climbing

I was driving in traffic up a steep hill. As I neared the top, my car slowed and struggled. It felt weak, unable to make it. I pressed my foot on the accelerator but the car flipped sideways and I fell out onto the road. I lay on the road, gripping the hot tar with my arms and legs, trying not to slide back down the hill. I felt stuck, unable to stand or move forward, as the traffic swerved around me.


A friend dropped me off, somewhere in the back streets of Kotara in Newcastle. I didn’t recognise the area but the roads seemed to be in a valley, lined with trees and shaded; they criss-crossed and twisted like a labyrinth. I walked the streets, in and out of neighbourhood properties, trying to find the right place. I walked into a house where I seemed to be expected. A meeting was taking place: four or five young men in their early twenties and a woman a little older than me. She started taking the meeting and it quickly became apparent that it was about a sales job. For some reason, the woman mentioned that she was forty-one and, although I am still in my thirties, I stood up and said that I was also forty-one and too old to be at this meeting—I didn’t want or need this job. I walked out the door, thinking that the rest of her meeting probably wouldn’t go too well. Outside, I was uncertain about which way to go. I surveyed the streets, wishing that my friend had waited for me. I felt that I should choose the steepest hill for surely that would lead out of the valley. Reading the street signs, I chose a street and with cement stairs leading straight to the top. I climbed the stairs but as I neared the summit, I began to lose the strength in my upper legs. I had to use my arms and my legs to climb the stairs, to keep going, so that I would make it to the top.

run over

I was driving with other people in the car. I think there were three of four of us. I turned a corner, taking it only slightly too fast, but couldn’t slow the car adequately for what was ahead. I could see that people were crossing the road but couldn’t seem to slow down enough. As I drove around the corner and straightened out on the adjacent road, I ran over a woman who was crossing the road, driving at a very slow speed. We, in the car, listened as first the front tyres and then the back tyres ran over her. It sounded very much like driving over a speed hump. I was instantly in dread, not only for the woman and in expectation of her injuries or death, but for the guilt and remorse I would feel. Strangely, as we hopped out of the car, I felt very little and I was surprised.

stolen water

I was at a party. I brought a bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water with me to drink throughout the night. I put it in the refrigerator along with other people’s drinks, whilst I helped the hosts with some food. I talked with a few people but felt quite isolated from the crowd. Early in the evening, I went to the fridge to get my water but the bottle was missing. I looked around the kitchen but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I began to ask people if anyone knew who had taken my water. No one seemed to know. A woman suggested that she make me a cup of tea but I refused the offer. I felt very angry that someone had taken the water and I was determined to find it. I walked through the rooms of the house looking for the water, and then went outside, searching further. I could see a huge crowd of people gathered about a concert area, like people at a festival. At the edge of the crowd I could see some friends that I used to spend time with when I was in my late twenties. I went over to the group – they were drunk and lying about on rugs – and there was my water, almost all gone. I found out that it was S that had taken the water, not caring that it wasn’t his, and had used it as a mixer for their drinks. There was another bottle of water there that I could have taken, but I didn’t want it – it wasn’t as clear, as clean and cold as my water. I yelled at him, telling him that he had no right, that he should provide me with another bottle of water, that he had taken what was mine. I went to walk away and then felt like I should apologise for being so worked up, mainly so that the group would not think badly of me, but when I went to speak, the words wouldn’t form – I had no voice. I knew that I could not apologise as I really was not sorry, that I truthfully felt upset and wronged, and that if they judged me for that then they were judging the true me. I left the group.

canvases

I was waiting at my grandmother’s house for the courier to come and deliver canvases, early in the morning. The truck arrived but instead of parking in the driveway, the driver maneuvered the truck up onto the verandah, blocking the doorway. My father and I could not sidle around the truck so we took the old goods lift, which suddenly appeared in the wall, downstairs to the garage, intending to guide the truck downstairs so that we could transfer the canvases directly into the lift. Once there, I realised that the truck was too tall to fit in the garage so my father and I told the courier that we would meet him upstairs, if the driver could pass the goods from the back of the truck into where we would be waiting in the loungeroom. We hopped back into the lift and pressed the button. The lift traveled up and past our floor, the doors not opening, and then it began to behave erratically. First it plummeted toward the ground. I called to my father, asking him to curl his legs up off the floor so that, should we crash, our legs would not be broken. Next the lift shot off sideways down the street, cruising down several blocks before returning to the garage. By the time we made it back, the courier had left and had unpacked the canvases into the garage. Instead of four canvases of the correct size, there appeared to be about thirty five canvases of very odd sizes – way too small or tall and very thin. They were also shoddily made, the canvas not attached to the frames adequately. Moths flew out of the packaging protecting the frames and I could see that they had eaten through the fabric in areas.

