Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Demise

They crawled over my office space like bugs and worms devouring every morsel of office document in their path. "Bloody Auditors" I thought, black bag men for the Tax Department. "Our hard earned tax dollars being put to good use" - exterminating small business startups - Corporate governance gone mad, intolerant of anything outside a multi-national framework for the future of our society. A society of drone laborers, fuelling the coporate machine, individual private enterprise a fabled myth, extinct, like free speech, self-determanism, individual liberty, and evenhanded justice. Alas, they have found my worn copy of deBono's "Handbook for the Positive Revolution." They look at me like some terrorist... The jackboots are coming.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Beginings and Endings

The maestro took the stand and with a soft voice filled the hushed silence that waited with anticipation. His words as clear as the tinkle of a crystal clear stream in some early morning mountain air, words spoken with a quiet but firm resolve, that held us in awe and stunned confusion, "There is a time for beginings and a time for endings, but who can say where one can be differentiated from the other, for all the time we have is... now!" The last word rang out like a shout as the first of a thousand micro-metorites ploughed through the sky and into the auditorium. Few, like me, survived. The apocalypse, foretold by a thousand generations, had finally come.

Friday, June 01, 2007

A guru's advice

"What you bring with you is what you will find!" swooned some wannabe guru as we trugged, huffing and puffing, struggling under the weight of our equipment, up the worn steps of another sacred hill so devoid of senic hutzpah as to leave us devestatingly passionless about the landscape. Another guru wannabe, lets fly from some semi-hidden alcove dug into the side of the rockface, "The outer journey is but illusion, a manefestation of the inner journey, the only true journey. Look inside!" "Bloody useless advice," I muttered, "You can't photograph what's within!"

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Tiffany Twisted

"...'last thing I remember, I was running for the door. I couldn't find my whay out...there seemed to be no way out! Suddenly, there were voices down the corridor... it was too dark to see. The smell of earth, damp from the rain was strong. The next thing I remember was opening my eyes to an early morning, pale sunrise..." "So, what do you want from me?" asked the dusky coated private eye. "Mr. Jones, I want you to find her. Whereever she is, just find her."

Monday, May 21, 2007

The Baiting Game

"Grim days lie ahead." He said as he put his empty stein on the table. George couldn't resist, "Where ya from, Catweazle?" "Do you know me boy! Do ya think ya're being funny?" retorted that shaggy, white-haired man with handlebar moustache and goatee beard. The game was on, and George took to it with relish, he loved baiting old folk, "Keep ya shirt on, Nostradamus! I was just being friendly."

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Success

It is Saturday, a day pretty much the same as every other Saturday before it. On this day, thie sun shines brightly in a clear blue sky. The gardens, a paradise to behold, are gently caressed by a cool, sea breeze. Fresh coffee in a clean cup rests on my outside table. I am immersed in all the trappings of success - environment, home, family, domestic staff, and pets... a living, breathing 'Hell on Earth!' there is no joy to be found in any of this, and nothing nourishes my soul.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The World of Bob

There is a place for everything and everything has it's place in the world of Bob. If you move something, put it back, exactly where it came from. Even a minor displacement can wreak havok elsewhere. The world of Bob is the engine of the universe. The butterfly effect has real meaning here, it's not just a theory.

Friday, May 11, 2007

The Migrant

When I was a lad, a minimum serve of chips cost around forty cents and with a piece of flake (gummy shark in batter) the total was less than a buck. Within five years the price had doubled. I learned how price was tied to the market fluctuation, partcularly the cost per ton of potatoes. In a period of ten years the owners of the local fish shop had changed from Anglo to Greek to Asian. Jimmy, the first Greek owner made the best hamburgers in the world. It was at this time I started to try and understand migration, and the way migrant families worked, hard, together, to make it in a new country, and make it they did. I never realised, or dreamed that one day I too would be some kind of migrant, expatriate, but first I had to transition from local ittinerant worker to world traveller. This is my story.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The Future

"Predictive forecasting of future change to society, as impacted upon by technological development is difficult at best..." droned the Professor, "...that we know with hindsight change can be swift and pervasive, is an accepted fact..." I shifted uneasily in my chair and fought to keep my eyes open, "...assimilation of change has not resulted in radical makeovers of the social setting, such as depicted in the works of Wells, 'Doc' Smith, Gibson, or even mine, for that matter." A forced giggle bubbled through the auditorium. "You're a blithering idiot..." I thought, not for the first time.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Found

Officer: "Sir! Take a look at this."
Supervisor: "What's the problem?"
Officer: "Well... that's just it, there isn't one... exactly... Sir... just this man there, who doesn't look right - act quite right."
Supervisor: "What do you mean?"
Officer: "Well Sir, it's just that he's not afraid Sir, not even just a little bit..."
Supervisor: "OK. Run a facial scan, let's see what we've got."
Officer: "I did Sir, he's a frequent flyer, but even FF's have a little fear of the security check, yet this guy... Infra-Red, Biometric, Racial, Religious, & Psycho-Stable screening all show this guy is green... super green... I think we've found him, Sir!"
Supervisor: "Who?"
Officer: "The Outlier... Sir..."

Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Red Cowled Witch

You may not remember Rupert, he was the old wolf that lived in the forest. Good fella he was, used to protect these lands from marauding humans, well, up until that little, red cloak wearing, sorceress of a girl came along and enchanted some hapless hunter into killing him. Listen now to the tragic tale of the wolf and the red cowled witch.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

BBq's

"Bbq's are funny things," he said, "not the physical cooking item but the event itself - you never really know when you're gonna have a good one." The Tong Master of the day reclined in the camp chair, lifted a beer in a silent, reverential toast to the day, upended the can and suddenly began choking on the ring pull that he'd stuck into it earlier in the day. Blood everywhere and a few minutes later we were racing to the hospital. What a disaster!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Tale

"Sit ya right down there and for a beer I'll tell ya a tale that'll turn ya hair white and leave ya sleepless for the rest of your days!" said an old, white-haired man at the Sailor's Inn. We'd been exploring the Reeperbahn district looking for a 'real' seaman's pub. What we found will turn your hair white and leave you sleepless for the rest of your life.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

THe Hunt

Dust hung in the air like a superfine, dry mist. With each stepfall and turning, beams of light filtered through holes in the ceiling to take definition as near-solid, slowly-moving, columns of gold. This mosque had not been used in a long time, yet all the signs showed that our quarry had recently been here...footprints in the dust, the blood and feathers of a chicken beside a small, warm pile of ash in the corner... we were close, very close.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Max the Sheep

In a sun-drenched pool of light, breaking through the leafy canopy of a Uyghur courtyard, on a late spring morning, sat Max the Sheep. Now Max was no ordinary, everyday kind of sheep, he was a fat-tailed sheep, and he was THE proverbial black sheep. Max liked sitting in the sun at this time of year, sitting and ruminating over the morning's breakfast. Just then something changed, a shift seemed to ripple through the ground, from the direction of Luolan. It seemed to Max that the 'Smile of the Earth' was beginning to frown.

Monday, April 23, 2007

From out of nowhere

"There is nowhere you can go, that I can't find you!" yelled a short dark haired, Asian featured woman. I looked around, there was no-one else there. "Who? Me? Who are you and why would YOU want to find ME? Let's face it, this is not a bust!"

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Fast Lane

Rumors percolated through the backlot like day old greywater vapors. Martian Sqeezeeasy, orange of note, writer and dramatist had been segmented. Sergent Cucumber faced a vegetable paparazzi throng as agitated as tossed salad. He took a deep breath and prepared for the oncoming crush of the press.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Greenpeace

You may not remember your Uncle Vladimir – if ever there was a person at risk of being pounced on by a “Greenpeace Rescue Team” it was him; he was huge! especially on that day when he went down to that beach, just a little north of the Gold Coast, a place well known locally for nude bathing and whale sightings. He’d just finished swimming and was lying at the water’s edge; there was a moderate swell and the waves were gently breaking over his body. Enjoying the sun and water, he’d just closed his eyes, when they came.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

The Cadaver

“Six drops of the essence of terror, Five drops of sinister sauce…” As the opening theme for Milton the Monster blared out from the console, something not so cartoonish was taking place. Frankensteinian castles, exchanged for Corporate Glasshousing – white coats and Teslarian laboratories pushed aside for clean room environments and holographic computational systems. The pink and purple cadaver in the gene pool, not some stitched up bag of decayed flesh, but a Japanese nanotech robotic marvel: “The Android of the Fucia!”

Friday, March 16, 2007

A Big Name

A drop of water, frozen in a moment of time, in it a teeming pool of microbial life. Another fraction of a second, frozen like a snapshot. The droplet has rotated. Now it is tinged with red, the red of blood that pollutes a watery splash that rises when an assassin’s victim falls in the rain. Its dark; and this victim had a name. A big name.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Time Lords

“The keeping of stories is serious stuff,” said the Guild Master, not for the first time. Boergen just yawned, also not for the first time. “Stories, tales, legends, myths, these are the oral histories of our people, their beliefs, values and ideals.” A heavy book snapped closed, ominously close to Boergen’s ear. She came quickly to wakefulness with a start.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Breakdown

