Ruyton Scripsi 2020

Scripsi

Scripsi Ruyton Literary Publication

Volume 14: 2020 ’

Cover image

by Sarah Chen (Yr 10)

Contents ' Year

Author

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Sienna Dobson

7

Jaimie Merrett

7

Penelope Vegter

7

Cassandra Wagner

7

Olivia Williams

7

Julia Zaparas

8

Sarah Angelo

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Elise Curry

8

Charlotte Nheu

8

Jess Price

8

Mia Rodrigues

8

Lily Sun

8

Anonymous

8

Francesca Yatomi-Clarke

8

Georgia Zhou

9

Mia Andrewes

9

Juliet Bland

9

Amelia Chiang

9

Ava Dluzniak

9

Cindy Jin

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Zoe Reddaway

Title The Power Of Trees Burning Forest Go Outside Lavender Bouquet A Veil Of Frost Stage Fright A Letter To Gilda The Seed Ma And I A Letter To Haha Untitled Meet Me: The Guinea Pig A Letter Untitled My Never Ending Running Track A Stitch In Time Dear Sky And All The Shadows In Between The Yellow Star Reaching High A Game Of Tug-Of-War Without Wings

Page 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 17 21 24 27 30 35 39 42 44 47 50 53 56

Contents ‘ Year

Author

10

Mia Avram

10

Esther Bornstein

10

Ariana Cazanis

10

Charlotte Dalton

10

Esther Juebner

10

Maya Marek

10

Juliet McLean

10

Bella Russell

10

Erica Truong

10

Minduli Weeraman

10

Minduli Weeraman

11

Roisin Brennan

11

Sophia Doufas

11

Emma Haberfield

11

Imaan Ikram

11

Asha Jassal

11

Annie Timm

12

Bella Eames

12

Bella Eames

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Susan Fang

12

Susan Fang

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Susan Fang

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Nicola Iser

12

Charlotte Oakley

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Charlotte Oakley

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Tilly Vorath

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Maya Wilmshurst

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Maya Wilmshurst

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Maya Wilmshurst

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Tara Zhang

Title 1949. Department Of Lands 1955. Nigel’s Hospital Bedroom On The Murrumbidgee The Eclipse 1955. Nigel’s Hospital Bedroom Aunty May Circus Of War 1927. On The Murrumbidgee 1938. Mount Gambier A Disjointed Australian Dream These Inconspicuous Scars Home Pat, Pat, Pat Five Years Artistic Anamnesis Five Years A Silver Spoon Too Far? Solitary Confinement Inside Our Own Skins Winston Churchill Corinna Challenging Pauline Hanson’s “It’s Ok To Be White” Reflection The Arts Matter Child’s Play Untitled Seeing Yourself In The Fictional World How To Write A Story About Africa Poetically Haunted Act Four

Page 59 61 63 65 66 69 71 74 76 79 85 88 90 92 94 97 100 103 106 109 112 116 119 123 127 131 134 137 140 143

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech he described the act of writing: “Stories are about one person saying to another, this is the way it feels to me. Does it feel the same to you?”

These words capture the beauty and wonder, but also the courage required to write creatively, and for an audience, in the vulnerability it calls for, and in the challenge it poses to young writers seeking to capture an experience. Those students who wrote for Scripsi this year were brave, too, because their writing is a statement that says that it is worth connecting, that it is worth trying to imagine a world beyond the one that became, in 2020, particularly small. They chose to share this world with us, and they took that leap boldly and beautifully, this year, writing stories that transported them across time and space, and into worlds imagined, real, and somewhere in between. I invite readers of Scripsi to immerse themselves in these worlds and the gift that they offer; in 2020, I would argue that the gift of storytelling is one that has become even more vital than usual. Stories, at their best, invite the reader and the writer to escape into the mind of another person, and at a time of crisis when many of our community were feeling more vulnerable than ever before this is powerful.

In addition to the creative narratives that are published in Scripsi, we have also published the transcripts of some powerful oratories, presented by students in 2020. In these pieces students declared aloud to their peers and the broader community that some things needed to change, and that they had a vision for how this should occur. It was a special act of courage to do this over a computer screen, imagining their audience, and hoping that they connected with them.

We can assure these young writers that their words were powerful and that they moved us with their visions of progress and hope.

To the students who wrote, imagined and created in 2020, we thank you for the radiance of your vision, and for your embodiment of the Ruyton spirit in your commitment in these stories. You unite us with your courage, with your wit, and with your fervour, and congratulate you on all that you have accomplished.

Editorial Joanna Boer Learning Leader English

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Giants in the earth Superior to us all Looming proud and strong.

The Power Of Trees Sienna Dobson

Giving us fresh air Pause and take a big deep breath Keeping us alive.

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Home to many things Curl their motherly branches Round tiny infants.

Transforming each day Sometimes orange, sometimes brown Leaves grow, change and fall.

Every tree grows old Huge bodies fall to the ground All good things must end.

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Ashes guard the town Clumsy crimson flames roaring Wilting like a rose

Burning Poem Jaimie Merrett

Once a paradise The truth is now memories Fear is contagious Footsteps on the dirt Lights flaring, sirens sounding Charcoal paints the sky Kookaburras sob Awakening dreary towns Blinded by their grief.

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Go Outside Penelope Vegter

I look out of the window while I sit, I wish that I could go and play outside, I wish COVID-19 would allow it, ‘Cause that would mean that I don’t have to hide.

Maybe some people should really admit, That staying home is the best thing to do, And maybe then the virus will quit, And we will be able to push right through.

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Yet, I am grateful while I sit and stare, Because while I sit and twiddle my thumbs, Lying down in a hospital somewhere, One more person unwillingly succumbs.

So we really should be staying indoors, While those brave people fight internal wars. ‘

You are a lavender bouquet Quiet and calm You make me feel okay Because you never do any harm

Lavender Bouquet Cassandra Wagner

Your sunshine smile Makes dark nights bright For once in a while Everything’s alright Hair chestnut brown Eyes like the sea I never frown For you are the key Freckles sprinkled all across your face Like tiny constellations, far away in space. ‘

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A Veil Of Frost Olivia Williams

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With hands, like those of the lifeless, so cold The winter breeze reaches out – and strokes me.

Its tendrils so icy, like dead man’s gold, Leaving me with bleak actuality.

Like brittle bones, the frost crunches beneath.

Mist looms in the distance, a murky fog.

As to shroud from the heavens, winter’s wreath Its cycle of cold, leaving us to slog.

For whilst we dream of a warm summer’s day, We are left with its epilogue, Nature’s – Mistake. The cold, harsh winter, woe in May. Yet we last, left with only our prayers.

For time doth pass, and the spring shall return, And with the heat, the winter we shall yearn. ‘

Alas, my heart screams, what pain in my chest, A worm squirms around inside my belly.

Swaying on my feet, I want to protest, Yet I’m fixated feeling like jelly.

Stage Fright Julia Zaparas

Trembling on the stage, my mouth is shut tight, When suddenly, I start to laugh aloud, Finally, I am rid of my stage fright!

My heart soars up very high, feeling proud.

It drifts around the world, from South to North, It reaches valleys, mountains and rivers, It brightens Florida, July the fourth, It conquers all fright and gives to givers.

And when it comes back to me, I’m quite sure, I have nothing to fear, anymore. ‘

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A Letter To Gilda Sarah Angelo

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Dear Gilda, I hope that you are well and have had a chance to find work back home. I pray that your father has not had to sell his farm, like my father had to. I miss my beloved town of Sulmona, Italy and hope one day to see you all again. That day seems like a dream for now, a sad and unreachable dream. For now, we are in 1958 and it is only one day at a time that I must look to the future, during these postwar times of uncertainty.

I have been sailing now for thirty-two days, on turbulent seas that have made me quite seasick. I never imagined encountering Africans at the Suez Canal, that was an experience I will never forget and has made me think whether the Australians will accept me as I did the Africans. I was descending off the ship and was bombarded by African men and women with vibrant beads and necklaces dangling in front of me. Although, I had no idea what they were saying as neither of us could speak English properly nor could we speak each other’s language. But I felt comfort and warmth beaming through their pearly bright smiles as they passed their happiness over to me. I must say, the sunsets of late, have been a majestic sight, full of warm colours that fill my heart with joy and hope as I begin a new life in Australia.

Many young families have been sharing their stories on board the ship, of their excitement to work in Melbourne. I sit beside them with nervous apprehension, thinking whether my sewing skills will be enough to get me started. They have big factories, much bigger than home and lots of European women work there.

Perhaps I will make friends easily and not endure months of loneliness, both searching for work and enjoying some company.

My heart fills with joy, knowing my brother Pasquale has sponsored me and worked hard in Melbourne to raise enough money for my ticket to Australia. This has helped my father so much as I will no longer be a financial burden on my parents, who need to look after our other six brothers and sisters. I am feeling gratitude on most days, that a fortunate life lies ahead for me, as my brother keeps telling me in all of his letters that I will love this new land.

I know they wanted deep down to have me marry in Italy and raise my family there, but the war brought lingering hardships for those in the small villages. My father always told me, he wanted

great things for me and being in Sulmona, would only make me miserable as I would be living a basic and poor existence. I think my mother would have loved to see me marry back home, but the pressures of no dowry, enforced her decision to send me to my brother.

Sulmona: what a traditional and meaningful home it was for me, even though I only spent a quarter of my life there. It carried vibrant and happy feelings alongside family and togetherness, but the war is an extremely difficult time for families to cope, especially if you were the parent or guardian with a remarkable amount of responsibilities. Gilda, I remember walking all the way from the city to our farm and we would make bread together and a glass of freshly produced wine and deliver it to our fathers who were working hard on the garden and crops. I miss you all, but hopefully I will be able to visit you again once I am stable and everything is settled. I am very nervous as I do not know what the future holds for me once I arrive in Australia. Will I belong? Will I be safe?

At the same time, I am very excited to finally see my brother Pasquale again.

As I’m sitting in my cabin, glancing out at the majestic ocean. I wonder how far away I am from you or how close I am to seeing my new land. I can hear the joyful cheers of the young children swarming the passages inside. I wonder what their story is, will they go to school in Australia? As I never got to finish my education.

Therefore, I ponder the thought that maybe I won’t be smart enough to fit in. I am sure many children would have to finish school in Australia, but as I am 18 years of age, I am an adult so that makes me feel very nervous and different.

I could keep writing this letter forever to you, Gilda, my best friend. I miss you all so much and I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy back home. Now, I must conclude this letter as I have heard that there is going to be a seafood banquette tonight! I have never had that before. I’ll let you know if it is better than Nonna’s homemade sugo and meatballs! I love you all.

A Letter To Gilda

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Stay safe, Gilda.

Yours truly, Elisa. ‘

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The Seed Elise Curry Isobelle Carmody Award For Creative Writing Competition Winner

I watched her go. We all did. Mama’s face darkened as her eldest daughter left, weaving nimbly through the alleyways to cross The Bridge to The Other Side. Disappearing into the unknown, she left me abandoned in The Hole. Alone. We held each other’s hands and prayed; all three-hundred of us that lived in The Hole, that I, the last young one to choose, would not allow the bright lights of The Other Side to blind me.

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From my perch by the windowsill, I could see the world in truth; the light and the dark. The darkness overwhelmed my near-sight, and the smog and sorrow that is The Hole seemed to stretch for miles. The Hole was the only home I knew, the place where I belonged. If I were to stay in The Hole, I would learn the ways of The Ancient Ones, the culture that those in The Hole belonged to.

I would be fluent in the Olde Language, and I would spend my days caring for my family. I would one day become a dutiful wife, and bear children to continue the family blood-line that has lasted for generations. But I would be miserable, and I would live my life pining for what I could never obtain; Mama’s love.

As I gazed out into space, I caught a glimpse of the colour and light of The Other Side. All of the young ones were someplace far away on the city across The Bridge, and for the first time, I felt truly alone. The young ones were more of a family to me than my real family could ever be; I belonged with them. If I were to choose The Other Side, I would be choosing a life of prosperity and promise. I would follow my passions and reach for the stars. I would laugh and sing and dance with the young ones, wild and free. I would grow old knowing that my life would be remembered, that I would leave my mark on the world. But my heart would ache for my family in The Hole, and I would regret leaving Mama to die alone. My guilt for my ignorance of the Ancient Ones would prevent me from ever being truly happy. ‘

“Ada?” Mama gripped my shoulders, digging her fingers into my skin and pulling me towards her with a sudden fervour. “Ada, do you promise that you will never leave me?” I couldn’t answer, for if I did, my own burning desire to follow my heart to The Other Side would be diminished. Upon noticing my lack of response, the life left her eyes and she became a broken mess on the ground. I carefully

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pieced her together, sewing my threads of love to patch the emptiness and cold. “I promise Mama”.

The Seed

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As I nestled in my cocoon of blankets, sleep teasing my eyelids, a sharp pain jabbed at my spine. I felt underneath my nightdress to find a seed, small and insignificant. Grinning, I placed the seed in the pocket of my smock, amongst my collection of knickknacks. I laid down once more and the notion of slumber forced me to succumb to the darkness, causing nightmares of The Choice to arise from the shadows. ‘

The sun rose to greet a grey sky, and I woke with a single thought; today I would need to choose whether to stay in The Hole with my family or venture across the bridge to The Other Side and pursue my dreams. In the midst of my pondering, I felt the numbing sensation of The Choice overcome me, and panic blossomed in my stomach. My heart danced a nervous tango and my breaths became gasps for air.

Suddenly, the world grew dark, until a voice came from the sky above; “What is your choice Ada; to stay or go?” I awoke to find myself standing on The Bridge that connected The Hole to The Other Side. A response formed on my tongue, but the words were trapped in my throat, imprisoned by my anxiety. Fear engulfed me, suffocating my words until they met their bitter end. As I struggled to regain control over my body, I felt an anger rise within me, a monstrous beast emerging from the depths. The fear that once controlled my every decision no longer held any power over me.

“No.” My rage became a powerful creature, resisting The Choice and defying the very rules I had lived by. But as the lava within began to cool, I felt my anger slowly weaken. One final burst of anger erupted from me, and the world fell quiet. With a gentle moan, the barricades that had imprisoned everyone in The Hole dissipated.

We were free. Free to pursue our dreams whilst remaining culturally connected, blurring the lines between our past and future. But as I turned to face the people of The Hole, I was overwhelmed by hatred and betrayal. They wished for their lives to remain untouched by change, to remain ignorant of the world.

Reaching deep into my pockets, my hands instinctively felt for

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The Seed

the seed. I formed a crevice in the earth and gently placed the beginning of new life in amongst the dirt. This seed resembled the rebirth of the world, a world in which the traditions of the Ancient Ones and the modernity of The Other Side co-existed. A world in which we could belong to multiple cultures, in which our heritage was celebrated and our future was limitless. The seed would eventually grow to become a beautiful tree, a reminder of what the world once was. But for now, the seed remained hidden in the earth, slowly awakening. ‘

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My name is Hong Nguyen.

Hong means pink, and Nguyen is the most common Vietnamese surname.

I became a refugee soon after I turned seven, and celebrated my eighth birthday in a refugee camp on a small island in Indonesia.

It was just my Ba, Ma and I when we settled in our government supported home in Melbourne. Ma found work in a clothing factory, and Ba became a tram conductor. I came home from school to a pitch black house because we hadn’t had time to open the blinds in the morning.

I came out of primary school with no close friends, and a decent amount of English. I was one of two Asians at my primary school, the other a cool Indian girl who wielded perfect English. She was ‘cool’ because she always had the newest cabbage patch kids, a popular doll at the time. Multiple times I had to restrain myself from running up and snatching one from her, so I could be deemed popular too. I just didn’t see the point of those ugly fat dolls.

On the first day of high school, I was given the nickname ‘mouse’, because of my shameful size. I thought it was cute because I was fanatic about Mickey Mouse.

I had never really been bullied in primary school, if anything, just ignored. But my co-ed high school was apparently a perfect place to get bullied, a perfect place for fat cats.

“Ching chong, you smell!”

“She should be in grade one!”

It seemed high school was a dangerous place. We were expected to be more independent. And that meant no more crying to the teacher on yard duty.

The first time I felt safe at school was weeks into year seven. I had retreated into the library at lunch break, only to be jumpscared by a group of students.

“Boo!” Laughter burst through the library, I nearly toppled in shock. I felt my face heat up, and I looked to the ground, scared of what these older students wanted with me.

“Hey, you want to play card with us?”

I looked up to a girl’s beaming face. Flat nose, black hair. Just like me.

“Ah…”

Ma And I Charlotte Nheu

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Ma And I

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“That a yes then!” she shouted in broken English.

Her enthusiasm nearly made me faint.

“But I don’t know how to play!” I exclaimed as they bundled me out of the library.

“No worries. We teach you.”

It was a frightening experience for my twelve year old self.

For the first time ever I began looking forward to school. I was quickly accepted into the group, which I noticed was mostly made up of Chinese.

‘So tell us about yourself, little mouse. Are you an only child?’

‘Well – no. I have a sister way older than me, but I haven’t seen her in ages.’

‘That sucks, I’ve always wanted an older sister.’

I fiddled with my dress. I hadn’t seen my sister since I was four.

She had ran away with a Chinese man when the war ended. Ma never spoke of her and I never asked why, however the rare memories I had of her were all happy ones. ‘‘‘

‘Ma?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘May I please go to my friend’s birthday party tomorrow?’

‘Yes! I am so pleased you are making friends!’ My Ma exclaimed in Vietnamese.

My good mood drained away the next day. ‘‘‘

‘It’s alright Ma, I can take it from here.’

‘Nonsense!’ Ma was wearing her finest dress. ‘I will take you to the door.’

‘But Ma...’

As I trailed behind my Ma, I couldn’t help notice that the rose bushes were perfectly aligned. Ma knocked on the door which opened almost immediately.

‘Oh, you must be little Mouse’s mama! Very happy to see you!’ I cringed.

Silence. Awkward silence as I clutched the dodgally wrapped present.

‘Wh––’ Ma stuttered. Oh god.

‘No. My daughter not feeling well we need to go.’ Ma said haughtily, recovering quickly.

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‘Oh. um.’

Ma whipped around. I felt like crying.

I pressed the present into my confused friend’s hands. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s alright. Hope you feel better.’

Ma And I

‘‘‘

‘Why Hong? Why were you hanging out with Chinese? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I – I did...’ I murmured.

‘I don’t want you around those people anymore! It is dangerous!’

‘But Ma, they are my friends!’ I exclaimed.

‘Pftt. Friends that steal your money.’

‘Huh?’ ‘Your elder sister – do you remember her? When the war ended, she married a Chinese Man and they went to China. Then he cheated on her and stole all her money.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Your Aunty four told me.’

‘How did she know?’

‘Her husband told her.’

‘How did–’ ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that Chinese can’t be trusted and I do not want you around – those delinquents!’

I swallowed.

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‘‘‘

Some rules are meant to be broken.

I continued hanging out with my friends. My Ma asked me every night if I had stopped hanging with those crazy kids, and my response was always the same. ‘Yes Ma.’ She just didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand that apart from my friends, I had nothing at school. ‘‘‘

The lies continued for another year, and I slowly started to drown in guilt. I began to realise my mother’s disappointment in me wasn’t only because of my lack of academic achievements, but the knowledge that her own daughter was lying to her. My mother knew I was still hanging out with my old friends, however she did nothing about it and acted oblivious.

Year 8 was a fateful year because our family received a phone call from China. It was my older sister. She had finally got in touch with

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Ma and I

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us after years of nothing, and informed us of her family in China. It turned out whatever Ma had thought had happened was completely wrong, and she was living a happy life with her new family. We called each other weekly, and although things would never be the same, it was the best it could be at the time.

After reconnecting with my sister, the subconscious wall standing between Ma and I slowly chipped away. Ma stopped asking, and I stopped lying. I was finally able to associate with my friends without a shadow of guilt limiting me.

My sister still lives in China, and my parents and I in Melbourne.

