W. Stubbs
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08th May, 2018

8/5/2018

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Here I am, many months on, weeks ago I started paroxetine again to remove my descent into uncontrolled thinking and negativity. I am an existence without feelings, a sense without sway, an exhibition without mood swings; commenting only on the events as they swing by.

My head is filled with empty noise, floating through the ether as the day’s reverberations slowly dissipate out my ears, out my nose, out my eyes; food and taste keep my mouth closed. I want to sleep, I want the sleep to last, the night to take my mask and only remove it upon the later hours of morn when work bids my bones to gather some sprite and move from my bed to employment. There I hustle the hours for money to compliment my bank account. It is a means.

The early hours – one o’clock, three o’clock – have had me waking before the alarm’s six o’clock disruption. I wonder if my brain is registering time to sleep on my usual clock, and I wake to attend to that time of the artist’s burial. But I usually make my bed to sleep in it when I arrive back from work as an hour or so to tear away the tiredness of ten hour shifts. And then I rest at the later hours of night – nine o’clock, ten o’clock – before the early morning hour call wakes me up to go back to sleep again. The sleep interruptions are rough, but Sunday’s day of rest and extra sleep as the day passed made up for some of it.

I have hope of a new abode. This room that is rent but not a home has done its duty, for the summer holiday I gave myself took me through half of my novel, and I hope when this season’s work of cardboard box building battles for the kiwifruit and apple orchards ends I will have a chance to take up that paper and pen, keyboard typewriter, and return to where I left off again.



He flicked the lighter, staring into the small flame that ignited. “She’s a hard worker, unlike Jansuell. He hasn’t shown any interest in anyone other than himself.” The flame went out leaving a trail of smoke in the air. “And those damn notebooks his parents left behind.”


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A Scene: Cranberry and Camembert

13/4/2018

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A steel-string acoustic trickles down from the speakers in high corners of the cafe-restaurant, sultry hushed vocals whispering notes of longing and wonder. Chatter across the seated tables ignore the minute contemplations spent on remembering love.

Amy busies herself with the chicken burger dripping soft avocado, cranberry and Camembert across the plate, a knife and fork is employed to quarter and then dissect until bite-sized pieces will fit in her mouth.

Clouds have greyed out the often blue sky requiring a two bar heater to help keep the customers warm inside, puffy jackets and wool scarves not enough to ward off the striking cold whistling down from the Kahurangi hills. Escape swirls the cranberry sauce up with avocado, holds on with some freshly cooked soft bun, and launches the sweetness at her tongue. Escape remembers that love is broken sometimes, and musicians are there to remind; songs will invade the quiet and calm in sultry whispers, breaths that fade into chattering voices.

A bus load of school children stop at the intersection outside, last day of term, homeward bound they run. A blonde girl looks in at the customers, raises a hand and waves. Amy is not sure if it's her the girl is waving at - child eyes are peering through a layer of glass doors, see-through canvas that squares off the café’s sun area, and the bus's own dirty and unwashed window. And Amy knows there are customers behind her.

But she smiles, raises her own hand, twinkles some fingers and returns to her burger, sopping up more spilled cranberry and Camembert hoping to avoid any embarrassment if the girl on the bus had in fact been waving to someone else. But Amy is sure she caught a smile out of the corner of her eye as the girl returned to looking forward and the bus moved out of sight.

The smile imbued the cranberry and Camembert with satisfactory sweetness.

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Dim Day: Chapter 12 (a short scene)

29/1/2018

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Clouds simmered in the hidden hillsides, lazily hugging rugged slopes, while pointy peaks peeked over top. Wisps of wind would catch their rising momentum and sweep the clouds upwards in twirls, or just allow them to meander over and past the ridges towards the mireline.

Over on the far horizon, out where the upper wall of mist shore itself thin in the mid-sun heat, hints of the unknown rolled in grey shapes beyond, curves that could be clouds settling over untouched lands.

Or touched lands. Trampled and lived on.

Like this field before him, pitchfork piercing the surface, breaking apart the dirt, potatoes dug up and placed in sacks to be returned to the community; other workers working rows in the sun day heat all playing their part, contributing their share as though there was nothing else to strive for, nothing else to wonder and dream about. Work from one sun day to the next, to propagate crops, to share the resources, but never to wonder what was beyond.

Did my parents find out? They must have.

He continued to prod and poke at the dirt, pulling and breaking, revealing what lay hidden below, the potatoes fully grown and ready to be bagged and carried away.

This job – like any other job – just a job. A ceiling repaired, a fence installed, a garden tended, trees planted, vines trimmed and thinned. What did any of it mean? Subsistence towards a dim day of rest, games, stages set for children to play on; while the adults watched and were entertained, only to return to their work the next day.

But what was that on the horizon, out there beyond the mist? Was it just more mist, heavier and denser? Was it only clouds settling down into the cold recesses of the waelfog?

Or was it something else? A shape. Like hills. Grey and distant. Too far away to see clearly, but nevertheless there.

Something. Something was there.

“Jansuell!”

He turned around. Meridule was behind him, staring down at his pitchfork. The prongs had pierced through three separate potatoes.

“Not everybody likes holes in their potatoes.”

“Sorry Meridule. I was a bit distracted. Had other things on my mind.”

“Yes, well, you might as well put those three aside for yourself. Better eat them quickly though – with holes like that in them, rot will get in quick if they’re left out.”

“Sure. They’ll be perfectly fine for a potato salad during late quarter before Dark arrives.”

“That’s my boy. Try to be a bit more attentive. We have a lot more work to get through now as a community. Duties have to be moved to take up J’nifer and Sauel’s farming work. Your friend, Sere’aen, is one of those doing extra work over there in fact. She’s a hard worker. You could do well to follow her example.”

He patted Jansuell on the shoulder and began walking away as attention was returned to pulling the potatoes off the prongs and inspecting their holes.

“Jansuell?” Meridule had stopped and turned around, nodding towards the mireline. “It’s just waelfog.” He shrugged. “There’s only death out there. Great bowels of mist too cold for our sun drenched bones.”

“But how do you know?”

“Because if there was anything else, other people – not just your parents, but people before them – would have come back alive to tell about it.”

“Did some of them come back dead?”

Meridule laughed. But it was a condescending laugh and the old adult frame seemed to mock him in the stance it took.

“Jansuell, no one comes back at all.”


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