Mystery Ships.
When he gets up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night,
she’d be there
or on the way back to his room after pausing in the kitchen
for a glass of milk,
she’d be in the hallway,
with her axolotl stare.
Time after time.
Passing ships in the night.
He’d look at her, and she at him,
sometimes a twitch of understanding, affection,
then they’d both look away.
After eight years, off and on,
they were still a mystery to each other.
Her cat. Not his.
They’d never bonded.
Sometimes I wake up in a room
& don’t know where I am.
My partner’s?
My daughter’s?
Home?
Sometimes I walk into a room that isn’t
even there.
carrying two cups of coffee,
one for me, one for her
and a Sunday Mail under my arm
but that was yesterday.
I’m in the 4th dimension now.
Somewhere in the distance a crow caws, a cat hisses, an old CD
is playing, ‘You’re out of time, my baby’.
I scratch my head, my balls.
How do I get back Where’s the exit door?
The entrance?
Help.
Seven year olds will always ask, at some stage when you are least ready for it, the mermaid question.
Granddad, Tina asks me, how do mermaids go to the toilet?
While you are grappling with this one, they ask another, THE BIG KAHUNA of questions, usually in the car while you are driving them to or from some event:
Grandad, where would I be if you and grandma never got married?
It’s the sort of question you need to pull over the side of the road for, but I kept on driving, hoping an apt answer would ‘pop’ into my head. Where’s the Muse when you need her? Surely she’d good for things other than poetry.
I don’t know what you would have done? I mean, how do you answer a question like that? There’s an obvious answer but that might depress the hell out of her, Who wants to be confronted at that age with self obliteration? And there’s the ontological answer but she wouldn’t get it.
I thought I’d go with the mermaid answer. That’d be the easier of the two …. maybe.
I wish I could come up with something,
I really do.
I mean how long can it take for inspiration to strike?
Do I have to stand outside in an electrical storm under the tallest Norfolk pine to be struck?
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I know slouching around doesn’t help or reading Beth’s poem on Cheetos and working up an appetite for snack foods won’t do it either.
Maybe if I played with my Rubik’s Cube like Maro does might do it — loosen up a few brain cells.
I’m desperate.
Perhaps if I go outside and wail beneath the full moon like uncle did before they took him away.
God, there must be something.
They still do ECT, don’t they?
That’s what happened to uncle. He saw God, angels, the whole shebang then settled down among the fairies at the bottom of the garden.
But he found something. He wasn’t wracked anymore. He found quiescence. If you got that, you don’t need anything else.
Shit, did I just write all that?
When I drove my daughter to her friend’s new place
in the Adelaide Hills
she turned on her phone’s GPS system
as we took
one branching road, then another,
scores of roads branching up, down, across
that went on for miles
deeper & deeper
into
the dark woods
& you said, we’re getting closer, only a few miles now
& I said,
Christ, how do they ever find their way out of here
each morning
& you laughed
but eventually we found it, we got there.
You be okay finding your way out, dad without the GPS?
& I said, sure, how hard can it be?
then I took off
winding my way back and forth
for miles,
there were so many possibilities,
almost running out of fuel & patience
till I stumbled upon multiple forks any of which looked good
so I took one
& that’s when I learnt the difference between
a labyrinth and maze:
a maze is multicursal [ many branches] while a labyrinth
is unicursal [one branch].
I was in a maze.
A labyrinth is easier.
I am reading a short story but it is not making any sense.
Call me ‘old-fashioned’ but I think a story should make sense.
Maybe it’s because it’s told in a goulash of styles.
But the writer is an accomplished writer.
Does that mean I am not an accomplished reader?
Can a writer be over-confident, cocky? If so, can a reader?
Maybe it’s my mindset.
Maybe I should loosen up like good old George, slouch around in the ungrammatic, delve in the demotic, savour the stew
Any chance of a coffee, Cheryl?
I’m busy, John. Can you get one from the machine? It does a good job.
Not as good as you, Cheryl.
She smiled but it was no go. So I went to the machine. There was a sign on it saying, Apologies. This Machine Is Out Of Order.
So I went and told Cheryl.
That’s funny, she said. It was working earlier. I’ll have a look.
A few minutes later, she brought me a coffee.
The machine’s working, John but I brought you a coffee anyway.
That’s funny: the sign said it wasn’t working.
The sign was on the side of the machine, she said. Only if it’s on the front does it hold true.
Oh? I said. Oh.
So I thanked her and after I drank the coffee, I left, a little troubled.
At home, I flipped through the community newspaper and found just the course I wanted: How To Read Signs. I filled out the form, sent in the cheque and enrolled immediately.
Never again would I be caught short before a sign.
John Malone 