• Today Is An Exciting Day

    Today I officially start my PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney.

    Today is an exciting day.

  • The Tires Were No Longer Humming

    She had only noticed how little light there was inside the car when two headlights appeared down the road and illuminated the entire front seat. Stray beams of light made it all the way to where she was strapped into the back seat.

    “Look at this clown,” her dad said. She looked around but didn’t see any clowns. Surely all the clowns were still back at the fair.

    Grace had never driven a car or paid much attention to the motion of cars other than the ones being confidently coaxed along by her father. For this reason the headlights of the oncoming car didn’t appear left of centre and even if they had it wouldn’t have struck her as odd.

    “Honey!” came a shrill scream that could only belong to her mother but it was hard to tell over the terrible shriek of rubber grinding on wet asphalt.

    The beams of light that had found their way to the back seat now ran away in an unnatural manner and there was a long moment of calm that Grace would never be able to forget. It was a calm that spanned generations and transcended all linear perceptions of time. It was a black hole of silence and still that absorbed all energy before regurgitating it back in the form of a loud percussive smashing thud on the side of the car.

    The whole car lurched sideways and Grace became aware that the tires were no longer humming on the road. All momentum pulled her body to the left and then she felt the same weightlessness she had experienced on the swinging pirate ship earlier in the afternoon after her second orange soda. Her third orange soda was splashing in her face but she didn’t know why.

    She felt her weight pulling on her seatbelt as the can of soda slipped from her grip. The entire car groaned. She could see a tree out the windshield but it was upside down and that didn’t make sense to her.

    After the sight of the tree there was only dark.

  • More Of A Slip

    It wasn’t so much a jump that was required – more of a slip. A fall, really. A perfectly timed fall and he would be on the tracks just as the train pulled into the station.

    He could think of a dozen reasons to execute such a manoeuvre. Yet she was the only reason that had him testing the traction of his shoes on the edge of the platform.

  • Sweat That Ignites A Fire

    She is sex incarnate and the whole room turns toward her to draw that conclusion for themselves. A long silk dress with a floral print navigates the curves of her body and clings to her legs as she descends the stairs. A belt balances this whole elegant show of grace, drawing dozens of eyes belonging to both men and women upward toward slender shoulders that support a neck down which drops of sweat can be seen to be running. It is sweat that ignites a fire and it can be traced backward up her neck to the base of long blonde hair that frames a face of youth and lust.

    For a long moment the room is transfixed but eventually the toe-to-head examination arrives at her fedora and the bustle resumes without missing a beat, as though it had never been disrupted.

  • Little More Than Stick Figures

    Now he was being trusted to give an opinion. He felt a strange amount of responsibility to offer sage advice that would steer her down the correct fork of the crossroads to choose. He could see that she was talented, but it was also true that…

    “You’re right, Lyle. I get it. Thank you.”

    She stood quickly and tore out the page of her notebook that contained her poem before handing him the notebook itself.

    “Maybe now it’ll help you.”

    He took it with unsettled bewilderment and watched her dart out the door, nearly bowling over another bohemian walking his dog.

    He was still in a bit of shock and began to flip through the pages of the notebook. He stopped when he found a page toward the front with a sketch of a man in a tailored suit carrying a takeaway coffee cup and a bag not unlike his own. Behind the man were more men in suits that featured fewer and fewer details as the queue extended until they were little more than stick figures. At the top of the page were scratched the words “The Last March of the Lyles”.

  • It Was No Democracy

    He never understood the politics of the situation or, at least, he wasn’t willing to accept them. One omnipotent ruler watched over his moves, his neighbour’s moves, the moves of everybody that surrounded him and toiled as he did. It was no democracy.

    Who elected this man God?

  • On His Side Of The Mountain

    She was gone and he could picture no future in which she would come back. The rear wheels of the pickup truck that she had driven away from him had kicked up a cloud of dust that was still settling. The sun slipped suddenly but silently behind the gentle slope that peaked behind his house as the last of the dust gently landed and rejoined the driveway from which it had been stirred. Life under the sun continued on the far side of the mountain but here on his side of the mountain the sun had set on him and him alone.

  • The Only Bliss On Which He Could Rely

    He had been fighting for some time to avoid becoming an alcoholic but it was a losing battle in the hour between dinner and sunset. Condensation was forming on the side of the wine glass and he watched it with intensity.

    The heat was dry but unrelenting. Sweat forged a gentle pathway from his hairline to his eyebrow to the tip of his nose. The solitary drop hung there momentarily, suspended without support just as he had been for months. The drop finally released and fell gently to the ground after a moment that lasted three. It splashed gently on the porous brick below and evaporated immediately.

    He stood and picked up the glass by the stem. The condensation was perfectly distributed around the glass, like freshly fallen snow settling on even ground.

    He smashed the glass against the edge of the table and watched shards of the glass scatter – some from the force of the impact and some in the cascade of wine he had caused. He could feel blood running down his hand but his only reaction was to laugh.

    He stepped forward, laughing even as he felt glass crunching below his feet. There was pain now but that meant that recovery would come next and recovery – the departure of physical pain; the pain real enough to feel – was the only bliss on which he could rely.

  • No Point In Taking The Bait

    My phone buzzed and softly illuminated the corner of the kitchen where I had left it sitting. It would be my dad asking about the weather.

    I initiated a chain reaction of muscle movement that propelled me toward the phone with a not insignificant protest from my spirit.

    It was a photo from Kristie. Her lying in my bed wearing nothing but a tank top and lacy panties that were probably black but I hoped were blue. She had cropped it in a way that made me wish she hadn’t cropped it at all. This would have been her intention and thus there was no point in taking the bait.

  • My Whole ‘Old Gold’ And Blue Heart

    #1 Kansas 63
    #11 West Virginia 74

    The last time West Virginia defeated the top-ranked team in the land was February 1983 – 17 months before I was born. This makes today’s victory a once in a lifetime (so far!) event and I’m enjoying it accordingly.

    Big moments like this always make me feel connected to my home state and alma mater in a way that isn’t always available to me here in Australia.

    I value such moments with my whole ‘old gold’ and blue heart.

    As John Denver would say: “the radio reminds me of my home far away.”

    Montani Semper Liberi.

    Let’s Go Mountaineers!