Pale Pink Sky

    The sea so deep and blind
    Where still the sun must set
    And time itself unwind
    O love, aren’t you tired yet?

    The Faith — Leonard Cohen

 

Pale Pink Sky


If I could be
Something
It would be the
Pale pink sky of afternoon

I would be
The cool wind
Of early evening
And the quiet of dusk’s edge

If I could be
Something
I would be the purpled-blue
Before sunrise

I would be
The rumble of thunder
After lightning and the
Grey behind the trees

If I could be something
I would be you, or him
I would be her
I would be anything

Anything but me

What's Wrong Nothing

What’s Wrong Nothing
 


I think the darkness is following me
Last week I woke in the night
This week I come home in the night
And
The darkness
It is outside the window
And in the rooms where my bulbs have blown
And in the deepening bruise on my thumb
And in the helpless thoughts I have
When I can’t remember not feeling tired
The darkness
It is everywhere

I don’t know if the darkness scares me
But I still look away from it
And keep working
Because I have come to learn that there is no relief
For some of us

For some of us
There is only the unending path of persistence
And that path is paved with the darkness

The darkness that follows

Would you ask me questions through the darkness?
Are you okay?
I wake in the night — I’m fine.
Would you worry at all?
Is everything alright?
I come home in the night — Yes, of course.
Would you see right through my lies?
What’s wrong?
I think the darkness is following me — Nothing.

This Is Not An Exhaustive List

This Is Not An Exhaustive List




    Bye bye baby blue
    I wish you could see the wicked truth

        ~ Glass Animals, The Other Side of Paradise


Anya didn’t want to get out of bed but she knew it was what she was supposed to do, and so she got out. She rolled to the side and hoisted her sleep-heavy arm up to turn off the incessant alarm on her phone. The sun was just starting to filter in through the curtains. Maybe it was going to be a nice day, but who was she to say? She knew she had a good life but that didn’t mean that every day was nice.

She buried her feet in her fluffy slippers. The light in the hallway was on — Jeff always switched it on for her when he left for work — and she flicked it off as she scuffed down the hall, eyeing the door at the end. Locked, she reminded herself. The locked door at the end of the hall.

Anya felt her jaw tighten/clench and took a sharp right-turn into the kitchen where she found the mess from the night before. That was just one of the many things that Jeff pointed out was wrong with her. At the end of the night she never wanted to clean up and though he always urged her — Jeff loved a pristine house — Anya hated being tired and cranky and restless, and then having the added chore of washing the damn dishes. So she never did it. She left them there until the morning, which was when she woke up and immediately regretted having left the mess. It was a vicious cycle that she willingly enabled and she constantly whined at Jeff about Why they couldn’t just hire someone to do that stuff, They had the money.

Just like all the vicious things she enabled within their relationship, probably most of all, the door at the end of the hall. The locked door. But she didn’t want to think about the door right now, she wanted to wash the dishes so that she could relax and make a coffee and a bagel and sit the fuck down. Anya knew her life was nothing but spoils but that never made any difference to how she felt.

What she had — the life, the things, the ease with which it all hurtled towards her whenever she needed it — was much more than the average person could have imagined. Still, she wanted more. Still, she remained unhappy.

The special order stainless steel bagel toaster hummed a buzzing tune on the kitchen bench alongside the coffee machine, who gurgled and spluttered until he released a thin but creamy stream of espresso into Anya’s silver cup; Anya had decided that she wasn’t going to wash the dishes this morning. Maybe Jeff would finally crack and they could hire someone.

With her feet up on the porch railing and the bagel smeared with cream cheese resting on her lap under the mottled light beneath the palms, Anya wasted away the morning. She had worked before — she had vague memories of diners and gas stations and supermarkets — but she couldn’t really remember what it had been like. She knew that Jeff got up every morning at sparrow’s fart and returned home every evening well after dark, but what he did in between was a mystery to her. Banking, she sometimes thought. Or hedge funds? Whatever they were. Or maybe, just like, investments? All of those words sounded as if they shouldn’t be coming out of her mouth at all. Whatever actual work she had once done seemed to be gone from her mind completely.

Her work now was to keep her mouth shut. She liked to think of herself as a silent partner who had no input and also didn’t really know what a silent partner was.

She had it made. She always wanted more and longed for something else, but she never said it out loud, because she had made it. She never did anything about her unhappiness because she had made. That was the best way to keep what you already had and to get more of the things you liked.

The new iPad with the shiny copper case that she hadn’t powered up.

The refurbished study that she never used. It was filled with an arrangement of lovely indoor plant that she didn’t tend to.

The set of chrome cookware that hadn’t seen a drop of oil or butter.

Anya lazed in her chair on the porch and let her bagel go stale in the morning sun. The golden palms rustled above her in the breeze.

She woke to the sound of a motor and looked up to see the motorcycle postman pulling into the bottom of the driveway. Jeff was going to spit chips when he saw those gouges in the front turf. Anya smiled quietly to herself. A bee in Jeff’s bonnet usually proved to be a cherry on her pie of amusement. He’d get angry and distracted and leave her alone for a while and she could pretty much do whatever she wanted without supervision.

But of course, not the locked door at the end of the hall. Never The Door.

The postman got partly off his motorcycle and leant over towards the slot of the box. Anya called down to him and shuffled across the porch, still in her pajamas, completely aware that the hard nipples on her small breasts were obvious to anyone who was looking.

Anya waved and the postman waved back. There was a moment where they just looked at each other — she with a curious eye, he with eyes behind dark lenses; eyes that couldn’t be read. That moment lasted a lifetime. And then it was over and then Anya was standing aside as the postman came up the steps of her porch and past her to the golden palms, where he gently ran his glove-clad fingers over their fronds and said nothing. 

Anya ached with anticipation. She stayed where she was, next to the steps. “Is there mail for me?”

The eye-less postman turned and smiled. He held out a wedge of letters and junk mail towards her. Anya took a few steps over to him and knew he was looking at her nipples. She was immediately wet. She thought about the gouges in the lawn and that was when the sky started to darken. The morning sun disappeared, the clouds rolled in, too quickly, but the postman on her porch didn’t move an inch.

“I think it might rain,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You could come in for tea?”

He said nothing. He stood still, with his gloved hand on the porch railing next to the palms.

Anya felt herself falter. Normally this part was easy for her. Normally she breezed through this part like the adulterer she was.  “I’m sorry,” she said, wringing her hands together despite herself. “You’ve probably got a lot of mail to deliver. I’m sorry I held you up.”

“I’ll come in for tea,” he said, his voice even and deep.

Anya smiled. “Oh. Okay.” She felt a rush of blood to her fingertips and earlobes. This was the shit she lived for.

Inside he was not as she had expected. The thunder and the rain came down and Anya worried that she had perhaps done something wrong this time. The postman with no eyes finally took off his sunglasses and he was blind. The marjority of his eyes were white and milky and Anya immediately regretted her judgement.

“You’re looking for the key,” he said, quietly.

Anya was confused. “No? No, I mean, I don’t think so.”

The blind postman cocked his head slightly and seemed to ponder a moment. “Yes. You look for the key. And I have it.”

Anya didn’t know what he was talking about. “No, I’m sorry. I think you might have the wrong person.”

“The right person would say that. Please, he —”

He held out a small enveloped with ‘Anya’ written on the front.

She took it and watched him walk back out the door and down to his still running motorcycle. No tea was to be had, after all that. Anya stood and considered for a long moment. She didn’t get mail. She never got mail, as it were. The mail was always for Jeff.

The envelope was brown and lumpy and heavy. Anya turned it over and over in her hand listening to the postman’s words inside her head — You’re looking for the key.

Was she? Anya thought she was only looking for ways to be a cunt; she wasn;t looking for a key as far as she could think of. She had everything she needed. She had only really let the postman in because she was hopeful he wanted to fuck her, but all he had done was given her an envelope which she was guessing had a key inside. Anya continued to turn it over in her hands, feeling it’s weight, not quite ready to open it just yet, still thinking about the solid postman with the unreadable blind eyes, wondering how he would have felt between her thighs.

She closed and locked the front door. She was feeling a little tousled — the whole situation seemed off somehow. It was just as she was turning back to the kitchen that Anya felt her eyes slip down the hallway, to the locked door at the end of it.

*****

The box was obvious. The box couldn’t be ignored.

Anya bit the inside of her cheek and stared at it. The thing looked heavy where it sat, not quite in the middle of the previously locked room. Rectangular and solid and edged with a thick rim of drilled copper plate. There was a padlock on it and when Anya finally lurched forward and let her teeth disengage from the soft interior skin of her cheek, she only found that the box was, indeed, locked. She tried the key that had opened the door but it didn’t even fit into the padlock.

So much for that.

She was in the room, but now she needed to get into the box.

She looked around the room she had never been in. It was plain, painted in the same cream as the walls in the rest of their house, but in one corner there was a tall filing cabinet, taller than her and a little dusty on the top. She walked over to it and found it was locked as well. After a little searching, she found the key stuck with blue-tack to the rear edge. Amateur.

The top drawer squealed on its rails as she pulled it out. On tip toes she was barely able to see inside, so she lifted out a handful of papers. She flicked through a couple of pages — they seemed to be instruction manuals and warranty forms from a company called EasyLife. As she rifled, a small card fell from the papers. Anya picked it up.

Your unit comes preloaded with memories and preferences that are suited to your lifestyle and tastes — no need for long and bothersome setup sequences — our new XP units are plug and play :)

Anya didn’t care about this computer stuff, she wanted to know what was in the box. She needed to know.

In the second drawer she found more paperwork, tons of it. She flicked through, looking and looking, and then, at the very bottom of the metal cabinet drawer, she saw it.

A tiny gold card. A gold key was stuck to it with red wax.

Enjoy. That was all it said.

Anya snatched it up greedily and hurried back to the box.

The key worked, of course, and she swung open the lid. She found herself.

She found herself. Paper pale skin. Dull, lifeless, fragile. It was Anya — crumpled, naked, inside a box.

She found herself. Inside the box was Anya. At least, another Anya. She took a step back and realised she was holding her breath. Her heart was jungle drums inside her chest. She reached out her hand and touched the Other Anya. The skin was cold but soft — it felt real. Was it real?