Thanks to the evolving technology, contacting my sister has become easier. I love and will always look up to my Ma. I will always be grateful for all the sacrifices she has made to allow me to be able to call Australia my home. ‘

Aoi Watanabe

Aoi Watanabe

17 Tempest Gr

463 High Street

Hawthorn VIC 3122

A Letter To Haha

Kew VIC 3122

Jess Price

22nd September 2019

Dear Haha, I’ve written this letter in my head a thousand times, and I know it’s been a long time since we’ve been in touch. I just wanted to tell you that we’ve had a beautiful baby girl, and I want you to know how happy I am. The incredible love that I feel for my daughter is spilling out of every part of me and has opened up old wounds and unresolved issues between you and me. I miss you, and I need your help and understanding to be the best mother I can be, and to bring a little bit of Japan closer to my Australian daughter.

I remember being a little girl, when we used to play all the time.

My favourite memory was when you got out your old ojami for the first time to play otedama with me. You made sure I won almost every time. I can still feel the worn material in my hands. I also remember searching the cupboard for the Koinobori and stuffing our faces full of Kashiwa-mochi and Chimaki for Children’s Day! We were living in our own little Japanese bubble. I miss that time of being so sure of where I belonged and who I belonged with – you.

But we hit a space when my world and your world couldn’t coexist. It started as little fights about silly things, like the way I wore my hair, or what I wanted in my lunch box. But then it grew into more serious arguments, like when I changed my name. It’s hard in the Aussie playground, when your name is pronounced ‘owey’. For years I endured the teasing, but when I started high school, I had an opportunity to begin again. And I did. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t think you’d understand. My western name freed me, and made my journey through highschool so much easier. I remember the night you found out. It was like a huge storm cloud had come over our house. Your silence and coldness was something I had never experienced. It was complete

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A Letter To Haha

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and final, like a wall between us.

It was difficult growing up looking Asian, but feeling Australian.

I had such a strong need to belong with my friends, to something bigger than our little Japanese bubble. But I only seemed to disappoint you. That cold, silent wall became our normal; a clear split between your obvious disappointment of me, and my obvious disappointment of you.

In High School, I found myself in an amazing friendship group where I finally felt I belonged, but all you could see was their brashness, lack of academic focus, and their “bad reputations.”

When we went out together, I was always hyper aware of your silent jibes at me. Little nudges and seemingly innocent comments when I laughed too loudly, or moved wildly, or spoke my mind in a discussion. They felt like little pins slowly deflating me. I didn’t want to be the polite, quiet, little Asian girl you wanted me to be. It wasn’t who I was. With my friends, I could be brash and loud and witty, everything I wasn’t around you, and that was celebrated and accepted. I wanted to adapt to my world, my Australian world, and all I could see was you trapping me as someone I didn’t want to be.

When I moved out, you looked down on me with disapproval.

“The reputational damage you caused is permanent.” And you closed the door, leaving me alone on the doorstep. I felt such anger and hurt for such a long time, and I still do. But now I feel hurt and loss and anger, but also a deep sadness. When I moved away, I felt free. Finally free. Maybe I was too self-righteous?

I am not sorry that I lived the life I wanted. I am sorry though, for all the little ways I broke your heart. I was so ready to break free into a new world, that I left you behind. I see now that my silence as a teenager broke you apart. You wanted to know what was going on in my head as much as I wanted your approval. We were both waiting for the other to speak first and change.

I needed to belong, and my belonging was embracing my Australian identity. In doing that I moved away from my Japanese identity, and away from you.

I can see now that I was transitioning into an unknown world for you, that your hatred of that world was driven from fear of me going somewhere you didn’t understand. It came from a place of love, not anger. But this fear, mixed with the unknown, was interpreted as rejection by me. In that rejection the relationship

was cut, but now I can see that all this was born out of your love and apprehension for the world that I was moving into.

I don’t expect a reply, after all, not many letters return from the grave.

I just wish you were here to tell me what to do, so that when my daughter enters an unknown world for me that fills me with fear, I enter that world with her with an open heart, and embrace the possibility that a different world isn’t a worse world, and it may in fact be a better world.

I love you and I miss you, and I wish you could know my daughter.

Sincerely, Alice. ‘

A Letter To Haha

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Untitled

To: Yumoto, Hakone, Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa 250-0392, Japan From: University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

Mia Rodrigues

Dear Hana,

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I am certainly missing you and the rolling hills of Hakone. Australia seems so flat and dry in comparison. Where the cool mountain air used to sweep past the trees, leading the waterfalls down the slope.

Here, the scorching summer stills the air and the breeze is made only by the people passing by and the cars that race down the roads.

Where I used to see nothing but green, stone and water, now I see so many things– from bustling shopping centres to muddy rivers and towering gums.

In Hakone, the nighttime was nothing but silence and darkness and whispering trees, here, the Big City never sleeps.

I have now arrived at the university and met my roommates.

They’re cousins named Orla and Penelope. You would be amazed by them, Hana, they’re so different! Orla is loud, with brilliant clothes and dramatic gestures and a fierce, commanding voice that would horrify muma– I feel rebellious just being near her. Penelope is softer, quiet and small and demurely dressed, despite this, when she speaks we listen in closely because she never says anything thoughtlessly. They’ve been here a few days already and they’ve dressed their sides of the dormitory with glittering stars and strange pieces of cloth. They’ve been good friends, carting me all around the city. They’ve shown me the Botanical Gardens, the Yarra River, the Eureka tower and Flinders Street Station– but we couldn’t stay there long because Penelope doesn’t like crowds and loud noises.

There are so many people here! And they’re all in a tremendous hurry to get where they need to go. Some give Orla, Penelope and I strange looks. I guess we look like a strange trio: two eccentric university students and their Japanese best friend.

The flurry of the city has a different energy to back home. At home everything was at peace. No franticness, just a tranquil stillness that I’d come to think was normal. I miss muma and baba, obaasan and ojisan– and you of course! But this new way of living is having to create a new me, I think, because the old me would not

survive here. I haven’t started classes yet, but I’m glad I got the time to familiarise myself with the place first– muma would be so angry if I was late to my first class. Yesterday, Orla, Penelope and I went to a soup place for lunch. When we got there there was an elderly man dolling out generous portions into plastic bowls. We each bought a bowl of thick, unappetising looking tomato soup and found a place to sit down. Hesitantly, I had put my hands on either side of the bowl and brought it to my mouth, letting it slide lumpily down my throat. When I looked up, a lady from the table next to us whose hair was pulled into a taut bun was staring at me, disgusted.

“Barbaric.” she said, her mouth twisting. “You Asians have no manners.”

Orla glared at her. “Get lost.” she snapped and the lady huffed, picked up her bowl of soup and stalked off to another table.

Penelope, oblivious, took another gulp of soup with her spoon and I hastened to do the same, my cheeks feeling as red as the bowl of liquid before me. Who eats plain soup with a spoon? If you could even call it soup, it tasted like tomato sauce. So lumpy and rich, making me feel sick. I resisted the urge to tip it down the drain, but years of having to down those foul herbal soups and medicines (remember those?) have taught me better. If only I could have drank it from the bowl… “You Asians have no manners.” That stung more than it should have. Beside me, Penelope put a dainty hand on my arm. I turned to her and she smiled softly. She lifted her bowl of soup to her lips and drank from the bowl, leaving a splotchy red moustache above her top lip. Orla grinned and did the same: “Soup tastes better this way.” she announced and I laughed.

I had spent so much time with Orla and Penelope that I forgot that I didn’t belong. I feel like I belong but I don’t look or act that way. Never in their eyes will I truly be one of them. Can you belong to something that doesn’t feel the same way? It’s the opposite of Hakone, where I looked and acted like I belonged but I never really felt that way. Is it possible to be both? Or am I caught in the grey area where I’m classified as neither? I know what you would say, Hana. I hear your voice in my head telling me that it doesn’t matter what they think– but you always belonged. While I’m writing this Orla is reading over my shoulder and saying rude things about the lady in the shop. Good friends are important, Hana. And even if I don’t find out where I belong now, even if I never find out, at least

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I have them. And you. The people that I’ll always belong with.

Orla is rolling her eyes now and Penelope is looking tearful.

When we got back it was starting to rain. Huge constant droplets, the weight of small stones. I started toward the building for cover until I heard a delighted cry. Orla was standing out in the rain, her head tilted skyward and her mouth open as if expecting the sky to feed her. I realised in horror that she’s trying to drink the rain. Speechless, I watched her, my mouth hanging open like a gaping koi fish until she ran toward me and grabbed Penelope’s and my wrist, dragging us out into the middle of the university’s pretty green gardens. Orla was laughing and running around in circles and Penelope had opened her arms to let the water drench her clothes. I had never seen people so enchanted by gloomy weather, and yet I was eager to try. I lifted my head to the heavens, hands outstretched to catch the summer rain. I felt and I feel now just as at home as I did on the mountains of Hakone. If muma saw me now she would be horrified. I think about that often– what she would think if she saw me, I mean. There’s a strange feeling inside me, though, that I haven’t felt in a long time, I feel free. You know, Hana, I think I like this new me.

I have only been in Melbourne a few weeks now, but my time here feels infinite– so many adventures waiting to take place. I belong here, even if they don’t know it yet– even if muma doesn’t know it yet. I feel braver just writing that. Like a bird finally leaving the nest and deciding they belong in the sky. I’ll see you again. One day I’ll come back to Hakone and I’ll bring Orla and Penelope, and we can run through the bamboo forests like we did when we were little.

With love, Your Friend. ‘

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Family expectations shape people’s lives. They affected my life immensely, both positively and negatively, and they play a huge part in who I am today. The foundation of a child’s future depends on how strict their parents are; some set the bar lower to give their children freedom, and others set the bar high in hopes of their children experiencing success. And sitting right on that high bar is me; a child lucky enough to be born Asian.

Family expectations are on a completely new level when it comes to Asian families. Let me explain: you are standing on the bottom rung of a ladder. The only way to go is up because if you go down, wait… there is no such thing as going down. The bottom rung of this ladder is the standard that your parents set for you. You have to be at least at this standard to be accepted. That means that if you fall off the ladder, your parents classify you as average, the type of people who walk on normal ground, have average grades. When you do fall, there are consequences.

In my family, I play the guinea pig. Being the older sibling, I always experience everything first. Being the guinea pig means trying new things, but only for the purpose of reporting back to the family to explain whether it was worthwhile doing. Depending on my experience, my sister would choose what to take part in. My little sister, who is two years younger than me, is the shining jewel of the family. From the second she was born, she has been bossing everyone around and relies on us to do everything for her. But she just also happens to be extremely smart. Her maths is second in the state and her vocabulary bank is more diverse than most of my classmates. Whenever I am used as a guinea pig, I feel like a pawn, being pushed around the chess board, the one seen as of lower value than the others. Everytime I think about this, a deep sense of envy rushes through me, because if it weren’t for me, where would she be now? What if I was the younger sister?

There was always a stereotypical expectation for us to do well in school. My parents kept a close eye on my sister and I, looming over us every second of the day. When I was around three, my dad had already started teaching me things like the history of China or how to solve simple maths problems. I have a very vivid memory of that time; he would always ask me questions and award me with a Dream chocolate. These chocolates became a huge part of my childhood, because they were used to bribe me or to encourage me to do something.

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Meet Me: The Guinea Pig

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I always strived to impress my parents as a child, but sometimes, my aspirations did not come through as I imagined they would.

When I was younger, my tutoring school gave out tests to do every semester, and the marked tests would be sent home. Once, the scores came back, and as soon as I saw the red scribbles on the page, my heart sank down to my feet. Fifty-four percent. This was an Asian child’s nightmare. My cheeks flushed red, and tears were on the brink of flowing out of my eyes. I looked around at my classmates and saw their excited expressions, making myself feel even worse. My parents’ expectations had changed my own standards too, because now, I had forced myself to make them satisfied, even if it took a toll on my happiness. When I got home, I threw my papers recycling bin as soon as I had the opportunity. But at dinner time, my parents asked how I went on my test, and I couldn’t help but tell them the truth. Even though they accepted that I could get bad grades every so often, I had already developed a deep conflict in myself. It was deeply embedded in me that I was stereotyped to grade high, and when it wasn’t as good as I expected, it hit hard.

These family expectations were imprinted into me. There was so much pressure for me to do well that I conditioned myself to accept nothing less than perfection. Living up to the highest standards of being Asian started to become overwhelmingly stressful. Even though my parents took a step back and gave me more freedom, it had already been ingrained in my belief that following those expectations were the only way to be valid. I studied harder and longer, and wore myself out to the core, but it was futile. I felt ashamed to not do well, because all Asians had to grade high, I thought. I tried to do things that were out of my reach, and often failed. I placed myself in this trance, that if I fell below standards, I would be interpreted as a failure. For a period of time, I felt lost. My mental health degraded, and I lost a sense of self, sinking deeper and deeper into the unforgiving grip of misery. I had fallen off the high bar, and I had no strength left to pull myself back up.

I asked my parents for advice, something that I rarely did when it came to my own mental health. When my parents saw how stressed I had become, they immediately started to help me. They explained that my identity was not defined by my grades, my scores or how many awards I receive. They said that all they wanted was

for me to be the best person I could be, and show my real and genuine character. They taught me that grades only shallowly represented who a person was, and that I should not compare myself to others, because I am the only person who mattered to me. I realised that my parents were never really that strict on me, it was just that I was being strict on myself. I finally realised how unrealistic my own standards had become. I had finally had the courage to let go.

A huge weight finally came off my shoulders. I stopped trying to work up to others’ expectations or sticking to the stereotype. I tried my best, but never put too much pressure on myself to keep above standards. I stopped comparing myself to others because all it did was breed feelings of envy and lower my self esteem. After a long period of experiencing inner conflict, I became the real Lily, the one who wasn’t trying to impress everyone, the one who didn’t continually stick to the demands of others. I finally found ME . ‘

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A Letter Anonymous

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I’m sure at some point my life was normal, I just don’t remember it.

I grew up thinking it was. If anyone asked me if I was happy, I would of course say yes. It always made me feel weird when I told people about my family and they looked at me sadly, and asked how that made me feel, like I was some sort of dog who was missing a leg or an orphaned puppy and not a extremely privileged nine year old white girl.

As I got older, I realised that my life was maybe not so normal.

At first glance it seemed to be; I had a dad, who loves cars and cats and food. He’s a lawyer and an engineer. I have a mother, who loves dogs as much as dad loves cats and who keeps birds in her garden. I have an older sister who loves to sing and practice psychology. I have a stepmum, who is an occupational therapist. It’s all very normal. We have nothing outstanding about us and, for the most part, we are happy. Usually. Sometimes.

When I was a baby my parents broke up. They were never married, which seems to surprise some people, as if they thought they could tell just from looking at me that my parents had been married. I don’t remember them fighting (at least, not in person), and I certainly don’t remember a time before that. Sometimes I think my sister does, but she couldn’t. She was only five, and I don’t remember that much of being five. All my memories from that time are comprised of little snippets of talking to my friend through a fence, or putting on my school uniform for the first time. All I know is that my parents are quite decidedly not together anymore, and that my mother won majority of my custody. Like I mentioned, I don’t remember anything before my parents split, so naturally, I only remember siding with my mother, to the point where I couldn’t side with anyone.

I was young. Very young. I was not even school age and I had never known life without my mother. She told me she knew best and of course I believed her. I was a kid. A very small kid, who had little to no political opinions and definitely no free will. So when she told me these stories, these unbelievable stories, I, well, believed them. Not bedtime stories either. Stories like “Your dad used to throw you down the stairs.”. Wow. Ok. Other stories like “Your father gave your sister foods she was allergic to,” were slightly more believable, because after all, when you have a baby, you don’t really know what they’re allergic to. Not until they have a reaction. These

stories continued for most of my life. They continue to this day, some more horrific than others. I’m just smart enough to not believe them anymore. My mother loved to assume that because I was always with her, she was the only one I would care about, and unfortunately she was right.

It’s not like my mother is an inherently bad person. She was just angry as we all would be. And that anger made her brainwash me.

Gently, mind you. But still. By the time I was school age I was full of hate and fear, placed there by my mother dearest. I was so small but so angry for something I didn’t fully understand. Frankly, I don’t really understand now.

My mother would do stuff, dumb, trivial stuff, and blame it on my father. Nothing bad, just not letting me wear certain clothes or bring any toys to my dad’s house because “he would steal them.” She also liked to collect ammunition on me. She set these things up perfectly. Make me hate going to dad’s house, and when she told me I had to, I would cry. She pushed this idea into my head, that dad’s house wasn’t clean or safe or a happy place. And, even though I don’t remember much, I remember her recording me complain to her about having to leave. I remember so clearly the little audio recorder button that she would press so often. It was like she was collecting little pieces of me in the iCloud. Like she thought if she got as much of my voice as she could, she could string together sentences for me. Like she could put those audio recordings together and make a little clone of me. Maybe she was just lonely.

All this to say, I never felt torn. I was always with my mother. She made me side with her do things I never would have agreed to, make mistakes that can’t be rectified.

But all that changed a few years ago.

I remember the day clearly, as though it was yesterday. Clearer than that. It was Halloween, and I had planned to go trick or treating with my best friend. I was worried that it wouldn’t work out, because I was with my mum that afternoon. My mother was notorious for never letting me see anyone unless we organised several weeks prior. I had missed that same best friend’s birthday party because of that same reason. But before the final bell sounded, a voice rang out from the speaker. Calling my name. Of course when you’re in grade four, being called down to the office is basically the same as becoming a celebrity, so while I was confused, I was not

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worried. I was, however, when I realised it was the principal waiting for me. Instantly I began to run through everything I had done wrong in my primary school career, and wondered what it could be.

It had been at least three days since I last broke a rule. However when I walked into the office, my father was sitting on the chair across from my principal.

As it turns out, things were not as fixed as I thought. As I sat there on the weird ugly chair that sat in my principal’s office, which was positioned just so that it felt interrogatory, my eyes flicked between the old woman and my father, who was fidgeting on his own chair, reclined as far as he could go on a non-reclining chair.

“So.” The principal began. She had an kiwi accent and an explosion of grey hair, reminiscent of Bob Ross. Or perhaps a bush.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what you’re doing down here.”

Though her tone was ambiguous, it sounded to me like the start of a game show, or perhaps a villain’s speech. Or maybe she was preparing to burst out into song. I wasn’t quite sure.

My dad sat quiet, which was unfamiliar. My eyes darted between the two again, not sure where I should be looking. I finally settled on sitting straight as a board, my head directly forward.

“Would you like to tell her?” The principal asked, my father, nervously fidgeting still .My dad nodded and sat up straight in that ugly and (I presumed) uncomfortable chair.My dad gulped, and I felt the tension in the room rise with the growing anxiety in my chest.

What did you do? I asked myself fiercely. Is this because you weren’t paying attention in maths class?

I was shaken from my thoughts when my dad spoke.

“The agreement has changed. You’re going to be staying with me from now on.”

I was so relieved that I could have laughed.

That afternoon, I did end up going trick-or-treating with my best friend, but it felt weird. I had to explain everything that had happened. So us two little ten year olds sat on a curb and watched the hoard of Harley-Quinns and scary clowns shuffle past us on their hunt for sugar.

“So I’ll be staying with dad now.” I was tentative to begin. “Except on second weekends. Those are with mum.”

My friend turned to me. “Did you just find out today?”

“Yep.” There was a brief pause in which I watched yet another girl roughly our age skip down the road with a baseball bat and a “Daddy’s little monster” shirt.

“You’re so lucky.”

“What?” I was partially expecting to be pitied, but of course, my friend was in an extremely similar situation.

“I wish I had more time with my dad.”

And that was the extent of our conversation on the matter.

When I got home, however, things picked up again. My sister was at home, crying.

“What happened?” I asked, all ten year old innocence and sisterly concern.

But she didn’t care. She pushed me away, and I wafted off to my bedroom, dropping my sweets on my bed. I looked in the mirror to see my skeleton face paint, and saw that the nose was smudged.

Before I could consider taking it off all that makeup, my dad came into my room with the landline in his hand.

