I received an email from a regular reader today asking me where the hell I am. But nicer than that! (thanks Uppington), which made me realise that I’ve been ignoring my blog. No excuse for that.

So… here are my excuses:

• I’ve been working hard on Beat as my residency at Varuna looms near - three weeks to be exact!
• I’ve been reviewing a fair bit - check them out here.
• CJ and I have decided to take the plunge and move to Melbourne by the end of the year, so there’s been a fair amount of planning and panicking going on.
• I’ve been a student again for a spell, doing a fantastic online numerology course, which has almost finished.
• Preparing a new website that will eventually incorporate this blog.

So, a bit lame, I agree. But to all my blogging buddies, I am still here, just with my nose to the grindstone, and will resurface all shiny and new soon!

This is part of a fairly newly written short story.

1.

On Monday morning you awake to find Germaine Greer sitting on the end of your bed. This bothers you, because as far as you are aware, Germaine Greer isn’t dead, and according to everything you know (which clearly isn’t enough) about visions appearing at the end of your bed, generally they’re supposed to be dead.

“Are you dead?”

You grimace at the ceiling, close-lipped. This was probably not a wise thing to ask Germaine Greer (especially on a Monday morning).

“Do I look dead to you, sweetheart?”

You knew it. She’s seething. How terrifying.

“No. Sorry. It’s just that you’re at the end of my bed, and well… why?”

Germaine looks around her and frowns. Clearly she has no idea why she’s sitting at the end of your bed either, and clearly, it bothers her. She turns back to you, to admonish no doubt, and that’s when you remember the essay - the one that’s due and almost complete. The reason why your alarm is set for 5.00am. You look at the clock. It’s 4.44am. Germaine lifts her eyebrows, suddenly amused.

“Your third argument is flawed. You’ll see why when you re-read it.”

You look back to the end of the bed in amazement to find that Germaine is gone and you jump up and grab your essay, flipping through the pages until you find your flawed third argument.

2.

On Tuesday morning you awake to find Albert Namatjira sitting on the end of your bed. He’s a big man and the mattress slopes down to meet him. You get a fright when you feel yourself sliding down and open your eyes to see the moonlight hitting the darkness of his cheek and lighting up his eyes. You’re pretty sure that Albert Namatjira is dead, but after yesterday morning you’re too afraid to ask. He smiles at you. His teeth glow white as his smile deepens.

“You lost sister?”

The Sept submission had the prompt ‘Behind Closed Doors’ and I received this amazing submission (via email of course) from Chris, who happens to be the lucky, lucky husband of [ahem]… me, and in all honesty, I had no idea he could write like this. Frankly, I’m a wee bit jealous, I thought this writing caper was my deal in our partnership! (Shut up Simonne, this isn’t about you.) Chris said that this is the first chapter of a sci fi short story or novella. Enjoy!

The room still smelled of the blast and a thin layer of smoke hung high, close to the ceiling. Held aloft, too, were the finest of the particles of blood: dried but airborne; a blood-dust. With the early morning sun heating up the air through the blinds (still drawn) they would stay aloft for many hours yet, riding the gentle updrafts of the convection currents, the roll and exchange of warm and cool air. Down below, around the remains of the body, the pooled blood soaked into the carpet.

The room was now sealed. The first officers sent to the apartment had pushed a filament camera probe under the door, found no signs of life, and called in the Scan Crew. Then they sealed the room with spray-tape. The tape sprayed on bright yellow; as it dried over the gap between the door and its frame, between the door and the floor, the words “POLICE SCENE OF INTEREST: DO NOT BREAK SEAL!” appeared in heavy black type all along its length.

The Scan Crew technicians arrived twenty minutes after the call. Two men walked up the stairs; the first was older, hefting a large case made of black textured plastic. Behind him, the other carried a smaller bag slung over his shoulder. Setting both the case and the bag down outside the sealed door, they pulled clear plastic booties from the bag and snapped them over their shoes.

The second tech removed two things from his jacket pocket. The first was a long white tube, pointed at one end and sealed in plastic wrapping. He removed the wrapping and attached it to the end of the second object, square and flat. He pushed the point of the tube into the yellow-black tape at the foot of the door, passing it through the gap between the door and the floor, then tapped the screen of the box. Thirty seconds later it emitted a soft beep. He pressed the screen again and stuffed the box back into his pocket; the tube fell to the floor. He took a retractable knife from the bag and traced the outline of the door through the tape.

Meanwhile, the first tech had opened the black case flat on the landing floor. Sitting in the centre of the case’s foam padding was a large egg-shaped object in dull polished aluminium, one end filleted with many thin slices cut into its body. To the side of the metal egg was a gimbal ring; he attached this to the bulky tripod legs he pulled from a compartment in the case’s lid, then eased the metal egg from its padding and sat it in the gimbal. His partner put the knife away and opened the door to Room 247.

