Floor plan- Object Writing- Aug25

He’s over with the latest, we settle like migrating birds over the polished whoelsomeness of the pine kitchen table. From a rounded tube, he withdraws the plans. On the table they fight against being uncurled, he curls the paper back the other way, it looks like he’s having a fight with a morning broadsheet newspaper. It crackles and snaps like a campfire and eventually settles. A small mountain stream of excitement soon turns to a fountain as we see what might be in store. Where we now sit would be expanded into the back yard and a whole other story will manifest above us, with a master bedroom with ocean view. Yes, the dream, the ideal fulfilled. He is the dream maker.

Coffee, tea and buns are supplied for morning tea while we chew over the realities of the project, fingers trace spidery lines that weave together in the near perfect plan of walls and windows. A bit of toasted raisin gets stuck in my teeth after releasing itself from the doughy prison of the Boston bun, easily cleansed and redeemed by swigs of piping hot tea. Straight tea, no milk, no sugar, just the pure bitter taste of tannon tainted tea, lovely. We try to imagine how these plans might translate to reality,and fortunately he has his modeling PC with him, the program opens up as if its some X-box arcade game, I almost expect a crack army elite team to emerge from behind the kitchen alcove, or a desperate villain with morning shadow to come scooting down the hallway, but no it ‘s all muted pastels and fake picassos over the walls, polished floorboards gleam and wink at us.

Telescope – Object Writing July 16

Grade 6, an after hours excursion to Mr Burbidge’s house, most of the class turn up in the early autumn chill. It’s not cold enough to make cloudy breath, but enough for mittens. Soft furry mittens, while that cool air just nips at an exposed face. Mr Burbidge has a large telescope , almost as tall as some of us, in the light that leaks from the rear of the teachers house it is illumined in shiny stark white, fat and squat like a PVC plumbers pipe but with an eyepiece, almost like a mini telescope attached to the side. We ‘re here to look at the moon, but right now the telescope is trained on Saturn. We have to stand on a milk crate to get our eye up to the viewer but then there’s a massive excitement, bubbling a up like a steaming kettle on the boil , WOW! There, maybe the size of your fingernail is Saturn and its rings! Just like you see on television or in picture books, except this is real life , this is now , WOW! So exiting I almost fall off the crate. So what are the craters of the moon going to look like? Those gorgonzola cheese craters, are there giant mice?

In my teen years I’ll take to evenings alone on the roof of the garage, lying on a parapet wall with binoculars, bathing in the moon light as some would bathe in the sun. Me and my cold arse on those ridged bricks, that dividing wall between us and the neighbours. I like the quiet of the moon the silence of the stars, in the chaos of our life. Stillness, center, I am one with the all and through the binoculared world I see it all, feel it all and know that I am but a speck, a granule in this sandy universe, and through the lens, I see pictures of home, where I belong. This world is not where I am meant to be.

I snap out of reverie out of hypnotic moondance in my mind and continue thinking of homework and kittens being born by wild cats out in the shrubs. I shrink back, l and look at life as if through a telescope in reverse, where everything looks tiny, where people look like ants and I am a god. For a moment , I am a giant.

Orange- Object Writing- July 15

The ball in my hand is as bright as a setting sun, round and firm with a cool skin. The skin has tiny grooves and indents – like its undergone a series of earthquakes. I take a knife and slide it down one side and the other, the skin pierced into eight quadrants. I could bite into that skin now but the taste would be bitter and I would reel away from it. I slip the knife under one corner and peel back, moist fingers slide over a furry epidermis, a second skin beneath the plastic outside, it’s yellowy white. The skin of other segments drops like used armour in a battle, for now this piece of fruit has surrendered unto me. Now I see the individual segments lying pregnant underneath the second skin, just one swift insertion of my finger and I could cause a rift through the experience of that perfect sphere, those ridges poke out like ribs and I plunge in between them and the orange rips into halves, the stringy white skin still trying to cling. From one of the severed halves I pluck a segment, One single strand of the orange symphony explodes into a sweet melody in my mouth, it sings of high violin notes and soaring soprano. The gates are open and my mouth applauds and screams ‘bravo’ and more and the segments start to ……..

