I SSUE 7 D ECEMBER 24, 2010

T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST
W ON ’ T F IND L OVE I N A H OLE OR , I T T AKES M ORE T HAN F UCKING
S OMEONE Y OU D ON ` T K NOW T O K EEP W ARM
I lay there, a bead of sweat rolling towards the tip of my nose, tionless. I hate her in the heat. I wish she’d get the fuck off me.
breath the only noise breaking the silence. In one movement, I What is she doing? Isn’t she fucking hot too? Bitch...oh well, I’m
roll to my left, the back of my right hand wiping the sweat, just going to sleep.
as it’s about to let go. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, as
She lies there as he withdraws from her. As usual, she didn’t come,
I begin to clean up. The condom falls to the floor, still open at
not even close, but had to pretend she was enjoying it as he ejacu-
one end; me lacking the dexterity to tie a knot in it at this time.
lated, grunting and groaning, trying to be a big man. He withdraws
The sweat begins to run again, this time across the small of my
and rolls over, not even bothering to give her the obligatory post
back and into my arse crack. I pretend to scratch an itch in the
fuck kiss. Fuck him. She lay there,
area, hoping the darkness con-
her back itchy with sweat feeling
ceals what’s really happening.
used and alone. She wants to get up
I lay down again on my back, and put on some underwear, but
not bothering to pull the feels too fragile to move. He lies
sheets up; too drunk and too back down, but shows no intention
hot to care about my naked- of showing any affection. She lay
ness, despite the minutes of confused, not knowing what to do.
post orgasm awkwardness. I Eventually she decides to cuddle up
feel waves of sleep starting to to him. The feeling of solitude
crowd all around me as I feel threatens to break through her
her start to crawl towards me drunken façade, and the drugs are
across the bodily fluid-stained staring to wear off. She kisses his
sheets. The first touch sends ear, but he doesn’t respond, only a
shivers down my spine, me flinch. Maybe. Cunt. She lay next
hating her for taking my space. to him in her loneliness. In the si-
It’s already too fucking hot in lence, she tries to sing a melody to
here, let alone to spend the night cuddling. She leans over and the rhythm of his breathing and the beating of the fan.
kisses me on the cheek, but I don’t respond. I just lay there mo-

D ARK Nothing. The bedroom door is closed. It cannot have got out with-
out her hearing it leave. Yet it is not in the room. Cannot be there.
One moment it is there, the next it has vanished. She knows it She has looked everywhere it can hide without success. Maybe it
has been there. Yet when she turns on the lamp, it is nowhere to was all a dream, she muses.
be seen.
Back in bed, she adjusts her pillows. As soon as she clicks the lamp
How odd, she thinks. Something that big cannot just disappear off, it all begins again. She sighs, resigns herself to the fact that
without a trace. Can it? Putting it out of her mind, she plumps there is nothing more she can do.
up the pillows, turns off the lamp.
The dark will be with her all night.
Instantly it returns, engulfing her room. She feels it closing in. It
surrounds her, encircles the bed, peers through the gap in the
curtains.
Again she reaches for the lamp. Too late, light saturates the
room. Once again it has outwitted her. This time she is going to
find it, seek it out.
Flinging back the covers, she hangs over the side of her bed.
There is nothing under there. Rising, she checks the wardrobe.
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS
D RY
The beginning bit, giving some kinda feel to it all, letting you
know what you’re in for, all this sad bastard shit.
Dear F
All this time and still you’re right there; stage front looking at
me with something that once resembled love, or at least a little
affection, now turned to indifference when I’m trying to sleep.
To me you’re still the same, the same as you were three years
ago; at least I hope you are. It’s hard to know when we never
speak, when I can never tell you anything worth telling. That’s
when it all seems hopeless and I don’t want to have to deal with
it anymore. When you’re all happy and I’m all…. I can’t stop
thinking about the new century, how it took you away and now
it’s already grown old. If only you could tell me something to
make it all better, just some words to make it all better.
I can never get rid of all the words that I need to obliterate from moved their joints and ran off to seek bugs and bury their
my inside. Hate, betrayal, lies, self-
ish, kill, love, end, sad, nothing and
vanquished. There’s too many, more
than I know how to write. It’ll be an
endless attempt of diminishing myself
to nothing, stepping to the edge, say-
ing hello to the brink, in order to
start again a new. It could take for-
ever. But I guess forever is what I’ve
got. It’s either that or death. It’s
hard to decide whether it’s better to
die or to hang onto the possibility that
you’ll one day come home. If only I
knew what it’d be like to be dead, no
longer walking the paddocks and trying to think of anything but
you. Tell me what it’s like, tell me there’s something more
than what we know and I’ll kindly say goodbye. Tell me that
after this I won’t have to lie in grimace each night trying to
sleep away memories of the past and I’ll call it a day and leave
here. Tell me that you’re not coming back, that you were
never in love with me and that you feel sorry for me. Make me
make it easy to die.