I was very relieved to wake and welcome the actual courier who delivered four beautiful canvases this morning.

somersault in water

I was on campus at the university I went to nearly twenty years ago, although it was very different. There was an area with several swimming pools and I was heading there to go for a swim. Instead of entering the area through the main doorway, I came up into it via one of the swimming pools which was drained of water, through a window in the wall. I noticed the blue tiles of the pool as I climbed out of the deep pit, up a metal ladder to the cement floor above. Once there, I put my outer clothes aside and, in my underwear, dived into the clear water of the central pool. I swam to the other end of the pool and hopped out, onto the warm cement. I then tried to do a backward somersault: I lay on the cement on my back and stretched my legs up and over my head, attempting to touch them to the ground behind and then flip my body up. No matter how hard I tried or how much energy I put into it, I remained lying on the ground. A young woman who reminded me of a girl at university, climbed out of the pool holding a baby girl. She looked at me and said that my inability to move was directly related to drinking wine. I hadn’t had any wine and felt very clear headed. My dear friend A appeared and the three of us went to go back to class. As I was walking around the outside of the swimming pool, I couldn’t resist having one more swim before leaving. I jumped into the water and felt the bliss of cold, the weightlessness of my body in water. There, under the water with my eyes open, I was able to somersault freely. It was wonderful. I climbed out of the pool and, dripping wet, walked back inside. I was aware that I wasn’t wearing adequate clothing even though there were lots of dancers and performers milling about in very little. I could see into class rooms and rehearsal spaces but couldn’t see my group or my friend A.

walking

I was walking the streets of the suburb that I lived in as a child. I was making my way home, although ‘home’ was a house in a different street to the one in which I actually lived. I could see into people’s yards and into their houses as I passed them. As I turned the corner into the street of my house, I noticed three stone owls, garden ornaments, perched on top of a stone wall amidst shrubbery. Though they were carved out of stone, their owlish ears twitched, their beaks opened and shut, and their eyes moved from left to right. I thought it curious, but kept walking. When I reached the verandah of my house, I went to put my key in the lock but noticed that a second door, to the right of the front door, was slightly ajar. I was worried that someone was in the house. I went in through the second door and searched each room but found no one. The house was very pleasant if a little empty – wooden floors and large rooms with big windows. It did not feel as though it were a permanent home.

Later, I was again walking the streets of the same suburb although on the opposite side of the suburb. I wound my way up and down cul-de-sacs, looking for the right way to go. It was late in the afternoon. At times I walked straight though people’s homes, over their back fences and through other properties to the streets beyond. In one of the homes, I met a couple of women who lived there. They were getting ready to go for their nightly promenade along Park Avenue, a fairly busy suburban street. I felt very warm toward one of the women and as we walked along the street, I took her hand. She was tall, willowy and very gentle; I felt protective of her. As I looked at her, she became my friend C. I was very happy to be walking down the road with her.

on stage

I was in the curtain wings waiting to go onstage. I felt anxious as I couldn’t remember the lines or even the play, I just knew that I was required to perform. At the right moment, I walked out onto the stage with another woman. We faced one another and locked our right hands together in a grip much as though we were having an arm wrestle. We moved around one another, holding our arms strong, our bodies engaged in a kind of fight dance. I waited for her to say the first line, thinking that once said, it would trigger my memory and I would know what to do. I heard a man in the audience say how well we moved. I flipped her slowly over my shoulder and we continued our slow dance, interspersed with acrobatic turns. Minutes ticked by. Quietly and in character, I asked her if she had something to say, trying to frame it as though it were a line. She responded that she had nothing to say, that she didn’t know what to say. We moved around each other, around the stage in silence, neither of us able to recall the lines.

drain

A great storm. So much rain pouring from the sky that our home began to fall apart. A hole appeared in the floor against the wall and acted like a drain. Clothing and rugs were washed across the floor and swept down the drain. I tried to block the hole but to no avail. I ran outside and found the outlet where the water was rushing out, my clothes carried along by the water. I scooped out as many items of clothing as I could before they passed by and my opportunity to retrieve them disappeared. I tried to drag the rugs from the water and called out for help as they were so heavy. A few people came to my assistance but we didn’t manage to rescue everything.