Holding the assembled scanner out in front of him, and being careful not to knock it against the door frame, the first tech stepped through. He moved to what he judged was about the room’s centre and set it down. The scanner head, the size of his own and looking duller still in the muted light, sat at waist height above the floor. One foot of its tripod rested close to the dark stain in the carpet. He moved back to the hallway and uncoiled a length of heavy yellow cord from the case, trailed it back into the room, and connected it to the base of the gimbal. He took two steps back and said over his shoulder, “Yeah - start it up.” The second tech flicked a switch and tapped at a screen set into the lid of the black case. The heavy metal head of the Tetsuon Spatial Scanner began to spin, and as it spun it hummed.

The spinning accelerated; the hum grew to a whine. While he waited for it to complete its scan of the room, the first tech stared at what lay on the floor in the middle of the dark, drying stain. Were it not for the remains of the clothes, he would not have guessed it was a human torso, missing its head and all its limbs. A shotgun blast had scorched the shirt and flayed the flesh of the chest; it was impossible to know if he was looking at the remains of a man or a woman. While the scanner head, spinning fast, slowly lifted up on a piston rising from the tripod’s centre, the whine shifted pitch to a shrill, near-unbearable note. He closed his eyes and waited for the noise to die.

Well, it would seem that being a theatre critic is a job not without its hazards. I wrote a review last month for a one-woman show called Big Purple Undies, and it would now seem that the Big Purple Undies Brigade is not happy! The show, written and performed by Lou Kelamn, is a particular hit with the Red Hat Society ladies. I’ve had to moderate my comments (sorry regular readers) because some of these society ladies have turned. Yes, lock your doors people, they’ve turned malicious! One ‘lady’ left a comment that just read - Loser! - and not once mind, but several times!

The fact that this review is almost a month old and the comments are just now coming out has something to do with (as one of my malicious lingerers so kindly pointed out to me) the fact that these ladies were incited to revolt by Kelman’s own newsletter. Oh dear. Oh deary deary me.

The power of the critic! I did let two juicy comments through though. Why not? It’s fun, right? Check it out.

Oh, and here’s the review that caused all the ruckus, if you’re interested.

My mother loves to reminisce about my colourful romantic past exploits to my husband, CJ. You’d be forgiven for thinking that she was talking about herself, what with all her ooh-ing and ahh-ing and her incredible memory for detail; the sort of detail that I can never summon, despite the fact that these ridiculous events happened to me. One might even be forgiven for thinking that she was reminiscing vicariously through me – wait – before I delve so far into my own Freudian etiology that I can never return, I’ll stop talking about my mother.

So, there we were, me, my mother, and my husband, bellies fat from dinner, lolling on the couch talking about the good ol’ days when, out of left field, my mother brings up the fact that when I was 18, I went out with the ‘mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster’. Okay, let’s stop here a second so I can defend myself.

First – I was only 18. That’s like a mere 8 years from 10 and 10 is very, very young, people.

Second - My mother made me go. I know, I know, but read on, you’ll see.

The mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster, who shall remain nameless, mostly because I’ve forgotten his name, decided that despite the fact that we had never spoken to each other, (yes, I worked there too) he was in love with me. Let’s face it, I was 18 and cute and blonde and had made my aunt shorten my Red Rooster uniform just so I didn’t look dowdy as well as incredibly ridiculous, so really, who can blame the boy? He asked me (probably wrote it down on the lid of a chicken’n'chips box, who knows, I can’t recall) to go to a party with him, and I said I’d get back to him, having no intention of going anywhere with the mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster. But when I told mum what had happened at work that day (seeing nothing apart from endless boredom punctuated by brief periods of nausea ever happened at Red Rooster), she demanded thusly that I attend the party with said mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster. My mother was making me go on a pity date.

Sigh.

Let’s end this sad tale, shall we? Here’s what happened in a proverbial snack box: The mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster, along with EVERY other person at the party, was dressed as a rockabilly, and when I asked the mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster why he hadn’t told me it was a fancy dress party, he replied, in his first spoken words to me I suppose, that it wasn’t a fancy dress party.

Oh.

I stayed at the non-fancy-dress, fancy dress party a full and tortourous half hour before I feigned an exotic illness of the female (and therefore unmentionable) variety, and told the mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster that I was very sorry, but I had to go home. He walked me to my car and that’s when I received THE STRANGEST KISS KNOWN TO WOMANKIND, EVER. Before I had time to bid the mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster goodnight, he’d clamped his open mouth over my lips and sunk his teeth into that sensitive bit below your nose and my chin, and then proceeded to stand impossibly still and breathe Red Rooster breath into my face. This is a true story people. This was how this poor boy kissed. I had no option but to squeak through aching, trapped lips and ask if he would kindly remove his teeth from my face. He did, quite politely, and then stared at me. I stared back. What was I supposed to say? That was nice? I got in my car and I drove away, furious at you know who; mother.

