Unreal! But aren't we out of bounds?

It's OK, Colin says it's OK.

He calls a strategy meeting and we huddle panting.

'Those guys have gone out of bounds again, right?'

He knows! He's one of us!

'Well, let's play our own trick and hide from them.'

Jaws drop. Hounds hide? The idea is delicious. Of course we want to; haven't we always said...

'Enough talk. We must go now, before they suspect. Follow me.'

How swiftly we are in the small room below the street. It's exciting. Wow! A TV with control paddles.

'Sit down. See if you can bat the ball across the screen. That's it! Now back.'

What is this miracle game? A fight to be next.

Cigarettes. The oldest have a go. Cough, cough. It's grouse. Choke. Here.

Now alien objects. Adult things? Small square packets, round inside. Stickers? Do you stick 'em on your... balls? To keep them out of the way? When you...?

I return to the blipping, popping game.

Time to go. How we hate to leave the wondrous toy.

'You can come again if you like.'

But Colin isn't talking to me.

Heavy with our secret oath, we return to the hall to savour the unchased hares' bewilderment.

To be continued...

A true account of child molestation. The paedophile is alive and well and living in Queensland. Parents would do well to read this cautionary tale.
















1974. Soft youth of nine. Introverted, bookish.

'You spend too much time making models. You've got to get out and make friends.'

I don't want friends. Everyone hates me.

'We're sending you to cubs, for your own good.'

I don't want to go to cubs; I love my models.

'You're going. That's final.'

Second-hand uniform assembled piecemeal, the differing khakis an instant target. The ancient, too-soft hat scoffs at clothes pegs and steam.

Dead man walking to a fresh clutch of tyrants, to complement my school set.

Tall, raven-haired Akela has a smile for me. Wiry old Kim lays down the law: we're all equal. Respect. Me? Too? I return home undestroyed. Stunned.

'See! We told you.'

I arrive early to help Akela set up. For my collector's badge, I bring my models. The cross-legged semicircle listens!


'This is Colin; he's joining us for a few months.'

Hello Colin. Welcome Colin.

Colin is a younger grown-up, imbued with the collective wisdom and authority of all grown-ups. He tells ace stories about a camp where he made huge catapults and went to war with another troop, hurling mud balls big as your head across a river.

Could WE have a camp like that? Colin?

'Maybe...'


Tonight it's 'Hares and Hounds'. The hares have all the fun, going anywhere they like. Always the older boys: they never blow the whistle when they're supposed to and they sneak out of bounds to Kentucky Fried. Afterwards they boast to us who have ploughed futilely through the suburban night. Though jealous, we're not dobbers, so they do it every time.

But Colin is with us tonight! Maybe we'll catch those... bloody hares at last. He brings magical adult power. We run and run. Is it them ahead? Colin knows a short cut.

To be continued...

To her eternal credit, she eventually capitulated under his intensive lobbying and agreed to a trial.

Elated to at last be dealing with critters in an holistic, non-violent fashion, Feisty installed his own oil burner and waited for results. Sure enough, the mould began to recede, particularly in wet, hard-to-get-at places like the door tracks.

Though the switch from daylight saving caused several fatalities, the program proved a success. So much so that during one full moon, a baby slug appeared.

Feisty was amazed to find that his revulsion had turned to acceptance. Fon was markedly less enthusiastic and declined his invitation to name the new addition.

'How about Shamus?'

'I don't care.'

'Sly?'

'I don't care, Feisty.'

'Simon, then?'

'I really don't give a damn what you call it. I am not bonding with the slugs the way you obviously are.'

'Shane?'

'Yes; Shane. Fantastic! Shane the Sh*t-eating Slug. That's the one; let's run with it, shall we?'

Feisty regarded her narrowly. 'You're not just saying that? You really prefer Shane?'

Fon unmuted the TV and concentrated on a 'Toilet Duck' ad.

'We're the germy germs, under the rim…'

Feisty stared at the screen, and was struck with a sudden thought. 'I wonder if they really could be trained to clean toilets. He jumped up and ran an eclectic keyword search on Google, only to stump it for the first time ever.