I love you, I really do. I know I haven’t told you that for a long struggled to put food in their stomach, or stomachs as it may
time. But I can only say it in writing.
D The drought had been long. W often wondered how long it
It Really Starts Here, a little less painful, a little more country.
The birds scattered with the impending footsteps of the dog
breaking the icy dew of the morning grass. Footsteps without
care of placement, energised with dog biscuits and yesterdays
milk. The sun had made its way back from Europe to bring a
new day, a squinting early yellow of fierce dry daylight. And
T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST
with it came the birds, morning birds that greeted W on the
flats of the paddock as the whites and greys of slight feathers
drifted amongst the mist and hushed sounds of isolation. The
quiet stretched farther than eyesight, farther than earshot. The
birds ascended to the height of the trees that sheltered the
creek, banking left to stand sentry above the cows that waited
patiently for another days philanthropy, giving their goods for
milkshakes and cheese platters. The country was awakening
and in belated unison, with the risen birds and rising sun, W
lifted his arms to roar with yawn and scratch the remnants of
sleep from beneath his eyes.
The neighbour’s dog joined the ensemble in a show of solidar-
ity, bringing fresh woofing noise to break the silence. An old
dog, a damaged dog, not far from the end of its time, but noisy
nonetheless. W’s animal caught its enthusiasm as they both
noses into each other’s darker crevasses,
scattering the cattle that had banded to-
gether in loose formation to begin the daily
march to the milking shed. All around the
tufts of dry grass being skittled by cumber-
some hoofs turned to dust and floated back
to the ground without hurry, tickling W’s
neck.
W walked towards the far reaches of the
paddock, eyes sometimes to the ground,
sometimes to the sky, to the creeks edge,
pausing with an inhaled breath, his infertile
lips momentarily separated. With his eyes
he searched for the last wandering cows that were inclined to
hide amongst the shrubbery of the creeks edge. A whistle and
a yelled ‘way back’, practised verse of the experienced farmer,
the cows removing themselves from the remaining vestiges of
the creeks food source. Cows aren’t the smartest creatures,
thought W, but he found their timidity endearing. He consid-
ered his bovine friends to be something of a kindred spirit,
sharing the misery of the dry years of parched ground, ostra-
cised from the rest of the world in their commune of land that
be.
took a drought to become the average, how long it took for
the unordinary to become the ordinary. Surely after nine
years the word could no longer draw the bewilderment of the
weather report, could no longer be considered as anything but
the commonplace. He heard words such as El Nino and La
Nina spruiked by earnest television mouths, but such terms
were far from his thoughts each month when he scanned the
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

written sum of each further diminishing milk cheque. Nor could The dogs returned to their work with the intention of pushing
the terms ever appease the long faces of his cattle if he were ever the pace, snapping at heels, tails moving like windscreen wipers
to sit them down for an information session that attempted to in storm, enjoying the feeling of superiority that comes with
explain the protruding of ribs and the disappearance of co- sharp teeth and nimble limbs. Near the windmill W paused to
workers, as the local farmers association had done for him. And pick up a stick, noticing its less than perfect shape and its ability
the dry became contagious, the dark depression descending not to arrive at the windmills feet despite the nearest tree now be-
only upon the weakening shoulders of W, but the district, the ing over a hundred metres away. He wondered whether its
shire, the region, the state. The shops of the town were con- apparent willingness to travel was an indication that it would
stantly closing, people being driven elsewhere. The only busi- rather be a pilot, or a vagrant riding trains in depression times.
ness to thrive in the local times was that of the funeral parlour, Turning to consider which of the trees that bounded the creek
staking its claim for a local business of the year award as it burnt had shed the stick, W’s ears picked up the faint noise of a tender
and buried the yield from starving harvests and disappearing hum. He returned to the creeks edge, following the sound,
milk returns. Suicide had become something of an epidemic looking down at the creased shallow water that moved in slight
amongst the resident farmers as the banks foreclosed and wives ripples as the breeze gently peddled, the ruffled reflection
and kids sought greener pastures, pastures where the love was sketching his contoured face, his tiredness ingrained into the
equal to the money, or at least the money was enough in the worn skin of the cheeks. Stepping over fallen trees, long dead
absence of love. W couldn’t decide if it had been the money, or carcass of calf and fresh matted manure, W followed the con-
love that had left him destitute, he just knew that without either tinuing noise along the creeks edge. All else was silent, the
loneliness was assured. cows and dogs now hundreds of metres away, travelling on
their own volition. Pulling back the afroed foliage of the bush
At W’s insistence the cows began the slow hoofed walk to the
in front of him, he spied the resemblance of a cow’s head.