There was a warning label on the inside of lid. With one eye on the Other Anya, she read it out-loud to herself, hoping the act would wake her from the apparent dream she was having.

!WARNING! Warm unit for at least thirty (30) days before use. If unit is engaged without sufficient warming we cannot guarantee a desirable interaction. Insufficient warming may result in some, if not all, of the following potentially undesirable unit traits:

    •    Crankiness
    •    Subjugation
    •    Screaming
    •    Obsession
    •    Infidelity
    •    Scratching
    •    Gluttony
    •    Denial
    •    Independence
    •    Hysteria
    •    Sarcasm
    •    Obesity
    •    Laziness
    •    Impatience
    •    Ambition

**Please note — This is not an exhaustive list and any other potentially undesirable unit traits that may occur due to insufficient warming time are regrettable. EasyLife is unable take any responsibility for potentially undesirable unit traits however we do offer twenty-four hour replacement should units become unmanageable due to potentially undesirable unit traits. Remember to enjoy your purchase.
    Anya looked at the Other Anya in the box in the previously locked room and bit the inside of her cheek. She wondered if Jeff had waited. If he had waited for her to ‘warm sufficiently’.

    She figured Probably Not.

Little One

          what follows is not a very good poem ...




Little One


Thinking that yours is the only
Heart that can be broken
You don’t know the half of it, Little One.
All your vines
As far as they have grown, and
The others
In which they are tangled

How much damage would there be
Should
You choose to leave
You couldn’t fathom, Little one

Will
You find a way to un-break those hearts

All of those bloody, delicate hearts
Or will
You be just how I imagine;
Helpless;
Useless;
Lost.

What will you do when
You realise
That this world wasn’t built for you, Little One.
What will you do

Thinking that this pain is yours alone
You don’t know
Anything.
You are weak and un-marked

All of the lies you tell
Will come back.

All of the skin you touch
Will suffer.

All of the time you take
Will be lost.

I wonder if you will survive this storm
Or prove to be
Another victim

What will you do when the time comes for ending
How will you un-break all of those hearts
How will you fix all of your damage

Little One, what will become of you?

 

Dirt

 the fire was there uninvited. the fire barged in and took things that were mine. the fire took me.

i write. i write because it heals me. i write because i have to write.




Dirt


Marla Holiday was one of those girls who was so awful that she had to get up early just to maintain her level of awful, and Rani knew it. Rani knew it because she had to wake up earlier to try and avoid Marla Holiday’s wrath reign of awful.

Today it was a mud-smeared sanitary pad stuck to the door of her locker. Rani carefully peeled it off and walked the ten terrible feet to the trash can to dispose of it. James Prentice and Stevie Gregson snickered and pointed, but it was no matter, Rani had become accustomed to her current life at St John’s college; the days passed, the fires were lit, they burned, and when there was nothing left but ash, Marla Holiday started another fire.

Rani supposed the bitch just simply wanted to watch the world burn.

And so it did. Like a phoenix. Over and over, and Rani was the one who felt the heat most of all. She returned to her locker, stashed her lunch, retrieved her poetry notes for English and kept her head low on the way to form class — a muddy pad was going to be hilarious for the rest of the school and she hadn’t washed her hair in two days, so the whole dirty thing was bound to show up again.

Rani didn’t wish to be popular, or even liked. Rani wished to be like the nerds, that she could fit in with them, but the books she liked were mostly horror comics and obscure essays or monologues in third person. The nerds seemed to think she was so backwards that she was mainstream. She had tried but the  wall was apparently too high for her to get inside Nerd World.

Form was chaos as usual. Mr Harrington was a drunk (Rani assumed) and he always turned up late and dishevelled looking like he could use a gallon of cool water and a full English breakfast. He was also, ironically, British. Just like every other day, today was the same. Rani took her seat up the front — she prayed every night for a back-of-the-room seat but it never presented itself — and tried to get herself in order. The day was going to be rough; back to back physics followed by a calculus class that would most likely break her.

Rani watched the class and Mr Harrington but no one spoke to her and no one even seemed to look at her, and that was the gruesome beauty of being an invisible beacon. She was hidden until she was seen, and when she was seen, everyone saw.

Marla Holiday sat up the back of form and always spoke at the top of her voice. She was the too-loud blonde-coloured mean-girl centre of her posse. She was everything that Rani didn’t like about high school, but what was there to be done about that? The conversation was audible from here to there. The weekend and the parties and the oh my god how gross is Mr Harrington, and then —

“It’s like she lives in a fucking forest though, right?”

Marla Holiday’s band of bitches cawed their agreement and Rani could feel her oily teenager face growing a warm scarlet.

“I mean, does she even shower? It’s as if she wants to look like that.”

Rani did her best to not listen and started going over her poetry notes with her head down.

“You’d think her parents would do the kind thing and just take her outside and hose her down.”

There was another wave of approving caws from the bitch-band and then Mr Harrington called form class to attention. “Another great week ahead of us ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a rough voice as he dropped an aspirin into his tea cup. It fizzed and Rani watched him rubbing his temples.

The response was muffled disagreement. No one really wanted to be there — especially not Harrington — but they endured it together and Rani watched as he sat down to ignore them like he did each morning.

Marla Holiday wasn’t done though. “I hope she cleans it.”

Rani stopped writing and closed her eyes. She had the sick feeling she knew where this was going.

From the back of the room, everyone could hear Marla Holiday. “I bet it’s all hairy and wild. I bet it fucking stinks.”

The snickering erupted into laughter from more people than Rani cared to notice. This seemed to rouse Mr Harrington from his haze.

“Calm down, calm down ladies. Sit down and please, prep for your classes. Ms Holiday, I have no doubt that your weekend anecdotes are nothing but inspiring, but could you keep the noise to a minimum?”

“That’s not my main concern, Mr H. I mean the weekend. I’m just worried that some people in our form are really letting their standards of personal hygiene slip to an all time low.”

Mr Harrington frowned, looked around, and then looked down at his suit and vest ensemble. It was crumpled but clean. He looked back up, confused.

Marla laughed mockingly. “Not you, Mr H.”

Rani froze. Was Marla Fucking Holiday going to actually call her out and name her in front of the whole form?

Rani gripped her pen and stared straight ahead at Mr Harrington. She didn’t trust herself to look back at Marla Holiday without bursting into tears.

“It just makes me a bit uncomfortable when certain students don’t have the decency to turn up to school in a satisfactory state. I mean, a little bit of coverall can go a long way, do you know what I mean Mr H?”

Rani felt the world tighten around her. Her already fast heartbeat was speeding up.

The rock was small, but it shot up from the turtle tank in the corner of the classroom and hurtled with surprising speed towards Marla Holiday’s left cheek. She shrieked as she fell back and her band of bitches sprung out away from her, as if they didn’t want to get any scream on them.

Rani watched as Marla scrambled awkwardly back to her feet, holding a hand to her face. “What the fuck was that?”

A couple of the boys laughed. “Maybe it came from the dirty fish market up front.”

Rani felt the pen in her hand snap, just as the turtle tank exploded in a burst of glass that shot out in all directions. The dirt and rocks from it’s bottom rained down on the surprised class of students. Utter panic set in. Girls were screaming, boys were yelling, Rani herself closed her eyes against the flying dirt and, along with a few others, made for the door. Out in the hall, and to her relief, the bell rang and the rest of the school bustled her along as she attempted to brush dirt out of her hair and simultaneously disappear.

Half way through her physics double, the school secretary came and called her to the nurses station. Rani apparently didn’t have a choice — all students from her form were being medically assessed and sent home. Rani found herself in the small group whose parents weren’t home and so when called, hadn’t given permission; they were to stay at school, safe and sound.

Mr Harrington didn’t seem too pleased to be out in the sunshine — he had his wayfarers on and was greedily sucking on an iced latte from the caf — but after several cawing protests from Marla Holiday, he had agreed to let them sit out on the bleachers to study. Principal Carter had insisted that they not return to classes due to their traumatisation, as he called it.

Rani watched my Harrington lounging on the bench just down from her, with one leg crossed over the other. In a strange way, he was perhaps the only thing closest to a friend that she had at school. Of course they didn’t talk or bond or anything, but he was her English teacher as well as her form teacher and he always graded her fairly, leaving helpful and insightful notes on her work in scratchy fountain-pen ink. Rani pretended to study, but she watched Mr Harrington and the sweat that slowly started to bead on his face while she took a rare moment of enjoyment from not having to be on the look out for the next bitch attack.

That was until she remembered she was on a forced study break with Marla Holiday, James Prentice, and a few other not so influential kids — Courtney da Silva was a quiet bookworm, but so detached there wasn’t a way in hell she was going to talk to Rani or Marla Holiday or anyone else who even looked in her direction. Toby Carter was the Principal’s son and he was kind of an odd case in Rani’s opinion. The kid was (obviously) never caught doing anything wrong, but at the same time Rani suspected that he quite often was doing the wrong thing.

He seemed intelligent and wary but he hardly ever spoke or interacted, despite his father’s enthusiasm regarding his potential to be registered into the study body council. Toby seemed to have no intention of joining the council, but there didn’t appear to be a rift between he and his father about it. Rani wondered if that was perhaps merely the facade they had created/built up. If so, they had done a fucking good job.

Toby had a novel open on his lap on the other side of the bleachers and he was pretending to read it, a mirror of her own pretence. She watched him, and he watched Marla Holiday flirt unabashedly with James Prentice down on the grass. Marla Holiday’s cheek was cut a little from the rock and there was bruising starting to purple the surrounding skin. Mr Harrington sipped his iced latte now, and Courtney da Silva was genuinely reading her H.P. Lovecraft (Rani had noted it’s black and gold cover earlier and made a promise to herself to buy a copy just because it looked so damn cool). It felt like the six of them were in a bubble, at the school, but not really there — they had created their own little reality.

Rani was relaxing, she was drifting, watching her peers and her teacher and the glistening summer-day world. She felt as good as she could remember feeling for a solid year and that was exactly the moment that Marla Holiday’s echoing taunt rang out across the football field, across the bleachers, across the calm that had fallen — the lovely calm that Rani had almost fallen right down into.

“She’s just so fucking dirty. Dirty Rani. I mean look at the bitch, she’s dirt!”

It was loud. Too loud.