So what happened to the mute rockabilly librarian who worked at Red Rooster? I don’t know actually. He stopped working there after that. I guess he decided he was making enough money just being a librarian. I do sometimes wonder though, if some woman, with more patience and resolve (and a tougher face) than me, taught that poor man how to kiss.

]]> http://simonnemichelle.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/the-strangest-kiss-known-to-womankind-ever/feed/ Simonne http://simonnemichelle.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/blood-on-the-poet/ http://simonnemichelle.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/blood-on-the-poet/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:14:46 +0000 Simonne http://simonnemichelle.wordpress.com/?p=344

Found my second year university poetry portfolio…. My my, the irony of a teenager…

And for your next trick…

Three of my favourite sexy quotes:

A Graze on my lips: and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. William Shakespeare

A man is two people, himself and his cock. A man always takes his friend to the party. Of the two, the friend is the nicer, being more able to show his feelings. Beryl Bainbridge

When my Mum found my diaphragm I told her it was a bathing cap for my cat. Liz Winston

‘Olympic Memories’ by Peter Wells

The Olympics seem to be flavour of the month. In 1960 at the tender age of 19, I travelled to the Rome Olympics in a student group to enjoy the glorious late summer weather in the Eternal City. We went every day to the beautiful Stadio Olympico with our crusty Italian bread rolls and bags of peaches (it was all we could afford!). We had arranged to see the athletics events for the princely sum of twenty-five shillings for the whole day. A student concession rate of course, but twenty-five shillings, can you believe that? We actually thought that was a bit much, lashing out a whole £15 for the week, but now that same week at the Games would be at least $1200!

A few memories stand out. I saw Herb Elliot win the 1500 metres in record time, including the famous towel-waving antics of his famous coach Percy Cerutty as Herb rounded the final bend on the last lap.

Dear old Herb, my absolute hero, I would love to meet him, and now living in Perth I believe. He’s about my age too. Back then, I had made the college cross-country team, and on hearing that he was attending Cambridge University for a short stay, and rumoured to be competing in one of the inter-collegiate races, we were keen to see if we could keep up with him. But he didn’t show, so we all said he’d piked out. Yeah, right!

Actually, our college was quite well represented in the English athletics team at Rome, as we had a runner in the 400 metres men’s final, and a huge hammer thrower. Neither won a medal, but we cheered like mad anyway.

The 200 metres mens’ final was something else – it was won by the local hero, Livio Berutti, who won in grand style wearing sunnies, an unheard of affectation in those days! The whole stadium erupted, and ice cream vendors immediately began selling a new flavour to the ecstatic crowd – “Gelati Berutti, Gelati Berutti!”

Another memory was not so edifying. Every day there was a huge contingent of German youth at the stadium, mainly blond youth types all dressed identically who were intent on dominating the cheering with regular bursts of what sounded like “Ticker, tacker, ticker, tacker, Oi, Oi, Oi!” all chanted in complete unison. You could see the crowd getting restless with these outbursts, for some perhaps a bit too reminiscent of Hitler youth demonstrations of only a few years previous. Today’s boisterous Aussie rendition of “Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie, Oi, Oi, Oi!” has much more going for it!

Perhaps the most moving moment was the closing ceremony. This was a very simple affair, where most people in the crowd set light to their programs or other pieces of paper to become torches, forming tiny twinkling spots of light in the night air. Of course, quite unsafe and unacceptable in today’s politically correct world! The crowning touch was the brief message on the electronic scoreboard – “Ciao Roma! Arriverderci a Tokyo”.

Writing is hard. It’s not all plaid smoking jackets, long languorous looks at the gums trees outside the window, and sups of tea in-between graceful key strokes. Being a writer is romantic; doing the writing is another story. It’s a job, like other jobs, it just pays a whole lot less.

That’s all I have to say on that really. This isn’t a post about the process of writing, it’s just an update on my writing, so I won’t go into the whole ‘writing is romantic’ thing lest this post never ends.

The first draft of my novel is finished (ahead of schedule I might add, with more than a hint of amour-propre) and I’m currently struggling to even begin the second. This is all about the research side of it, which I decided to completely ignore in the first draft. Basically I now have to do all the stuff that isn’t any fun! I know a lot of writers enjoy the research side of things. I was listening to an interview with Geraldine Brooks the other day about her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, People of the Book and she said she adored the research side of writing. Yes. Adored, people, adored.

Anyway, while taking a deep breath before tackling draft two, I’m preparing a submission for the Iremonger Award (Allen & Unwin). The prize is $10,000 with guaranteed publication and royalty rights of the (non-fiction) book. They want sample chapters, synopsis etc etc, so I’m hard at work on that and planning to spend no more than a week on it so I can get back to the novel.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reviewing lately, including an interview with Chris Kabay, the Artistic Director of Yellow Glass Theatre, and have also somehow found time to write and submit a few short stories and flash pieces to several journals. Will let you know what comes of all of this when I (eventually) find out.

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ~Gene Fowler