milking shed, walking away with a wayward wander that ap-
proached disobedience, or maybe a lack of fitness, taking their The head could be seen sprouting from the bushes, but the rest
time and stepping gingerly upon the hardened ground, as they of its body had managed to find some moisture that had pooled
had done since his childhood. All the circumstances of his pre- in a deepened bend. W moved closer and placed his hand on
sent day regretfully reminded W of his childhood, of his father. the cow’s forehead as some doctored comfort. The cow didn’t
The idea of parentage, of heritage, genes, and family, all science, try to avoid his touch. ‘Of all the spots to stand, it had to be
tradition and feelings, made W perplexed. What was he meant this one’, counselled W. ‘I guess I’ll go chase up the tractor
to feel, how was he meant to behave when it came to his lineage? and get you out of there’. He wanted to be able to tell the dogs
He didn’t think there was any innate feelings inside that should to stay and keep the animal company, but knew that even if he
make him love certain people because they were family. It’s all
down to circumstances. Haphazard love, he thought. W felt
regret over his parents, but not love. They came, they procre-
ated, and they died. True, if they hadn’t been, W himself
wouldn’t have existed. But there’s nothing to miss if you never
exist, no one to love, or not be loved by. He thought it strange
that he never had the choice as to whether he came into the
world, that maybe freedom could never really exist. Although
he knew people were free to end their own life. W wondered if
suicide was a more suitable past time for the rich, people who
had their credit cards paid off, had their finances in order. But
he didn’t believe in the inviolability attached to living – his Dad
had seen to that.
The cattle were now on the move, forming a herd that with a
collective mind was able to recall what it was that they did each
day, where they had to go. Sometimes, W doubted that his cat-
tle were as dull as others made out. Maybe they communicate in
a language understood through the absence of sound rather than
the making of. For all he knew, his cows could be reciting the
great prose of cows past, sounded down in silence through the
ages from the very first bovine scholar.
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

could accurately communicate with them they wouldn’t pass up A P ERFECT P AST
the opportunity to run and bark with the sound of the red trac-
tors engine. The story of Robert from Guess Who? He wanted it to be
called, ‘Guess What? Life’s a fucking drag’, but instead it’s
But the Son Starts from Here. He’s not very likeable, similar to
called ‘A Perfect Past’.
most of the people that could be in this story.
It used to be that I closed my eyes to pictures and movies of
11/07/19..
perfection, my possible life unfolding on the television screens
As a first entry I should write something really profound, some- that are the backs of my eyelids. All images of happiness, inno-
thing that I can look back on when I’m older. There’s not much cent smiles and unknowing contentment. I didn’t always know
going on now though, just all these little things that happen about all the bad things. The torment of living, of getting old,
pretty much everyday. School’s Ok, but I wouldn’t recommend of knowing things, of deception, of pent-up hatred, of lies and
it to anyone who hasn’t been before, like those home school honesty, was far away, adjoined to others, adjoined to the de-
kids. I could tell you about the weekend when me and mum graded characters of fiction. It hasn’t always been like this. I
went into town to see a movie. The movie was called … and it haven’t always just been a face in a board game. I once had
was pretty terrible, although I think mum liked it. It was the dreams just like everybody else. I even had dreams of following
first time I’d been to the cinema since I was really little. It still my dreams. And dreams of dreaming up dreams so big I’d need
had that same smell, all popcorn, melted butter and air condi- to live two lives to live them all. But it doesn’t always turn out
tioning. I like how smells remind you of certain things. It’d be how you dreamt. Now I find myself in all night cafes drinking
fun to just walk around one day with your eyes closed just smell- cup after cup of dishwater coffee just to stay awake and stave off
ing things and seeing what they remind you of. She took me out the purgatory of sleep. I try so hard to stay awake I’ve grown
for ice cream after it, even though the cold hurts my teeth. I muscular around the eyelids, my brows constantly slope. But it
think she just forgot in her excitement of being away from the hasn’t always been like this, things weren’t always this fucked.
farm for a night. I know she loves dad, but being stuck out there The sleeping hours at least used to be an escape from living, my
isn’t very glamorous and I don’t think she likes the solitude all dreams didn’t used to be nightmares and death didn’t seem so
that much. Not like dad anyway, I know he wants nothing more appealing. All because of a fucking board game and it’s false
than to just be out in the paddocks on his own, just thinking and grandeur.
walking. I sometimes wonder how they ended up together. I
I remember growing up. I remember being smaller than I am
wonder if I’ll still be doing this diary thing in a couple of years.
now. I don’t remember being born, but I have a strange sense
of knowing my mother before she was infected with me. Be-
fore there was hair all over my chest and before people ex-
pected you to wear shirts to discuss adult things in rooms in tall
buildings. I remember not having to look for happiness. I don’t
know why I wanted to grow up so quickly, why I wanted to get
the hell out of that house. Although it wasn’t really my choice
when I did leave. He called me into his study the day of my
sixteenth birthday. I walked in expecting to receiving a nice
stern talk from him about what it means to grow up. He was
very solemn, my father. He thought there was a proper way of
doing things, which was strange, as he was a bit of a fuck up. I
always knew he was going to fuck up being a parent, and a hus-
band. I imagined him trying to kill himself because he’d think
that was the proper way to deal with the absence of happiness.