Cream – Object Writing July14

Cream a wonderful dollop smooths over a number of culinary sins. Nothing quite like it on a piece of cinnamon infused apple pie. Those baked apples pulled from the enveloping furnace of the ovens’ heat, placed on the table and cut. Spirals of steam lifting to the roof. A half sharp knife making zig zag cuts and the piece of pie delivered to you plate. The cream may be in a boat [fancy] or still in its plastic container [less fancy] either way it flows like water in a slo mo replay, it paints the pie in a viscious wave. Yes it is quite thick and heavy, almost like its been brought here from the moon where it flows without effort, graceful, yet here on earth it acts like setting concrete. The container is cool to touch and starting to sweat as it’s been out of the fridge now for at least 5 minutes, sweating, nervous, like a fish out of water. Trapped immobile- unable.

Scrambled eggs: two eggs, a splinter of salt, a twist of the pepper mill, whisk with – CREAM- beat the eggs; first the yellow center and the white or the clear become one, cream folds easily into the mixture almost the same viscosity as the egg but thicker. The fork whips from side to side, the mixture turning and turning over itself. The pan heated receives a slodge of butter it melts and sizzles an is then brought into the mixture for another whisk and the lot goes in the pan- heat high , the orange rings of the electric stove working Overtime, the heat emanating from the ring palpable.. A plastic spatula works the mixture in the pan turning it quickly , no sticky bits, just a Chinese doll folding over and into itself until no liquid remains, a small mountain in the middle of the PABX is served on two pieces of crispy toast, buttered of course

Matchbox- Object Writing- July 13

Matchbox->Child-> “Don’t play with matches”. How often did I hear those words. Like a thunderous message from God, but they were always around, and I am curious. The end of the garden is a good distance away from the house, so I’ll play with them down there. I like the way the edges of the drawer catch slightly. This is late sixties we’re talking about so the box is not actually cardboard, but some sort of light ply construction, with a colourful picture pasted on top. If I’d looked close enough I might see the words ‘made in India’ somewhere on it, the tail end of empire, a crumbling relic.

The matches rustle as that box opens and I hold one of the thin splinters of wood with the bulbous head between tiny pincers. In awe I stroke it along the scratchplate, it bumps half catches and then flares into life. I watch transfixed, I fall into the flame hypnoitised. Another, flare and fascination, another. Over and over until I’m through the whole box and I’m a zombie. I’m sitting behind the caravan, no one’s seen me I think. I wander down to the park next door. At five years of age there I am free as a cloud, taking in the drowsy sun like a cat to catnip, wandering aimlessly and then I return, to find most of my family gathered around the caravan with, pots and pans and buckets, trying to douse an apparent fire. Panic and fear grabs my throat and squeezes- yes it’s my fault. I rush back to the park and grab a handful of grass to help…..

Later I receive the first belting of my life, well deserved I think, lying across his knee as the leather rips into my tender backside. “Stupid boy” or words to that effect are drilled into me. “I will not play with matches”. My bottom Stings like I’d been sitting on thorns. I try to imagine how those expired matches could possibly have set the caravan on fire, but it’s beyond my child brain. ” I will not play with matches”