“Your mum’s calling.”

I took the phone from his hands and answered in the way a ten year old me would.

“Hi, mummy!”

“Hi darling.” Her voice sounded a little bit croaky.

“What’s up?”

“Well. I just wanted to see how you were, what with…” She paused just long enough for me to get uncomfortable “Everything.”

“Why wouldn’t I be fine? It’s Halloween!” I probably should have stopped to consider my mother’s feelings, but ten year old me had her head in the clouds and had a whole bag of sweets to eat.

The other end of the phone was quiet for a while again.

“So you’re not upset?”

I had to stop myself from leaping to tell her how happy I was.

“Umm…” I couldn’t think of what to tell her. I couldn’t even tell if I was upset. I was just trying to enjoy my Halloween like planned.

Should I be sad? Was it normal for me to be happy? Was I happy?

“Well.” My mother’s voice sounded a lot harder now. “Your sister has decided she won’t be staying with me at all anymore.”

I froze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, she’s been lied to.”

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“What?”

“People are spreading lies about me,” She whispered, as if my father were listening. “They’re saying I was a bad mother to her.”

“I–” I was certain she was wrong. No one in this house or outside of it had ever accused her of that, or anything else for that matter.

My mother didn’t seem to be able to grasp that people did not, in fact, care enough to gossip about her. But I, being ten and fearful for my bag of sweets, was quite decidedly not going to tell my mother she was obsolete in terms of family gossip.

“Just…” she began, “don’t believe anything they say. I’m the best mother you could ask for.”

She hung up, and I sat with the phone to my ear for a while, the silence almost crushing.

I slowly lowered the phone from my ear and stared at it in my hand. What was she talking about? Was she being gossiped about?

Was it all my father’s fault? And, more importantly, who was They?

I was so full of questions. I couldn’t believe that my mother would lie to me. But I couldn’t believe my father would, either. I was ten. A big girl. I had at some point learned to think for myself.

And when that happened, I stopped believing everything my mother said. And I learned to love my father like a normal daughter.

But my mother was still, well, my mother, and I her word had to be worth something, right?

Right?

Right?

I looked in the mirror again and saw that my skull makeup had been washed off in two clean lines from my eyes down my cheeks.

How was I supposed to choose between my two families? I didn’t often envy the children in my class who had nuclear families, one mum one dad soccer games blah blah blah, but I did that night, on Halloween when I was ten, because I became aware that I was going to have to choose who to trust, and my classmates would never have to go through that. But for some reason, I did. And for the first time in my life, I felt torn, after so many years of having that decision made for me.

Years passed as years tend to, and I never made up my mind. My mother remained paranoid at the mention of anyone else in my family, and my dad the same to my mother. The audio recordings faded from my mind, although my mother one night played them

to me like they were some sweet, treasured family memory and not a weird sound file of a six year old crying about leaving her mother for a few hours. I often wonder (and sometimes fear) if my mother would ever use those recordings against my father, but I soon realised that even if she did, it wouldn’t matter. Things had changed and we couldn’t go back. I never felt sad about those changes; They were a part of my life and I learned to deal with them, like the big girl I was so determined to be.

It took even more time but I realised that I didn’t have to be tied my my family’s idiotic feud and I didn’t have to side with one or either of them. They could live in their fictional world where it mattered. I plan to move on, because my parent’s decision should not define me. Doesn’t mean I don’t have to deal with their shenanigans daily and my own memories of a childhood that could have been so full but turned out to be so empty. Every day I worry that simple paranoia about a school assignment could turn into that manic sort of fear that my mother felt, and often enforced.

But even though I love my family, I do not have to be them, and I have made the decision to be mature about it. I could no longer care less about the stupidity that had filled my childhood. I decided that I had to skip that young naivety that had got me manipulated in the first place and move on and forward, so I never had to feel torn again.

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October 22nd 1945

Francesca Yatomi-Clarke

Joe,

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It’s been a while since I wrote my first letter to you, and I’m terribly sorry. However, when I tell you why, I think you will understand the delay.

The last time I wrote to you we had landed in Australia, and were seeking a shelter to stay at. Getting transferred from place to place felt like an eternity. Every time we were denied a shelter, it felt like we were picking the weight of the world back up onto our shoulders and hauling it along with us as we searched for safety and security. During our long and strenuous walks across the city, I almost felt that all of our sorrow and enervation obscufated my surroundings, and I forgot where I was and where we were going. It brought back memories of the hike our families went on before the war was dragged into our city. Remember how tired we were after that long steep hill, but we had to keep walking? Now that I think about it, it was a lot more fun doing that with you, when everyone was happy and every time I inhaled, the air wasn’t so… different.

Eventually we found a small shelter on the outskirts of the city that had some spare beds. We finally ate a proper meal (though mundane and dry) for the first time in weeks.

Despite the fact that my belly is full and I have an (uncomfortable) bed to sleep on, I have never felt more alone in my life. I have my family here, but we are all so consumed in our sadness we barely interact anymore. I tried to make friends with some children here, but even they refuse to play with a Japanese person. When they’re not whispering about my family and I, they send us looks of hatred and disgust, which make me feel just as solitary as I would be if they said what they were actually thinking. I guess even kids who are just as poor and lost as us are still better off than us. I’ve since had to find a way to entertain myself whilst watching the other children play together. It reminded me of the time I got a beating and had to sit outside while you and our other friends played across the street. Except you all acknowledged my presence, making jokes and pointing at me, even

from across the road. In Australia, we feel lucky if people even look at us in the eye.

My mother has been desperately trying to get my siblings and I into a good school. However, schools deny us entry the second they see our faces. We all have English names now. The captain on our boat to Australia decided to call me George, so that’s my new, Australian name. George. George Koichi Clarke. Minus the ‘Koichi’.

Mum says we have to minus the ‘Koichi’ for schools to even consider letting me attend. I can tell she doesn’t want to minus it. She wants more than anything for me to be Koichi– just Koichi. You can tell because everytime she has to write a letter to a school, she sighs or winces when she writes my name at the top. A deep, heavy sigh, that’s always followed by her slowly writing out the Australian letters, which she is yet to fully grasp an understanding of. The letters sit on the papers mockingly, staring back at us like a slap in the face. Though I have a basic understanding of English, I still see the letters as weird shapes and swirls on the page; both confusing but also vacuous and insignificant.

So far my mother has sent out countless letters, and I’ve been to four interviews. The receptionist of the schools always orders us to wait outside the principal’s office, and not to touch anything. She then trots back to her desk just to scowl at us, watching our every move like a hawk, as if we are going to release a bomb at any moment.

I guess war makes people more wary than usual? So I sit with my hands in my lap, staring at the floor. The floors are usually some type of dark wood, stained with a variety of colours and very dusty in the corners of the room. At school back in Japan, the floors would be pristine thanks to all of us scrubbing them clean every morning. Do you remember how we would race up and down the hallways with our towels? I always won, despite what you think.

Now I’m at cold, smelly schools, with dirty floors. I guess there’s no use in worrying, though. Mum will be forced to send me to a public school because no school that has a choice will accept a Japanese student like myself.

Hopefully the next time I write, I will deliver good news. Suffice to say, I despise Australia. I can’t imagine ever liking it, to be honest.

From the people to the food, I feel like I’m being forced into an uncomfortable shadow of something I’m expected to be, to look like. It also feels as if everyone is expecting my family and to drop a

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bomb somewhere. I thought escaping Japan would be the key to escaping war. I guess it’s spread to every corner of the world, to make sure nobody gets to miss out. I can’t wait to see you again when the war leaves the world.

With love, Koichi Yatomi George Clarke.

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Being born as an ABC (Australian Born Chinese) and in a typical Asian family with strict parents and high expectations, my school life was full of tutoring and studying. Chinese family’s expectations are on a completely different level. It’s like being on a never-ending running track and having a fire trail at your feet, searing away at your heels the moment you slow down. You keep trying to run as far ahead of the fire as you can, wondering when the track would ever stop or when the fire would ever extinguish. What’s worse is that beside you, you have your parents “cheering you on”, constantly comparing you with other people, comparing you to their younger selves and comparing you to the students in China.

While other people practised their instruments for 1 hour a week, I practised 1 hour each day. While my classmates were watching YouTube and listening to music, I was attending tutoring schools and doing homework. Before year 3, I barely even knew what YouTube was and before year 5, I had no idea that any social media such as Instagram or Snapchat even existed.

Half-way through year 3, one of my best friends moved from my old school to Birralee Primary. Rey and I would always run around the school, play on the monkey bars and in short, during recess and lunch, we would always be active. We were inseparable. However, in year 5, first, Yumi came to our school, who we quickly became friends with, then at the start of term 2, a new girl called Lisa joined our friendship group. The more the merrier right? Well, that wasn’t really the case for us.

It’s hard to see anything but your own reality when you’re stuck in the midst of something. The expectations placed upon me became such a permanent part of who I’d come to be, that I assumed that this, what I sought to be “normal” was the same for my friends. However, that wasn’t the case and going into year 5, I felt as if I didn’t fit in anymore. I began to notice how I was missing out on a lot of things and I was unable to join in with many conversations. I was struggling within my friendship group and couldn’t find where I belonged. My running track had miraculously split into 2 and my breathing became ragged, with short, sharp breaths.

In year 5, I noticed how everyone was always watching YouTube, so some days I would get home from school and use my laptop to watch all those YouTubers under the excuse of doing “homework”.

My Never Ending Running Track Georgia Zhou

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My Never Ending Running Track

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Since year 3, I’d been a k-pop fan. I would listen to so much k-pop.

But back then no one liked or listened to k-pop. So I cast away my love for k-pop and began to listen to all the songs everyone else was listening to. And at school, I was always trying so hard to join in all those conversations and as time passed, I began to notice how I was really pretending to be someone I was not. My grades in my tutoring school gradually began to drop and all my thoughts were on how I could be more involved or “popular” within my friendship group.

Near the end of term 3, I began to notice how tired I really was, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. So one day at the end of recess, I saw one of my classmates holding a soccer ball and a crazy idea popped up in my head.

“Can I come to join you at lunchtime?”

The reply I got was full of kindness and it immediately boosted my confidence.

So that lunch I went up to the oval with him and although I was a girl and wasn’t very good at soccer, all the boys welcomed me and taught me how to play. Soccer was mainly made up of nearly all the grade 6 boys and a few grades 5, 4 and 3 boys and then there was me.

At first, I received criticism from Lisa, Yumi, Rey and some other girls in my year level, but I didn’t care because it was the first time in what had felt like ages that I felt free. I finally didn’t need to be bound by their judgements. The exhilaration in doing something I wanted because I wanted to, not to please anyone else or fit the mould of what others wanted me to be made me feel liberated.

So playing soccer with the boys up on the oval became a place and time for me to have a break from all the “running” although soccer was full of running and by the end of recess or lunch my cheeks would be puffed and flushed red and my hair would be a total mess. Every morning I would look forward to school and look forward to hanging out with the new friends I made. However, I would still sometimes go hang out with Lisa, Rey and Yumi and with that, came to a lot of other “fights” that sometimes involved me or the group splitting into two. In the end, the only resolution that I could make was that this group was never going to work out.

Soon enough, it was year 6 and a new year, a fresh year and a chance to fix and change myself. So that’s exactly what I did. That year, we were the top of the school, the role models, and becoming house captain made me become someone the lower year levels

looked up to. I no longer cared what other people thought about me going to tutoring, or what music I listened to. I made a new friendship group including Audrey, Yumi, two other girls, and three other boys, one whom I played soccer with. By the end of the year, every single person in my year level had listened to k-pop.

As I kept running on the track I first started on, the other one went up in flames and was burnt to ashes. Honestly, I don’t mind this track my parents put me on because I know that they did it because it’s what was best for me. I will keep running even if there’s no end because you never stop learning in life, right?

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A Stitch In Time

“Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.”

– Psalm 31:9

Mia Andrewes Isobelle Carmody Award For Creative Writing Year 9 and Overall Winner

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We all sew now. What might have once been a party in James’ apartment, hot and sweaty is now a solemn sewing bee. We can’t keep up with the demand, Will’s partner died last night, my friend died last week. All we can do to mourn and to deal with our grief is to sew squares. Who would have thought that most of my time in the Big City would be making squares for the Aids Memorial Quilt.

Yet, I know for some these squares might be the only gravestone they have. I know it’s all I’ll have. When they call my mother in Mississippi to tell her that her son is dead, all she will do is reach her hands up to the sky, and say “praise God, for God is good”. She never thought I was good. ‘Sinner’, ‘Satan’s child’, covered in ‘filth’, she cares more for a child born thousands of years ago than her own flesh. “Never mind now”, she’d say in her southern drawl, “only the righteous will be saved. And you sure as hell ain’t getting saved.”

Well at least she is right about something.

We all sow now. I sow my words with careful deliberation. What is the last thing I want to say to someone? Can you get more milk?

Or the last thing my father said to me? Get out and stay out! Or what about what Will said before Larry passed? It was never supposed to be like this.

It was never supposed to be like this. None of this should have happened. I shouldn’t be fighting just to get people to believe that my friends are dying. I shouldn’t spend my day yelling, screaming for someone to hear. I shouldn’t spend my nights crying, whilst my parents cry out for their Lord. I should have walked out of that small town, and never looked back. Now, a tiny voice in my conscience cries out, for a mother, a God, someone please who won’t leave me.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”

– Psalm 56:3

My friends put their trust in me. I’m one of the lucky ones they say, who have clean blood and a clean conscience. I am afraid, yet I scream and scream for someone to hear me, but the forest of my

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mind remains cold and empty. I have friends but they keep drip dripping away like the blood which unites us all.

A Stitch In Time

“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

– Colossians 1:20

When Mary rode the donkey into Bethlehem, did she feel fear?

Because Mary had no choice but to have the son of God. She didn’t fill out a form or check a box yet there she was. The preacher always said she was sure and ready due to God’s faith and God’s word. Fear was never a factor in that small church, except for the fear of God. Yet, I sometimes wonder whether Christ’s hands shook before he broke the bread at that supper. Did he not swallow hard before swallowing the wine? When he was nailed to a cross, in all the calm he purveyed, was there not a small pang in his stomach as he wondered what would happen to those he loved? Maybe The Bible misses a verse; the one where he doubted everything and cried at the unknown.

We all sew now. Will the seeds of my life which I have sown remain buried in the ground, alongside my buried body? Will my square have a neat knot at the back, or will it unravel with loose threads?

Somewhere out there, does Mary turn around, and refuse her fate? Does the cross crack? Yet in that small church, all I hear is the deafening noise of the unknown. Once my ancestors sewed the words of God onto a sampler. Now I sew tombstones for my friends.

The needle pricks my finger. That single drop of blood, will surely kill me too.

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“Great is the mystery of faith. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Amen.”

– Book of Common Prayer

‘

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Dear Sky And All The Shadows In Between Juliet Bland

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One, two, three, four, open up the closet door.

Five, six, seven, eight, don’t assume your kids are straight.

My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

Dear Mum, When I was four years old you taught me how to count in footsteps. One, two, three, four. Over and over. Marching like an army. You used to smile whenever I fell out of ... teps echo from the footpath, like drum beats for swaying S trees. Branches dance, unconcerned by the picket boundaries of their suburban squares.

One, two, three, four, I’ve walked these streets a million times before.

Five, six, seven, eight, but so much has changed, I feel time’s weight.

My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

Dear Mum, When I was seven we went to the park for my birthday and I dressed up like a princess. You made me feel like one. You won’t remember, but as we walked back to our house there was a homeless trans woman sitting at a bus stop. You told me ‘look away’ but all I heard was ‘be afraid’. And I believed you. One hundred and thirty-two steps later, you brushed my hair as I opened presents on the old ... arpets of gold and green grass line the scarred road, with C their tar stitches melting beneath the sun. Wind fights with a weak breeze against the heat.

One, two, three, four, neighbours’ eyes flitter as they try to ignore, Five, six, seven eight, but they remember the princess who ran away.

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My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

Dear Sky And All The Shadows In Between

Dear Mum, When I was fourteen we went to see the new Beauty & the Beast movie. We got choc tops and popcorn and cried at the end. In the car, you told me to ‘never bring home a muscly idiot like Gaston’. You didn’t know, but I knew then, that would be an easy promise to keep. Laughing made me feel strong. But why did you make me feel... mall stones glisten on the footpath, afternoon light making S them dance between my feet. Shards of golden glass in their hazy sea of asphalt. Shadows stretch their dark reflections beneath the birds and trees and bodies that they imitate. Playing hide and seek with the heavy sun.

One, two, three, four, why don’t I belong in my home anymore?

Five, six, seven, eight, she said she needed time to understand, I said I’d wait.

My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

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Dear Mum, When I was seventeen you missed out on a golden part of me. When I told you I was gay, one, two, three, four, my hearts beats stretched through an infinite silence. The sadness in your sigh made me feel like nothing. Every other moment that made up me disappeared to you. Your finger began tapping the book in your hands. You cried. You didn’t know that I cried too, once I’d walked back up... tairs to the old front deck sit paralysed beneath the soft hands S of the weeds climbing them. Flower’s faces glow in the humid haze, as they sleep beneath the pressing sun.

One, two, three, four, maybe I’m gay and I am so much more.

Five, six, seven, eight, but queer is all I could be when all I got was hate.

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Dear Sky And All The Shadows In Between

My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

Dear Mum, When I was four … I loved you.

Dear Mum, …

Dear Mum, …

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ear sky, and all the shadows in between, with you, words and D people disappear. I am in the world, with all its light, and darkness, and shades. In the sun, and in the earth’s dark duplicates, layered on the ground, I see myself reflected. The trees are more human than those that cut their hearts to the ground. And there is more to me than what fits in mortal minds.

This earth has no awareness of in or outside. And with all of that within all of you, I can love me.

One, two, three, four, I can see my old front door Five, six, seven, eight, my hand just brushed the garden gate My heart beats.

One, two …

One, two …

“Hey, …

Mum.” ‘

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The Yellow Star

The Jew

“Stinking Jew”.

Max Vandaburg looked around, trying to find the face that matched the cold voice. Yet, when so many people were resentfully staring at him with disgust, it was hard to identify who. Men and women alike glared at him with their poisoned and corrupted souls, without failing to point out the yellow star bound onto his jacket.

Passing by the bread stand, Max reached into his pocket while gazing longingly at one loaf of bread in particular that he knew would last him days. Like a magnetic attraction, his eyes couldn’t tear themselves away from the loaf and instead pulled him closer to it, until the scent of the freshly baked good flooded his nostrils and enveloped his body. He pulled out a couple silver coins and his heart ached with yearn as he gave a helpless sigh and turned his back against the tempting bread, trudging reluctantly towards the fruit pile.

People separating from him, wrinkling their noses and retracting their heads in repulsion as if he was emitting a putrid stench. Trying to ignore the stares and instead focus on the food in front of him, he gazed again towards the loaf of bread and his stomach grumbled ravenously like a starving, insatiable bear. The cashier backed away from the stand for a moment and Max looked shamefully to the ground while people snickered at him.

“Stinks too much for a cashier.”

However, much to everyone’s dismay, the cashier returned and mercifully gave Max some change along with his apples. Just as he was about to leave, he realised that his grocery bag felt heavier than usual and dug his hand in deep, expecting someone had perhaps placed their rubbish in his bag. Although, what he felt was crumbly and soft. He looked in to see the loaf of bread and felt the imprinting of light onto his dark misery. Max met eyes with the cashier, who gazed pitifully at him before greeting the next customer.

Amelia Chiang

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‘‘‘

Despite the piecing stares, Max gleefully ran straight home, excited to tell his brother that they had food which would last them more than just a couple days. However, as he turned the corner to their house, Max’s heart dropped and smashed into a million shards, paralysing him. His once warm and cozy home had been reduced to

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The Yellow Star

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shattered windows, crumbled walls and fallen ceilings. Ruins.

This time, there were no hugs at the door. Only silence and dread vibrated through Max’s ears. He looked mournfully at the house while the magnitude of his loss swept over him in a wave of grief, knowing that he will never see his brother’s loving eyes again.