But if you knew my father you’d know that even if he did try
and kill himself he’d fuck that up too – use a frayed, easily bro-
ken rope, a rusted bullet, child safe scissors, cut the accelerator
cable instead of the brake, or leave a window down as the car
filled with exhaust fumes and he had the first decent sleep of his
adulthood. But that wasn’t what he told me. He told me about
himself and my mother, how they didn’t think I should live with
them anymore, how they wanted me to leave. They tried to
love me, he said, but they loved each other so much there was
no love left over for me. They needed space. I was turning, or
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

frothing milk for his coffee. That’s one thing I remember, he

was always drinking coffee. He spent a large portion of his time
in cafés. He read a lot of books, so I guess that’s what you do.
That first night I didn’t have anywhere in particular I thought
I’d go. He gave me the number of an aunt I hadn’t seen since I
was little who said she’d put me up for a few nights. She
seemed like the kind who’d make it known she was doing you a
favour, like my parents parenting me. We were on the out-
skirts of town, the first road that bent in a winding, non-
uniform manner. The road was gravel, I remember that.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, I never knew gravel could be melodic.
We’d been in that house since I was three. I can’t remember
the place we were in before that. They never spoke about it.
They didn’t speak about much. There was always music play-
ing, instrumental kind of stuff. I can still hear it sometimes,
that and the sound of milk frothing. I think the froth made my
father feel like the milk was flying. I spent that first night in a
hay shed about two kilometres from our house. I wondered
what they were doing as I lay there. The hay was itching me, I
had turned, their life into something they didn’t want. He said,
remember that.
‘don’t get me wrong, we wanted to have you, we did, we just
don’t now’. My mother said the strangest things. ‘I’ve made you an eggy
omelette’, she’d say, sliding the plate in front of me. She didn’t
His study was always my favourite room. It was the room that
talk like other people I knew. She could tell stories though.
my mother let him have as his own. He spent hours in there.
One was about a book that could read. He could read every-
He’d attached thousands of feathers to the ceiling with some
thing; newspapers, magazines, teletext and even the small print
kind of transparent string. ‘I like to feel like everything can fly’,
on lotto tickets. The only problem was he couldn’t read him-
he’d said a few years earlier. All the feathers he’d found, left by
self. The book spent nearly everyday trying to figure out a way
birds that didn’t need them anymore. The feather of the New
to know what he was all about. He tried standing in front of the
Holland Honeyeater was my favourite. It wasn’t that visually
mirror, but couldn’t read himself in reverse. He tried photo-
impressive, just black and white with a tiny bit of yellow. But I
copying himself, but couldn’t reach the copy button laying face
liked that bird and I liked its feathers. My father told me he
down on the cold glass. The book even tried to get himself
found that one the day my mother had her first miscarriage.
reviewed in all the papers he knew of, but the only one that got
They tried for years after I was born to have a daughter; I must
back to him said they couldn’t even get past the first chapter,
have broken something on my way out. I can imagine myself
said that he was…’innocuous’. The book became disheartened.
holding on with my little hands for as long as I could, or maybe
Not only would he never know himself, he was ‘innocuous’.
even taking hold with my teeth and locking my jaw, trying with
The book began to see it’s whole existence at futile. He needed
all my strength to stay in there, breaking pipes and disturbing
the search for himself to keep on going, to never end, to always
foundations.
be over the horizon, ever onward, always there somewhere,
My mother stayed hidden as my father told me these things. but never to be found. Without the possibility, there was noth-
She’d always been one that shied away from confrontation.
There was a time when we went to the supermarket – I must
have been about six. She reached up, in the juice isle, to grab
the tomato juice she was always drinking. And smash, she
dropped the bottle as her hand began to descend from the head
high shelf. ‘Get to the car’, she said, abandoning the shopping
trolley, stepping away, as I looked at the floor and the move-
ment of the juice, wondering how carrots could come in two
different forms.
I didn’t say much back to him. Actually, I can’t remember say-
ing anything. He was out of the room before I’d comprehended
what he’d said. I could hear him in the kitchen, I could hear him
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS
ing. The book grew more and more despondent. Maybe he was
nothing but a series of sentences, put together with no purpose
in mind, written by someone else, written for others. He
started to drink and to wander. His pages grew tattered, the ink
from the short love letter written inside his front cover by some
desperate youth grew illegible. Drunk and staggering, beyond
caring, the book one night fell into the river that segregated his
city into a north and a south side. The book didn’t even fight the
current, didn’t even flail against the water’s suffocating tenden-
cies. Before long, his pages heavy with dirty city water, the
book was dragged beneath the surface.