'Trial and error it is then,' he declared excitedly.

END.

Commuters on two train stations heard Fon's scream. Feisty flew from their bed to find her rooted to the spot, clad only in her sparkly shower cap. Through chattering teeth she wailed, 'Feisty, there are f*cking SLUGS in our shower!'

Feisty followed her bloodless finger and recoiled as four of the fattest gastropods he'd ever seen pulsed nonchalantly across the walls and floor. Losing all sense of karma, he mounted the cubicle, reached in and turned the hot tap on full. Aiming the showerhead like an Indonesian water cannon, he blasted the writhing intruders onto the drain hole and into oblivion. He then hosed the surfaces repeatedly as Fon regained sufficient motor control to retrieve her robe and retreat to the kitchen.

A few days later, two more slugs appeared. Ashamed of his former reaction, Feisty gingerly plucked them with disposable chopsticks and threw them in the garden. They returned the following night. And the next. He didn't want to kill them, but could find no merit in allowing them to stay. Then, completely by accident, he encountered an enchanting article on slugs in New Scientist.

A naturalist in ever-damp Sydney, on observing three species of slugs in his shower, had discovered that they loved eating mould. Through a series of experiments, he had even determined that the Great Grey Slug (limax flava) exhibited the optimum combination of appetite, light aversion and territoriality. He provided a ceramic oil burner, to which his 'leotard' of slugs returned every morning. In return, they cleaned his shower nightly - growing up to nine centimetres long in the process.

'No f*cking WAY!' replied Fon to Feisty's carefully worded suggestion.

To be continued...

It was a wet autumn. As the house gradually slipped into the ancient sewer beneath it, cracks opened in the walls. Worst affected was the shower. Week after week, Feisty watched the tiles diverge, until one night he found himself gazing right through the ceiling at the evening star.

Feisty and Fon married and bought an inner city cottage. It was warm and humble, with hand-made bricks, a kitchen fireplace and 13 types of vermin. Though these were not evident until some time after the auction, Feisty calmly resolved to combat them by humane, environmentally-responsible means. As it turned out, this was not always possible.

When a plate-sized huntsman spider in the bedroom ignored his well-reasoned arguments, Feisty persuaded Fon to take the only remaining course of action. She smashed it with one of her Doc Marten’s ten-ups, on the understanding that he would handle all similar transgressions by reptiles and tigers. The next day, on their walk, Fon tested Feisty’s resolve by shouting ‘Snake!’ and leaping into his arms. He immediately rushed towards the indicated area.

Gaily the girl pirouetted and studied herself in the mirror. 'I love this dress.'

Do your house mates or work colleagues leave the communal kitchen filthy despite your every protest? Print this off and stick it on the wall. It may just do the trick!

At the delicatessen, the meats yelled insults, furious at Tom's complicity as a consumer. The shock brought him back a little, though his mind continued to swim and throb. He surveyed an impatient throng of customers, vainly tracking ticket numbers on the recalcitrant display. Every face showed anger or frustration. Some were veined as pastrami, others white as turkey loaf. Teeth became gobbets, olives became eyes and at once Tom felt greasy processed flesh all about him, jostling and shouting.

His heart began to pound and he felt suddenly faint. His wet fingers slid from the trolley and he drifted from the cacophony. The space he left filled quickly and the gaggle of meat people gawped with malevolent interest. Tom spun around, searching for Sarah but finding only terrifying faces of tongue and jellied ham. They lurched and loomed as he fled - straight into an elaborate buttress of tins. The structure caved with a clamour to wake more of the dead, burying its hapless detonator. Fifty sausage fingers pawed at Tom’s clothing. He screamed as five closed around his ankle, magnetizing every guard in the complex and terminating Sarah’s bakery foray. Skittering cans in all directions, Tom howled at his attackers, ignored the pleas of his lover and tore futilely at the vinyl floor - his lust for oblivion never more acute.