Mr Harrington hadn’t really stirred, but Courtney da Silva had looked up from her novel with wide eyes and James Prentice appeared red faced and embarrassed next to Marla Holiday. Rani didn’t look at Toby Carter — her eyes were fixed on the small sunlit vision of Marla Holiday out on the perfect green grass, dancing and twirling under the perfect blue sky.

Marla Holiday was laughing.

She was laughing and it was echoing around the football field and Rani was feeling that thing again. Her heartbeat hastening, he blood pumping hard and hot, the world tightening around her.

The dust from between the blades of grass on the field drifted up. Rani watched them, perplexed as the other kids and Mr Harrington up on the bleachers, but Marla Holiday and James Prentice were less perplexed than they were scared. James called out. It was a kind of shout-scream, but the dust was thick in the air almost immediately and it sounded like he was choking.

Rani wanted to be calm but everything around her was buzzing. The air, the feelings, the earth. The dust in the air, the rocks from between the blades of grass — she could feel them — she was reaching out and touching them. She was inside James Prentice’s throat, she was swarming around Marla Holiday’s perfect blonde hair.

Marla Holiday was screaming now. What the fuck. What the fuck. But Rani didn’t care. She was standing up, but the people on the bleachers — Mr Harrington and Courtney da Silver and Toby Carter, they were standing up, backing away from her — Rani felt something rising up inside her. She closed her eyes and felt it hot and brewing, coming from a place she hadn’t known was inside of her.

The mud came then, from out on the edge of the lake that sat alongside St John’s College. Rani felt it thick and wet and coming like a wave. It was heavy, but when she lifted her hands into the air it came more easily — she called it her. The mud hit Marla Holiday and James Prentice from behind and they didn’t have a chance. The two of them fell forward, slicked with mud and dirt. They were no longer laughing. Rani wondered if maybe she was laughing.

There was a shadow next to her and she knew it was Mr Harrington. Stop, he was saying. Stop, please. And Rani could hear it, she could feel him approaching her, but she lifted her hand again and the dust and mud flew up between them and he was gone.

Dirty Rani.

Rani was immense. She was indestructible.

She lifted both her hands and felt the world break open underneath her. The rocks and dirt and mud flew upward and Marla Holiday was still screaming through the mess of it. All Rani had to do was tilt her head and the mess started to swirl around. It was becoming a storm. A dirty brown storm.

Dirty Rani.
She brought her hands down with force and everything, every rock and stone and fragment of earth, everything hit the football field and the bleachers. For once Rani felt louder than Marla Holiday. It wasn’t her voice; it was her bidding.

Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were trying to run away with Mr Harrington. To get as far as they could from Rani. She turned to look at them and through the thick brown air she was sure that they were laughing. She would stop them laughing. She would stop them forever.

Dirty Rani.

She lifted her hands again and Marla Holiday continued to scream through the thicket of dust and rocks and dirt.

Rani thought of Moses as she brought her hands together and then separated them again, calling the earth to her, calling it back away.

Everyone was shouting. James Prentice had his hands over his eyes and was scrambling away, back towards the bleachers. Marla Holiday was still on the ground, face down, screaming into the dirt. Rani laughed.

She had a clear line of sight to Marla Holiday and so she walked slowly towards her. The far off voices of Mr Harrington and Toby Carter and Courtney da Silva were telling her to stop and please no and no don’t. Rani heard them but all she could do was laugh at how small they were; how weak and behind her they were.

Marla Holiday lifted her dirt-caked face from the ground and let out a pitiful sob.

Rani smiled.

Dirty Rani.

Black Mamba: Part IV

Black Mamba: Part IV

Part I

Part II

Part III

        In a strange twist I ended up liking Bucky the most...



Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was avoidance. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Lola in four months, or maybe it was something else that had drawn Buck out to that particular patch of dirt down at the back of his parents property. Bob and Rita Mason were still in Europe and to be fair, Buck had thought more than twice about starting to dig where he had. So maybe this time he wasn’t being completely irresponsible.

For at least a week he’d gone back and forth, toying with the idea. There was something down there and he was sure of it. He was sure it was down there. Something. Instead of working on his final exam studies or the immense history assignment that would soon be due — the things he should have been doing, and he knew it — he found himself kicking up dust and walking to where the space between the trees called to him.

Most of the properties in Coster Park were sprawling and Buck had heard about the Dupont twins finding a half-pound lump of gold out near their dam. He wanted something like that to happen to him. Shit, he wanted something to happen to him and he was sure there was something down there, under the dirt.

So once school had let out on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before the party that he and Stacey were planning, Buck took a large shovel from his father’s tool shed next to the stables. The dirt was hard and compacted, dry on the top, but darker and easier to move the deeper he got. He couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because it was morning by the time he woke up in his bed, dirt and mud caked on his skin and bed sheets. He was late for school.

Eating a peanut butter toast and using his cell phone to take photos of the hole, Buck managed to get later and later for school. He was impressed by how deep he had gone. He found it almost hard to believe that he’d done it by himself. He quickly texted one of the pictures to Stacey and then jumped on his push bike.

At school he promptly got detention.

“Bucky,” Stacey said as they sat down to an early lunch and the cog continued to turn inside Buck’s head. “Buck, what is this man? Are you missing her or something?”

Buck shook his head. He knew that Lola was a distant memory. A very fucking close distant memory, but still, that wasn’t what was bothering him. “I found something.”

“You found something?”

“Yeah man. It’s this big, flat, stone thing. It’s like ancient, something. Egyptian maybe.” He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s big and flat and it’s at the bottom of the hole that I dug last night.”

 Buck saw Stacey roll his eyes in frustration. “You dug a hole?”

“Yeah man. I mean, I had this feeling, and I’ve been thinking about it and —”

“You had a feeling?” Stacey unwrapped his lunch burrito.

“Yeah man. It’s like —”

“And it’s Egyptian or something?”

“Yeah. Man, it’s fucking incredible. Wait until you —”

Stacey looked up sharply and Buck knew he was in trouble.

“What about your history essay?” Stacey asked accusingly.

Buck was silent. Stacey took a bite of his burrito. Buck knew the point his best friend was trying to make but that didn’t really matter. What he needed to do right now was go to the library.

“Look man, this Lola business is no good for you,” Stacey said with a mouthful of burrito. “Focus on Robbie. She’s happy — Jesus, she’s nice — she’s good for you.” With a shrug and a look of forfeit, Stacey remained at the lunch table while Buck continued turned away and continued on with avoiding his detention.

The library wasn’t unknown to him, but it was definitely not a place he frequented unless he wanted to spy on Lola. She was usually in the corner of one of the couches in the fiction section with her legs tucked underneath herself and her mind somewhere far away. Buck liked to watch her facial expressions as she leafed through paperbacks or scrolled in her phone or stared off into space. She wasn’t there today.

He made his way to the history section and felt a stab of guilt that he wasn’t working on his essay. He brushed it away. Robbie would text him about it later anyways, after a prompt from Stacey, and the guilt would stab again. No need for Buck to worry about it now.

Ancient Egyptian history encompassed a large amount of books, but he didn’t have to spend too much time looking. There were quite a number on hieroglyphics and translating them.

Buck flicked through his photos trying to find one that was clear enough to make out the inscriptions on the flat piece of stone at the bottom of his excavation hole. There was one that was fairly decent but some of the markings were still too hard to make out. At the end of a half hour, and with his ignored detention probably earning him another, all Buck had deciphered was — The Snake Leader something something again lift.

It seemed wrong and he knew he’d fucked it up, but his mind had stopped lingering on the hole he had dug. It was wandering now and it was wandering to Lola. He flushed with guilt, feeling as if someone had been watching him. His phone buzzed. It was Robin.

Hey baby. So, Safety Stacey is telling me you’ve dug a fucking hole and are avoiding your essay.
Buck like Robin. He liked how crass she was, he liked her bright painted nails, he liked her unbreakable happy smile, he liked how eagerly she had gone down on him on multiple occasions.

Bucky knew he was a dick.

He hesitated and then flicked off the message without responding. Maybe he could convince Lola to come to the party instead of Robin.

Black Mamba: Part III

Black Mamba: Part III

Part I

Part II

 I suppose it's ironic that my chattiest character ended up having the least amount of dialogue...




Robin was cold but the night was good, so it didn’t really matter. Convincing Min had been one thing; convincing Min’s mum had been entirely another. The second vodka sunrise was going down just a treat and Robin knew that Bucky was absolutely pining for her.

As she sat on the edge of his ‘excavation site’ — which was really just a big fuck-off hole in the ground — she couldn’t remember feeling this good for a long time. Mini was lost in Stacey’s new-found attention, and it didn’t really seem to matter that Buck was acting like an idiot. Robin arched her back and cracked her spine. Buck always acted like a fucking idiot, so; whatever.

She was happy with how her makeup had turned out tonight. More than happy. And Mini looked damn good in the red v-neck top she had leant to her. Robin felt the cold dirt shift underneath her skirt and wished they were back at the fire — at their little detached party. But Bucky was intent on shovelling away at his hole, just like he had been for the last couple of days.

Robin watched from across the hole as Stacey held Min back, making sure she wouldn’t fall, sneaking glances at her cleavage, and appearing far more nervous than Robin had expected. The two of them were enviably cute. Much more so than Bucky and Robin, and she hated them for it.

It was hard to be on the outside. Robin wondered if she was already done. She was the same age as Min, but she’d done so much and she felt used up. She ached for that new feeling — that ‘just scratching the surface’ feeling — she resented how weathered she felt herself to be. Mini was a brand new, budding flower. Mini was gorgeous and completely unaware of it. Mini was enviable.

Robin was all talk and all sex. She always had been. And she hated that about herself.

Robin knew the things that boys liked.

Boys liked you to make a solid first move. Boys liked you to want them. Boys liked you to act as if their dick was the greatest thing you’d ever seen, even when they knew it wasn’t. And Robin was no fool — she knew girls wanted similar things, she had just never really been into girls. Robin liked boys and so she had learnt how to do the things that boys liked so that she could have boys.

Boys wanted to chase, but not so long or so far as to make them legitimately tired. Boys wanted to woo, but not so much as to max out the credit card or find themselves at a craft fair. Boys were willing to go as far as it took to get the pussy, but once they were done it was nap time and that was that.