She cried at this point, more than once. She’d say, ‘I wonder
where books go when they die?’ All I could ever say was ‘what
happened to the book? Was it dead? Surely the book didn’t
die?’ Even though I knew there was more to come. ‘Well not
far down the river’, she’d continue,
‘another book sat. This books re-
viewer didn’t use the word
‘innocuous’, but ‘squalid’. She was
staring at the rivers flow, occasionally
getting a glimpse of her own front
cover in the water’s reflection. In
the debris gathering at the water’s
edge, she could see another book
nestle itself amongst the leaves and
city rubbish. She grew curious – she
had never taken an interest in another
book before, thinking that books
couldn’t tell her anything she didn’t
already know. But there was something about him lying there,
looking despondent. Dragging him up out of the water there
didn’t seem much hope of recovering his words. She’d seen the
lifeless bodies of numerous books make their way down the
river, particularly after the New Year, and this one just seemed
like another statistic, never to be read again. There’d been rum-
blings in the local and national newspapers about the spate of
books taking their own lives recently. She remembered several
letters to the editor suggesting that all books should kill them-
selves, that they were nothing but the pretentious thoughts of
the lazy. One letter even suggested a book cull, leaving only the
technical and scientific behind. This book’s pages were soaking;
his cover was coming loose along the spine. She held him close
as she made her way back through the darkening streets to her
house. It was early winter and the day disappeared quickly. She
struggled with his weight, having to stop every couple of min-
utes to catch her breath, before pushing on through the after
work crowd. She could see the scowls on their faces, the looks
of disgust as another book tried to draw attention to itself. She
was beginning to worry now; there might not be anything she
could do. Up the stairs to her apartment, almost at a run, sum-
moning the last of her energy. Edging her front door open, she
deposited him onto the rug that sat in front of the fireplace.
T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST
Using her own pages to turn his pages, she prised each one
apart, holding them up to the warmth of the fire. As she did so,
she began to read. She had never read a book before; she had
never gotten to know one, except in passing, through bookstore
windows and movie adaptations. But this book, it held her cap-
tive. She read and read and read until there were no more
pages to warm. Sitting the book back down she noticed his
pages begin to rise and fall, life seeping back into him. He
could barely move, his breath was shallow, his pages ached and
his words were sore. But he couldn’t take his eyes of the book
that sat in front of him, a look of rapture spread across her front
cover.
‘I know all about you’, she finally said.
‘Am I interesting, is there anything to me?’, he asked.
‘There’s everything to you’, she re-
plied. ‘More than words can say’.
‘I’ve been trying to know myself all
my life’, he said.
‘Do you want me to tell you all
about you?’ she said.
‘It’s enough that someone else
knows me’, he replied.
But she didn’t say goodbye the day I
left. I couldn’t find her in any of the
rooms. As I said, she avoided con-
frontation. But I still wondered
what her and my father were doing that first night, as I itched
and fell asleep in the hay shed up the road, wondering if they
were like the books that could read each other.
I had to go back to that town; that’s where they took the photos
for the shoot. There was a guy standing at the airport holding
up a sign when I flew in. ‘Robert Zizweg’, it said, with the
Guess Who logo beneath it. It was like the driver was playing
the game before it’d even been made. There were other names
being held up – Bill, Anne, Alfred and Maria. I really liked
Maria, especially that hat, even then. But she just gave me a
cold stare when I complemented her on it. Alfred was a strange
guy. He was really quiet, but then he’d fix you with his gaze
and you’d feel like he never stopped talking. I saw him the day
of the casting, an hour or so before we had to show up. I went
and sat in a cafe near the studio to grab a coffee and make sure I
wasn’t late for my audition. In my booth down the back corner
I could see him standing near the counter. There were people
going back and forth ordering their drinks, retreating back to
their tables, or waiting for takeaways, but he didn’t move, not
for a long time. I didn’t see him look at a menu, or turn and
scan the tables, he just stood. The next time I looked up he was
gone.