fruit, house & cats

I am standing in the kitchen of a house with my mother. I am eating raw zucchini that has been chopped up into chunks. My father arrives home eating a fresh peach. I notice the bright orangey flesh of the peach and can smell its sweetness. We open the front door and outside I can see a whole orchard of peach trees, row upon row of trees dense with ripe fruit. My father goes out into the orchard and I want to go to collect some fruit, but I feel I cannot leave my mother alone in the house – I need to protect her and make sure she is secure. The house is built on one vast square plane with a door in the middle of each side wall – a northern door, a southern door, a western door and an eastern door. I walk around the house, opening each of the doors, looking outside and then securing the doors against danger. I am concerned because the lock for one of the doors is on the outside of the house - I cannot lock the door from the inside. A large tiger walks in the door and prowls around the house. I stand in front of the door and when the tiger approaches me, I wrap the door around me – the door has changed from white painted wood into metal bars that are malleable. The tiger bats me with his paw but I am safe. I have enclosed myself in bars. Next, I am outside the house and I am watching a white lioness and her white cub try to come into our yard under the fence. The mother lion swipes at the fence, her big paws bending the wire. They are very beautiful yet may be dangerous.

Later, I am standing on a street corner buying a plant from a shop. I am outside the shop on the footpath, talking to the assistant over a brick fence. She is one of my closest friends from my teenage years and I am surprised that she is here with her husband. A frightening tiny yellow lion, as big as a small cat, walks along the top of the fence and jumps down onto the ground, circling around my ankles. He is aggressive and bites a small hole in my long white pants. I turn and glare at him and he cowers and runs away, turning into a domestic cat as he goes. He no longer looks so scary. I then see that the other two girls who were my closest friends as a teenager are also working in the shop with their husbands. I miss their friendship and I feel left out of the group.

fallen house

My family and I were standing outside a very old wooden house. The great timber beams were rotting, bearing only traces of the white paint which once coated the house. My father purposefully pulled at one of the beams, dislodging it from the house, beginning the collapse of our home. We all ran across the road to the other side of the street, warning a passing young boy to keep clear of the falling house, and watched as the house crumbled, beams crashing to the ground and cracking, glass smashing and clouds of dust billowing into the air. I covered my face to protect it from the flying debris. A piece of wood hit my hand. We watched our family home end and felt liberated. Animals that had once resided in the house began to emerge from the ruins. An enormous owl, the biggest I have ever seen, rose out of the rubble and flew away – a huge white fluffy owl with brown wings. Other birds flew up into the air and away. Ghostly shapes and spirits streaked the sky dimly, leaving the site. Suddenly a tennis ball pelted toward me. I caught it with my right hand and looked around to see who had thrown it. An incredibly large dog ran out of the fallen house toward us. I threw the ball and it chased it and brought it back. We each had a go at throwing the ball to the dog – my father, my mother and my sister. The dog, a powerful tawny Bullmastiff, enjoyed the game. I couldn’t see my brother.

bus & bullets

It is night. I am hiding by the side of the road, holding a baby girl. I am with a couple of others and we are waiting for the right moment to run across the road and board the bus that is about to go. We can see men carrying guns further up the road, roaming about, and watch as others attempt to run to the bus – some make it and others fall, randomly killed by the men. Almost everyone is aboard the bus and we cannot wait any longer. We make a run for it, our bodies almost doubled over as we cross the street, moving quickly but sticking to the shadows. I shield the baby with my body. We make it unscathed onto the bus and find seats toward the front. I notice that I am perspiring and panting from the dash and panic. I am relieved that we are not hurt but then I look at the baby. She is very still and her eyes are half closed. I ask her if she is alright and pull up her dress; she has been shot in the stomach. The bullet is wedged inside the wound and I don’t know what to do to save the baby. She reaches up and pulls the bullet out. There is very little blood and I simply close the skin back over, trusting that she will heal quickly. I even imagine that in later life she will have a scar with a story. The bus departs and we drive through the night. Much later, I am hungry. I move to the back of the bus to make a snack. I find rice crackers, honey and cheese, so I cover the crackers in honey, spreading it with my fingers, and place cheese chunks on top. I make enough for several others.