Coyote- Object Writing – July12

Now is it a Kie-Oat or CIE-oH- tee, depends where you’re from I guess. Forever imprinted on my child brain are those images of Wile-E-Coyote falling into infinitely deep canyons. A perplexed look on his face as another plan fails another boxed device from the ACME company backfires on him. Just for a reminder the other day and in search of the road runner theme I searched Youtube. Hard to describe the actual style of the music- Old country meets 60′s singers? Hmmmmm, twanging’ guitars and a sort of spring box bass. The clip on Youtube is tagged ‘Wile-E_Coyote catches road runner [at last]‘, There they are in the usual race along some deserted desert road and they enter a series of what looks like storm water pipes, which get smaller and smaller in diameter until they emerge at the the end the size of ants, so, back in the pipe they go- out comes the life size smarmy road runner- “meep meep” followed [unfortunately as usual] by the ant sized coyote, who proceeds to unfurl his napkin and knife and fork, I’ll leave it to you to work out what happens next. Yes I can hear that familiar sound of a descending whistle as he plunges to the bottom of another canyon, probably with a rope wrapped around a rock by way of a safety device, which of course is pulled off as he’s about to hit the bottom of another canyon floor, more whistling. This must surely have made an impression because now I’m hearing a sound like a jet as they are chasing down those well paved roads through the middle of nowhere- It’s rising and falling in pitch as they burn up that road, the road that seems to lift off the sandy floor as they flash past. I guess that ol’ Wil-E, all he thinks about is how that road runner’s gonna taste. Maybe a bit like a Sunday roast chicken dinner, do his dreams come with roasted potatoes and vegetables or is it just the meat? I used to really look forward to chicken roast when we had it maybe once a month. The smell would fill the whole kitchen, those roast potatoes with the crispy skins…….

Dummy Object Writing- July11

It used to be that a female dummy had no nipples – when I was a kid that’s how it was anyway, but perhaps in the quest for ‘realism’ they have now grown them. I don’t think we’ll be seeing genitalia growing any time soon, but who knows. Those formless perfect Barbie and Ken bodies, no wrinkles, no hairs no imperfections just a few fault lines where the arms and legs join the body for positioning into that assigned pose. The one they’ll hold for the next month, while they stare out the through window onto the world, never blinking, or smelling or tasting anything. But there’s lots of thinking time.

What if every store dummy were some ‘bad’ person sent back to earth to pay penance by being trapped inside an immovable body. Alive in thought but dead to the world – perhaps the same as being in a coma. A living body but a vacant mind, flat lines on the screen at the hospital. We knew a family whose son had a tractor accident, he was left unconscious in a ditch for hours and never gained consciousness. When we visited their farm there would be a twice daily work out, the whole family and us were involved in where we would stretch legs and arms and muscles, in the hope of response and maybe one day a recovery. There was stuff going on behind the forward stare, just a glint of recognition, or maybe that’s what they wanted to see. Who knows, victims who do recover seem to have no memory of such things. So let’s say our store dummies are trapped souls , ruminating on a life not lived so well, replays of each and every event that hurt or maimed. Would a life time of plasticised jail be enough? Discarded at the end of that usable life as fashions change and genitalia dummies come to the fore? Perhaps I am just being a dummy for having such a crazed imagination, though there was a Doctor who series where store dummies came alive… a long time ago…..

Chatterbox – Object Writing- July10

I’d say I’m genereally a quietish person, and formerly would even say I did’t have much to talk about. My mother however was a genuine approved chatterbox. Anywhere, anytime, she seeemd to just start with a volley of stuff about anything. Bus stops- I mean who do you talk to at bus stops? And yet, while we sat under lead skies with the threat of rain, she’d just start talking to the other person about- the weather or something inane. Why did I not inherit this faculty for speech on demand is beyond me!

I realised over the years when it came to women I was attracted to ‘chatterboxes’, thinking that they might actually have something worthwhile to say, but realising in the end that it was mostly ‘filler’. Like a bag of potato chips, looks good on the outside, but when you open the packet there’s not really much in there. Not to say that all chatterboxes are vacant souls. We have some at work, they just pull you aside mid stride and start wanting to talk about politics, or some office gossip, “did you hear’, or their personal lives…..