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

I thought about passing by the old house, see if it was still there; I lived in this place that was decrepit. There were broken win-
see if they were still there. I wasn’t angry, I remember that, but dows that were never fixed, weatherboards that had fallen
I did want to know what it was like for them after I left, if they down when the wood rotted around the nails and several miss-
were happy with their decision. My childhood didn’t seem like ing floorboards that meant you had to always take a certain line
it was my childhood, just some movie or book that I could from the kitchen to the lounge room. I really liked the place
vaguely remember. My parents were just actors, hired to play though. I felt comfortable there. No one else stayed for more
the role of parents to some kid who they didn’t want around than a night or two. There was never any sign of the owners
once he turned sixteen. I expected to drive past and see that the and after the first couple of months I lived without feeling that
house had been replaced with a new set for a new movie, my they would turn up, and I’d have to move on again. I made a
parents replaced with younger actors. But I forgot about it, for- room for myself, just like my father. No one ever stepped foot
got that I once lived in that place, once I’d had my picture taken in there. Instead of hanging feathers everywhere I hanged
and signed all the waivers. We all headed out for a drink that glasses all over the ceiling. They were just glasses I’d found, at
night. It was a weird feeling knowing that we were all going to hard rubbish collection, at the tip, and in the cupboards of peo-
be tied together for the rest of our lives, even though we proba- ple I knew, all different colours. When the wind blew through
bly weren’t ever going to see each other again, except on little the holes where the missing weatherboards were the glasses
pieces of cardboard. I avoided making eye contact with Maria would knock together, making a racket, some of them smash-
that night. I only looked when I knew she had her eyes trained ing. The floor was covered in smashed glass, and the more I
elsewhere. walked on it the more it became some strange therapy. I’d
spend hours walking around the room, book in hand, reading as
They never told us the game was out. I only knew because more
I stepped, glass breaking around me. I had dreams with the
and more money began being deposited in my account. Appar-
same sounds not long ago. I was in a plane, the fighting type,
ently I could be seen in the ads on television, but I didn’t watch
with the tight, closed, circular cockpit, with the curved glass on
tv, didn’t even own one. They were strange times. There was a
all sides enabling a wide viewing. I was flying around looking
park near my house that I always went to as soon as the sun came
for combatants. I could never find any though – I was some
out from behind the clouds. There were several items of chil-
kind of shy warrior without any foes. The search was endless; I
dren’s play equipment set up. I remember this wooden boat
couldn’t even see any signs of life down below, no towns, no
contraption that rocked back and forth on a large, stiff spring.
roads. But there was always the sound of smashing glass
As it’s eastern boundary the grass was always a little longer. I’d
through my headphones. It sounded like all my comrades were
lie down there, stare at the grass, the ants. There were always
in trouble, fighting some battle that I could never find – there
kids about, playing with pets and different sporting parapherna-
was nothing that I could do. It made me sweat that dream,
lia. This day I noticed a change in the darkness that I could see
coming to feeling disgusting, all tennis player damp.
with my eyes closed. I always found it strange that you can still
see even when your eyes are closed. There were shadows being I had an older friend at that time. He lived down the road. I’d
caste over me. I could hear shuffling feet and panting dogs. The always see him standing out the front clipping the hedge that
panting got closer and then my toes got wet. I still looked at the ran the length of his front fence. Incessant he was, everyday
darkness. I heard the animal that licked my toes called back to clipping, clipping, clipping. His eye sight, or coordination was
it’s master. I heard one of the shadows wonder aloud if I was poor, the top of the hedge a wave of small leaves. It began with
dead. It was then that I opened my eyes and could see a bunch a nod, a raised set of eyebrows, an acknowledgement. He did-
of kids, six years and up, on all sides.
‘Does your person have red cheeks?’ laughter from all sides.
‘Does your person have blue eyes’, said another, the laughter
continuing. I tried a smile, but the kids seemed to grimace at
my effort, my act.
‘Are you Robert, from the game?’ said a third.
‘Just a resemblance’, I said, my eyes still adjusting to the light,
seeing the faces of children looking down.
‘You are Robert?’, said another that sounded like the second.
‘Robert’s my brother’, I said. ‘He’s not around anymore, he
died from smoking, he knew that’. I could see them clearly as
they went back to their games. They didn’t look sad, just bored.
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

n’t seem to pay any attention. I thought he might have lost it a

little. I returned to passing on my side of the street, rather than
his. But he yelled out one day, ‘hey, you ever going to repair
that house?’ He was smiling. I smiled back. I crossed the
street. We talked that day, and the next. I started to visit, to
drink with him. He started to tell me stories. He’d been in the
war. He’d survived for weeks without food. He’d killed peo-
ple. He was more lucid that I thought he would be. He could
tell stories. He had a niece; she was the only one in the family
he liked. He’d been on the same street for thirty years.
‘Nothing has changed’, he said. I asked him if he knew who
owned my house.
‘An old man lived there a while back’, he said. ‘He died about
fives years ago’. No one had been there since he’d seen the body
carried out. I thought about the bed and the crumpled sheets. I
told him about my mother and father. He seemed to think they
were smart. I told him I didn’t think I hated them, how I
thought they were actors, just playing the part. ‘Aren’t we all’,
he said, without a question mark. It was good like that, we ensure you use one hand as a shield to prevent the person next
could tell each other things, we could drink red wine, and he got to you getting an eyeful of lemon juice. No, not humorous!
me out of the house, got me away from the glass lying on the Also, particular fabrics can be stained’. In the cutlery drawer
ground. He told me to audition for Guess Who. there’d be another that read, ‘If you are meeting a disabled per-
I moved away after the money started piling up in my account. son for the first time, wait until the hand is extended to you.