The Flats were hot, dry and dusty, the air shimmering in all directions with heat haze while small, dusty willy-willies danced back and forth along the side of the Princess Hwy. We’d broken down a kilometer and a half, or a bit more along the Maffra Road, from Kilmany – a ghostly speck of a town, devoid of all commercial venture. No water, in the middle of nowhere, the nearest soul a “cut lunch and water bottle” away. The heat can kill, still, even in 2007.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Replay

“…and he said, ‘There is but only one way! And George Bush is its messenger!’ with that he pushed a button, much like this one. A minute later he blew up! Just like that! Lucky for me, I’d walked far enough away, in time…” “Yes. Thank you for your time, some officers will be in…” For the second time in two days and explosion roared out, destroying government facilities, one minute after the push of a button, by a microbionuclear suicide, “Bushite,” bomber.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Cattle Class

The train left Chengdu at 5:56 PM. It’s Spring Festival Eve and we’re headed for Guangzhou. I leave the comfort of my “soft sleeper,” shared with three others I don’t know, nor can talk to and walk the corridors. The buffet car is almost deserted, the Hard Sleeper section – the usual crowd of six persons per bunk partition (open faced room). The Hard Seat area, what a shock! People everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, sitting at any available space on seats, bags, and each other. I partly force my way through to the end an meet a locked door. Beyond this portal, face after face, standing room only – “cattle class.” I wait for the next stop. Have a smoke, out, and walk back along the platform.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Eco-flict

Global warming had taken its toll on the human population by the mid 2050’s. Weather extremes had raged for years in what became known as a, “Battle for the Planet” between star-crossed lovers, El Nino and La Nina. The collateral damage was horrific, whole races of people in 2nd and 3rd world countries decimated to the point of extinction, while 1st world countries, perpetrators of the effect, fought over near depleted resources, while struggling to protect their own: holding a “green card” became the difference, for many, between life and death.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Paperboy

Over night the rain had splashed down, leaving a damp, slippery wetness on every surface. A paperboy, over laden with the morning news, attending to each of his customer’s individual news needs, took a spill going around the corner. Buried under bike and paper, rapidly getting wetter from the sodden path, he shakes his head, mutters a curse and struggles towards his momentary resurrection, but, he’s stuck and cannot move. A street sweeper rounds the corner spraying more water before it. He cannot move.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Performance Art

Pods lie scattered over the floor. Pink casings intermingle with mangled purple petals and pale tipped stamens. Everywhere the sign of some unimaginable carnage and, in the middle of all this, she lies in serene state, a performance artist feigning death – pink frock coat over a purple skirt and pale trousers bleeding to white at the shoes: A sign to the side states: “I am the Fucia!”

Monday, March 05, 2007

The Homeland

“The terrain is difficult,” said the realtor blandly, “cliffs on most sides of a cul-de-sac cove, separated from the sea by a nasty and fickle set of heads: the gap is shallow and uncompromising, you can’t even get a biggish boat in there.” He continued with his litany of faults, but for my purpose, it was perfect, the homeland of my dreams.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

The Garden

“Have you ever seen a garden, an old garden,” he asked, “one that’s been reclaimed by nature, but has yet to forget what it once was?” there were several shakes of heads but otherwise no-one broke the silence. He continued, “I have. It was a long time ago and far from here…”

Friday, March 02, 2007

Eyes

With a simple blink, they were gone; those florescent green, ‘glow in the dark’ eyes. They were the kind of eyes that seemed to hover, impassive, calculating, aware, unfearful of us or the darkness that enveloped us. Not for the first time did we, the hunters, feel we were being hunted, but by what?

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Goodfellas

“A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month!” said Glenda, attaching with unusual vigor and playfulness; “A hit and a kick for being so quick!” countered Miranda, lashing out with her left foot and failing to connect. The two girls giggled and walked to the teahouse.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Little Johnny

Steel confetti lie over the ground. In one corner to the left of an industrial stamping machine, a pair of overalls. A horrific pair, stuffed full to stretching seam with the mangled corpse of little Johnny. Inspector Huzit turned, puked, wiped her mouth and grimaced.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Hard Rain

Three days of hard rain, acid rain, could not wash away that blood soaked image etched into the sandstone causeway; that mangled mash that was once a human being; a human being that carried a consciousness, of which all that is left is this electronic imprint… in e-space… me.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Raiders

“They’re coming!” cried the old man as he staggered into the village. “Run, run! They’re coming, raiders from over the sea!” And so it was they came, raiders, corporate mercenaries, devourers of private enterprise, true believers in a “flat earth, level playing field and harmonized taxation codes...” resource greedy, rapacious and hungry… we didn’t stand a chance!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Wang 'Eight Eggs'

The Chinese New Year had once again, come and gone: a hungry Nian, again chased off by a combination of lights and loud noises. Wang ‘Eight Eggs’ sat in a satisfied happiness, his full belly bulging slightly over his belt, as he leaned back from the table.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Murder!

