Familiarity breeds contempt

 

Interwebs

 

 

A tide ceaselessly surging

Inwards

Never ebbing

Lifting the

Flotsam and jetsam

Spilling them carelessly inland

And inside

Forming barricades from the detritus of existence

And submerging the pillars of respectability

‘Neath the mud and slimy sea creatures

Of the surge

We wash up on these drowned shores

Naked and filthy

Exposed like the bones of a beached whale

 

I’m ready for my close-up now Mr. DeMille.

 

 

 

©2016

64. Submarine Bells

 

Normal services will resume presently…

I have arrived safely back into a rather soggy Melbourne and a somewhat sad and empty apartment. As always happens, the down that descended upon me as I closed the door and stood alone in my silent hall was devastating.

With no definite date on when I can return, all we have for now is the sickening certainty that many long and lonely days, weeks, and months lay ahead of us.

This will not break us.

I promise to write a proper (or at least a less self-pitying) post in the next couple of days.

Can this really have been only three days ago?

Part past part fiction 1

 

First memory

 

Waking into an unfamiliar world of dim yellow light and musty air. If I have known a yesterday It has failed to imprint, leaving no discernable memory of its shape or texture. I am entirely of this moment.

The bed in which I lay is soft and warm. It’s also a cage with blue coloured bars that obscure my view of the world around me. This situation sparks irritation and I attempt, with small, inadequate hands, to pull myself upright on the bars.

Unexpectedly, as I put my meager weight upon them, they drop away and I tumble carelessly to the floor. A soft bump, a bounce and I’m rolling out through a doorway and into a long bare room with a high, high ceiling. Unhurt, I remain largely unconcerned by this development. I am, however, stranded, unable to shift for myself.

At once a gigantic figure appears at the far end of the room, lumbering towards me. I freeze rigid with expectation, ready for fear. The figure looms above me impressively huge. I notice its eyes and slowly begin to comprehend that this thing is an animal like me.

The creature bends down and plucks me from my helplessness. Its vast body is warm and I soften against it, but without pause it returns me to the first room placing me back into the bed; no longer warm. Then, with a loud and final ‘clack’ it raises the bars back to their correct position replacing my cage.

With that, the creature turns and is gone from my view. I don’t know it yet, but this creature is my father. This moment, as much as any, will define us.

281 words.

©2016