Robin knew she was generalising, she knew she was lumping the male collective into an immense, unrealistic stereotype, but she liked Buck, and unfortunately there seemed to be nothing that wasn't stereotypical about the man-child that he was.

Robin sipped her vodka sunrise and surreptitiously watched Min and Stacey. She knew they must have kissed early. Of course they had. Min’s face was flushed and the pair of them had a different dynamic to earlier. Robin smiled to herself. She saw Stacey pull Min in close, on the other side of the hole and all she wanted was for Buck to hold her like that — to want her as if she was something special; something to be sought after and treasured and adored. She wanted him to give half a shit.

Robin looked down into the hole and saw Buck trip, drunkenly, on his own shovel. Just as she was about to stand up and yell at him for being clumsy, an ice cold wind rose up from the excavation hole.

Robin felt as light as a cloud. Something cleared in her mind. Her thoughts were. She dropped her drink.

Bucky?

But before she could actually say his name. She was not herself.

Her body felt long and curved and twisting.

She was not herself. She would never be herself again.

 

Black Mamba: Part II

Black Mamba (Part I)

And now, Part II...


 

Stacey was jittery with nerves as he set up the tables of snacks and drinks and ice.

Buck watched him from a chair out on the lawn. “We better get that fire started soon.”

Stacey balked. “Bucky, you should get the fire started. I’ve been doing everything else while you’ve been lounging there going on and on about your ridiculous ‘excavation site’.”

“Fucking Safety Stacey. Man, sometimes I think you have little to no faith in me.”

“That is exactly what I have Bucky — little to no faith.”

Buck grinned at him and Stacey couldn’t help but roll his eyes in amusement. The two of them were on the very cusp of graduating and with Buck’s folks away in Europe for the month, they decided it was the perfect time to throw a preemptive celebratory bash. More so, and Stacey had thought it to himself as they had quietly discussed it at the back of algebra, he knew Buck would invite Robin because of their current far-too-obvious tango, and that was good. Robin would definitely bring along her cute friend Min. Those two were hardly seen apart at school.

Stacey’s mind was on Min as he set out plastic cups and emptied bags of corn chips into Buck’s mothers’ serving bowls. The poem had been what had first stuck to him. The girl was pretty, of course she was, but he didn’t want to be that kind of guy, even though he knew he was. He was just like everyone else who would be at the party tonight, but Min — there was something about her. Something else. She was so quiet, and yet so close to Robin, as if the two of them were bound by blood instead of friendship. Sometimes Stacey couldn’t really understand it, the girls just seemed like such opposites.

Stacey!

Buck was calling from where he still slouched in his chair.

Stacey shrugged and gave up. He scuffed through the dirt and over to the crude fire pit they had dug earlier that day. As he started tossing in chunks of wood from the pile and scrunched up newspaper pages, Buck similarly started his inevitable interrogation.

“So, this Asian bird.”

“Don’t say Asian bird, Bucky. She’s Chinese and her name is Min.”

“Oh my god, Safety Stacey, why are you being so precious about this?”

“I’m no being precious, you dick. I just like her. And you should know her name, she’s Robbie’s best friend.”

Buck hauled himself out of the chair to grab another beer from the table. “I only need to know Robbie’s name, she’s the one I’m banging and she’s the one I want to continue banging. Speaking of, please tell me you’re gonna bang Mindy tonight?”

Stacey was on the edge of angry, but he bit his tongue on what he really wanted to say. “It’s Min, not Mindy, and no, we’ve barely even spoken.”

Buck cracked open the beer and it fizzed up out of the can. “Woah!” he said, shaking his hand over the dirt. “Anyways, what was I saying?”

“Something about being an impolite, racist oaf?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Buck crossed his eyes idiotically. “No, what I’m saying is that is perfect. If you don’t know her that well, you can bang her and not have to worry about anything else. You made it nice with that Latino chick for like weeks without having to bother with the back and forth bullshit that I get from Robbie.”

“Jesus Bucky, don’t say Latina chick. Her name was Cindy and she was Portuguese. We dated, casually, and it just didn’t work out. I wasn’t using her.”

Buck picked up the matches from the table and came over to the fire pit next to Stacey. “Cindy,” he repeated, “sounds very fucking close to Mindy, doesn’t it old boy?”

Stacey didn’t bother with a response this time. He crouched down and started rifling through the pile of wood for the larger pieces.

Buck seemed to feel the tension. “Look buddy, I’m sorry. I’m only having a go because you seem to really like her, yeah?”

Stacey shrugged. “I guess I probably do. I don’t know…” Stacey paused, remembering that day in english class. “Did we have eleventh grade English together?”

Buck scoffed. “The fuck would I remember?”

“Nothing, I just…”

“Go on, spit it out Safety Stacey. I know you’re tryin’ to tell me something right now. May as well go ahead.”

Stacey worried he was about to blush, but he stood up and willed himself to be the Stacey that most people knew him as. “There was that day that we had to read out our poems.  You didn’t even write one, remember? Anyways, that was the first day that I really noticed her, Min. She read out her poem and it was called ‘From The Trees’ and it was not at all what I was expecting.”

Buck was poised with his beer just an inch from his face, his eyes narrowed; the cogs were turning; he was remembering. “Wait — wait wait wait. I do fucking remember that day.”

Stacey was almost taken aback. “You remember her poem?”

“No, not the poem, the day. It was free ice cream day at the caf.”

“What?” Stacey was pretending he didn’t remember that fact, but of course he did.

The devilish expression on Buck’s face was not a good sign. “Oh. My. God.” He took a step back, feigning shock. “You salty dog! Here I am, thinking Safety Stacey is a reformed man. Thinking that he likes girls because of poems and rainbows and unicorns.”

Stacey shot Buck the bird but at the same time he was gritting his teeth, bracing for what he knew was about to come.

Buck paused again, savoured the moment before he took the kill shot. “I know you know what I’m talking about. Free ice cream day?”

Stacey said nothing.

“At the caf?”

Stacey stayed silent.

“We sat outside on the green, and it was like a million degrees out, and we were on that bench opposite Robbie and her little Asian chick friend, and the ice cream was melting down onto their hands and they were licking it up, and I said, damn I wish Robbie was licking my —”

“Don’t even fucking say it.” Stacey was standing up and his tone was mush angrier than he had meant it to be.

Buck held up his hands in forfeit. “Dude, I was only gonna say that you were thinking the same thing. I know you would never say it out loud, like me, but there’s nothing wrong with thinking it.”

Stacey looked off into the trees. He wasn’t really angry, he was more embarrassed. Of course the ice cream thing had stuck in his mind. He had watched Min as she carefully — delicately — licked melted pink ice cream from her fingers and wrist. He had been almost hard just at that. But that wasn’t it.

It had been the poem. He hardly paid attention in English class, let alone for stuff like poetry, but something about Min’s quiet voice and measured pace had pulled him in. He couldn’t remember the words. He remembered the poem — it was aggressive, violent in a way, and she used swear words, which Mrs Heller had said was okay but shouldn’t stand as an opening for everyone else to include cussing in their work.

Stacey remembered the ice cream as well, and he wondered what her tongue felt like. Was it sweet like melted ice cream? Was it wet? Was it warm?

He knew he wanted Min, but he knew they were from different places. Not that she was Chinese. It was that he was a big idiot and she was intellectual and withdrawn. He was a jock in most ways — he had a reputation that she had no doubt heard about — but he hoped he was more than that. He wanted to be more than what most people thought about him. He wanted to write poetry as good as Min’s. He wanted Min.

Buck’s face was serious when Stacey finally looked up. “Safety Stacey. I'm sorry I was a dick. It’s been a while since you liked a girl — actually I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you like a girl before — so let’s leave this baby to burn a little,” he said, looking at the growing fire, “and go check out my awesome excavation site where we are gonna find some stuff that’s gonna make us so uber rich.”

Stacey gave in. “Fine. Just please promise me that there won’t be any goddamn snakes out there. I hate snakes.”

Black Mamba

“Where is this party again, exactly?” Min’s mum was interrogating them for the millionth time.

Robin smiled the most polite smile she could manage and hustled Min over to the the front door. “It’s in Coster Park Mrs Wu, and it’s totally safe, I promise.”

The two girls were out the door and in the cool air of the early evening before Mrs Wu could stop them. Still, the old Chinese woman hurried out after and called to them as Robin shoved Min into the passenger seat and darted around to get in and start the engine. Mrs Wu was shouting in broken English about not drinking and not smoking and not taking any drugs and not letting boys talk them into doing things and so on. Robin grinned at Min who rolled her eyes as she heard her mum continuing to shout advice from the front step of their house.

“She’s right you know,” Robin confirmed as she jammed her old VW Beetle into first gear. “If a boy is trying to talk you into sucking him off, he is exactly the type of boy who doesn’t deserve to be sucked off. Lesson number 72 complete.” Robin said, nodded to herself and squealing out of the Wu residence driveway.

Min rolled her eyes again, hoping that none of the airborne driveway rocks hit her mum (who was probably still on the step, shouting, now probably in Chinese). “I’m not going to do that anyways,” Min affirmed. She felt silly in the outfit she had chosen — black jeans and a red, v-neck ruffled top she had borrowed from Robin that showed too much cleavage — and she was already regretting her agreement to go to the stupid party altogether.

Robin burned down the street away from Min’s house and took a too-sharp right onto the main town road. “Oh my God. Can you please relax?” she said, screeching to a halt a the red light outside the pharmacy. “I’m not saying you’re going to suck a dick tonight, I’m just informing you of the whats and what-nots.”

“That phrase doesn’t even make sense.”

“Of course it does!” Robin said, letting go of the wheel and throwing her hands up dramatically. “Look, Mini,” her face turned serious. “Stacey is going to be there tonight and all I want is for you to have a good time.”

Min felt herself blush and looked out the window to avoid Robin’s eyes. “Oh my god, what do I even care if Stacey is there?!”

“Well, I just thought maybe you’d care because you’ve been eye-stalking him for the past forever.”

Min turned back with her cranky face up to full volume. “Eye-stalking? Now I can be sure that you’re not making any sense. Eye-stalking.” Min shook her head. “I have not been doing anything of the sort.”