It felt like I should do something, felt like I should start spending Maintain eye contact and disregard the disability whilst trying to
a bit. But I went back a couple of months later to visit. I went behave normally’.
by my old place first. It was still the same. I looked through the I remember she didn’t like newspapers. ‘Why the hell do we
gaps in the weatherboards. I went inside. There was broken have to know everything’, she said. None of its worth know-
glass everywhere now. A few more floorboards had disappeared ing. Fuck the rest of the world, I don’t even know you’, grab-
as well. In one corner lay what looked like another man’s be- bing my eyelids, trying to prise them apart to see inside.
longings, all wrapped up. There was no one around, just the ‘There’s nothing in there’, I’d say.
signs of someone. I saw the hat as soon as I walked out the front
‘I love you, you know’, she said one day.
door and looked up the street towards my old friends house.
The green was dull under the shadow of the veranda, sitting on a ‘You love that hat’, I said, smiling and pointing. That was us
bedside table, a pile of paper in hand. She didn’t notice my ap- being playful, like couples do.
proach.
I idolised her. She couldn’t say or do anything wrong, just
‘Have you ever been called an arsehole?’, she said one day. She strange. I always had the feeling she’d leave one day. I knew
used to say the strangest things. that the first time we actually spoke to each other, out of the
front of my old friend’s house, her in her green hat, me just as I
‘No one has shoulders like a chair’, she said.
am.
Or ‘I want strange shaped forks, ones that aren’t conventional’.
‘Maria from Guess Who’, I said as I approached, the thoughts of
And she used to write on all the bills that I magnetised to the my decrepit house running away quickly.
fridge, ‘If you say no to something, it’s something you didn’t
‘Sad old Robert’, she replied.
do’.
‘I’m not sad’, I said, ‘just unsure’.
I never really got her. She was into etiquette as well, which was
strange, because she didn’t seem to care for much. She bought ‘Of what?’ she said.
all these cards of the internet with tips on how to behave in pub-
‘Everything’, I replied.
lic. She’d leave them in the strangest places. I’d open the cup-
board with towels in it and there’s be a card that read, ‘Lemon ‘Stop thinking’, she said.
Wedges: If you pick up a wedge to squeeze with your fingers, ‘And do what?’ I asked.
 M ERRY C HRISTMAS T HE M ERRIWEATHER P OST

‘Drink’, she said, putting her beer to her lips. meek fuck to me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. Sometimes the happiness comes on unexpectedly. I’ll be sitting
here, trying to write things, and bang, all innocent smiles and
‘What are you doing here’, she said, less questioning.
unknowing contentment. I don’t know where it comes from.
‘I used to live here’, I said. There’s a certain freedom to being broken. That ‘hey, I’ve got
‘Here’, she said, ‘In this house’. no fucking expectations of myself anymore, nothing matters’. I
know thoughts like that make me smile. I just wish they were a
‘No, there’, I said, pointing. little more permanent, that they stuck around for a little
‘Classy’, she said. longer. I wish I could control things more.

‘An old friend lives here’, I said. She told me one day that she knew who I was at the casting day,
at the audition. She knew I lived near her Uncle. She didn’t
‘Lived’, she said. speak to him for months after that; didn’t think he should be
‘No, lives’, I said, in the present tense, the one I hate. trying to set her up with people. She didn’t see him before he
died. I wish it was her that had died and not my old friend.
‘Lived’, she said.
Writing is all I can do now. There’s nothing else. I write and
I didn’t know she was dense. write and write. There’s nothing in what I write. But it feels
‘This is my uncle’s house’, she said. ‘He died last week’. like the only way out of the shit Guess Who left me in is to
write my way out. I remember she always said, ‘writings like
I do wish she were dead. It’d make everything a lot easier, on dancing, you have to be taking the piss, otherwise you’re taking
me at least. She’s got this show on television now. She inter- yourself far too fucking seriously’. I hated her for it, and still
views people and has bands come on and play, a cooking seg- do. The details of her are all too fucking present. I go over so
ment, all that. I think she’s the only one of us who’s really made many moments of our relationship my life has become nothing
it, if being on television is making it. It’s strange though; she more than my past. I’m still breathing, I’m still writing with
always talked about how phoney all those TV people were, how this pen, still drinking this fucking decrepit coffee, but all my
they were all morons, half dead, just representing the views and thoughts can be written in the past tense. I feel like the book
interests of others. I watched her show a while ago; I couldn’t that couldn’t look forward anymore. I try to refuse to be who I
see the difference between her and the rest. am.
