swinging as she watched.   ‘I want to sit on the bench.’   ‘You can’t.’   ‘But I want to. I can’t see what you’re doing.’   ‘Well you can’t and that’s not a good reason to put your dirty little bottom on the bench.’   ‘Why not?’   ‘Because I said so.’   ‘Well, that’s not a good reason.’   Outsmarted by her five-year-old daughter the mother continued cooking with the ferocity of someone outsmart

Grapes are in a bowl. I see them still green sitting. Should I eat a grape?

‘Darlin, just try a little harder.’   ‘But I am Mummy, all I can do is try my hardest.’   Mummy hated being outsmarted by her 5yo.   ‘But I just don’t think you are really trying that hard.’   ‘Oh Mummy how could you say that. I ran around the field chasing that ball and all those other players kept getting in the way…and it’s really, really hot.’   ‘Yes Darling, but you just didn’t seem to kick it very hard when you did get to it.’   ‘Well, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and

……and he pulled up into his parabolic arch after the booms, allowing him to create a controlled drop to the purple grass, just beside the spook reeds.  Making sure his mask was tight, he stepped onto their grounds making the reed roots spark wildly and trigger the pampas-type heads to explode into translucent spectres of green spook-shaped vapour.   He laughed, knowing the deadly fumes cannot hurt him as they did the red and black Pandabeast he witnessed choking to death when

Standing at the 2-kilometre-high precipice he looks down at purple valleys.  Orange-blue clouds scatter below.  This tiny boy, sole survivor of the escape pod, stares at the two suns beaming like white and yellow balls near the horizon. Being a ‘space-baby’, this is the only world he will feel.  Other worlds are only video. He steps off the cliff and dives in a crux pose.  Holding the pose till air pins his arms along his torso.  Goggles dig into his face, mouth tight, eyes b

The sky was heavy and black, but it wasn’t night time. Everyone looked up at the ominous black clouds. BOOM, Crackle, SMASH! The lightning erupted over the houses. Mother Nature looked on and said to herself, “There’s a nice bit of entertainment for you mere immortals. Instead of watching your screens, look outside at the wonders I can create. You think you’re so clever with your mechanical and electrical inventions but they are nothing. You will never surpass me.” The mortal

Racing across the expansive skies, was it sound or light that reached us first? The 'jagged white' hit our old red river gum right at the hollow where the elders had taken a coolamon from the younger tree's yielding bark. We used that tray on our wedding for berries and so, too, have all our offspring on their weddings, one by one.  So frequently has it been oiled and cleaned and cherished that our care has imparted a soft, shiny tinge to its redness.   Now the old tree is sh