Max then heard the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps charging towards him and turned around to see five large men glaring straight at him. Their eyes were windows that showcased the devil lurking within them. As their shadows creeped over his emancipated figure, Max was reminded of his childhood days, where many children would come watch his inevitable defeat in the school courtyard. Children years older than him often looked for easy targets, weak vermins that needed to be exterminated.

However, there was always one person who would come to his side.

His brother. Though they would always leave the courtyard with bruised eyes and integrities, Max knew that his brother would have rather left without his dignity than watch him being beaten up from the sidelines. Only this time, Max knew that no one would come.

His thoughts were rippled violently when he felt a dull pain spread rapidly across his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and bringing him to his knees. His head started to spin, forcing his eyes to shut tight and jaw to clench, enduring the pain whilst his face contorted in anguish at every blow. Max would not dare to open his eyes, fearful of the many other figures coming towards him. He felt the leather of their boots piercing into his body, not even attempting to lift a finger to protect himself. Each kick brought him closer to finally knocking on death’s door. This time, he prayed that death would finally show mercy and carry him away from this world of hatred.

Although, it appeared that Satan had intercepted his calls to heaven. The scent of burned charcoal slowly contaminated the air, wafting into the predators’ nostrils, driving their focus away and stopping their beating. Their mouths filled with saliva as the temptation of lunch pried their limbs away from the Jew and running across the streets. Max realised that to them, his life was less important than their meals. He, as a human, was worth less than the lives of the animals on their plates.

Leaving him in a pool of agony, Max heard the laughter slowly drift away into the afternoon breeze. Finally opening his eyes, he

looked straight into the sky and glared into the sun, willingly inviting the burn of its rays to tear his vision apart, no longer wanting to see the hatred that had diseased the earth. Almost laughing, Max felt as if this was an act of injustice. The sun was the biggest star but was worshipped by all to provide life for humans.

Yet, his yellow star branded him with discrimination and prejudice as if he was the destroyer of life.

As he heard the snickers of many others walking past him, he tilted his head towards the ground in shame, hoping for the pavement to swallow him up and carry him away from the humiliation. He opened his eyes again to see his groceries by his side. There, amongst the pulverized fruit was the loaf of bread, now trampled on and reduced to crumbs. ‘

The Yellow Star

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Reaching High Ava Dluzniak

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The sound of students’ laughter and chatter wafted through the wide and never ending corridors of Alexis’ new school. Swiftly, Alexis made her way to her form room, where she was welcomed by a group of cheerful girls, who bombarded her with interesting questions. However, Alexis’ own question sat burning on the tip of her tongue. She desperately wanted to know about their basketball team, and how she could join it. So ultimately, she asked the kind, blonde girl she had been talking to: ‘What’s the sport like here?’

The girl replied by elaborating on the gymnastics squad, the championship cheer squad and the volleyball team.

‘But what about your basketball team?’ Asked Alexis inquisitively.

All the girls surrounding Alexis erupted into laughter. Alexis felt her face flush hot and red as the girls around her clutched their stomachs and wiped their eyes.

‘Why would you want to know about our basketball team? It’s just for boys and they are not even very good, anyway!’

Alexis told them she enjoyed basketball and played at her old school. She purposely didn’t mention that she dreamed of becoming a professional, or that she practised extensively each day.

The girls stared at her curiously, ‘Well I’m sure if you asked Coach, he would let you try out, but, you know, it would be a bit weird, just you on an all-boys team.’

Alexis did not agree; however, she shrugged and made a mental note to go and visit the coach at lunchtime.

As Alexis arrived at the front of the coach’s office, her heart pounded in her chest and her hands began to feel clammy. What if he wouldn’t accept her? What would she do if not basketball?

Quietly, she cleared her throat and asked him if she could try out for the team.

‘Are you confused little girl? I’m the coach of basketball, not cheerleading.’

Feeling belittled, Alexis insisted ‘I know, I want to try out for the basketball team. I’ve been playing since I was three and I’m not bad, if you could just let me try out, I could show you what I can do,’ Alexis insisted confidently.

‘Ok, you can try out, but the boys are not going to be happy!’

Once Alexis stepped into the gym, she could feel the stares of all the boys burning through her. She showed the coach a few moves, first dribbling, then some lay ups, and finally some difficult shots,

which she luckily got all of them in. She looked over at the coach, who was looking impressed and whispering to the boys. Confidently, she nailed some more shots, until the coach came over to her. She looked at him apprehensively as he approached, but he told her, ‘Welcome to the team.’

Alexis had been to a few training sessions now, and she was enjoying being part of the team. The Coach had started giving her tips, the boys had finally stopped teasing her, she was playing better than ever, and most importantly, she felt included. On Monday afternoon, the team’s first game commenced. On the court, Alexis missed two shots, defended poorly and even slipped over. The crowd booed and laughed at her, and their voices sounded as if they were amplified by a megaphone.

‘This is why there shouldn’t be girls on the team!’

‘What were you thinking coach!’

‘You suck!’ Shouted the crowd, pointing and at jeering at Alexis.

At the end of the game, feeling defeated and distraught, Alexis stormed off, without even listening to what the coach had to say.

She felt embarrassed she had let the team down, and lost the game for them, especially now that the boys had just started accepting and even liking her. Alexis thought of the crowd, and how they had bullied her for making mistakes, but they hadn’t even yelled when some of the boys made the same errors. Would she always be treated differently because she was a girl? Would she always have to work double as hard to have the same treatment and opportunities as the boys? Should she just quit basketball? Then at least she wouldn’t have to worry about the mean comments and the constant judgement.

‘Alexis! Wait up!’ yelled her teammate, Jayden.

‘Alexis don’t worry about the game! Sometimes you lose, but running away isn’t going to help, we need you on the team!’

‘Thanks Jayden, that’s really nice, but I just can’t deal with the booing and criticism anymore. It doesn’t work with me being the only girl on the team, it’s just easier and best for the team if I quit.’

‘Alexis, you can’t give them what they want! Show them that a girl can play basketball just as good as anyone else! This is your dream and you need to follow it!’ Alexis realised that she shouldn’t give the people the satisfaction of seeing her quit. She wanted to prove to people that stereotypes didn’t matter.

Reaching High

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Reaching High

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It was the following Monday afternoon, and Alexis had trained harder than ever to show the team what she could do. She felt ready for the game, and certain she wouldn’t pay attention to the boisterous crowd. During the game Alexis played fantastically, and even scored three goals. However, the game was still a draw, and as Alexis glanced up at the clock, she saw that there were only 10 seconds to go. Rapidly, she cut in front of her defender, yelled for the ball and caught it. Calmly, Alexis steadied herself and put up a shot. She watched nervously, and the ball swirled around the hoop, and then fell in the net. Buzz! The siren screamed, and the crowd roared. Alexis stared around at bright smiles, and people chanting her name. Her team circled around her, everyone hugging her and clapping her on the back. Alexis grinned from ear to ear, feeling on top of the world. ‘

She was born in China but had come to Australia when she was a newborn, so she had always considered herself to be just as ‘Australian’ as everyone else. She talked like an Aussie. English was never a problem since it was her first language. She dressed like an Aussie: t-shirts and thongs in summer, trackies and puffers in winter. She celebrated like an Aussie (her family had always celebrated Christmas and Australia Day even though they weren’t Chinese celebrations). There was just one thing that prevented her from being accepted as a ‘true’ Australian – her appearance. Her eyes were darker than a raven, and she possessed shiny, black tresses that tumbled down her back like an inky river. Her complexion was pale and she had an oval shaped face with small almond eyes. It was the typical Chinese face. And she absolutely hated it.

Just like any child, ever since she was little, she did everything she could to fit in. Except for her, it was just that little bit harder because of her heritage. Because she was Chinese.

She had a vivid memory of herself at around the age of 10, sitting at the dinner table with her parents. She had been complaining about having to take a thermos to school for lunch when all the other kids had sandwiches. Even though she knew her mama got up at 6am every morning just to make her a delicious, Chinese lunch, she had asked if she too could have sandwiches. Immediately, her mama’s smile dropped. Her mama had looked at her with such a soul-crushing look that she wanted to take back everything she had just said. She hated making her mama unhappy. She hated seeing the disappointment in her mama’s beautiful eyes, masked by her forced smile when she relented and told her that she could have sandwiches instead of taking a thermos.

It made her feel sick since she wanted more than anything to please her mama. But it was just too hard. Too hard to be the perfect Chinese girl her parents wanted because of her western influences at school. Too hard to be a ‘white’ girl at school, because of her Chinese influences at home. It felt like she was always at the centre of a game of tug-of-war. She desperately wanted to let both sides win. But she knew that wasn’t possible. And that made her heart hurt.

She just wanted the game to stop but it never did. Because no matter what the situation was, she was always stranded at the intersection of her two cultures and identities.

A Game Of Tug-Of-War Cindy Jin Boroondara Literary Award Competition, Young Writers Prose Middle Category Highly Commended

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A Game Of Tug-Of-War

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Whenever she went to China, she longed to be back home in Australia. Despite being fluent in Chinese, she always felt the urge to speak English in China, just to make it clear that she wasn’t one of them. To make it clear that she was a foreigner.

Because she was proud to be Australian. Proud to have an Australian passport and to have grown up experiencing western culture. She was so proud to be ‘white’ that she abandoned her heritage, rejected everything associated with China. She made herself as ‘white’ as she could possibly be, so much that, sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, she was surprised to see an asian appearance staring back at her.

It just hurt that Australia wasn’t proud to have her. Sometimes it was little things that made her feel like an outsider. Things like consistently being picked last for any sports team at school, because according to her caucasian classmates: ‘Chinese people are only good at studying and nothing else’. Sometimes it was bigger things, like once when she was out shopping with her mum, a stranger had heard them speaking Chinese and yelled at them because ‘Australians only speak English’ and ‘if they wanted to speak Chinese, they could bloody go back to China’. She had felt really small and worthless then. What hurt was that it wasn’t the first time she had felt that way.

She was sick of being discriminated against because of her culture, tired of dealing with the many untrue stereotypes she encountered. She was done with attempting to mould herself into a ‘white’ child and never having any success. She finally accepted that she could not change her heritage, nor could she change her appearance.

The only thing she could do was to let go and move on. And when she did, it was the very best decision she ever made.

As cliche as it was, she realised that being different was okay.

While she had heard the saying: “you’ll never belong until you accept who you truly are” so many times in her life, she never understood the true meaning of it until now. Growing up in a predominantly white society, she had never accepted her Chinese heritage. She had never accepted who she truly was. But now she knew that was wrong and she was ready to change. She was going to let the world see who she really was. Although it was going to be hard, she knew any step forward, no matter how small, was better

than not moving at all.

And finally, she made a promise to herself – that from now on, she was going to let her smile change the world, and would never, ever let the world change her smile again.

A Game Of Tug-Of-War

‘

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Without Wings Zoe Reddaway Boroondara Literary Award Competition, Young Writers Prose Middle Category 3rd Place

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I look at myself in the mirror. I have the same turquoise eyes and white hair as everyone else. The same pale, thin lips, smooth nose and high cheekbones. The same delicate ears. The same tall, slim body. “Aine! Dinner is ready!” my mum calls. With one last sigh I leave my room. I sit down and look around at my family unenthusiastically. And I am once again reminded of what I don’t have. What sets me apart. My mother has sleek, navy, feathery wings, that elegantly stretch and move along with her movements, indicating peace and intelligence. My father has golden, powerful wings, symbolizing superiority and strength. He was considered a protector. My older brother has forest green wings, influencing his love for nature. My younger sister has pure white wings, promising her a place with the elders, although she isn’t old enough yet. And I… I am the dud of the family. I don’t have wings at all. Everyone is supposed to grow their wings after 6 months, which adopt their colour throughout the years. But I’m stuck like this. Wingless. I eat my dinner quietly, noting the unspoken silence that hangs above us, that awkward tension whenever I am in the room. Although I was used to it, it never got easier.

I used to copy everyone else when I was little, jumping out of branches or off rocks. But I would fall down whilst everyone flew.

Scrape my hands. Bruise my knees. I can’t fly. Everyone knows that.

And everyone avoids the matter. “There is a new family coming to the neighborhood.” Dad says. “There is a girl your age, Aine.” I barely acknowledge him.

“Aine, look at your father when he talks to you.” My mum says, gently. My mum understands me and loves me. I know that. I’m not sure I can say the same for my dad, but I know he was trying.

And has been for the past 14 years. To be honest, I am a disgrace to the family. With my father as a protector and my sister as an elderto-be.

I finish my dinner as quickly as I could, then leave the table. I’m not trying to be rude, I just want to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere. I know that I caused it. I alway cause it. As I go back to my room, I hear everyone laugh. Everyone except me.

“Hello.” says the neighbor. Her wings are sunset orange. “My name is Delara. What’s yours?” I don’t respond, just stare at the ground. “You’re lucky that you have siblings. I get awfully lonely sometimes.” It seems that she is unfazed by my silence. And she

doesn’t notice that I don’t have wings?

“I do hope we can get along.”

“But… why would you want to be friends with me?”

“Because I do?”

“No, I don’t… have wings.”

“So?” So? Does she really not care?

“Don’t you feel uncomfortable? Most people do.”

“No, why would I? You’re just like anyone else.” I’m amazed.

Maybe we can be friends after all.

“Do you ever smile?” Delara asks one afternoon. The sun shines on our faces as we lie in the grass.

“Smile?”

“Like this,” Delara smiles widely.

“Oh. No.” “Laugh?”

“No?” “Have you ever felt any happiness at all?”

“Well… not that I know of.”

“Hm.” “Why do you want to know?”

“Just thinking.”

One night I hear a knocking on my window. I nearly drift back to sleep, before I bolt upright. Someone is knocking on my window!

I open it in shock, seeing Delara.

“What are you doing here?” I am beyond surprised.

“Getting you. Come on.” I sigh before following her out.

“This is not allowed.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t get caught.” Eventually we reach a jagged cliff.

“What are we doing here?” My voice gets snatched away by the wind.

“Hold on to me!” shouts Delara.

“Why?” “Just do it!” I reluctantly put my arms around her. “One, two, three, go!”

“Wait–” my stomach drops as my feet suddenly leave the ground.

I scream. We go up, battling against the wind, and a fine, light mist appears. I clutch Delara hard. “What are you doing!” I scream.

Delara laughs. “I’m going to fall!”

Without Wings

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Without Wings

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“No you won’t!” she loosens her hold on me for a heart lurching moment, before adjusting her grip. “Ready?”

“But–” I scream again as she accelerates and starts flying all over the place. She starts laughing like a madman. I force myself to breathe as the wind rushes against me, trying to calm down. This was so dangerous! And yet… my mouth twitches, and before I know it there is a strange sensation. We emerge above the clouds, the moon illuminating us. It is suddenly quiet, without the wind and rain. Delara stops, but I felt like I was still being lifted, above Delara, above the moon. Everything is lifting off me, every weight, every frown, every sigh. Every tear. Every rejection. Delara looks at me intensely. “What?” I ask.

“I’m not holding onto you anymore.” I look down, and realise that I’m floating. After a split second of panic, I realise I’m not going to fall.

“How?” “I don’t know, but you’re special. I knew it from the moment I met you. You’re smiling, and it’s beautiful.”

I don’t have wings. I don’t fit in. But you don’t need wings to fly. ‘

[ Stan stumbles into the elevator as he puts his significantly thinner wallet away, he nods to his co-workers as he enters, and the usual blank faces are shown in return.]

1949. Department Of Lands Mia Avram

Stan: We that are left grow old, hey! How didn’t I recognise him?

Been through a lot that one has, run out of road. Same face I guess, but everything else has certainly changed. Gotten shorter, a hunched old lady almost. Arms an’ legs as thin as paper. An’ he was beyond pale too, could almost see right through him. As if the wall behind him was the one calling out to me.

[The elevator dings and the doors open to the second floor, a tall white man enters. He stands in front of Stan, forcing him to move. Stan shuffles back.]

Stan: Could have been me. Sitting there, a lost puppy. I mean, we went through the same thing. Spent all day everyday with each other for years; an’ somehow life had me end up here an’ had him end up there. Mum always used to say, ‘life isn’t fair’, but I had always hoped she was wrong, that although it may seem like that, in the end everyone gets what they deserve.

[The elevator doors open once more, this time one of the white men gets off, bumping into Stan’s shoulder as he exits, causing Stan to lose his balance. He brushes himself off.]

10

Stan: I guess I remember lots from the war; wish I didn’t. When we were in the trenches, we always used to play I spy to try an’ make the time go by faster. Harry was always the best at it, we had to start not letting him pick because he was just too good.

He didn’t mind. We were brothers, us an’ the white soldiers. No such thing as racists in the army.

[The elevator dings and this time the doors open to two white men about to enter, they then see Stan and decide to wait for the next one. Stan’s eyes flicker, as if he suddenly remembered something.]

Stan: Ya know, there was this one day when Harry was just minding his business an’ this white fella, his name was Jim or something, decided to pick a fight.

[He looks down at his feet] Stan: I remember it so vividly because all the other white soldiers

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1949. Department Of Lands

took Harry’s side an’ gave that Jim a beating.

[The elevator dings and he looks back up at the doors.]

Stan: Clearly that was just the army.

[The elevator arrives at the fifth floor and this time two white men enter.

They are very loudly making fun of a homeless guy they had walked past on the street.]

10

Stan: Money’s not enough. I mean I’m sure he’s grateful for it, an’ it’ll no doubt help, but I have to do more. I owe it to him. I could help him apply for a land grant? That would help. Get him off the streets, push him to find some work.

[The elevator opens and a very daunting looking white man enters.]

Stan: No use trying though. It’ll just get denied. They always do when they’re Aboriginal. Wish I could change it somehow.

[The elevator stops at the seventh floor and the man who had just gotten on at the previous floor exits.]

Stan: I could try though. If I put my mind to it, put in an application for Harry to start with. Then set up a few meetings. Maybe do some speeches. Get talking to people. Then one day, maybe, hopefully, I’d have changed things. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do, it’s about time someone did something.

[The elevator dings and the doors open to Stan’s floor. He walks to his desk with a spring in his step, beaming smile and glistening eyes. He puts his briefcase down and sits in his chair, proceeding to open the first in a pile of manila folders that are sitting on his desk. He takes a moment to read, then slowly slumps into his chair, looks out his window, defeat written across his face, and wipes away the beginning of a tear.] ‘

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1917 Aunty May’s home, Australia

1955. Nigel’s Hospital Room

Esther Bornstein

[ Dim light – Aunty May is sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. Two chairs are set up, as are two bowls of food. One being eaten, the other left untouched. A white letter is placed in the corner of the dark coloured table. ]

Auntie M ay: I got another one today. Haven’t been able to open it. Too scared. It’s just sitting on the kitchen table, small, lonely, different. Like my Archie out there, out in the big world. I remember when he was a little one, when I first taught him to pray. It was just me and him together. He had come back from a hard day at school, tears streaming down his little round face. I told him all would be okay, that hard times always pass. I told him to look towards the heavens, because God would always be there to guide him. He looked at me with his big brown eyes and said thank you Auntie, thank you and we prayed. That was when I knew he was a special boy, my special boy. I miss him so much you know. Just want to see his smile.

So when I get his letters they tear me in two. I want to read them to hear from him and his journey, to feel that connection we’ve always shared. But a part of me would rather not know.

Not hear the horrors my little boy has to face. Not listen to his calls of desperation. Not picture what could come. Just pretend.

Pretend he is fine. Pretend he is on holiday having fun, making memories.

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It was his last letter that really tipped me over the edge. He’s always had a way with words my Archie, but that one was different. The descriptions, too real. The stories, too haunting.

‘But he hasn’t got a face Aunty May, but he hasn’t got a face’, he wrote. Those lines, they keep repeating in my head. In my dreams. Over and over. Over and over. My poor little Archie, by himself in the big wide world, away from me, from everything he knows. I’ve had recurring dreams before. I always thought they were sent down from the heavens, angels giving me a sign.