A huge smile peeled Robin’s perfectly painted party face almost totally in half. “Of course you have Mini. When you’re watching him I’m watching you. I see your eyes slide around like a wet slug in a cup. It’s fucking brilliant!”

Min couldn’t help but think that it was precisely the opposite of brilliant. She knew she had been ‘eye-stalking’ Stacey for a while now, she just thought that no one had actually noticed, and now, knowing he would be at the party she shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat and tugged at the red v-neck blouse, willing it to cover more of her chest than it could ever possibly manage. Robin always gawped on and on about how jealous she was of Min’s breasts, but Min couldn’t help but feel they were nothing but a burden — a huge pair of luminous beacons that she couldn’t hide if she tried.

They were moving again down the main street towards the bend in the town, closer and closer to Coster Park. To the party.

“Relax, please?” Robin tried again. “It’s going to be fun. You can have a beer and eat some corn chips and I’ll be there with you. You can hit on Stacey. I bet you’d be a pro if you gave it a go. Oh my god that rhymes!”

Min rolled her eyes. The dim street lights flew by like fireflies in the night. Min figured she wouldn’t mind a beer at this point, just to take the edge off. Maybe the party would be good. She would never know if she didn’t go. Oh, she realised her inner voice was starting to sound a lot like Robin. Fancy that.

They sped through the bend and down towards the part of town without street lamps. Coster Park sat detached from the main street and was where more of the wealthier people in town lived. Acreage and farms and sprawling ranch houses. It was also quieter than where Min and Robin lived but it was where the best parties happened. They saw the smoke plumes and the golden glow of the fire long before they made it to Buck Mason’s house.

Robin had been there a million times — apparently — but this was a first for Min. Actually, the whole party situation was a first for her. She tugged up at the low-cut red top again without luck, and started to panic as they rolled through the open gates of the property and along the fence line until they found a parking spot next to a rusted baby blue utility.

Robin turned off the ignition and took one of Min’s hands in her own. “Listen cutie, I know you don’t want to be here and I fully understand that. Please stop pulling at the shirt — it looks fucking good on you okay — and I know you’re nervous, which is fine, but if you could see yourself like I do…” Robin’s brows furrowed like Min had never seen before. She trailed off.

The deep base-beat of party music rumbled the world outside the tiny car. Min looked at Robin and Robin smiled her life-filled smile back at Min. “You are gorgeous and smart,” she said, “and worthy of so much more than you think you are Mini. I just want you to take one chance with me and try to have a fun night. We leave at midnight no matter what — we keep your mum happy and we don’t get wasted — I promise.”

Min felt Robin’s hand in her own, warm and solid despite the delicate fingers and the sparkly nail polish and all the shiny rings.  Min was way out beyond her depth. “You really think the shirt looks good?”

“You know I fucking do. If anyone can pick a top for you, it’s me, bitch.”

They both laughed and Robin pulled Min in close and kissed her cheek. “C’mon my Chinese bombshell, let’s go make some dreams happen.”

Min was smiling as she scrambled out of the car and followed Robin past the enormous house and the multiple sheds to where the party was happening; to where everything was happening.

There was a large bonfire surrounded by intoxicated teens, and a stable of horses to the left, and a couple of eagle cages next to that, filled with fluttering wings. Min was nervous — she wanted a drink.

The two girls approached the party of people; Robin took Min by the hand and they entered the glow of the firelight with a certain camaraderie. A million eyes swiveled around to focus on them and Min felt Robin’s fingers tighten in her hand. She wondered if this would be the moment when her life actually started.

That was when Buck appeared out of nowhere. “What the fuck is my favourite girl doing without a drink in her hand?” he demanded with a smile.

Min saw Robin beam and lean up to kiss Buck’s almost-shaggy beard. For a moment she was afraid she would lose her friend to beers and beards and sex, as she always did, but their hands remained intertwined as Robin whispered something in Buck’s ear and he paused only for a moment before he winked at Min and took off again around the other side of the fire.

Robin pulled gently on Min’s hand and they kicked up dust as they walked around outside the circle of people by the fire. Robin had always been lively but she wasn’t one for big groups or ‘being on show’ as she called it. She liked to entertain but preferably in a one-on-one setting. Min had presumed that meant Robin was kind of slutty, but the more they hung out the more that seemed to be untrue. Robin liked sex  — she had said that exact thing over and over to Min — but only sex with someone who gave half a shit about her, or so she said. Min figured Robin said a whole lot of things. It was hard to tell which ones she meant and which ones she didn’t.

Min decided to break the silence. “So, you and Buck then?”

Robin shrugged. “Get me a drink first, then I might talk. But just in case you’re wondering, his dick is absolutely magnificent.”

Min was beyond embarrassed and hoping that no one else had heard their little conversation, when Robin’s eyes widened at something behind Min, and she abruptly walked away. Min was about to call after her when she felt a heavy warm hand on her shoulder — it made her jump.

“Hey.” It was Stacey behind her. Min turned to see his smooth brown face illuminated in the firelight/light of the fire.

“Hi.” The word came out too quiet and soft. Min blushed.

Stacey removed his hand from her shoulder and smiled. “You are apparently getting a drink for Robbie so that you can hear all about Bucky’s dick. Maybe we could get some drinks too, if that’s okay with you?”

Min felt all words evade her, so she nodded and followed Stacey over to the sprawling tables of snacks and drinks and candles. He poured a vodka cranberry for Robin (Robbie, as he called her) and a plastic cup of beer from the keg for himself and then turned. “How do you feel about a gin and tonic? You probably won’t like it too much at first, but I bet that will stop you from getting drunk.”

Min pondered this a moment and then nodded. She’d never had gin before — or tonic (whatever that was) — and there was something so dulcet and easy about Stacey that she decided that all she wanted right then was for him to make her a gin and tonic.

Three ice cubes clinked against each other in her cup as Min followed Stacey back past the bonfire surrounded by people and through the dark to a small bowl-shaped brazier where Robin sat on Buck’s knee, the two of them barely noticeable in the dim light. Stacey pulled up a spare chair for Min and took one right next to her. He was as easy as Sunday morning. He was calm and confident and smooth as golden honey. Min felt her insides turn to soft butter.

Robin sipped her vodka cranberry. “So boys, nice night you got going here. Took all I had to get my girl to come along. We had to make promises about curfew, we had to sell our souls to the devil, and, we had to make a personal sacrifice upon the sacred ground. I hope you two are willing to go as far as we did.”

Min saw Robin wink at her from Buck’s lap.

Stacey smiled. “Bucky my boy, I’m afraid we don’t have any souls left, but maybe we could sacrifice Terrance to the gods above?”

Buck was drunk. “Stacey,” he said with flat, glassy eyes. “What kind of gods would want Terrance?”

The two of them burst into boyish laughter and when Robin joined in Min sipped her gin and couldn’t help but feel even smaller than before; even further from fitting in. The drink was bitter — no, sharp — and it burned down her throat, but she took a few more sips nonetheless, and swallowed hard.

She was glad they were over here in their own little party — the big one would have been too much for her. The party noise still travelled over, but it felt as if they were in their own universe. Like the world outside them couldn’t touch or be touched. Min drank a little more of her gin and tonic and started to feel warm despite the night. Stacey scooted his chair closer to hers and continued in conversation with Buck and Robin. Maybe he was as nervous as she was.

As she sipped the sharp gin and tonic, Min felt herself sink down into the night. She remained acutely aware of Stacey’s every movement — the way he sat with his knees wide and casual; the way he constantly ran his fingers over his smooth shaven chin, as if grooming an invisible beard; the way his eyes flicked now and then to her, to Min, now and then to her crossed legs, now and then to her thick dark hair that was caught by the wind, now and then to where the red blouse came down to a v in the front.

Eventually Buck’s beer ran out and Robin pecked him on the cheek before grabbing Min’s hand and dragging her back to the main party area.

“But I don’t need another drink,” Min protested.

Robin brushed the curls out of her face and stared up at the sky as they walked slowly. “I know, fool. But the boys needs to talk about us and we need to talk about them.”

Min panicked. “What are they talking about!?”

Robin screwed up her nose. “I just told you. Us. “

“I know, I know. But what about us?”

“Probably your tits.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Min felt a hot frustration rising up inside her. “I wish they weren’t the reason he’s paying attention to me.”

Robin stopped walking. “What, Stacey? Of course that’s not the reason. He likes you because you’re awesome, and honest, and you don’t take any shit even though you’re quiet. He likes you because you try hard and you get excellent grades and you’re not like me. And, he likes you because of that poem you wrote for Advanced English at the end of last year.”

Min pulled up short and shot Robin a look. “He — he remembers my poem?”

“That’s what he told me,” Robin said, looking a little tipsy in the moonlight. “C’mon, I want another vodka. Buck’s horny and I really can’t deal with that again tonight. If one or both of us get drunk it will mean I get the night off.” She winked and fumbled about on the table of refreshments that were near the house.

Min didn’t protest. She had poetry and the firelight and Stacey on her mind. She still knew most of that poem, not by heart, but it had won her the senior poetry prize despite the fact that she hadn’t been a senior last year. Her mum had been so proud, and Min had been so proud as well, until some of the other girls in their grade had started making fun of her in the halls. They recited lines to her in a generic Asian accent as they passed by. She didn’t ever bite — she would never risk her scholarship like that — but after a while she was taking the long way, avoiding the halls, leaving through emergency doors, entering through them. Robin had been the one who had saved her, but that was a story for another day.

These days, no one bothered Min, not with her sparkly friend around.

As she watched Robin pour another vodka and then a beer for Buck, Min wondered if she would have survived high school without her bright, sparkling friend. “Rob,” she started, “what if I want to kiss Stacey tonight?”

Robin turned with a dramatic look of shock and awe pasted across her party painted face. Her glittery eyeshadow sparkled as she blinked. “This had better not be a joke, young lady.”

Min shrugged and felt the blush rising again to her cheeks. “You know I like him. Everyone knows I like him.” Min was hunting for advice but she didn’t actually want to ask for it, for fear of dying right there on the spot.

Robin lifted the plastic cup to her lips and pondered with narrow eyes. “I like this new Mini. Maybe it’s the gin and tonic, but she’s definitely wooing me tonight.” Robin turned back to the table and poured another vodka cranberry and another beer, both of which she handed to Min.