Dinner parties are another forum where the chatterbox can really excell. To the extent of numbing all other covnersation, because they just don’t shut up. They don’t realise that their bulldozer talking tactics take a toll. Can’t they hear themeselves? – or maybe they love to hear themeselves. In the end their conversation just tastes of frozen vegetables that have been left stewing in a pit too long, colourless, lifeless and tasteless.

These days in my perpetual state of Buddhist calm I just nod and throw in comments now and then and pretend I am listening or interested- some times I am, If the subject mattter is relevant. I must admit actually, secretly a part of me longs to be a chatterbox, to over step that boundary of withheld conversation, but sometimes, there just ain’t nothin’ there. Where do they get it from I wonder, where is the tap that I might turn when the well is dry, do they give lessons? Just let me loose on the right subject and I know I could get my proficiency badge!

Object Writing July 9

I feel like a cyborg, there’s a tube coming out of my hand a plastic insert in my body. It’s all politness and pleasantness, no E.R. emergrnecy panic, a smooth glide to the theatre, almost like anticipating touch down on a Melbourne Sydney flight, the familiar jolt of wheels on the ground and an exhalation of thankful air. I feel like I’m on stage, all these people around me maybe eight of them. To the left a couple of 24 inch LCD monitor screens. No nerves . No panic, calm, calm , this is normal.

My cyborg implant is hooked up to some sort of feed and I start to feel vague like I’m driving through drift, my windshield view is slightly smudged and obscure, I need wipers on my consciousness to clear the view. I hear beepings, shufflings and the voice of Doctor Bruno. SO I’m aware of what’s going on but not quite with it- and no I’m not floating above the operating table. There are what seem to be lightning flashes, all the power is sucked out of the grid, and a repeat. After this I think they step up the dose because next thing I’m awake, looking out the window from the Avenue Privte.

The room looks out over mediteranean orange tiled rooves and bare back yards. I feel ‘ok’, though there is a little pain on the left hand side of my heart. They burrowed in there with those probes up through the large artery and short circuited me in some way- burned out the connection so this ol’ heart would keep beatin’ normal. In a few days time I’ll fel the incision, but right now I’m floating on a sea of pleasant chemicals – getting ready for round two this afternoon, the polaroid snap of the arteries.

The same room, this time mostly conscious, looking over at the screens as they inject a die into the blood stream, more flashing lihgts, the good news”Your arteries are as wide as the amazon”. Great.

Bouquet- Object Writing- July 8th

The Bouquet of her perfume was hanging heavy in the room as we interviewed her, another candidate for moving into our shared house. Under the glare of Five 10 watt energy saving globes her outline was fine as porcelain, all the right moves and looks . She should have been the perfect candidate, young, attractive , with it, but that perfume was just a little too strong, almost over powering. I tried to imagine what it might be like with it lingering in the kitchen, cutting through the aroma of seared steak or fish and I just thought “it couldn’t work”.

I stopped in at a florist on my way to my sister’s farewell. I was driving through the foothills of the Dandenongs which is always strange territory, that sort of time numbness of not really knowing where you are. I deemed that flowers were an appropriate gift and was lucky at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon to find one. Outside it was bit of a day of the triffids show – actually now I think about it, it was mothers day, so all sorts of dodgy roadside sellers were out there too. I had pulled across Canterbury road to have a look at one, but by that stage the best were all gone – of course. The florist had some serious Van Gogh moments going on though. Pretty as pictures some of these arrangements were and when I entered the shop it was like my smell sense had been dialled to eleven – no perfume needed. I went for some standard Jomquils or something. I briefly felt my finger play on soft furry petals before she escorted them to the wrapping table – now this was a procedure; the crinkling paper, the special straw string to tie it off and Ten bucks later I was traveling again. I needed something – I decided – to curb my perceived bad breath – I think I didn’t brush that morning. The shop just before my sisters place supplied some fruity ‘mentos’, never had them – a hard crust melted down to become a gelatinous fruity inside…..