I’ve had ones of swimming in the stream next to my childhood home, seeing old Grandpa Joe, meeting the darn Prime Minister.

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But nothing compares to this. Each morning, I wake up with a layer of sweat across my body, throat as dry as the bark from eucalyptus trees, bed sheets everywhere. Thinking. Constantly thinking of my poor Archie. It has to be a sign, I just hope it’s a good one. That God is looking out for him.

1955. Nigel’s Hospital Room

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I really shouldn’t be complaining. I am safe, with a bed to sleep on, food to eat and shelter above my head, God bless. But I just can’t imagine what he is going through. Out there, nobody is safe. My Archie just isn’t bullet proof, no one is. I pretend he is here with me sometimes. I set up his food at the table, clean and re-clean his room and talk to the photo I have of him by my bed. It fills that hole for a little bit, but only just. I miss the real Archie, my Archie.

That is why I just have to open the letter. To hear from the real him, no matter his struggles or the circumstances. It’s hard, so very hard but It has to be done. I know it is what my Archie wants, what he needs. I have to be there for him now, as he has been there for me my whole life.

[She moves towards the letter, hands trembling, and picks it up. ] “In John’s Gospel it says ‘And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not”. My Archie. How I want to hear his own voice, his opinions. For him to hold on to them, just a little while longer. To stop seeking a sense of good and evil and most importantly to come home. To be here, to share my dinner, to experience life by my side. Because he is My Archie.

My Archie.

Not the war’s Archie. ‘

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[ Mum sits watching the rain peacefully with Grandad while Bertie stands to attention next to them. The lighting is dim, with a spotlight on Mum. It is totally silent apart from the sound of rain.]

1927. On The Murrumbidgee Ariana Cazanis

Mum: He’s back, but he might as well still be at war. Hasn’t spoken a word since the day he set foot back home, clutching that lock of hair without reason. Often I think to myself how different it would be if I just said no, if I was selfish and had kept him with me, but what kind of mother would that make me? I could smell his utter desperation to go and who would I be to stop him from seeing the world? Fighting for the “equality” he so desperately needed. For what? I don’t know. The idea of being “as good as” never appealed to me or dad, and the truth is, we were not wanted, or even considered until it was life or death.

Always just the last resort, there for convenience, we have no value to them. Bertie couldn’t see that. For him, the “bigger world” was his escape, his chance to “make things easier” for us.

But the bigger world was the thing that let him down. I can’t help but resent him a little bit for it. For being so naive, so childish. But he was. He still is. Just trapped in the world of grown ups; stuck in the circus, but this time, he’s the show.

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If I’d have stopped him, I’d never hear the end of it, or maybe I would’ve never heard from him again. Better than this though, right? Better than a boy stuck in 1917 who can still hear the gunshots and cries of his mates. Better than a boy who stands to attention without a reason, who can’t speak, even if he tried. It’s shellshock. He’s told to chin up and get over it but he never will.

They see him as weak and cowardly. Not even considered to have a chance at being “cured”, just because of his colour. The treatment of our community is the thing that sent him into war, and it’s the thing that’ll never bring him out of it. To the day I die, the last thing I heard him say was that he’d stay standing.

It’s ironic, because he did, and he still does, just not in the way any of us had hoped for.

I wonder who he would be if I’d said no 13 years ago, my Bertie, now 25. Maybe he would’ve grown up to do great things, we’ll never know. Maybe he’d have learnt that we drew the short

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1927. On The Murrumbidgee

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straw, that no matter what, things will never be as good for us.

He’d have learnt that much quicker here, without the pain and suffering, but he was a strong willed boy. The war ruined that, it took my boy and left him lifeless, as though his mind got trapped five feet under in France but his body came back on that ship and it sits with us at the table for dinner and on the porch for tea. I told him I’d lost him already, that was the last thing I’d ever said to him. It was in his eyes, but now there’s nothing left. They’re barren, just like our land. Then I told him that maybe someone decent could look after him, but no white man could ever care about him as much as I did, as I do now.

And I sent him off a happy boy, and he came back a broken man.

And now I’m here picking up his pieces. ‘

When the sun first met the moon She gave her a little kiss And the universe watched on Enamoured by their eclipse

The Eclipse Charlotte Dalton Young Writers Poetry Award (Senior Category)

And when one night a month They see each other in full The moon swells with joy Enticing tides with her pull And when her dark side starts to show The moon makes night grim The sun weeps in sorrow Her brilliant rays dimmed And when one time a year They again meet face to face Long distance lovers Are united by fate. ‘

Highly Commended

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1955. Nigel’s Hospital Bedroom

1955. Nigel’s hospital bedroom

[Nurse is packing up Nigel’s belongings. Nigel has passed away. ]

Mia Avram

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Nurse: Turned 26 today, same age as Nigel when he returned. I’m hoping soon I can buy a bit of farmland for myself. No reason why I can’t have that someday. Almost got enough saved, been shift working for five years. Can still remember all my patients’ names. Stories too. Nigel was my first patient when I started in Callan Park. In my first year here, I didn’t even know if I liked the gig. I remember they put me on night shift on my second day. I sat outside Nigel’s room and watched him, not trying to bother but I was always interested in this man. That’s how we became close, him and me. During the night, he would never sleep, so we used to talk together. That’s how the nickname ‘night owl’ started. He used to tell me about his time on the front line. Sometimes he’d shiver or twitch, or not say anything at all. During the light hours, he would drift in and out of sleep, tossing and turning. Talking to himself even. Often he muttered the word ‘specimen’ while in a daze. I never worked out what that meant. Maybe family would understand. I never met them, you know. His family, I mean. They never visited, never wrote.

I figured he lived in lots of places once he came back. Didn’t find his spot so kept on the move. War must do that to you.

Keep you on your toes for the rest of your life. Poor man, the same age as me now when he returned back. He would’ve wanted a little piece of land, bit of freedom. But times were different, not everyone got what they wanted. War came with no guarantees.

[Nurse sits on the edge of the bed, gripping the covers. ] Nurse: Although, when my uncle came back, he was gifted a plot in Queensland. He started a business in the sugar cane industry, very successful. Best sugar in the country he reckons, certainly the sweetest. My family are farmers from way back, I guess land went to people with experience. People who knew how to care for it, cultivate and produce, use the modern techniques and all.

I asked my Uncle this once, why Nigel had missed out, he said

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land went to the war heroes’ people who served for Australia. I guess what he really meant was, people who were... white. Poor bugger, Nigel. Sometimes, I’d tell him about my dreams, owning some land, and a family. I remember him saying he used to dream like me when he was young too. Makes me sad now that I say it. He said the war had taken away so much from him, including his dreams. He actually told me once he had never owned anything in life. Not even his uniform.

[Nurse walks over to objects resting on a windowsill, they are covered in dust.]

Nurse: These are the only possessions he had in the world. A drawing of a Borneo Gibbon, scientific and anatomically correct. Page ripped from a book perhaps, something from his childhood. And medals from war times. Funnily enough, he didn’t care for these at all. Told me I could keep them or send them back.

[Nurse dusts the medals and moves them into the sunlight. ] Nurse: I remember fastening them to his shirt one Anzac Day, must have been four years ago now. Mid service, they fell off. I looked everywhere for them in the crowd. He said that medals didn’t mean much after the war and was happy to leave them.

Sometime later, I found them, kicked to the curb, probably by a white man’s boot. Since then, I kept them on the windowsill thinking he may change his mind someday, want to wear them again. That was the last Anzac Day service he ever attended. I used to ask him every year if he wanted to attend. Sometimes I regret not just pinning them to him, not trying harder to convince him to come to the services. I wanted the medals to mean something, for what he’d done. All other fifteen vets at Callan Park attended each year. Medals polished, white shirts ironed. They never spoke to Nigel when he was around. Must be different as a coloured bloke. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Nigel was fighting more than one war when he left in 1914.

[Nurse places the medals tobacco tin along with the image of a Borneo Gibbon. Before sealing the tin, he takes one medal and slips it into his top pocket. ]

1955. Nigel’s Hospital Bedroom

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1955. Nigel’s Hospital Bedroom

Nurse: I guess that’s the end. These can go to Reception for a family member or friend to collect. Wouldn’t want them to be forgotten. ‘

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Early 1918. A rundown house in Candelo, NSW

Auntie May Maya Marek

[ Auntie May is sitting at a small wooden table. She holds a letter in her trembling hand. ]

Auntie M ay: [sobbing] Oh Arch. Oh my little boy. [strong now] From the day you was born I swore to protect you, to keep you out of trouble. I sent you to a good white school and dressed you in your best church outfit on Sundays. Oh how I’d worry over the little tear in your back pocket. You never did complain though, because you were a strong little bugga, just like your Auntie eh? [lets out a chuckle, it turns into a sob] You tried so hard to hide them bruises. Wearing long-sleeves on the hottest bloody day of summer until you sweat your blessed heart out. But I knew. I could see them in your eyes, Arch.

It makes me wonder why you ever did go away. I said to ya, didn’t I say “Over here you get beat by white men. Over there you get beat by white men with guns”? But you were long gone by that point. The same eyes that told me you was in trouble were the ones that told me you’d go off to war, soon as word got ‘round the station. Oh how I battled with myself the night you enlisted. I just wanted you to feel like you belonged so badly.

Have some mates, you know? Maybe you could find some sorta common cause with them white blokes that you didn’t have before.

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Either way, you’d finally found something you thought was worth fighting for, and this is where it leads you. Old Freda Thomas’s boy nearly kicking the bucket with his own gun for heaven’s sake and where does that leave you? I pray to the Lord everyday to bring you home in one piece, but we both know that’ll never happen. You’ll never be the same Archie again so long as you’ve seen what you’ve seen. And as for what you’ve done… well, I can only hope you keep enough sense in you not to wander astray like you father. Oh how them white fellas picked on him when we was little. I didn’t have it so bad ‘cause of me being a girl and all, but your dad was just about beat to

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Auntie May

death half the time, and if the teachers turn a blind eye now, they practically ran away from us black folk back then, if they didn’t join in on the fun. He was only a kid though, just like you... Only a kid. Can you blame him for drowning his problems in liquor?

[Pause. She is absent-mindedly petting a dog.]

[A smoke alarm goes off.]

Auntie M ay: Oh, now I’ve gone and burnt the muffins.

[Auntie May stands and starts bustling around the kitchen.]

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Auntie M ay: Anyway, you’re tough as a doornail aren’t you, boy?

Been through high hell at home and going off to fight for country in spite of it all, or what you young fellas like to call it anyway.

Not even the strongest blow of ‘em all could knock you down.

I’m sure you’ll get through it. Won’t you Arch? Hey, won’t you?

Oh blast it, here come them bloody waterworks again. It’s just that you never know, do you? You just never know. Never know what you’ll see or what you’ll do. Never know who you can trust and who’ll do you dirty. Never know when they’ll take the next bloody bit of land away. Never know how long till there’s another Monaro death that doesn’t make the papers. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my baby again. As for you Arch, well. You just never know when the bullets will finally find your skin do you?

[She collapses in a heap on the floor, crying. It is the ugly cry of a wounded animal.] ‘

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1920

Circus Of War Juliet McLean

[Bertie’s Mum, standing alone outside, hanging out washing.

The stage is dimly lit except for a single spotlight on her. ]

Bertie’s Mum: Bertie didn’t talk to me again today.

He never seems to talk to anyone at all anymore, really. Not even to his little sister.

I miss the days when he would talk so much that I threatened to steal his voice away, but it seems that, even though I was joking, in the end I was the one who stole his voice away.

I was the one who said he was of age, and it was me who ultimately encouraged him to go fight in that stupid war by saying he was of age. He was so insistent that he had to go fight, truly believing that by joining all those white boys that he would finally feel a sense of belonging. That suddenly all these doors would open for him and he’d be accepted as one of the white blokes.

I certainly know that not a single door has been opened for him.

He’s probably had more slammed on him since he’s come back.

I’d be surprised if he ever attempted anything new ever again, really, because it’s as if whilst fighting over there, he not only lost his ability to speak, he also lost his will to live.

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It’s almost as if my son died over there, fighting, and that instead of him coming back, I’ve received an empty body. Unable to feel joy and determination anymore.

And I know that I shouldn’t talk about my own son like that, but I can’t help it after I have had to witness both Mary and Catrina’s sons come back, able to act just as they did before.

They were able to celebrate their families finally being reunited.

They were able to smile and laugh and release all the worries and fears they had accumulated since their sons first left. They were able to actually hear their sons’ laughter.

I’ve been unable to experience any of this.

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Circus Of War

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I’m so busy trying to help my Bertie that I can’t focus on anything else– even Anna, who I know is really struggling with accepting that her big brother isn’t ever going to be the same again. She looks at me with big eyes and asks about why her big brother won’t play with her anymore. How do I explain to her that I don’t know the answer to that question either?

And how do I explain to her that I want to be able to sit down to dinner, and be able to talk and laugh with my family, rather than struggling to get Bertie to eat, because he can’t even bring himself to do that anymore. I want to be able to freely talk about what the neighbours are up to, without fretting over how Bertie will feel knowing that others came out of the same war as him, yet will still speak, and can freely explore the world around them without hindrance.

Really, the only thing that keeps me going now, other than my family, is the possibility that, perhaps, this is not all my fault.

That maybe Bertie being mute and losing his ability to smile wasn’t caused by my lack of insistence that he stay behind and not go fight. That this is all someone else’s fault.

What if it was actually the government who did this to my family? They’re the ones who decided to send out little boys who barely knew the true consequences of living in the real world to fight for them, after all.

[She pauses, looking around fearfully] And I know that I shouldn’t be saying this, but who’s around to hear me!?

The whole war was completely pointless! This is Australia, and doesn’t that mean we’re the ‘land of opportunities’? Is dying an opportunity anyone would wish for? Because that is the only thing that has come out of this war. Death, pain and sadness.

And what’s worse is that the government couldn’t care less about us! We aren’t ‘actual’ Australian’s in their view. We’re barely even human, just because of our skin colour. And yet

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apparently we’re ‘human’ enough to be allowed to fight and give our lives for them. It’s ridiculous and unfair. Yet my precious Bertie bought into it, and I guess a tiny, childish, part of me did hope that maybe – just maybe – that fighting in this war might actually cause people to open their eyes to the idea of us being the same as them.

Circus Of War

I was so, so naive.

There was never going to be a fancy land at the end. Just this circus. ‘

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1927. On The Murrumbidgee

[Mum and Grandad exit. Bertie remains, still standing to attention.

He is broken, almost crying yet unemotional, jittery. He looks pained and traumatised. Something is building inside him.]

Bella Russell

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Bertie: I want to speak. Say what’s in my mind, tell them how I feel and what happened over there. So much happened over there.

But that’s just it – no words, no actions, nothing could tell them what I went through, what we went through. Even if I do, they’ll tell me, I’ll get over it, I’ll be okay. So I stay silent, let them think, let them wonder what was so traumatising that I can’t speak, ‘cause it was. [Looks at the lock of hair] Then maybe I could explain this. Tell them that not everyone was as lucky as me [ looks up] But maybe they were, they don’t have to live with this burden, they’re free, free in the Skyworld. But I’d never say that of course, even if I could.

[He looks offstage at his family] Bertie: I… miss them; Mum, Pop, Sis. I remember going to the Narrandera Show. We were always so excited. Every year Alice and I would want to go even if they didn’t let us in and every time, we’d hope they might have changed the rules, so every time we went. We used to walk there and our feet calloused, we didn’t have proper shoes of course, but we didn’t need them.

Pop used to say, ‘it was good for our Wiradjuri feet’, that we were ‘living up to our ancestors’. Mum would be annoyed but figured we’d run off anyway. [ beat] I guess that’s why I wanted to go to war. It was something so great, an honour to the Wiradjuri in me. For the first time, they needed us and I was going to feel like part of Australia. But this time Pop didn’t want me to go, said we’d already done our fighting and Mum was… worried.

Told me it would be like the show and how we would never get in. Said she’d already lost me.

I shouldn’t have been there. War showed me things that no man, no boy should see. Showed me that no matter what I do, I’ll never really belong, and if I do, I end up like this. But I didn’t know that. War made me see how it is all a dramatised show. You’re thrilled to go, all excited to see what happens, to feel part of something. You tell yourself it will be great, even

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when you’re there. But when you come home, you realise it’s all meaningless, all over and the next time you go down nothing is there. You’re only left with the memories, just like the war. I lost a part of me over there too. I can’t see the world the same, never feel the fun in life. I lost friends, people that were just like me. I watched them suffer and now I suffer with them. I was in the show, now I’m left with the memories [ grips lock of hair].

That’s what they don’t understand.

[Gradually getting more distressed]

Bertie: Now I’m left here, broken, speechless, different. An adult who never experienced his childhood, but an adult that can’t even tell people how he feels, always misunderstood. I’m like a journal – I never speak but I have so many words, so many feelings. Sometimes I wish I could just shut myself away from everything, try to free myself from my burden or just talk to someone who can understand. [ beat] I want to talk with my family again. Every day I drift further and further away from them. I can’t lose them too. But if I speak, they might not like it, might not care about what I did. They’ll just be happy that their boy, Bert, is back, even though he isn’t. But nothing could tell them what I went through, nothing could bring me back, no one could understand. [Almost crying] So I stay silent.

1927. On The Murrumbidgee

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‘

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1938. Mount Gambier Erica Truong

[Laurie stands on the edge of the train tracks]

Priest: Stop!

[Laurie continues to stand there, head down] Get away from there!

[Laurie lifts his head and turns to face the priest] Oh, Laurie… What are you doing?

L aurie: Good afternoon father, not to be disrespectful, but what does it look like?

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Priest: Good heavens Laurie, surely not.

L aurie: Why not?

Priest: God would never forgive you.

L aurie: God has failed me, I went to him in a time of desperate need, and he failed me.

Priest: God cares for you Laurie.

L aurie: Why would I believe that? He has enslaved me, forced me to continue living in this cruel world.

[Laurie begins to sob] So many of them fell, why, [sob] why couldn’t have I been one of them?

Priest: Because God believed you were worthy.

L aurie: Worthy? [sob] Then why didn’t he help us? If we are so ‘worthy’, why are we forced to live like dogs?

Priest: Dogs?

L aurie: Yes, dogs. We were forced onto settlements, deprived of food, stranded without citizenship. Did you truly not know, or did you and your mates turn a blind eye?

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Priest: Uh… [stutters] L aurie: I was lied to. [screams] I WAS LIED TO! We all believed it would change, we sacrificed our childhoods in order to live in a better world, an equal world, but instead we returned to the same unjust society that will always tarnish this land. And then I let myself be tricked into thinking that the Church, God himself was my saviour. Wouldn’t you have thought I’d learnt?

Wouldn’t you? But no, once again I fell into one of your cruel traps, for nothing would have saved me, we were all destined to die on that battlefield. We either crumpled to the muddy, blood-soaked earth, or our hope, our innocence, was squandered.

[Silence]

Why aren’t you sayin’ anything?

[Silence]

SAY SOMETHING! [Silence]

If you ain’t got nothing to say to that, could you just answer this question? Why do you want me to live?

[Priest looks taken aback]

1938. Mount Gambier

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Priest: Well… you’re my friend.

L aurie: Friend? [ louder] Friend?

I’m pretty sure if you were my friend, you wouldn’t have made my life HELL! Priest: You ARE my friend, we are united by our faith.

L aurie: Ha! Were you even listening? Your faith is a lie.

Priest: Laurie, this is all just a misunderstanding!

L aurie: A misunderstanding? Really? Me and my fellow Aborigines were born into a world where we were told that we were animals, that were burdens on society. We grew up

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1938. Mount Gambier

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believing that we were worthless, and knowing that we would never get the same opportunities as those white boys struttin’ around town. And then when the war hit we thought we had a chance, so we all went to the desks and lied about our names so we could serve this country. But would you believe that when we returned, youse looked at us the exact same way as you did before the war. It seemed as if the hate was stuck like mud to our boots.

[Distant train whistle]

So do you really think that my whole life was just a misunderstanding?