“You’re nervous, my little Chinese kitten, but this is the easy part. The boy wants you and so all you need to do is smile and be there.” Robin’s eyes went all wide and crazy. “Let’s go!” She kicked Min’s butt gently with her foot and the two of them left the main party behind again, a drink in each of their hands.

When they got back the boys were huddled close in their chairs, whispering to each other. They looked up as they heard the girls approaching and their secret conversation stopped abruptly.

“Only good things, I hope,” Robin said as she handed Buck his beer and pulled him up off his seat. “How about we leave these two to their own devices?”

Min handed Stacey his beer with a shaking hand and wished Robin would be a little more subtle about the whole thing. Stacey took the plastic cup in one hand and pressed the other, very lightly, into the small of Min’s back. She felt a jolt of needful electricity shoot up her spine and warm the entirety her skin. Her ears were suddenly hot and she took a gulp of the vodka drink Robin had poured for her.

Stacey didn’t stand, but pushed a little on Min’s back until she was close enough that her thigh touched his knee where he sat. “We just need a moment Bucky, if you don’t mind. How about you and Robbie go and check out that hole you’ve been digging out behind the damn — oh, I’m sorry, the ‘excavation site’.”

Buck stood up and spilled some of his beer onto his jeans. “There’s something down there Stace, and when I find it I’m going to get mega rich and you’ll be sorry you ever made fun of me.”

Min saw Stacey smile but it was warm friendly. “I know, Bucky. I wasn’t making fun. Poking the bear, as it were.”

Buck swayed, looking confused for a moment, but then Robin tugged on his shirt and they disappeared, away to this purported excavation site. Min was about to ask what exactly Buck was excavating when Stacey suddenly pulled her down to sit on his warm lap. Her heart beat faster than she had ever known it to do, and she wished the light of their small fire was casting anywhere but upon her face.

Stacey wrapped a solid arm around her waist and smoothed his invisible beard once again. “Can I kiss you right now?” he asked.

Min took a quick sip of her drink and swallowed her fear. She nodded. “Mmhmmm.”

It wasn’t like how she had imagined at all — and she had imagined quiet a lot. Stacey bent and placed his plastic cup of beer on the dusty ground next to his chair. Min didn’t know if she should do the same, but there wasn’t time either way, because his face was close to hers then, and she could feel his chest giving off warmth into her side. She was vibrating with excitement and anticipation. This would be her first kiss. This would be more than her first kiss. This would be everything.

Before she could think any longer, Stacey’s warm hand came up to her face and he leaned in and it was too fast and it was slow motion and it was just the right speed. It was everything. Their lips touched and Min was surprised when his were so soft — much softer than she had expected — and the moment lasted a lifetime.

The red v-neck blouse was suddenly perfect, and the gin in her blood felt sweet and syrupy, and the small fire crackled like the electricity up her spine where his hand had dipped under the red blouse and was holding her in close to him.

Stacey.

Bucky’s call pierced the night and the perfect moment.

Min didn’t care, she was under so many layers of Stacey-honey that some part of her worried she might never be able to get back out.

“Stacey!” Buck called again.

Stacey took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You know how he is.”

Min ran her fingers across her freshly-kissed lips. “It’s okay. Robin is my best friend, remember?”

Stacey smiled and the two of them stood up and started off towards Buck’s excavation site.

The hole was about ten foot in diameter and Min was impressed at Buck’s efforts. “Did you dig this yourself?” she asked.

Buck smiled wide and finished his beer. “There’s something down here, I know there is.”

Robin sat on the far edge of the hole with crossed legs looking quite unimpressed. “Please don’t encourage him. This whole hole thing has been going on for like a week now. Can we just drop it. Mr Mason is going to castrate Bucky if he finds out there’s a fucking pool-sized hole in the back yard.”

Min figured it was likely that Mr Mason might not ever find out — they had walked a good half mile down from their small fire to the excavation site. Buck had set up a few spotlights around the hole and Min looked down to where he stood in the dust and dirt and rocks with a shovel. She felt Stacey’s hand holding onto the back of her jeans but somehow it felt like more of a soccer mum hold than an I wanna do bad things to you hold. No big deal, she thought, but secretly she was looking forward to the latter.

Stacey seemed tired of the hole thing and Min saw him share a look with Robin. “Look, Bucky. I know this is important to you, but don’t you think that this is just a distraction? School is coming to a close and you haven’t done well, I get it. I get it. Let’s just knuckle down and get through this last month and then we will be free, yeah?”

But Buck wasn’t listening, he had his shovel and he was going to town on the hole, smashing away at dirt and rock, searching for something that none of the rest of them could imagine. Min saw Stacey give Robin an imploring look and, in the spotlights, they heard Buck’s shove hit something. Whatever it was, it rang out into the night air. It sounded hard and metallic.

All of them were still.

“Buck?” Robin called down into the hole.

There was silence, and then, “I fucking told you guys!”

Stacey looked at Min. The two of them stood side by side across from Robin and peered down into Buck’s excavation hole.

Min saw it immediately — a large square-shaped indentation in the ground beneath Buck’s feet — she looked up and knew that Stacey had seen it as well. Stacey put his arm around Min again and pulled her back from the edge of the hole. “Bucky,” he called, “I think maybe you should get out of the hole, yeah?”

“What do you think it is?” she asked him quietly.

They watched Robin stand up and leave her drink behind her, abandoned in the dirt. “Buck, baby. Can we just call your folks in the morning and get a professional out here to have a look. Maybe it’s unsafe or something?”

Buck didn’t reply from down in his hole. The three of them heard him digging and digging, smashing the shovel into the metal thing that was down there. Min felt her heartbeat hasten and a strong urge rise up inside her. She wanted to be anywhere but near Buck’s excavation site. There was something she didn’t like about it but she couldn’t quite put her finger where it needed to be. She figured he was probably just doing as Stacey had said — distracting himself from the reality that he had done poorly on his final exams — but at the same time she felt the adrenaline pumping through her blood.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was her proximity to Stacey. Maybe it was the quickly cooling night. Maybe it was Min questioning herself, doubting herself, hating herself. — Worrying that perhaps she hadn’t done that well herself on the final exams either. Maybe it was the dark movements of the trees around the hole Buck had dug at the back of his family’s property.

Min turned to Stacey. “I really want to go back to the party,” she said, and it felt like she was begging. A blush started to rise in her as she felt Stacey take a hold her shoulder and turn to give her his whole attention.

“I’m sorry, he’s drunk and in a bad place. But Bucky’s my best friend, and I know that you know how that feels.”

Min felt the warmth of his body close to hers and the seriousness of his tone. “I know. I do know,” she said, and it was more of an admission than anything else. She was new to the best friend thing, but she understood how important it was.

Below them they heard Buck fall and the shovel clatter loudly onto the metal thing. Buck groaned — he’d hurt himself.

Stacey gave her a slightly pained smile and brushed the hair out of her face with gentle fingers. “If you want to go back I won’t hold it against you. Once I get him out of this ridiculous hole I’ll come and find you, okay?”

Min felt relief — she was free. She turned to see Robin crouching on her knees in the dirt, looking down at Buck. Her sparkly friend was still trying trying to convince her not-boyfriend to give up on becoming a raving idiot right before graduation.

Min called across the hole. “Robin!?”

Robin looked up and gave her a desperate look. “I’m so sorry Mini, I didn’t think he was that drunk. You okay?”

Min nodded and gave her brightest pretend smile. “It’s all good, I’m just cold.Going to head back to the party, is that cool?”

Robin closed her eyes and smiled in slow consent and then looked back down into the hole.

Min looked up at Stacey. “Promise you’ll come find me later?”

Stacey’s face was bright and glowing as he looked down at her. Like a Christmas star, Min thought to herself. He was the lovely thing she had been searching for. The thing she had wanted for so long. Too long.

“Of course I will,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “Will you be able to get back without a light?”

“I think so. I’ll be fine,” she shrugged. “Just — just get him out of there, please?”

Stacey stuck out his tongue and the tension eased. Min turned and knew immediately that she needed a light in the darkness of the trees, though she didn’t dare backtrack. There was something about Buck’s hole and the big flat metal square down at the bottom that made her stomach tighten with fear.

She had only walked a dozen feet or so when there was a strong wind that pulled at the tops of the trees above her and whisked up dust into her face. It was so strong that she had to cover her eyes and turn her face away and bend her knees. The wind was freezing and it cut through her.

That was when she heard it — a laugh like she’d never heard before. It was piercing and staccato and brought her stomach up into her throat. It was a laugh that no one could ever forget.

In the darkness she turned, still close enough to Robin and Stacey standing around the hole that, between them, she saw a thicket of dark smoke start to rise. It was black and amber and the red of dark blood.

Just as Min began to panic and move back to the site, that same awful laugh sounded around her in the trees and more pointedly, from the hole. Min crept a few steps back towards where Stacey and Robin stood. She wanted to stay quiet but it was hard with the dirt and the rocks crumbling under her feet. As she got closer she saw that Robin had her arms raised out and high into the air on the other side of the hole. Robin?, she whispered to herself.

The laugh erupted again, and it was from her mouth; it was Robin who was laughing. “It is you who have given your blood, young one,” Robin said in a voice not her own as she looked down at Buck, “and it is you who will pay, now, as I have paid in the past.”

There was a cracking sound and Min heard Buck cry out in pain. She crept a few steps closer to the excavation site in the dark and saw the black-amber-red smoke thickening from where it rose from the hole. “Stacey?” she hissed, trying to catch his attention, but Stacey was watching Robin through the smoke. He didn’t seem to see or hear anything else.

Robin spoke again in the awful voice that wasn’t hers. “And who is it that will be my vessel?”

Feeling a strong impulse to run away, Min wondered if this was some kind of drunken practical joke. She hoped it was. From the trees, she watched as the smoke started to clear a little and her sparkly friend, Robin, lifted up off the ground and drifted over the hole towards Stacey with her arms still raised high, opened up to the sky, as if she were in some kind of yoga pose.

It was impossible — Min knew it was impossible — but she watched it happen all the same. She watched as her lithe friend landed gently on her feet on the other side of Buck’s excavation hole and looked at Stacey with eyes that were bright green and pierced with a vertical slit. Snake eyes.