It was the middle of the rest period, quiet time, the mid-day naptime; the time when the whole city’s official machinery takes a break from its soulless, mind-numbingly goalless endeavors. She shot her, with a 4” pipe gun, and a white rodent as the projectile. “Happy New Year, you Rat!” screeched the Horoscope Serial Killer

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Oral History

There was a time once, when cliffs rose high above the crashing waves; gulls and harriers and eagles soared over the water and swooped the sand; fish were in abundance for the catching; and fresh, spring water filled the well… but that was long ago, before the time of my grandfather’s grandfather…Hear well now, a tale of the death of the world!

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Paradise Lost

Still are the pools of Huafa in the morning. Narry a ripple, even as the reflections of security guards pass over them. I sit and watch as the day unfolds and people go about their morning routines of exercise and social walks. The cats chew grass. I drink coffee. Just another bloody day in a paradise with a rotten heart.

Monday, February 12, 2007

A Paragraph

A paragraph is a writing device which organizes one’s writing by way of several elements. It contains as a minimum three sentences, which wok together to establish one idea. With proper use, at an advanced level, the paragraph can also influence how a reader responds to the idea.the sentences in a paragraph are usually called Topic, Exposition and Linking sentences.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

The frog

A long time ago there lived a frog. His home was deep in the forest, under a rock, on the edge of a crystal clear, pond of mountain spring water. There were lilly-pads and lots and lots of froggy food. Everything a frog could want, except he was alone and very, very lonely.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Reef Sign

The currents flowed strong through the ancient channels, ancient even in ancient days past. Natural? Man-made? No-one knew. The island realigning itself with the lunar calendar. The island, a small remnant of a larger, buried temple complex. A fragmentary glimpse of the once “Great Hall of Hermes.”

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

A Rush Job for Teagan

A phone rings. It’s the middle of the night. Footsteps recede in the stairwell. The phone stops for a moment and begins its insistent peel again. No-one answers. Teagan Wanabe, in a deep chesty voice says, “I think we’re too late. We’ve gotta get those codes, before the launch!”

Monday, February 05, 2007

Sentient

Batwing-eared faces stare down from the wall, the way they have for thousand of generations. Criers in the street call the believers to prayer, and buyers to the hawkers. But the energy is wrong, something has changed in Temple Street. A flicker of color shimmers across the eyes of the ancient, watching faces. Something awakens.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Drought

It was the eight hundred and fifty second day of the drought. The bush fires had all exhausted their natural fuel. Water that once stood in vast, deep lakes, now no longer even ran through artesian streams. It was “The drought we had to have,” or so the Prime Minister said. All the coal beds were burning beyond any hope of control in the ground. The hydro-electric systems defunct and monolithically useless. It was just as well we gone nuclear.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Kasimir and the Rogue

The skimmer beat its gossamer thin wings at polka time, as it flitted down the tunnels in search of ‘worm-sign’. Kasimir, brooding at the controls as the General Secretary’s words echoed in his mind, “Mars Colony can ill-afford another terra-forming catastrophy! The rogue worm must go!”

Thursday, February 01, 2007

The Monk of St. Clair

In a darkness only broken by the periodic swaying, to and fro, of a head-mounted light, he wrote. He wrote as if demons or madmen were chasing him, as if his very life depended upon it, this monk of St. Clair; or so it seemed in the video surveillance footage that caught his furtive efforts, moments before the quake hit. Destroying everything in its path, except that room.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Water

Water. Flowing forth from fountain faucets. Bringer of life. A medium for sustenance and aesthetics, irrigation and cooling. It flows. Everywhere. It was in water the found her, an earth goddess corpse.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Clover

Clover covered everything like a moss gone mad, but it wasn’t clover like you’d find on the fair green isle, nor like the pastoral “red” and “white” common to the sun burnt land, no! this was “Four-Leaf” clover, big! Leaves like the size of tractor tires. Clover never grew like this, anywhere on that once, blue-green ball of rubble that sat, “third rock from the sun”.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Going Bush

“Lying in the dark is an easy thing to do, especially if you are by yourself,” said the Ranger, “and around here there’s no-one for miles; the only trouble is staying alive, or safe, ‘til dawn.” Someone chuckled in the dark, mirthlessly.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Why?

“It’s colder than Winter…” sang out a voice from a dusty radio, lying in the corner, on its side. Beside it lay knick-knacks and collectables, memorabilia from a forgotten childhood – cars, lead soldiers, half-chewed plastic ones, pictures and newspaper clippings… “Why?” thought Dougal, “Why paper clippings?”