Priest: Yes, a misunderstanding! We were trying to help you!

L aurie: Oh, I see. It was my fault, eh? I was just too stupid to see that you were trying to help me all along. [pause, then mutters] It’s always our fault.

Priest: That is not true, I refuse to hear it.

L aurie: That’s the problem. You don’t wanna hear it. You don’t wanna hear us, you never wanna hear our side of the story.

[Train tracks begin to tremble] Priest: It’s beside the point, just get away from there Laurie.

L aurie: Nah, it’s not.

[Long train honk] ‘

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I am Australian I came from the dream-time From the dusty red-soil plains I am the ancient heart The keeper of the flame I stood upon the rocky shores I watched the tall ships come For forty thousand years I’ve been The first Australian.

Epilogue

Truth can be so unforgiving; it cuts you like a shard of glass…

and you bleed.

A waterfall of rich onyx blood mixed with salty tears filled with the numbing realisation that dreams are merely illusions that turn into your nightmares.

I am led to a jail cell filled with the rotting stench of melancholy, with a small window blocked by rusting bars that serve as a perpetual reminder of the Australian Dream that I can never be a part of. As the gated door slams shut, I watch as a thread of light struggles feebly through the window.

My dwindling hope.

A Disjointed Australian Dream Minduli Weeraman

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I never wanted to grow up lurking in the shadows, I just wanted to be loved. Every day, I fantasised what the Australian Dream looked like for me.

It beckoned me like a siren’s lullaby.

A world of opportunity filled with exuberance and euphoria.

An illusion of inclusiveness, equality, liberty.

The ceaseless ache to be a part of that radiant circus, to escape the achromatic world of prejudice and poverty that I was stuck in, radiated through me, it was almost unbearable. To think that I desperately believed that I could finally find my

happily-ever-after in my Australian Dream.

What a noxious mistake!

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A Disjointed Australian Dream

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The walls seem to be crumbling, suffocating me as I sit in a foetal position, trying to escape it all. Whenever I try to climb out of the pit of misery that I was born in, that all of my people were born in since Cook and Phillip first landed on our shores,

I am pushed further

down.

The Australian Dream was never mine to have.

Only now do I realise that I would never achieve it. Purely a heartless mirage. A ruthless slap to the face, slamming the door shut in my face.

My faith was so mercilessly quelled… now, it lies there

mangled among the shattered windscreen glass and the fatal river of

nightmares.

Advance Australia Fair Australians all let us rejoice For we are young and free We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil, Our home is girt by sea Our land abounds in nature’s gifts Of beauty, rich and rare In history’s page let every stage Advance Australia fair, In joyful strains then let us sing Advance Australia fair!

I. Murky tasteless coffee sloshes against the walls of the plastic cup as I swirl it around, froth bubbling out of each ripple. A tempest of emotion. I sit on a cardboard box packed with my only belongings: a couple of pencils worn down to tiny stubs, a scrapbook, three t-shirts, and an opened packet of Smith’s Salt and Vinegar chips.

Reaching into the packet, I place a stale chip on my tongue, savouring its tangy taste, letting it whisk me away

for just a moment.

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As the light from the bedroom window switches off, I watch as the occasional car speeds past, trailed by dusty eddies. The neighbourhood is deserted, to say the least. Not many people live in our town and those who do want nothing to do with us.

A Disjointed Australian Dream

I guess that is what happens when you disturb a sea of white with your

darkness.

The headline of a rolled-up newspaper on the ground catches my eye:

“The Australian Dream: R eaching the Ideal” Placing my cup on the ground, the watery coffee sloshing onto the cracked pavement, I scour the newspaper. Words and letters waltz around the page.

“The Australian Dream is,

in simplicity,

a better life that is an expression of

success and security.”

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Success. Security. A better life.

My mother finally emerges from our house carrying another cardboard box, locking the front door for the final time. Setting the box beside me, she faces me and offers a faint smile.

The bruise on her left cheek,

the latest of my father’s works, has now taken on a mulberry hue, not too noticeable under her chocolate-brown skin. We are finally escaping… I cannot help but grin. The thought is enlightening.

“Honey, I just need to drive up to the milk bar. Will you be okay to wait here? I’ll be back before you know it.” Nodding, I kiss her bruised cheek. As the tail lights of the rickety Astra fade away, I gaze back at the newspaper, clutching my coffee.

My father’s white hand will never touch my mother again. We will finally break free of the cycle; the cycle of poverty and abuse that

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A Disjointed Australian Dream

never ceases to follow us. We could start afresh‌find our own Australian Dream.

A seed of hope germinates inside my decrepit mind.

It does not last for long.

10

Flashing red and blue lights permeate the inky night. Police officers surround me, their mouths bleeding grim news.

My chest tightens.

My fingers rattle.

The coffee in the cup is now a menacing storm.

All I picture is my dear mother being hurled through the windshield as her car skids into a tree.

Her Australian Dream.

My nightmare.

My Country I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!

II. Raindrops steadily drum the pavement in a dark, lilting serenade, each drop tracing delicate paths on my hand. Adjusting my papery cardboard sheet in my cramped corner, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window across the street.

Dark skin barely hidden behind layers of grime.

Hair like a dishevelled mop.

Grimy oversized t-shirt swamping a skeletal figure.

Cheekbones protruding sharply, framing a face that has no trace of life, just darkness.

Unwelcome darkness.

The darkness that engulfs my

nightmares.

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My ears perk up to the sound of laughter. I watch as boys my age, blonde and brown hair dripping with gel, walk past in single file with creaseless shirts, ironed ties and polished shoes.

Private schoolboys… of course.

Breaking protocol, I make eye contact, in the hope that someone might take pity on me.

Instead of money, food, or emotional warmth, I receive averted gazes,

curled lips,

judgemental eyes, as the boys try to avoid looking at a face starved of love and youth.

Some try to look sympathetic, but I see through the facade to find their disgust.

Swiftly, I double over sharply, my persistent cough growing in intensity. Drops of blood splatter my lap and knees.

The vivid red dots are blurred by my hot tears.

All I see is white.

Is this the Australian Dream?

Waltzing Matilda Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me His ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong, You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me.

Oh, you’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me.

A Disjointed Australian Dream

10

III. Wine stains my lips burgundy.

Spirits distort my mind.

I see red and blue flashes in the distance.

I can’t breathe.

Hey, little one, don’t run away! I just wanna play!

Substances seep into my blood tainted with chemicals.

One… two… three… four cigarettes.

Where’s the lighter?!

Lines are blurring.

I dance to the music playing in disjointed melodies.

There’s glass on the floor!

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A Disjointed Australian Dream

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I had a bad dream…

I’m out of cash again…spare me a dollar will ya?

MORE!

Mama?

Hey! Who switched off the lights?

Silence.

I am Australian We are one, but we are many And from all the lands on earth we come We’ll share a dream and sing with one voice I am, you are, we are Australian. ‘

1938. Castlereah Street

[ An Aboriginal derro dressed in filthy, baggy clothes wanders aimlessly in the bustling streets, against the flow of the crowd. He grasps an empty coffee cup that he holds out to others, all ignoring him and keeping their distance. He shuffles downstage left, the crowd passing behind him, their noise dimming.

He inhales through his cigarette.]

H arry: The years we’ve lived never disappear. They’re like layers, and every year just covers the next. Traumatic flashbacks fragment your mind into irreparable pieces you can’t reassemble, lost in the layers of yourself you left behind harrowing years ago.

For me, memory’s an illusion; a pistol submerged into the limbs, then the bones, metal wrapping your lungs, and when you open your mouth, hollow screams erupt from your shriveled body; devouring the feeble peace that remained.

[Pause. He inhales through his cigarette and slowly blows out the smoke, lost in thought.]

A bloke once said I was “as good as a white man”. Young and naïve, I believed him. I truly believed that after the war, I could sit with them on the same table, at the same pub… I misinterpreted it as being “a white man”. What a foul mistake!

[HARRY laughs grimly to himself. He looks around as it starts to pour.]

These Inconspicuous Scars Minduli Weeraman

10

There’s a point of virtue I passed long ago. That sentence is merely an echo in these streets. So many people…yet I’m invisible. No one’ll remember who I was or what I did. To them, I’m just another derro, roaming the streets, burdened with haunting memories and eternal misery.

[The crowd disappears, but HARRY stays onstage, the spotlight dims. The rain decreases to a soft hum.]

George Street

[ NIGEL enters his flat strewn with broken glass, downstage right. He takes off his sandwich board which reads TARZAN THE APE MAN and places it next to a worn-down armchair so it is visible, before sitting down and taking a swig of a bottle of whiskey. When he speaks, his words are slurred.]

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These Inconspicuous Scars

Nigel: A dream is such a complex paradox. It can be a transcendent path beckoning to the wide-eyed wanderer to become the dauntless warrior. It can be the muse to the weary sailor, his eyes becoming those of a child, a seed of hope germinating inside his decrepit mind.

I’ve encountered these siren-like fantasies. Once you get a peek inside what the world “could” be, you start believing noxious lies. y father once said, “Son, you have an education, nothing can M stop you from prosperity.”

10

[ Drinks] “Prosperity”… that was my dream. Its poisonous sweet taste during the war opened the door was just enough for me to yearn for more, to see what was on the other side … but after the war, the door slammed shut in my face, never to be opened again. illed with melancholy, I tried numbing the pain. Alcohol F welcomed me with open arms. [Chugs half of the bottle] Wine stained my lips maroon, spirits distorted my mind, littering the floor of my dingy flat with broken bottles.

[NIGEL gestures to the floor of his apartment, picking up a glass shard.] eality can be so merciless, it cuts you like a shard of glass, and R you bleed. A waterfall of rich crimson blood mixed with salty tears filled with the ruthless realisation that dreams are merely delusions that turn into your nightmares. My doors lead to a dungeon filled with the rotting stench of despair, with a small window blocked by rusting bars that serves as a constant reminder of the world that I can never be a part of. ll that’s left is a fractured soul stuck in an empty shell. My A dream was so heartlessly crushed… now, it lies there, crippled, among the shattered beer bottles and the pools of tears. [ NIGEL finishes the rest of the bottle. The sandwich board is propped up next to him, both facing the audience with an uncanny resemblance. NIGEL and HARRY are illuminated by separate spotlights, their faces look ghostly pale.]

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H arry: Although these deeply-etched, raw wounds have faded into washed-out ribbons, their marks are everlasting.

Nigel: I’ve now come to the haunting conclusion that the most destructive part of war is realising that once you enter it, you’re its eternal prisoner.

[ The two characters walk towards each other, their spotlights following them, and put their arms around each other. They gaze sadly at the audience for a moment. The spotlights dim. They are silhouetted against the Australian flag projected behind them.]

‘Ode to the Fallen’

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

Lest we forget. ‘

These Inconspicuous Scars

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Home Rosie Brennan

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Sat on his bench Thornhill stared through the round bit of glass that was stuck to the end of his eye. He surveyed the infinite crevices and bulges that cloaked the face of the cliff as the setting sun caused it to burn a deep golden colour. The tall gum trees crept towards the edge, but never quite reached the cliff. “It was hard to judge distance or size… without the advantage of a human figure” slipping in and out of the black shadows of the trees and Thornhill’s eyes tired as he examined every swaying movement caused by the wind each time more sure than the next that it was one of them.

He finally gave in and a deep convincing sigh escaped his dry mouth. He relaxed as he overlooked his land from the high perch of his bench and was able to see his wealth stretching out before him.

Beyond the border of his carefully-planned verandah was Sal, tending to her English garden, the only place where she seemed to feel happy these days. The only memory of her London she had left.

The poplars wobbled awkwardly in the Australian breeze unlike the strong gum trees that seemed to bend with ease. He had to admire Sal’s persistence; despite her care, the garden did not thrive. How could it? In the harsh conditions that choked the life from the gentle English roses and suffocated the dainty daffodils. Thornhill hated to admit it but he felt as though a seed of resentment had been planted in him. Sal seldom showed her happiness for his success here at Thornhill’s Point. He was more than he could have ever been in London and yet he saw the flash in Sal’s eyes now and then that still yearned for the uneven cobbled streets of London and the houses that leaned into one another with scarcely enough breathing room for the common people. Thornhill decidedly shrugged the thought away, not wanting to dwell on his past any longer now that he was sure he had everything he had ever wanted.

Mine. This is mine. He kept repeating to himself, each time the reassurance and satisfaction fading only to be replaced with that memory which was plaguing his mind again. Long Jack, his nakedness cloaked in possums’ skin, the fire dancing in his dulled eyes. Will could see the provisions the Thornhills had given him neglected and rotting away into the soul of the dirt. The hut they had built for him stood abandoned behind Long Jack and the tools bore no signs of use. Albeit physically weak, Jack’s powerful presence made the items and Will, himself, feel out of place. The harshness of his “No” sounded in Will’s head as he remembered the

way the dirt merged with Jack’s aged hand.

Long Jack didn’t need a fence entrapping him on a patch of levelled land. He didn’t need a grand house adorned with intimidating stone lions or to be covered with paisley shawls and silk slippers.

He didn’t need a gun to protect him from the unknown.

He was satisfied! With the towering Australian gum trees that offered all the shelter he could require. The land that Jack didn’t feel the need to tame or control. The flourishing flora and fauna that revealed to his people their secret fruits.

This realisation burned an anger in William. It made him become aware of that small void in the pit of his heart whose loose thread had now been pulled and meant he could no longer be content.

It was then Will came to the understanding that Jack had something that Will did not, “a place that was part of his flesh and spirit”.

Drifting back into reality, the memory forever lingered in his mind long after its happening and William Thornhill, the boy from London, gazed out upon the cliffs that had changed from the sun’s warm burning gold to an unfamiliar musky purple. The dark shadows, reflected in Will’s heart, were projected on the cliff ’s surface flirting with the fading light. The forest leaves rustled and whispered incoherent murmurings.

It was, for Will, a constant reminder that this house would never be a home.

Home

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‘

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Pat Pat Pat Sophie Doufas

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The waves gently lap against the boat, interrupting the silence of the night. The soft silvery glow of moonlight bathes every surface it touches, the only source of light. The soft sighs of slumber create a symphony, reminding me of the rest I crave. Dick’s chest heaves up and down rhythmically, his body warm against mine. He is oblivious; oblivious to his mother’s worries and pain. Oblivious to the stress of whether his next meal will be his last, or if he will ever lay his eyes on his father. I find myself jealous of his infant naivety. I can’t remember the last time I felt carefree, rid of any worries.

His birth was one of the hardest times in my life. It was an inky night, similar to this one, the waves thunderously pushing the boat, like a puppeteer with their puppet. I sat there, in my most vulnerable state, in a too-small room with too many strangers. The pain was beyond words; it twisted and turned my stomach in unimaginable ways, daring me to give up. Yet, my birth was hardly the most discussed topic. A flu epidemic had spread, dropping men like flies.

I was told it was unlikely that we would both make it through the night; it would be a pointless birth. I always imagined his birth to be different. Will would be by my side, caressing me and stroking my hair gently as I delivered our child, the product of our love. He would be reassuring me, comforting me, as I birthed our son in London, a place he could call home.

I miss London. London, with its twisted alleys and cramped streets. It was more than a mere mark on a map, or a word. It was my home, my childhood, and my sanctuary. Regardless of which continent I am on, I will always have a connection to London, a tether tying me to its roots. The corners of my mouth twist upwards as I reminisce. I remember fondly, 31 Swan Lane. The sweet smell of the fresh loaf of bread in the pantry, as my mother would repeat gently, “Eat up poppet”.

My stomach grumbles at the memory; I was oblivious to the little luxuries in my past.

I remember the feeling of London’s crisp winter; the cold biting my nose and toes, making them numb. Yet, the house was always warm; the smell of coal burning wafting through every room. That home was my sanctuary, an escape from London’s hustle and bustle.

It was filled with love and warmth and everything in between; it was where I belonged. An image of Will as an adolescent fills my mind, with his crooked teeth and bright eyes. Our meetings at the river

end were always my favourite. He could finally be a child; he was able to forget the nagging pain of hunger or his aching bones from a tiresome day. He would smile, a true smile, bearing all teeth and crinkling the corners of his eyes. We would discuss everything, and banter endlessly. He was happy; truly happy. Even if we weren’t talking, it was comfortable; we would watch the rain create soft ripples in the river, comfortable with his presence enough that words were not needed. I will never forget the way he would glance at me, when he thought I wasn’t looking, his eyes studying my face.

I’m suddenly awoken from my reverie, a rustling noise making me jump. A rat scatters across the decking, across the sleeping bodies, interrupting the silent night. A tear rolls down my cheek and slips off my chin, as we sail further and further away from my home, from a city filled with treasured memories to the vast, empty plains of Australia. ‘

Pat Pat Pat

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Five Years Emma Haberfield Isobelle Carmody Award For Creative Writing Competition Winner

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Dearest Sal, I am unsure whether this letter will ever be read, but I have to be open and honest with you, my dearest wife.

I’m sitting on my bench. The stone was a good choice. It is cool against my back. It reminds me of the one that I would sit on as I waited for customers for my wherry near Westminster. I have always wished that I would be like then one day. And that I would live in one of those rich houses we always admired. I’m looking through my telescope at the sun setting behind the trees and I must admit that there is no better feeling than knowing that anything I touch or see or hear here is mine. Mr William Thornhill’s.

I can hear you singing sweet nursery rhymes to the children in our villa. It made me reminisce about our time in London together.

I decided you should be privy to my true character, after my dishonesty all these years.

I was always aware of how much you missed England. But as soon as I saw the opportunities we had here on the Hawkesbury, I couldn’t stop my ambition from getting the better of me. I envisaged myself the captain of a beautiful boat. The boat would cut gracefully through the glassy waters of the Hawkesbury. And I would be wearing a gentleman’s coat with buttons. I couldn’t pass on this opportunity. To he finally in control of my own life, not having decisions made for me.

In fulfilling this desire, I dragged you out into the bush, which I know is not the ideal place for a woman, making you feel lonely and out of place. I know you yearn for a touch of civilisation, or a friend.

I watch you clutch that roof tiles your chest as you speak of home and I watched you mark that tree every day, rain, hail or shine. As I became a freer man, you became more and more isolated out here.

You hinged all of your hopes the future on my empty promise of returning to England.

But I don’t understand Sal, why you now not happy here in the villa? I’ve provided for you a good life. You will never have to slave away for others again.

I know your initial reservations about the blacks around here.

You felt unsafe and unsure of if these savages were out to get us are not. In those early days, I slept with my gun next me ready to blow one’s brains out at any moment.

Now there almost all gone from this area, except Long Jack, he still lingers like a bad smell. All the others are dead. But I only participated once. In the killings that is. I was sure the blacks were the reason why you had become more distant, Sal. That you were scared of them. After realising that it didn’t make too much of a difference, I regretted for a second participating, but then again, I wasn’t as cruel as Smasher, or Sagitty. But by gees, Sal, some of them put up a good fight.

It is inevitable in situations like the one in Australia to the natives will die. They must either conform to our ways or fade away.

Not too long before the killing, I saw a young black boy in his final moments at camp not too far from here. Saggity had been talking about poisoning them. In the moment where he drank out of my pannikin, I felt a little bit of sympathy for the lad. I then adding the scene to my locked box of things to keep to myself and swore to never speak of it again. In comparison to Saggity and Smasher, I am actually quite nice to the blacks. Smasher used to have a woman chained up at his place. I feel that’s a bit out of line.

But then again, the Hawkesbury is a wild place.

I will never get sick of being called Mr Thornhill. It makes me feel as if I have finally made it to where I want to be in life. I’m sure you felt the same when we had our own convicts to look after.

That’s the beauty of the colonies, you arrive a criminal, saved from the brink of death at the hands of the Redcoats and become anything that you could want to be. Yet, I feel powerless to restore us, Sal, to the way once were. I know that everything changed when I got us into this mess, but I have giving you anything you could ever have wanted, and more.

There is so much to lose, Sal. We have already lost Dick. He always was a special boy. I don’t want our family to fall apart more than it already has.