Min inched a few steps closer. She didn’t know what to do — there was a strong urge to run away and a similarly strong one to stay and approach — but who was she to make that decision? She felt small and young and helpless.

She watched as Stacey stood dead still and not-Robin approached him with a careful step. Robins feet were bare; her boots were gone. Min’s heart was a racing drumbeat inside her chest. She listened as closely as she could.

“Do you not fear me, boy?” asked not-Robin.

Min watched Stacey as he remained solid on the spot in the dust. “I don’t know you, so how can I fear you?” His voice trembled a little but he didn’t move. Min wanted to run to him.

Not-Robin pondered Stacey’s answer a moment. “People usually fear things they do not know, and things they cannot understand. If you were wise, you would fear me.”

Min inched closer again and she was just at the edge of the trees hoping she wouldn’t be seen. She saw Stacey move on the spot slightly; he was, perhaps, starting to lose his baring on reality. Min knew that she was surely starting to lose it.

“Without understanding of what you are, and what you can do, why would I be afraid? Ignorance is bliss, right?” Stacey asked.

Inappropriately, Min felt something inside her heart flutter at his calmness under pressure; his wit; his put-togetherness — all the things that had made her first start to eyestalk him.

Not-Robin smiled like it was what she was born to do, and Min felt a terrible chill creep through her, raising her skin into gooseflesh..

That was when her adrenaline really kicked in and Min ran directly towards Stacey from the trees where she had been hidden. She burst out into the spotlights and the smoke, and not-Robin turned to see her just as she stumbled in front of Stacey.

He started to say something to Min. He started to grab hold of her arm and pull her back, to try and move in front of her, to try and stand between her the Robin who was no longer Robin.

Min turned away from him and saw Robin with the yellow snake eyes. Robin was right in front her of — close enough that Min could feel her sparkly friend’s hot breath on her face.

After that she knew nothing but darkness.

Video Games

                 trying something a little different this time...  


Personal diary of Margot Spoon. Entry dated 27th May 2012. Evidence Item Log #46331. Maryland State PD.


    27/5/12 Sunday

The one is about you. But aren’t they all? Well, they’re all about me really, but this one is also about you.

I wore those nice purple knickers that you say you like. Did you even notice? Actually, I should back track because that’s not the start of it. The start of it is that I don’t have a key. I don’t have a key, which is fine, I would flat out refuse a key anyways, but it would just mean that I can get in and out of your fucking house. Like when I leave my makeup bag in your bathroom but I’ve already closed the front door and then I’m locked out. Thanks. That’s what I would say to you. THANKS.

Today, as always, it was getting in that was the problem. This is how it went — I try calling you on my drive back but you don’t answer. Then, at your front door, I’m knocking without response. And then I’m knocking so loudly that your neighbour comes out to see what’s going on. And THEN, my husband calls and I know that if I don’t answer he’ll start to panic a little bit.

So there I was, on your front steps feeling your neighbour’s eyes penetrating my skirt, seeing my inappropriate purple underwear, wondering why I was talking to one man on the phone while I waited outside the door of another man’s house like a fucking five dollar whore.

But of course he was thinking nothing of the sort — your neighbour. Those were MY thoughts.

And THAT was the point that I had a tiny, quiet moment full of questions. It went like this — Is it the sex? Is it the danger, the risk? Is it just a habit I have created? Is it the comfort I feel after so long without any comfort? Is it my lack of self control? Is it you?

Is it YOU?

By the time I realise it’s none of those things and nor do I have any answers, you’re at the door, opening it, and I can see you’re wearing that ridiculous microphone headset.

‘Sorry baby,” you say as you let me in and I would believe the apology if you didn’t immediately  turn away and hurry back to the video game that I know is the reason you took so long to answer the fucking door. I want to leave right then and there, and so I pause in the hallway, my overnight bag in one hand, my phone in the other with my husband’s missed call. I watch you un-pause your video game on the couch, and to you, it’s as if you it’s as if the last fifteen seconds didn’t happen. And maybe they didn’t.

I think about walking back out the door but I’m tired and I’m frisky and I’m hungry. Plus, my husband thinks I’m staying at Kate’s tonight and she thinks I’m staying at home. I don’t want to go home, but if I actually show up at Kate’s it will be cuddling and then I’ll get her off and then she’ll lick me and all I’ll be wishing is that someone would actually fuck me. And hard. With a dick. I know that’s selfish. I’m no stranger to my own lack of appreciation for the things that I do have have in life.

To be fair though; my diary is about the ego. So let it be that this is my ego talking, in order of make me feel less culpable. And there it is — I already feel it less.

Anyway, I’m at your house and I don’t leave. I don’t go home. I don’t go to Kate’s. I undress and, in only my underwear, I come and sit next to you on the couch. For obvious reasons I am convinced that this will work, but you LITERALLY don’t look away from the television screen.

I sigh. My eyes ache. I want to take out my contacts, and let’s face it, maybe I’d like you more right now if you were blurry. I lean in and kiss your neck but the only response I get is a small humming sound. You still don’t look at me. You are transfixed on Halo. I know it’s called ‘Halo’ because you might have said it to me a million times. Maybe more. It was a couple of months ago when you first bought this video game and it’s your money to spend so I kept my mouth shut.

But now, here on your couch in my inappropriate knickers, I wish I had said something. I want to you tell you that you’re a halfwit and a fool. I want to scream it out loud and paint it on your god damned walls. I want to paint it on your face. I want to paint it in your blood.

You’re talking and for a moment I think it’s to me and so I go open my mouth to say something in response, but then you wave me away with a hand and I feel my anger and it’s almost tangible.

You’re talking into your headset and I think of all the times you have come on my back. In the interests of full disclosure via my ego, I will say that I always liked it, but that is beside the point. I think of all the times you’ve come on my chest. I think of all the times you’ve come on my face. And in my mouth.

I recompose myself and sidle up next to you. The gunfire from your Halo game is distracting. ‘How about we have a little nap?’ I suggest. You appear not to hear me. You talk again, and AGAIN, it’s not to me.

I’m vibrating. I feel it more as I stand up and look directly at you from the side. I’m cold in just my knickers and my eyes still itch — I’m at the point where I NEED to take out my contacts. ‘Baby?’ I ask, one last time.

If you register the words you fail to show it. You frantically thumb buttons and I see your eyes dart back and forth as they follow the graphics on the screen. I circle the couch until I am behind you and I feel as if I’m floating above us. I think to myself that perhaps even if I could break open the heavens, your attention wouldn’t be caught. Perhaps I could wake the dead and your attention wouldn’t be caught..

It’s easy to grab the thin cord of the game controller and quickly wrap it around your neck; the neck that I just kissed. There’s a long moment before you reach up to grab at my hands because apparently you thought this was something kinky. You were wrong.

I tighten the cord and feel you struggle against it. You’re strong and you pull forward and one of my hands slips but I have my knee up on the back of the couch. Leverage. That’s what I have. For once. LEVERAGE.

It takes longer than I imagined. You scratch at my hands with your fingernails and try to get out by sliding downwards, but you weren’t expecting this. No one would have expected this from me I suppose. I almost lose you a few times but I think of your come on my face and somehow it gets easier to keep the cord pulled tight and fast around your neck.

Your last breath is silent. I almost don’t even notice it. Ironic, really. Isn’t it? I let go and push you a little. You slump forwards. Your video game controller falls to the floor. I think it might crack open. Your game — Halo — continues on the television. On the screen things explode, vividly coloured aliens attack your virtual character, and I bite my lip.

It happened again. My husband is going to be so mad.

He. You. She.

He. You. She.
Three poems for free. I hope they're okay.




My Avocado

Sitting there in the fridge, smug
That would be fucking right
But I know he’s hiding the truth from me
The naughty shit
His skin — dark and rough and green
And yet he looks so perfect
Ready for a salad
Mine to take
Mine to eat

But my avocado
Hiding his foul brown-ness from me
Leading me on
Lying in my fridge
Lying to me
He’s nothing but a liar
Naughty little avocado
You’re naughty
You’re a naughty little shit



My Pen

Baby where did you go?
Three days
Three whole days since I lost you
My soul aches wondering where your plastic-self might be
Your spare ink cartridges lie still — no longer with purpose

Baby where did you go?
I still remember how you felt between my fingers and how you
Managed to speak for me
Even at the worst
Even at the best
Even in the middle

You were all of me when I was nothing
Ink running down to your tip
I could always coax out what you had
To spill

Baby where did you go?
It was easy
To work you, until you couldn’t help yourself
And then your hot, thick truth was all over my page
And you were mine
And I was yours

Baby, where did you go?



My Crazy

My crazy wakes up early and goes to bed late
My crazy knows that there isn’t enough time in the day
My crazy has a busy schedule and I am at the top of the list
My crazy has been watching me
My crazy has been paying attention
My crazy knows the drill, but
My crazy, she lacks imagination — for she looks just like me
My crazy talks like me
My crazy walks like me
My crazy smells like me
My crazy, well, she’s just like me
My crazy is me
My crazy is everything I want to be
My crazy is everything I’m not
My crazy is qualified
My crazy is tired, and
My crazy wants her life back
My crazy is going to win.

The Bunny

An Easter story for my nephew, Clancy John, for when he is old enough to read it and realise that his Aunty Al was always a little bit messed up.

For you, CJ.

The Bunny

I didn’t call you.

I didn’t call you at all.

Nevertheless, nevertheless

You steamed to me over the sea,

Fat and red, a placenta

— Sylvia Plath, Medusa

~ ~ ~

“Why don’t you want to leave out some carrots?”

CJ shrugged and wished his mum would leave him alone about the whole Easter Bunny business.

“Clancy, you’re seven now. You don’t need to listen to what those other kids at school say. They’re only trying to scare you.”

“I don’t listen to them mum,” he lied, forking his macaroni around his plate. “I just don’t really feel like leaving out the carrots tonight.”

His mum sighed, but at the same time she seemed to give up. She stood and cleared away the plates and CJ was happy the conversation was over.

His dad fought the case next. “CJ. We know that you’re a big boy now, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be something you’re not.” CJ’s dad had always been that way — trying to make too big a point, too soon. “We can have hot-cross buns and marshmallow rabbits and chocolate eggs and all the things you like. Tomorrow will be fun, you’ll see.”