It had to be messy. I loved her too much and she was too much
of a bastard for it to be easy. I yelled at her, ‘I wish I never met
you, you fucking bitch’. She threw stuff at me; I think she even
tried to punch me. It was all very blurry. A lot of the stuff I
bought to fill our home got broken. I didn’t want to see any of A LARMING D ISCOVERIES
it ever again. I don’t want to see anybody’s stuff ever again, all Time is a curious little guy. It can fly during times where it is
that wage precious, such as in an exam, when running late for work or if
bought good- you own a prepaid mobile and actually called someone for once.
ness. I see her
pictures in the It can also drag; sometimes so badly it can even lead you to
papers from aimlessly shake a clock – which, on the odd occasion, can in-
time to time. deed move the hands around at a faster rate. Unfortunately
She’s a red car- though, time is not linked to the clock’s hands that measure it.
pet type now. Chances are you’ll just end up with a faulty clock so that the
‘Former Guess only time you can now calculate is how many hours of work it’ll
Who star and take until you can afford a new one.
now host of…. But clocks, I’ve found, can now help pass the time themselves:
with her gor- in a homewares store in Norwood I found a wonderful new
geous man…’, world of novelty alarm clocks. They were lying amongst other
it’d read. Eve- great knick knacks of startling specificity you can sometimes
ryone says he’s find in a homewares store: like a cheese knife handle cleaner;
really nice. He sour cream opener; or a fridge magnet that simultaneously peels
looks like a a rockmelon while uncorking wine; or things to that affect.
 The first one that took my fancy was the clock that was designed in the shape of a helicopter. Upon the designated time to rise,
the clock will take flight and buzz about, near the roof, until you have left the warmth and security of your doona to retrieve it.
The only limitation of such a design is that the efficiency with which it can wake you can also be wasted on the 20 odd minutes it
can take to catch the thing. As an aside, this clock can be hazardous in summer for those of us with ceiling fans.
The next clock was what you might call in the suit world a two-piece. The first part is the clock itself with a target on its side to
be set up out-of-reach of the bed. The second part was a laser gun to be kept bedside (or under your pillow depending on what
you’re comfortable with). Upon hearing the alarm (an appropriately futuristic sound I’m sure), you have to ‘shoot’ the clock in
order to snooze it. Of course by the time you’ve taken aim, missed a few times and finally, hit your mark and turned it off, you
might as well get up.
Perhaps these first two concepts could be combined to create a helicopter clock, which you have to shoot down. The only set
backs of course being the destructiveness and costs involved in shooting your whole alarm clock out of the sky; and the un-
wanted sleep-ins that trained marines might experience due to their unrivalled marksmanship.
One of the more old-fashioned ideas to be made into a clock is the ‘wake up call’ clock. It’s quite simply a recording of the old
1194 number which leads you to a proper sounding English gentleman (possibly out of work since newsreels became out-dated)
informing you that at the third stroke will be 7:30am, or whatever time you enter of course – I wouldn’t suggest that everyone
always wakes up at 7:30am. (As an unassociated footnote, when I was a kid I used to always love dialing 199 – the ringer tester -
then hang up the phone and scamper into another
room to watch Mum con- fusedly answer a call from no
one. Classic.)
However, to spice things up, maybe it would be better
if this recording instead told me that a bacon and egg
breakfast is served in the kitchen. In the half-asleep
daze I’m usually in at alarm time, I would probably
believe the recorded voice every morning and hastily
throw on some tracksuit pants and start salivating.
But my final – and least favourite – alarm clock was
the one that projected a laser image of the time on
your roof. I couldn’t think of anything worse!
Picture yourself laying in bed, having an early meeting,
big presentation or any generic, high-pressure situa-
tion the following day which requires the already
stressful combination of a good night’s sleep and an early
rise. As a result of the anxiety, you lie in bed saying things like, “If I can go to sleep within 5 minutes, I can still get a ‘good’ 5
hours.” Only to have the five minutes disappear before your eyes while you stare at the roof.
This unique situation is the only time in your life that I can think of where time simultaneously drags and flies: dragging because
you’re just staring at the roof, over thinking; and flying because you need that slumber time like I need a better simile here.
At the end of the day though – or the start in this case – I’m happy with anything that can inject such novelty so immediately
into my waking existence. So I think I’ll get the helicopter one – maybe I can teach it to fetch me some breakfast.
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T HE E YES AND E ARS OF M ADAM M ERRIWEATHER

Grinderman– Grinderman 2 David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Deerhunter– Halycyon Digest Julio Cortazar - Cronopios and Famos
Lil’ Band O’ Gold - The Promised Land Keith Richards - Life
Girls - Broken Dreams Club Jack Kerouac - On The Road
Gareth Liddiard - Strange Tourist John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
The Paradise Motel - Australian Ghost Story Jon Faine - From Here To There