Perhaps in sending this letter I am risking too much. Maybe it should join the fish under the floorboards of the villa. Another clue to our past for future generations.

Five Years

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From your dearest husband, Will ‘

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Artistic Anamnesis Iman Ikram Boroondara Literary Award Competition, Young Writers Prose Middle Category 2nd Place

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With my brush upon the canvas, multi-coloured pallet in hand, and brows slick with sweat, I painted a familiar subject.

Sketches lay scattered purposefully across the splintered, wooden floor where I could see them. Nearby were the tools of my trade – murky water pots, a multitude of unwashed brushes and an assortment of linseed oil and acrylic paints dispersed near my feet.

My overcoat and hat hung on the coat stand by the door, neglected since I entered my safe-haven. The studio held a musky yet pleasing aroma, the combined scents of oils and acrylics paired with the salty undertones of accumulated sweat. Yet it comforted me. Despite the gnawing stress that threatened the controlled movements of my poised hand and the brown tresses haphazardly plastered across my forehead, I was reassured.

Prussian blue and burlywood, lavender and sepia.

I struggled to capture the colours of her, the pigments she was encapsulated by. The perfect hues emblazoning the glow of her skin, the tumble of her hair, the radiance of her smile. As I leant towards the easel, I frowned.

It was not quite right.

Sighing, I slouched upon the stool I sat on, reaching for another colour to mix. With a sudden jerk of my hand, the brush I had been painting with tumbled to the floor.

“Damn”, I muttered, mumbling nonsensical jargon under my breath.

As I slanted across to retrieve it, a smudge of paint blemished my right cheek from my overstretched hand. Upon slowly rising, I met my reflection in the mirror across the room.

I was a mess.

An ebony inkblot lay as an impurity on my pale skin. Matching dark circles framed my eyes, a tell-tale sign of the succession of sleepless nights devoted to painting her. My leather suspenders hung loosely across my shoulders in a tired fashion, hugging my shirt in disorderly displeasure. A measure of my neglected appearance.

I turned to study her gaze as she sat perfectly composed on the armchair before me, glorious and centred, her slender, elegant arms draped languidly across the armrest. Her smile, relaxed and charming.

Secure in my studio, I painted her, brilliant in her golden beauty,

her delicate pink dress spilling across her body and piling in flowing bunches on the floorboards.

She would be my magnum opus, a tribute to my artistic success and what remained of my sanity.

Artistic Anamnesis

‘‘‘

She urged for me to draw the curtains, to permit the sun to spread its beams upon the dusty floorboards and to allow fresh air to cleanse the stagnant scents of the studio.

The rumble of automobiles and the churning of factories jarred against what was once a green landscape, now filled with nothing but tall, protruding buildings that released swirling thick smog in clouds of dreary grey. My focus instantly diverted with the smell of smoke, the din from motorised cars and the mere ‘toot’ of their horns. I almost missed the soft rhythmic trudges of the hooves of horse-pulled carriages.

Heaving a weary sigh, I laboured to portray her likeness upon my canvas. Each carefully descriptive line, each evocative stroke of colour, brought her closer to life.

However, no matter how many vibrant colours I chose, sunkissed and vivid, I could not represent the glow that used to surround her. An unshakable shadow of sadness lingered over the image before me. My vision compromised by watery loneliness and grief, I strained to realise my vision.

Again, the paintbrush tumbled from my hand.

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‘‘‘

The palette followed the paintbrush, falling to the floorboards with a tremulous bang, colours splattering to form ugly, unruly streaks. A sharp pain pierced my temple, the silhouettes of the room growing larger and larger, consuming and dragging me into their darkness.

The studio felt as if it were closing in on me, with thick, claustrophobic claws swiping at my cowering form.

Nothing about the painting was right at all.

Carmine and pearl white, ivory and moccasin.

I was mixing colours on my palette, a desperate attempt to recreate the colours of her, to capture the memory within my fragmented perception: her beauty, her rhapsody and her vibrance.

The throbbing turmoil overwhelmed my senses, and I struggled to compose myself. But I rededicated myself to my task, rededicated my attention back to the muse before me.

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I wanted to complete the painting. Yet I wanted to complete it with the quality she deserved. She was my purpose and she was here in front of me.

My focus was exclusive. I had no sense of there being a world outside of what I was doing at this moment. I did not know whether I had been here an hour or a week, I could not remember when I last ate, but it did not matter.

Every thought I had reciprocated themselves through brush strokes that slowly, but surely brought her closer and closer to me.

And then, I stopped.

In an instant I realised that there was nothing more to be done.

Another stroke would subtract rather than add to the vision that had emerged before my eyes.

Regarding the canvas, I realised that at last, she was there, as beautiful as she always was. Her smile seemed to shine, her glow restored. Rejuvenated, I stood before my masterpiece.

The dawn sunlight caressed my form as I contemplated in wonder. It was like no painting I had ever created before, a painting into which I had poured too much of myself.

Gazing at the portrait in admiration, I felt relaxed, weeks of repressed emotion and despondency spiralling from my chest through puffs of air. Yet the tears continued to fall across my cheeks, my heart overwhelmed with sorrow.

She was gone, but she was there, and I would never forget.

I steadily made my way to the centre of the room, returning the empty armchair to its original position beside the table. Walking towards the door, I lifted the overcoat from the stand and tiredly draped it across my shoulders. While setting my hat atop my head, I turned to observe the painting one last time in all its glory, absolute and finished against the halo of sunlight surrounding it.

I then turned and closed the door behind me.

When my time is over, I wish to hold her in my arms once more.  Until then, I can only hold her in my dreams. ‘

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It was nearing the Thornhill’s fifth year at Thornhill’s Point when Sal began singing the English songs again. She had stopped, not long after she had been ‘persuaded’ into remaining in Australia, allowing her husband to stay lost in the nightmare that was their reality. But now that they were only weeks away from five years, the agreed time they would leave, Sal had decided her native-born children had to know their way around what would become Home.

The words filled the mud-daubed hut, bringing with them knowledge of the fabled, far-off land called Home. The songs of London brought a smile to Sal’s lips and a sparkle to her eyes and filled Thornhill’s heart with worry. Something unspoken was being said and he didn’t know how to respond. Sal was already making other preparations to leave Australia, but they were small and Will didn’t notice. It was when he showed her the designs for their new home that he realised something was truly amiss. The house, a botched replication of a gentleman’s house back Home, was something he’d thought would delight her.

“Yes, but there’s not much point in building it now. Let’s wait a little longer,” Sal had said. Will tried to bring so many symbols that their stay would be permanent, like more servants, new curtains, English plants and more but Sal wouldn’t accept them, acting noncommittal every time he suggested building their new home, until the worst was finally said.

It had been a warm evening, like every other in this Godforsaken land, and Sal had been in a wonderful mood. She’d used up so many of their precious luxuries like spices, wheat-flour and tangerines that he couldn’t think of anything that could deserve such a celebration. But as the flavours filled his mouth with sweetness and warmth and a smoky aftertaste from some of their luxurious beef, Will forgot everything and stuffed himself to the brim. And then Sal stood, looking like a vision with the fire behind her making her glow, and made her announcement.

“Today marks five years since we arrived here,” she began, a smile filling her face and placing wrinkles around her eyes, “and soon we will be going back home!”

Will’s heart sank. She’d stopped marking that tree but she must have been counting down in her head. So many years and this was how she’d made it through? Will had spoiled her, bringing gifts after every trip and treating her like a rich lady and now she wanted to go

Five Years Asha Jassal

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Five Years

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home? Around him and out of his view, the children tensed, waiting for the inevitable fight.

“We don’t belong there anymore, Sal,” Will had whispered, desperate not to leave the land he’d fought so hard for.

“We do.” Already, her voice was rising, becoming shrill as anger overtook her smile. While that warm, aggressive feeling was a friend to Will, it was new to Sal but she embraced it all the same, drawing courage from it. “We belong at Home, even if we don’t own our house and even if we can’t build a new one, it’s what we always said we’d do!”

“You don’t understand! We belong here now!” Will bellowed, filling his home with a voice trained to carry over the Hawkesbury.

“I sacrificed everything for you! Sal, I killed for you,” he added, and that secret he’d sworn to never tell her was finally told. The words left an ugly silence in the air, hanging still, as if they were real, tangible objects.

The first of many tears welled in Sal’s eyes. “You lied to me,” she hissed, her voice low and threatening, “you may belong here, in this new hell, but I never will.” And then she fled, down to the tree where she’d made those marks, five years ago. Will tried to send his sons down to their mother, to coax her back into the house but they wouldn’t move. He made sure he didn’t call it their home because now he wasn’t sure where he belonged, but he knew it was with Sal. Meanwhile, Sal, shaking with anger, sobbed to herself, crying as she had not done in many years. The warm, fat tears slid down her cheeks, leaving streaks down her sun-darkened skin. Will was right, she thought to herself. She’d never belong back Home, but she’d also never belong here. While Will was a part of this place, floating up and down these waters like the fish who swam within, she was a bug, separate and apart from the beast called Australia, but dependant on it all the same.

Eventually, the sounds of the nocturnal wildlife reached Sal and she began the trek back to her house. When she opened the door, she was reminded of the day she’d burned the flap of bark they’d had to use for so long, in the absence of a real door. The arrival of the polished brown wood had been a cause for celebration, despite how absurd it looked next to the muddy walls of the house. As Sal surveyed the kitchen, she found that every object had a happy memory and a sense of permanence attached to it. Finally, Sal

looked up and saw her Will, staring at her from his seat by the fire.

The children were hidden behind their wall but all she could think about was William Thornhill, bathed in the red glow of their dying fire. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the scene until the creases on Will’s forehead from age and the weather were smoothed out, making him appear just like the man she had married. A man whose life would be on the Thames as a lighterman, with the whole world at his fingertips. Maybe Australia wasn’t her home, but she would try to belong and let Will live out this nightmare if it was really his dream. After all, with the smoke filling the hut and servants to clean the dishes and bring in the coal, it felt like the London they’d always imagined for themselves. ‘

Five Years

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A Silver Spoon Annie Timm

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A new land. A new life. But somehow, Sal thought, this was a different feeling to the one that had consumed her upon their original arrival in Australia. That was a cold and lonely emptiness; the kind that reverberates through the body and creates a tuneless hum of fears left unsaid. This feeling was not the same. There was something of a satisfaction in there, and a sense of belonging, or achievement almost. Pride. It had taken them years – three long, hard years digging their nails in the dirt and selling cheap alcohol to keep them afloat – but this land was theirs. Standing atop the highest knoll and peering down across the dry lands as far as she could see, Sal was a queen surveying her subjects. The feeling only lasted a moment before her longing for her life back in London came flooding back like a bone-chilling gale, but it had been there.

They had struggled, yes, but they had survived and emerged into some sort of a victory.

Looking across to Will, Sal could see the same feelings in his eyes.

This had been his dream, truly, and she swore she could see his chest physically swelling with pride. Despite the openness and vulnerability of their new spot – Thornhill’s Point, love as Will had declared – Sal felt oddly comforted by the gun propped up carefully against the rest of their meagre belongings. That was a power those natives couldn’t match even if they tried. Sal couldn’t even begin to count the endless nights of hearing spears softly rustling, footsteps padding quietly; even the night air seemed to hold its breath in anticipation of some terrible deed. But emancipation had brought the Thornhill family power, and although the land was often harsh and unforgiving, it was theirs. They had worked harder than anyone else in Sydney to make a living and this was their reward. Sal couldn’t help but think that God had blessed them kindly with this power, this territory, this authority, and even though much of Australia had hardened her mouth into a grim frown, she felt herself smiling gently every time the name Thornhill’s Point rang in her ears. ‘‘‘

It hadn’t lasted. Sal had known it wouldn’t last. Owning something simply gives you more to lose, and as the weeks turned into months she could feel her control over this place slowly slipping away. It was just the little things at first; a few daisies planted here, a pair of ever-watching eyes there. She felt them constantly, and the warm ball of contentment she had once felt in her chest was nowsimmering

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into anger. The fact that Thornhill was gone so often, up and down the river to no end, did nothing to appease her frustrations. She tried to bargain with them, to barter, to trade, to exchange – bonnets for bowls, johnny-cakes for a smile – but she came away every time feeling like a fool. Feeling like no matter how hard she tried, Sal was always one step behind the natives. And she hated it.

A rustle of leaves. The cracking of twigs. Spinning around, Sal spotted Will marching. Muscles tensed, powerful strides – this was a man ready for a fight. Willie, Dick, Sal called, a panic rising in her voice, Bub, get inside. Ushering the children behind her, Sal felt her breathing quicken. Beads of sweat began to form at the base of her neck. Ma, what’s going on? It was Dick, his face a little paler than usual, watching Sal intently with a frightened gaze. What’s Da doing?

Determined not to show the trembling fear threatening to take over her body, Sal spun around to block the entrance of the doorway.

Nothing, love. Her hand was searching for something to grab, something to grasp or wield, something heavy and long. Youse just stay here and Da will be right back, you hear me? Using her body to block the children’s line of vision, Sal stepped into the doorway and peered out. Will was a fair way up now; Sal could see him standing, calling out, at the boundary where the tall looming trees met the open grass. How she wished she could compose herself like he was able to. She could feel his authority from here in the way he held his body – shoulders strong, legs apart, and a strong voice that commanded obedience from even the most savage.

But something was different this time. They had no power here.

Already Will was stepping back slowly, distancing himself from the darkness of the forest. Calling out to Sal something about an offering. Dick tugged at her skirt, his voice high and urgent. Ma, get the pork from the night before, remember? Every inch of her being told her to say No, don’t be silly, to shake her head and laugh in the face of these ridiculous demands, but somewhere inside she just knew – they had lost all control of this conflict.

Will’s calls were growing louder. Flustered now, panicked, Sal pulled jars and pots from throughout their living space, desperation rising. They didn’t have much – a few johnny-cakes, would that do? – and each morsel of food she took felt like a sharp stab in the gut. A few sups of rum, some of Will’s baccy, a couple of limes. Every offering forced more and more hot, angry tears into her eyes and

A Silver Spoon

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A Silver Spoon

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Sal fought to keep them at bay. How had she ended up here? Her house, in London, warm and comforting, and a full belly every night, to this. A weak and desperate scramble in a bid for the safety of her and her children. Thornhill’s Point had been his dream, sure, but he had come from nothing. The silver spoon once in Sal’s mouth was now viciously carving out her insides, taunting her with everything she had lost. A gut-wrenching fall from grace. Now she was stood with all their family had to offer in one hand, and Will’s gun in the other. The weight, the cold metal, the promise of power did nothing to calm her. For every bullet in the barrel there was a dozen spears, pointed and waiting.

Watching Will stride back to the hut, his shoulders lowered and eyes down, Sal was shocked to feel parts of his raging fury inside of her. It wasn’t something she had known she could feel; this hot, wet anger. Even as it began to settle and calm with Will’s words – They did nothing this time but, love – it was soon replaced with a chilling resentment and a residual emptiness. It mirrored the moment she had stepped off that godforsaken ship and into the terrifying unknown of Australia. Slowly, Sal began to put the food away, silent in thought except to draw her children out of the corner they were huddled in. Despite their constant attempts to crawl up from the humiliating lows of their standing on the social hierarchy, even the savages seemed to be more powerful than them.

The gun lay disregarded on the floor of the hut, its barrel cold. ‘

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“Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?” The lines of the famous English nursery rhyme have been sung for over 200 years now and its tune has brought colour to the childhoods of many. But recently, the innocent rhyme has been tainted by the stroke of the PC brush.

Seeing “black sheep” as a racial slur reflective of the Slave Trade in the deep South of the United States, modern-day PC warriors kicked up a storm about the alleged perverse and racist connotations of the childhood nursery rhyme. Yet, it has turned out that these claims have “no supporting evidence” to substantiate them. With new crass and cringe-worthy adaptations made to the song such as “rainbow sheep”, the once melodious and joyful tune – a historical emblem – has been distorted into a discordant piece that hits a rather jarring note. So, I ask you; considering the similar lack of harmony within our society on the warping nature of PC, has political correctness gone too far?

By definition, political correctness is “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalise, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.” Yet, political correctness often harbours a very negative perception in our country. So why is this? Well, many organisations are dissecting the role of political correctness in our society in search of an answer.

One of Australia’s most revered and respected journalists, Chair of the ABC, Ita Buttrose, was interviewed at the end of last year to discuss the results of the Australia Talks National Survey which encouraged over 50,000 Australians to share their thoughts and feelings on Australia’s biggest social issues in 2019. Buttrose revealed that from the survey, over two thirds of Australians believe that political correctness had “gone too far” and that their fellow citizens were “too easily offended”. She even went as far as saying that political correctness has stripped Australians of their larrikin spirit; the quintessential fun light-heartedness that is so often attributed to us. So, in this day and age where political correctness has caused us to walk around on eggshells, have we lost our “Australianness”? Buttrose seems to think so. To her, we are far “too sensitive”. We’ve lost the spontaneity in our rapports with one another because we are simply too scared to offend each other. To have the representative of a left-leaning organisation say that PC has caused us to lose a piece of our cultural identity goes to show

Too Far? Bella Eames

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Too Far?

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that it is not just the right-wing Pauline Hansons and Tony Abbotts that think so.

During the recent Black Lives Matter protests a lot of controversy arose surrounding whether certain television portrayals of African Americans or people of colour pass the PC test. One producer to come under such scrutiny was Australia’s own Chris Lilley, famed for his comedic series featuring on the ABC. His depiction of one character, Jonah, a young Tongan boy in his show Jonah from Tonga has provoked public outrage at his use of “blackface.” Even still, with four of his best shows being stripped from Netflix, Australians are now asking themselves whether we have taken this too far.

Indeed, Lilley’s portrayal is not appropriate by today’s politically correct standards, however, these very shows were first aired back in 2007 when, ironically, most of us were toddling around singing baa baa black sheep. This was back in a time where according to Guy Rundle’s essay on the history of political correctness, filmgoers barely blinked at the excessive use of the N-word in Quentin Tarantino’s films. Fast forward a decade or so and Tarantino is involuntarily having this very word cut from his films and Chris Lilley’s shows are being removed from one of the world’s most popular streaming sites. What’s more, one of the most famous movies of all time, Gone with the Wind has also been removed from Netflix because of its portrayal of black characters as “derogatory slave stereotypes”. While Chris Lilley’s series admittedly don’t live up to this American classic film, we must ask ourselves whether erasing art forms and creative accounts reflective of a time period is really useful in society’s battle to become more socially inclusive.

“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” These are the words of former female Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir which perfectly encapsulate the futility of our erroneous and extreme attempts at ‘deleting’ the past.

To me, our obsession with political correctness has made us lose sight of its rationale. In her competition winning essay published in The Economist, Julia Symons posited that political correctness is “a fig leaf for naked prejudice.” To extend her metaphor, it is a mere guise to hide society’s vulgar and entrenched stereotypes. It is simply like patching up a rotting hole in the wall. But instead of covering up this eye-sore, let’s confront it, let’s tear it down and construct a better foundation for supporting our Australians.

The Australia Talks National Survey recorded that around 70% of Australia’s immigrants, whom political correctness seeks to defend, felt that PC has “gone too far” and as a result has lost its protective purpose. So why focus on a rather futile measure to mask society’s blunt racism, when we can do something tangible to support the marginalised. We can create new art forms that don’t portray young Tongan or Sudanese boys as gang members or the Aboriginal man as a drunk wretch who beats his wife, kicks his kids and just got out of gaol. Let’s make them doctors, artists, lawyers, politicians and inspire the future not dwell in the past. Let’s get to know our neighbours, let’s invite them over for a traditional Aussie barbie or go over to theirs for an equally cultural feast. Let us do better and simply include… or else frankly, I don’t give a damn. ‘

Too Far?