CJ knew it would be a nice day. That wasn’t the thing he was fighting his parents on. “Mum, Dad. I’m not trying to be naughty, I just don’t want to put any carrots out. I don’t want the — “ he hesitated, “ — the Easter Bunny to come tonight.”

CJ saw his mum giggle quietly at the sink as she scraped off the dirty plates. 

“CJ, son,” his dad started, seemingly determined to fight the case, “are you worried that if the Easter Bunny brings you gifts, the other kids at school will make fun of you?”

CJ was starting to get angry and his voice got loud. “Dad, I don’t care about the kids at school, I just don’t want that big Bunny near me.”

In the kitchen his mum turned around and her eyes were wide with surprise. “Clancy John, you will not raise your voice when you speak to your father.”

CJ felt the hot blush rise up into his cheeks and regretted saying anything at all. His macaroni was going hard and dry on his plate. He should have kept quiet about the stupid Bunny. He looked at his dad and noticed the man’s eyes were tired and wet. CJ looked back down again.

“Alright young man,” his mother said quietly, “I think it’s time you hit the hay. We’ll see you in the morning. But there will be no Easter treats for you, I’m afraid.”

CJ could breathe. No treats, thank goodness. He felt a wave of relief — The Bunny wasn’t going to come tonight.

~ ~ ~

A book and a glass of water were allowed him, and the fan was on the lowest speed — just enough to keep the air moving and the scary sounds at bay. 

CJ tried to focus on his reading, but every minute or so he found himself looking out the window. He was waiting for The Bunny. Sure, his mum had said it wasn’t coming, but CJ knew better than that. 

The trees rustled and the winded picked up and the night was full of whispering and jumps that he couldn’t ignore. He wished he had finished his macaroni — he always felt sleepier with a full tummy. Tonight he felt hollow and filled with nothing but worry. Nothing but thoughts of The Bunny.

The Bunny. 

CJ knew about pretend things. Things that were in his books. Things that were on the television. Things that didn’t exist in the world where he lived. Make-believe. Pretend. He knew the difference and he knew that sometimes dreams seemed like real-life, but you had to shake yourself free and bring yourself back to Mum, and Dad, and School, and Sunshine. 

All the scary things disappeared when the sun came up.

But not The Bunny.

~ ~ ~

The first time he had seen it had been in the middle of the night and at the time, it had been middle-of-the-night dark. Dark. So dark that CJ had almost believed that it was indeed, a dream.

Outside his window, sitting cross-legged with its back against the fence, was a huge pink, fluffy bunny. It had drooping pink ears and awful tennis-ball sized eyes that were as red as raspberry cordial. It was not like a rabbit, but more like someone who was dressed in a rabbit suit. CJ had gone to the window to get a better look and the someone-in-a-bunny-suit with the raspberry tennis ball eyes had waved at him enthusiastically. That was when he had seen the red splotches on it’s hands and feet. The Bunny opened it’s mouth and screamed into the night. It was like a million fingernails scraping down a million chalkboards. 

CJ had wet the bed that night. He hadn’t known that it wouldn’t be the last time he would see the bunny. Scary things disappeared when the sun came up. 

But not the bunny.

~ ~ ~

The second time was at breakfast the next day, Good Friday, when CJ was eating his cereal at the bench, listening to his parents bicker in their en suite. They thought he couldn’t hear them. The minivan was parked in the driveway outside the window and CJ had a clear view of it. 

He heard the gravel crunching and the dirty pink bunny came swaying up the path, stumbling here and there, a bottle in it’s hand. 

CJ was frozen with fear — he knew he shouldn’t be seeing what he was seeing — his held his spoon half way between his bowl and his mouth. The bunny looked up at him, head lolling. It waved. CJ didn’t wave back. 

The bunny cocked it’s head and it’s huge raspberry-red eyes stared at CJ. The splotches were still on it’s hands. CJ wanted to call for his mum or his dad, but no words came out of his mouth, and so, as the bunny tossed the bottle in the air and it smashed on the bitumen behind him, CJ felt the piss soaking into his school shorts. He wondered if anyone was going to save him.

~ ~ ~

The third time was the worst.

School. 

Big lunch. 

CJ had put on his hat and eaten his sandwich and his sultanas. He kept his apple aside. Lunch was always the best part of the day. School was good, but he found himself longing to be outside. Reading was good, but it was always better when he was outside and could feel the cool breeze and the bright sun on his face. 

His best friend was Sammy — big, burly, brown and blonde — Sammy was CJ’s anchor. They mock-wrestled on the oval; race each other from wall to wall; pretend to be Jedi knights; or go exploring in the bush beyond the far fence (which technically, was breaking the rules, but CJ felt safe if Sammy was with him). The two of them used their Big Lunch time to full capacity, and CJ loved it. He looked forward to it. He waited on edge for it.

But that day turned out to be different.

CJ sat on the bench near the fern trees. Sammy hadn’t arrived down from the sixth grade block by then. CJ turned his apple over and over in his hand — the bed wetting stuck in his mind. He thought about it over and over like the apple, and felt heat rush up to his face. He wanted to smash the apple to pieces. He didn’t want to eat it — he wanted to destroy it. 

A screeching sound caught his attention. CJ looked up to see the pink bunny with the red tennis-ball eyes waving at him from across the oval. It’s mouth opened and closed oddly, like a fish from the cartoons. CJ tensed up and willed himself back home. He willed himself anywhere away from the bunny Anywhere. Even back to his bed where maybe he could be asleep and maybe this could be a dream and maybe the sheets would be dry.

CJ wished Sammy would come down for lunch.

The bunny was motioning him over, calling him across the sea that was the oval, but CJ knew better than that — strangers and candy and balloons and all of that stuff — he knew a threat when he saw it. He stayed right where he was on the bench and felt his hand tighten around the apple. 

The screeching sound of fingernails got louder and Louder and Louder and LOUDER and LOUDER and…

“CJ?”

It was Sammy. The big, brown blonde boy stood in front of him looking worried. Clancy shook off his fear and looked past Sammy but the bunny was nowhere to be seen. He looked down again, certain he would find his school shorts soaked with piss, but they were dry and his apple lay on the ground next to his feet, un-crushed.

“Wanna go read this new Spiderman comic I got?” Sammy asked. “I don’t really feel like exploring today.”

CJ nodded. The words he clutched at seemed to dart away too quickly for him to know what they were. 

Sammy always knew when something was wrong and he always knew when it was best to be quiet and not ask about those things. CJ was glad for that. He wanted to burrow into his friend. He wanted for there to be a space inside Sammy where he could hide — away from The Bunny. 

The comic was a good one. Lots of action and interesting bad guys and exciting moments where you didn’t know if Spidey was going to save the day or not. Or not.

The bell signalling the end of Big Lunch rang. Sammy put a good, heavy hand on CJ’s shoulder, but it wasn’t enough.

The Bunny was already back. 

It was waiting over beyond the far fence of the school oval, holding a red balloon. The awful thing was waving like a maniac.

~ ~ ~

After homework had been assigned and school let out, CJ was sure he would be ambushed as soon as he stepped out of the gate. Sammy caught the bus so he was all the way on the other side of the school — useless. 

CJ loitered near one of the thick cemented gate posts and prayed for his mum to be early.

And by some miracle, she was.

“Clancy!” she called from the car, “c’mon cutie, I’m parked in the loading zone. Quick quick!”

CJ felt relief wash over him like a warm bath. Nothing mattered as he sprinted to the car — not the wet bed, not the cold fear, not the red balloon — nothing. He was home-free and it was the best feeling he could remember ever having.

“Good day kiddo?” his mum asked.

CJ tossed his school pack onto the floor and buckled himself into his seat. “Sammy had a new Spiderman comic. It was awesome!”

His mum laughed and pulled the car out into school traffic. Everything felt better.

~ ~ ~

When they got home they found his dad asleep on the couch, and CJ’s mum held a finger to her lips —  quiet. 

CJ did his homework on the kitchen bench even though tomorrow was a holiday. It was easy, just some simple math and a few word game but it was a nice distraction to waste away the time until dinner.

When his dad roused it was, as always, funny to CJ. The big man would blink his eyes open lazily, and look around as if nothing made sense; as if nothing was the right way up or the right way round. CJ knew the feeling but he never imagined his dad could feel the same way as he did.

His dad spoke to his mum. “There’s a roast in the freezer baby. If you take it out and let it thaw we can have it tomorrow for lunch.”

CJ kept his focus on his homework, he wanted to stay here in this moment with his parents forever. 

“Clancy my boy, did you have a good day?”

CJ nodded, but his dad persisted.

“So, I know your mother said the Easter Bunny wasn’t going to come tonight, but…”

CJ felt a jolt of terror at the thought — “You promised he wouldn’t come!”

His mum turned where she was in the kitchen, confusion in her face. “Clancy baby, what’s wrong?! Are you okay?”

CJ folded up his homework and slipped it back into his folder. “Sorry mum. I just want to go to bed.”

“Do you not feel well?” his dad asked.

CJ was desperate to retreat and hide under his blankets. “I’m just tired. I’m sorry about this morning.”

His mum looked hurt. “Baby, we aren’t mad anymore. The Easter Bunny won’t come if you don’t want him to, okay? We aren’t mad. We just…we thought you still believed in him sweetness.”

CJ kissed his mum and dad goodnight, and wondered what ‘believing’ really meant. In his room he closed the window and the blinds and the cupboards and the bedroom door — even though he never did that. He usually like everything open. But he wanted to keep it out. 

He wanted to keep The Bunny out.

~ ~ ~

When he woke CJ was buried under a pile of blankets and pillows and he was soaked in sweat. At first he was worried he had wet himself again, but he didn’t have the heart to check properly. 

He smelled something strong, something strange, like burning. Smoke.

Down near his feet, the bed dipped away suddenly. CJ’s stomach dropped out of him and he carefully pulled back the blankets.

Sitting on the edge of his mattress, smoking a cigarette, it’s big red eyes gleaming, was The Bunny. It was staring at him and had one leg crossed over the other. It’s mouth peeled into a wide grin. 

“Hey buddy,” it said in a low voice. The Bunny flicked ash onto CJ’s carpet and tapped a furry hand on it’s furry knee. “I hope you weren’t expecting me to hop around or anything.”

CJ felt the piss soaking into his pyjamas.