A countdown of years
Posted on April 4, 2018 10 Comments
Seven
When I was seven I started a new school. My fourth in three years. My third in Australia. I’d learned from the mistakes of the first two schools and was well on the way to camouflage. I had set down the heavy Malayalee-Malay accent I’d arrived with a little over a year previously. I’d flattened and nasalised my vowels, and let my final consonants fall surreptitiously by the wayside. Read More
The Collection of Strangers
Posted on April 2, 2018 4 Comments
I just got back from walking the dog and am seated at the long wooden table on the balcony with my second espresso, reflecting on my family talent for collecting strangers. We’ve always done it. Some of the collections have been more successful than others.
The Peacock’s Daughter
Posted on April 1, 2018 7 Comments
Music surges through the speakers. Salt-N-Pepa tell us to push it, and I survey the sea of shocked faces. Not really funeral fare, Mum.
‘No sombre music, Gillian.’
Yes, Mum. No sombre music. But you could have at least let me warn folks.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Posted on April 1, 2018 7 Comments
Hooray! It’s the 1st of April and this is not an April Fool’s joke. April’s an important month in my world.
The Path to Paradise
Posted on March 29, 2018 10 Comments
On the corner of the block, at the meeting of two streets, at the end of the lane lived Veronica and Dorothy. Non and Dor, as they were known to everyone in the neighbourhood, were two delightful older women who shared a home. They’d been friends for most of their lives, and when Non’s husband died, Dor moved into her house for company.
Nuts!
Posted on March 22, 2018 10 Comments
Arse over tea-kettle, and over I went. Legs swept from under me, roller skating mid-air like Wyle E. Coyote caught off a cliff, then down with a wallop.
Alma Mater
Posted on March 2, 2018 2 Comments
This week Godzilla, my eldest child, began at university.
The same university that my husband and I went to.
The same university my brothers and my brother-in-law went to.
Old Town Vet
Posted on February 22, 2018
A steady breeze blew through the deserted streets of Old Town lifting dust and debris into a ghoulish danse macabre. The blades of the old windmill whined their arc through the air, the rusted metal cogs and gears screeching in protest.
So long, goodbye, farewell.
Posted on February 14, 2018 18 Comments
Sunita tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. If only she could tuck her scattered emotions so neatly away. This was the first time she’d been alone since Rajiv’s Commanding Officer had called. The C.O. had spoken quietly, calmly. She wondered what it was about death that forced a stillness on everything. Read More