Powerless for the moment and desperate to get home, Sarah watched Tom slide as he listlessly piloted them through treacle traffic. As with her morning apnoea attacks, she knew it'd take all her strength to break the barriers forming around him. What a f*ck. It was Friday; the end of a sh*t week. Sh*t at work; sh*t at home; sh*t everywhere. All day she’d clung to the hope that Tom would feel like going out, if only for noodles and a Chardonnay. A brief respite from the hospice their home had become. Not a chance. In eighteen months she’d become intimate with every sign his furrowed face could muster. And tonight the ‘Danger Long Wide Load’ flags were out in force. F*ck!

Then she remembered: Jacinta was coming for dinner. Oh please God, not tonight. The house was filthy, the fridge empty and the vegetarian recipe untried. She was due in an hour, the mobile was dead and they’d already cancelled twice. There was no choice; they’d have to shop on the way home. Sarah shuddered, as if about to slither down a death spiral of her own. As the car inched towards the turnoff, she began to assemble careful sentences.

Every pole telegraphed, 'Hit ME! HIT me! HIT ME!' The wheel in Tom's hands was small and light. One sharp turn would be all it would take, though speed would be difficult at this hour. And the hospitals were close. Tom hunched forward, peering through slitted eyes at scenes he no longer had a right to be part of. The stunning sunset made him moan. The stately park trees shunned him. The fountain sprays dove earthward to avoid his gaze. He had completely worn out his welcome.

He felt like he was on borrowed time, with foreclosure imminent. He thought how easy it would be to liquidate his savings in a final, reckless attempt to break out of his bullsh*t. In theory his thousands could buy comfort and happiness. But what to buy? He had everything he needed, save the ability to enjoy it. Moreover, he felt he'd forfeited all right to happiness, since he considered his sorrow void of legitimate cause. Heavy guilt hastened his mood’s descent. Tibetans, Kurds, Somalis, Kosovars, East Timorese: these had a right to feel miserable. Deaf people, blind, autistic, paralysed, aged, bereft and alone: they had cause for grief. He'd lost no one to Death, never starved, never been denied comfort, never coveted something he couldn't get with hard work. No childhood diseases, no broken bones, parents happily married, education, advancement, prospects. Free to pursue his own course, he’d built success upon privilege, then had the outrageous temerity to get depressed about it. What a thankless turd.

Tom sat at his desk, paralysed for work, voices screaming. Again he studied and sniffed the stain on his index finger, now many layers deep. His self-harm ritual had burgeoned to a full-blown death wish. Every thirty minutes he would shuffle downstairs, lock himself in his car and administer another dose. The act was devoid of pleasure, the pain immediate and sharp. With every drag he imagined a tumour nestling in his left lung, greedily devouring that which made it stronger. Smoking had once brought relief, stilling his panic and sating the force that wanted him dead. Now it was means to permanent peace, but one no longer imbued with the consolation of erotic fantasy.

A photo stock book lay open before him. Tom flicked to 'Going on Holiday'. Mauritius, Micronesia, Thailand, Tahiti, even Australia. Flawless shots of cobalt skies, powder sand and transparent seawater.

Speech

Some say hearing a baby’s first words is one of life’s finest moments. Indeed, the rhythm guitarist from ‘Fluffy’s Chain’ rates this over the high of our first gig. Of course, if the first words are: ‘f*ck off’, this takes the shine off things. You should therefore consider the environment in which you will raise your child.

Innate Drive

I have no right to address those who feel a biological urge to reproduce. It exists. My only advice is that you examine your motive to ensure it is truly innate, since social factors play a major role in this area.

Assuming you have a choice, how do you decide whether to have a child? Though lacking experience, I have some observations which may be useful.

Population

'Sh*t!' exclaimed Rodney. 'That's some camouflage. How'd you do it?'
Wolfgang strode to the site. 'I just mixed up ze colours like I alvays do. I don't haf any formula, so zey alvays com out a bit different. I don't know vot ze fok hes heppened here. But I'm fokking goingk to find out.' He stomped around the landing zone, crushing innumerable blades of grass and releasing a fragrant promise of summer.
Susie joined the search. 'This is crazy; they must be here!'