The Bird family welfare check._A Sad Song_Under Pressure_Just Let Me Go
Catalog Guide:
The Bird family welfare check.
Today, as I trudge up the slant of a hill, I thought my usual thought. I was wondering if the Australian winter sun was merely an old Art Deco lamp, projecting dwindling shapes of coloured light onto the damp, decaying leaves and frost bitten long grass under my boots. The dregs of the Snowy Mountain's iced wind, unwelcomed by us Queenslanders, had once again whistled not only thru the August Brisbane Ekka show, but onto my exposed kidneys. I was wearing a singlet but that wasn't enough protection, so I pulled my bright orange vest tight around my hips, closed the zip and secured the press stu...
A Sad Song
It was 2AM and daylight felt forever away. Janie lay in her bed, staring at www.onedoor.ccthe lines of shadow cast around the room as the sodium light outside burned ceaselessly through the slat blinds.She couldn’t sleep. The house felt new and strange and empty, and the sound of a guitar vibrated through the wall from the unit which adjoined hers. What sort of person played guitar at 2AM? It wasn’t even a tune, just a twanging sound. Like he was plucking at the strings with his fingers. A small sound, as if he was trying not to be too loud.As if on the other side of the wall was a man (it had to be a man, ...
Under Pressure
There was very little to harvest in the years after the Great Wash. I was fortunate. My family grew up poor but pleasant, and I was raised on canning jars of beans and venison. I remember having bountiful years of humid summers where we barely had enough jars. I also remember having depression years of dried plants that barely produced a handful of fruit. In those years, my grandmother somehow made every last vegetable stretch through the winter, so we never suffered for hunger. It was because of my childhood knowledge that we made it through that first foul year of swamp infested living, but ...
Just Let Me Go
It begins to snow again. Colin heaves piles of wood into the room and sits before the fire while drinking coffee. He turns off all the lights and sits in darkness for five minutes or more, not knowing if his eyes are open or closed. Colin feels his way back into the bedroom, lights a small kerosene lamp on an adjacent nightstand, and takes it with him to climb up the attic ladder. He spits curses and grunts as he slowly rotates the handle of a pulley bearing her weight. She descends the length of the ladder until her toes touch the floor. He latches the crank and takes the lamp to meet her at...