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…..

Gunshot – Object Writing-July 7th

At pretty’s farm we’d line up cans and shoot the twenty two. Anything to pass away the dull grey afternoons of winter, but I was always scared of that bloody shotgun. With the twenty two you could get down – army style- with a knee nestled in the ground and line up your target maybe fifty feet distant. A row of cans looking like seagulls on a railing. There was just the feintest thwack as the trigger was pulled, a little gentle nudge into the shoulders and that was it. The shotgun required much more effort.

Starlings were a problem one year and the only option was to shoot them with ‘ratshot’. Instead of one explosive missile launching from the barrel this was a series of small pellets. We fumbled around in the dimly lit shed next to the milking yard for the shells. They looked like sherbet bombs really bright and colourful and fat and cylindrical. The hardened plasticised outside was crimped off at the top as if it were a wrapped present. We grabbed a bunch of those and headed down the lane where the starlings would be ogling a freshly turned and planted field – scarecrows here were no use.

Starlings make an interesting sound when congregated together. Their oily rainbow feathers glint in the sunlight and they emit a sort of hissing weeing sound as they chatter away, weighing telegraph and power lines down with their combined body weight. Russ had first shot and cracked open the barrels. Two fat cartridges slipped into place easily and the barrel is lined up, his finger on the cold steel triggers. ‘Kapow’ goes barrel one and ‘Kaboom’ goes barrel two as the squadron lifts off…..

Button – Object Writing-July 6

Freckles, they’re my favorite buttons. A blob of gooey chocolate squashed down to the shape of a flying saucer, dosed with a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands. I guess these are the freckles that are talked about, this rainbow assortment of small domes that populate the surface. They are slightly hard but yet brittle to bite into. That surface of rough sprinkles can seem as hard as well laid bitumen. Incisors snap through to the velvety chocolate layer and the freckles dissolve away from the chocolate giving a soft consistency with crunchy moments. I guess it’s based around your basic chocolate button.

Now growing up in a shop I was never attracted to them – the basic button- it was always freckles that got my attention, but thinking about it now, perhaps buttons are the way to go. I’m just thinking about our glass cabinet full of ‘sweeties’. There were those rock hard chews that could pull your teeth out – the politically incorrect ‘redskins’. Mates- a block of caramel covered in a layer of chocolate. I love the way the chocolate skin sheds in sheets as it goes into your mouth. There were wild raspberries, musk sticks, all sorts. And as I replay each of these I am overwhelmed by a ‘smell memory’ the whole cabinet reeked of a sugary pleasure to come. The musk sticks which seemed to be compressed strands of pure sugar also had a strange chemical fatefulness to them. The wild raspberries were so full of preservative # 699 that when they dig me up I’m sure not a whisker of me will have decomposed. I imagine these days asking for a Five cent bag of lollies you would get some strange looks. Back then you’d a get about ten different things. These days ……..

Cuckoo- Object Writing- July 5

I can hear some now in the distance above the yawn of car tyres in the street, above the enveloping rumble of the city, in the space between the noise – coo-coooo, cu-coooo, hence the name. We have a pair who hang around out the back. They skittle about on the lilllydale topping pecking at the dusting of moss that struggles with the soil, pecking, swivelling their heads, alert for danger. I stand at the back door, looking out through pane that separates us, they unaware, instinctively peck . I observe while the kettle comes to a slow rolling high pitched thunder that crescendos in a ferocious boil. The water slices into the cup and the tea bag boggles up and down releasing a stream of brown tannon. I put the bread in to toast and go back to staring out the back door. The steam from my tea fogs the window a little. Its so weak it’s almost like water, no milk just a scalding sting on my tongue, a kicker to get me going. The toaster clunks and I spread the white sourdough portion with Dairy farmers soft spread butter and then some English breakfast marmalade. It’s sweet and the tea flicks it off the grooves of my tongue.

Back to the birds I wonder if they might enjoy a crust. As the back door opens it’s a flight to the top of the garage roll-a-door. I throw the crust, it creates a further ‘flight’ response. “Stupid birdbrains” I think “I’m trying to help”. They’ll be back. I always want to make it easier for animals, giving them titbits, but they just don’t get it. Their instinctual animal brains flood them with chemical responses and wings flutter and legs run. The sound of fluttering wings fills the back yard. I’d much rather the cuckoos then pigeons. They’re much more aggressive those thin stringy rats of the air. Cuckoos seem to have a soft focus sort of attitude. If only I could hold one, or a Crow – I’d really like to pat a nice fat oily black crow, but they’re way to wily, way too much of the ‘I’ll sell you something if you meet me on the next corner” way about them.

Indian- Object Writing – July 4th

Winchester rifle richochets off canyon, dark men on bareback horses appear on ridge, circled wagons impossibly outnumbererd. Bite down hard into that pop corn, butterey lighter than cloud taste dissolving in my mouth. They attack in a cloud of dust , huffing horses hit the ground with punishig hooves. Axes, spears and tomohawks fill the air against the threat…meanwhile……

In the tepee laden village the squaw dressed in buffalo skin tends to the baby in front of the smoky fire that gets in her eyes. She knows nothing of the fight going on just a few ridges away, thinks the boys are getting in some more meat. Here by this stream it’s serene. The days float by like melting jelly, another buffalo steak to prepare. …..

That’s what I seem to remember from growing up, all those cliches and stereotypes, nothing like F troop – The wild west, geronimo and little big horn. Etched into memory as another ‘us versus them’ scenario. These days I think you might be having a fight inside a casino, at least in some places. There was a film about it with Val Kilmer I think.

Of course the other Indian that comes to mind is the country, but you don’t really need to go there ..just hop in a taxi. Every driver seems to be from there, the number of taxi rides that have involved in-ear phone conversations with friends or relatives is beyond counting, but hey somebody’s got to do it, the grunt work and they’re prepared to work hard. I can never read the name on the identity tags that sits in the front window…. Went there once India. there’s a LOT of people everywhere, full and vibrant and poor……