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Solitary Confinement Inside Our Own Skins Bella Eames

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A Missing Scene From Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[The sun is fully set on the horizon of the Pollitt Plantation in the Mississippi Delta. Almost all light is eclipsed except for a thin shimmer of orange sun, which becomes slowly suppressed by the deep purple dusk. Brick is by the window and stares through the bamboo shutters, gazing and watching the waning light. One can’t help but think he looks like a prisoner looking through the bars as he does; his face so solemn and wistful, looking for a glimpse of light during his sentence of self-imprisonment.

Brick and Maggie are staying the night at Big Daddy’s property – one of those reluctant visits enforced by Big Mama so that she can see her baby Brick. They are on the upper floor, in Straw and Ochello’s old room – the original fanlights and weathered furniture in the room evokes their presence – imbuing an eerie feeling of gentle haunting. Brick moves away from the bars of his prison, and sits on the very edge of the queen-sized bed (centrestage) – there is an air of discomfort about Brick – one of detachment too – as he fails to commit to lying openly on the bed. The bed frame was Straw and Ochello’s, too – an old wooden frame with carved birds on the corners of the headboards – maybe this is the source of Brick’s unease – or maybe it is the stale odour of must that pervades the room.]

M aggie: [singing passionately, yet unconsciously a song that’s been on the radio recently over the roar of hot water] “Wanna tell you about that man of mine and the reason why I love him so” [Maggie is in the adjacent bathroom taking a shower, where she has – on purpose it seems – left the door half open. The light spills out from the bathroom door to the dark and poorly lit room where Brick wallows alone in sombre thought.]

M aggie: [continuing her song] “Down at the beach when we walk by The other girls give him the eye ‘cause my man stands out Yes my man stands out” [As Maggie sings, Brick still sits on the corner of the bed. He wears only his white, thin undershirt which clings tightly to his toned and muscular frame – despite this he is almost fully exposed – watched like a player on a field. He’s the perfect American man – strong, athletic, handsome, charming,

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completely masculine in his looks – all that Maggie was attracted to seems completely untouched.

Brick’s mindless gazing is interrupted by the ringing of the telephone next to the doorway and Big Mama yelling out from down below; “Brick, there’s a call fo ya!” Brick jolts up – he is quite animated – unusually so – as he skirts around the bed to pick up the phone.]

Solitary Confinement Inside Our Own Skins

Brick : [coolly] Hello, this is Brick at the Pollitt Residence.

Skipper : [in a slow and drawn out speech, goofy as ever] Heyyy there…

Bricky boyyy! Ha ha! I mean Mr Pollitt, sir, uh–hum – Brick : [Interrupting, realising] Skipper ‘sthat you? Y’ been… you been on the bottle, ‘gain?

Skipper : [slurring his words] Naw, Brick… wad’yamean agaiiin? Naw, I just been havin’ a glass or two t’ get me by.

Brick : Aw now, Skipper, that ain’t the way m’friend. Good thang y’ain’t playin’ no more ‘r’else Coach Fossil woulda kicked yo’ drunk ass from here ta North Africa! Ha! Hah… [Brick seems amused but he can’t conceal the confronting feeling of distress in his gut at seeing his friend – his buddy – his Skipper – like this. He chuckles off the comment about Skipper not playing anymore – neither one of the two liked to mention life beyond the glory days.]

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Brick : [retaining the conversation] So, uh, Mr Skipper, what can I do ya for, ol’ pal?

[Skipper responds but his words are inaudible to the audience] Brick : [ beginning to sweat a little and interrupting to brush off the subject] Oh, Skipper, what ‘re you on about you crazy boy! Now, I know we – Skipper : [nervous to set what he is saying straight and interrupting Brick] No Brick... I don’ mean when ya just give an odd tap on the ass on the football fiel’ – I mean I’m sure it’s maw than just that.

After well… ye know… what did happ’n with, uh, Maggie – [Maggie continues to sing the same song she did from before, instead she keeps

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Solitary Confinement Inside Our Own Skins

repeating the final line of the chorus; “I’m crazy about the way ma man – stands – out!” punctuating it with different pauses to give the line a new emphasis. She is out of the shower and spraying her rose-petal perfume with an atomizer. The soft sweet smell diffuses the room, but Brick recoils his head in disgust as he gets a waft of the sickly-sweet aroma.]

Brick : [now a tad more frustrated with his ‘friend’] Now Skipper, listen here, you don’t have t’ listen to a damn word that woman says.

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Skipper : Nooow you listen’a me Bricky boy ... [ he takes an audible gulp of his drink, exhaling and then drawling] ahhhh. When I was makin’ love to your woman – well – when she was makin’ love ta me – she’d loudly call out yer name: “Brick”, “Brick” in a kinda way that made me thaink ‘bout when we use’ta throw the ball aroun’ on the footbawl fiel’. Ya know, when I’d throw you those high passes … “BRICK!”, I’d yell, and you’d catch ‘em – ever’time.

[Skipper continues, with some lament] Well, I always thought we’d had something to protect between you’n’me – somethin’ to shield from the bumpers ‘n’ the tacklers on-field.

[Maggie edges open the door, now humming.]

Brick : [ fretting, but gradually angering] Wha’, wha’dyamean, Skipper?

We ain’t nothing but two good friends with a healthy, clean, platonic relationship [ he says this last part with seething diction]. Now I ain’t no fairy – no – duckin’ – SISSY. [Maggie enters the room, hair wrapped up in a towel, slinking around the bathroom door in a silky, satin nightie – her eyes fixed, tearing Brick’s appearance with her gaze. He frets – consumed with panic – and suddenly slams down the phone without another thought. He takes in deep heavy breaths, still in shock about Skipper’s confession. Maggie pounces, planting kisses on his firm jawline. All he can do is squirm, tilting his head away in disgust – with Maggie – with everything – with himself.]

M aggie: Oh, my Brick, he still looks fit enough to play the game. [ The lights dim on Maggie kissing – consuming – her husband – like a lioness would its kill.] ‘

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“History is written by the victors”. A quote most commonly attributed to Sir Winston Churchill, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom who most famously led the allies to victory in World War II, and liberated Europe from Hitler and the Nazis. A national hero, who, after his death has been memorialised with monuments and museums, namesakes and avenues. So, I’m sure you can see why it came as a great surprise to me and many others when I heard that this icon, that this global hero, that the very man who had sought to destroy white supremacists in 1940, had found himself being labelled one 80 years later.

Let me give you some context. Last month, a statue of Winston Churchill in London’s Parliamentary square was defaced with the words “was a racist” spray painted over its concrete pedestal. This act was committed in the wake of the current Black Lives Matter protests, that were reignited following the unjust killing of George Floyd by U.S police officers and is one of many. Of U.S confederate statues being toppled and vandalised, and of British colonial monuments being destroyed and painted over. In response to what he deemed was an “absurd and shameful” act, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Black Lives Matter activists to focus on addressing the issues of today, rather than trying to “edit or censor” the past. And upon first consideration, this viewpoint seems fair. Vandalising such a beloved figure in history seems unjust, violent and radical. But when you look deeper, you will find that underneath this rather superficial debate of statue toppling is a more profound discussion of how we choose to honour those who manage to go down in history. It is a discussion of how biased, how mythologised history can be, and one that ultimately comes down to the quote from Winston Churchill himself: “History is written by the victors”.

So how does this quote relate to statue toppling? Well, first we need to look at the significance of statues themselves in history. From Ancient Egypt, to Colonial America and 18th century Australia, erecting statues has always been a part of our human nature. And tearing them down, well that too has been ingrained into the human psyche. Take Ancient Rome, where 26 statues of former emperors were taken down by the Emperor Constantine to signify his new reign, or more recently following the collapse of the Soviet Union, where monuments of Stalin were toppled to make way for a new era free from dictatorial communism. So why do we build these statues?

Winston Churchill...

Susan Fang Orator Of The Year Finalist

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Winston Churchill...

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Well, as historian David Olusoga suggests “statues are about adoration. They’re about saying this man was a great man and he did great things”. Thus, when we build a statue, we perpetuate a story that tells onlookers and passers-by that this person is worth honouring.

That they should be adored. That they were solely great. And when you begin to see that the very purpose of constructing statues is to idolise, glorify and deify, it becomes far too easy to understand why the presence of confederate statues and colonial monuments is so problematic today. Because, figures like Stonewall Jackson, who fought for the confederacy, in other words, who fought for slavery, and men like Edward Colston, who was a slave trader, or our own Lachlan Macquarie, who authorised the killing of 14 Aboriginal Australians in the Appin Massacre may have been considered great men of their time, but certainly cannot be seen as solely great men now. Yet, by allowing these statues to remain, we allow for these men to be immortalised and revered and we allow for a history, one that was written by the white colonisers and the white slave owners, the victors of the time, to go on.

In this context, statue toppling becomes an act of defiance. One that provides an opposing reality to the glorified myth, and an act that instead of erasing history as Boris Johnson believes, actually uncovers truths from our past that these statues try to omit. The importance of statue toppling is elucidated further when we consider the more ambivalent figures in history, men like Winston Churchill. Now, I’m not sure about you, but when I first hear of the name Winston Churchill, racist is probably the last term that comes to mind. But what history classes have failed to teach me is that very man who tried to destroy white supremacy also believed that “black people” weren’t “as capable and efficient as white people”. He was the same man that refused to send aid to India, one of Britain’s colonies, during the Bengal Famine of 1943 because Indians “bred like rabbits”. He was an imperialist, who believed that colonisation was justified because of a racial hierarchy that put white people at the top and black and indigenous people at the bottom as “primitive” and “uncivilised” races.

He was… to be brutally honest… racist. And when Boris Johnson and others painted the graffitiing of his statue as being akin to blasphemy, they too contributed to the subtlety that now defines systemic racism.

Because racism is no longer a maniac committing genocide on a whole people. It is no longer a white man owning hundreds of slaves

and forcing them to work tirelessly like animals. We have moved on from that. Racism now, is seen in the judging glares. It’s seen in the police automatically thinking you are dangerous because of the colour of your skin. It’s seen in the looming statues of men you knew abused your ancestors, that still tower over you when you walk past. Toppling statues topples the idealised version of history that has been written to preserve white supremacy. Toppling statues debilitates racism. And while Britain’s Prime Minister may tell statue topplers to “tackle the substance of the problems and not the symbols”, the fact is, that the symbols of racism are as racist as the actions themselves. And to defend and honour them instead of condemning them is to allow for racism to not only be a figment of our past, but a reality of our present.

And finally, while I’m at it, let me topple another little myth for you.

Winston Churchill didn’t actually say “History is written by the victors”, but as history goes, this quote along with many others soon became attributed to him. We begin our long path to ending racism by first acknowledging the symbols and myths that allow for it to continue.

And who knows? Maybe in the future, when the statue of Winston Churchill or Edward Colston is retrieved from the dust, the words “was a racist” will be recorded as the signifier of a new era for humankind.

Winston Churchill...

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Corinna

Soul of Tasmanian Tiger Died 1933, Tasmania

Susan Fang

Genocide

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My life began in a warm darkness. Snuggled deep in my mother’s pouch, for the first few months of my life, I was unaware of the brightness that existed outside. My blissful state of peace was only temporary however, as early in my youth, my mother was shot by a farmer who had spotted her looking for food near his sheep pen.

She had only been looking for a small possum as a meal, but the farmer, having already lost three sheep to hungry foxes that month, was suspicious. Looking back, I can understand the farmer’s desperation to blame something for his misfortunes, but at the time, I was left in despair at the premature passing of my mother, mourning with it the loss of any connection I had to my bloodline and heritage.

In a surprising twist of events however, my first interaction with a human was tinted with a sense of ironic duality, as although the farmer had shot my mother in a desperate rage, when he saw my little head peeking out of my mother’s pouch, he decided to take me in. Perhaps it was an expression of guilt for his cruel actions, or maybe it was simply a form of reconciliation for my mother’s sacrificed flesh, I cannot be sure. However, yearning for warmth once again, I embraced his offer, and found myself being transported to a small outdoor shed, where my new life lay awaiting.

Assimilation

What followed this unusual day were a few unusual years wherein I tried my hardest to fit in with my new family. Consisting of a litter of pups and a sheepdog mother, I was initially met with low threatening growls before being reluctantly accepted in after the matriarch was persuaded by a few pats on the head by the farmer. I later came to realise that this behaviour was normal for the mother dog. She would always look for the farmer after successfully fulfilling her duties to receive her treasured pats on the head, and sometimes would even neglect her motherly responsibilities just to catch the eye of her beloved. However, it was not this confusing display of behaviour that interested me the most, but rather the

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farmer’s reactions to her pleas. At times he would lovingly caress her, as if she was his human offspring, but at other times, especially when I could tell she was forlorn after a hard day, he would beat her with a ferocity that I had never seen, not even in the threatening growls of the mother. Looking back, it reminds me of my first encounter with the farmer, his cruelty as a backdrop to his eventual kindness. But I suppose that must have been the attractive charm of humankind, for the mother dog would always return after her beatings to demand for affection once again.

As confused as I was, witnessing the countless repetitions of this same curious scene, it was among my peers, where I felt the most out of place. Although I was taught in all aspects to be like a pup, I still found myself questioning who I was. It seemed having a love of dog food was simply not enough when actually embodying the spirit of a dog. When mother dog would tell stories of their ancestors, of great wolves who had come to Australia to serve their human masters, I could not help but question my own identity. Was I too a descendant of one of those great wolves, perhaps the product of one mating with a creature long-gone? I could never be sure. In times like these I would look back to fading memories of my mother.

I’m sure she would have been able to provide me with some insight, or just comfort me as one of my own.

My questions of self-identity were soon answered when stripes began to appear on my back, leading the other pups to label me: ‘jungle tiger’ and shun me from their group. My change in appearance also provoked looks of concern from the farmer, whose eyes began to flicker with anger once again. It was this ostracisation and fear that led me to finally venture out into the world, this time, truly alone.

Corinna

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Self-Determination

My years alone allowed me to gain knowledge and wisdom. I learnt how to hunt properly but went days without food when I had to.

Despite my newfound independence, during this time, I also developed a paralleling desire for a mate, and I found myself wandering for days on end, only thinking about finding one of my own. My desperate search for a mate was interrupted however, when one day, I was greeted by a soul, who had been circling around the large red gums that shaded the soil.

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“What are you searching for?”

When the soul spoke, its surroundings echoed. The leaves fluttered, the earth trembled, the branches on the trees swayed.

“Who are you?”

“The remnants of a people long gone. I would have been able to greet you properly if it were not for the white ghosts who destroyed everything. I even gave you your name: Corinna.”

I was confused. “Corinna? I have never heard that name before!

Are you sure you recognise me, or have you simply confused me with another creature long-gone?”

“What has happened to you Corinna? We have been linked for decades, for centuries. What are you looking for when you cannot even recognise yourself?”

“I am searching for a mate, but I have not yet found one of my kind.” I admitted hesitantly, slightly offended by the soul’s condescension.

The soul seemed to be amused by my desperation. “You will not find one of your kind here Corinna. They have taken them away and they are gone now. It seems it is always the innocence of your kind that attract cruel creatures like those white ghosts.”

“What do you mean they have gone?”

“I also did not notice my people were disappearing until they were all gone. They kill discreetly you see, first it is one, then as they get angrier, they kill a few more, then they feel they are getting good at killing so they kill hundreds. You think you are alone, away from them now, but soon you will come to realise that even in your solitude, they will still be there, watching and destroying. You two are inextricably linked you see? When you finally come to realise just what these animals have done to you, you will find you will have nothing left. No one to guide you, no one to mate with you, nothing.

All you will see are backs turning away from you. And then you will be nothing.”

After its lecture, the soul continued circling around the red gums.

I took that as a sign I should leave, and wandered off once again, now with the thought of finding a mate far in the back of my mind.

Protection

This time, my loneliness was not prolonged, as during one of my daily searches for food, I stumbled across a conveniently sized cage,

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filled with my favourite: fresh meat. It was in this moment, that in my delusion (after weeks of lonely wandering) or maybe my first moment of clarity that I voluntarily stepped back in the realm of the human, hungry for interaction once more. My plan succeeded, as the next night, I was brought to my final home: The Hobart Zoo. To my delight, only a few days after my arrival, I found my life goal being fulfilled as I was paired with a female dingo mate.

However, despite my eagerness upon our first meeting, I was only greeted in return with low threatening growls and a general lack of desire for any form of communication, so I gave her space and once again found myself alone. ‘

Corinna

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Challenging Pauline Hanson’s “It’s OK To Be White” Susan Fang Pesa State Finalist

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It’s OK to be white. A statement that has been plastered around U.S college campuses, advertised on graphic tees in a New Zealand auction shop, debated worldwide by the online community, and a phrase that in 2018 found its way into the mouth of our very own Pauline Hanson, the leader of the right-wing One Nation Party, and a frequent woman of controversy in our news. Usually tangled in headlines scrutinising her nationalistic and extremist approach to politics, this unusual controversy left me and certainly many others in a state of confusion. In October 2018, Pauline Hanson brought up a notion urging senators to acknowledge the “deplorable rise of anti-white racism” by imploring them to recognise that it’s ok to be white. The vote resulted in a narrow defeat, 28 for to 31 against, and there was an outrage in the media, condemning Hanson for using a phrase that they said originated from white supremacy. Evidently, I had some questions. Because exactly when did an innocently logical phrase like this end up in Pauline Hanson’s far-right vocabulary? When did it become one associated exclusively with white supremacy? And why is it so wrong to use it?

Because it is ok to be white isn’t it? It’s ok to be any race for that matter, however after much research. I have come to the conclusion that the true problem that lies beneath this seemingly benign phrase is not with its literal meaning. It’s with its social context.

Only in its context do we see a cultural meaning that transcends its literal one, and a hint of the estranged political climate of our future.

We see a new era of extremism masked by subtlety.

And in our current society, it is this kind of subtlety that matters most. In an era where political correctness has become more of a social norm, the emphasis is placed less on what you are saying than how you are saying it. So, what is the context behind this wolf in sheep’s clothing? It’s ok to be white is a phrase first coined in an American messaging board site: 4chan, with the goal of triggering and trolling the media and left-wing activists, which I must say, it did do. However, as time went on, white supremacist groups and extreme nationalists took it on as a slogan, one that advocated for their claims of anti-white racism. And this is where the confusion comes in. A confusion between the literal meaning that the phrase initially had, and its cultural meaning, one that is produced against a backdrop of racism in America, with the Black Lives Matter movement taking place while this was unfolding. In order to clear

up this confusion, we must ask ourselves, is using this phrase really a sign of assurance for victims of anti-white racism or is it a phrase that is simply there to mock and to undermine other movements against racism? Because for me, when it is considered alongside its context, the phrase it’s ok to be white can only be harmful.

Yet, this is a consequence that is veiled by a mask of innocence.

As Matthew Flisfeder perfectly sums up in his article “The trouble with saying ‘it’s ok to be white’: this phrase “creates the confusing myth that the ruling ideology is the resistance.” And that is the true danger of this term. It misleads the general public to believe that the oppressors are the oppressed. It paints the bourgeoisie as leading the revolution. By saying it’s ok to be white, we generalise that it is not ok to be white in our current society, a statement that simply does not ring true for the majority of our population. We centre a spotlight on the rare issue of anti-white racism by discarding our ongoing problems of all other racism to our peripheral vision. And misdirecting this spotlight has much greater consequences than we may think.

It disregards the founding of our country, where thousands of our Indigenous people were massacred and killed by white invaders.

It overlooks that the White Australia Policy ever existed and tosses aside the Cronulla riots of 2005 against our middle-eastern community, and the 2009 attacks against Indian students in Australia. But most of all it forgets that racism is still very much alive and thriving in Australia today. Despite priding ourselves on being a multicultural country with “boundless plains to share”, the truth is that we still have so many issues that echo our racist past.

Even nearly two years after Hanson’s motion in the senate, it still seems that little has changed. In the current situation of covid-19, where our whole global community still attempts to remain connected while apart, acts of division in the form of racially motivated hate and abuse are being hurled towards the next scapegoat, our global Chinese community. The resurgence of racist slurs, vandalism and violence all signal a new wave of racism. And as this new wave grows, a clear message emerges: Racism was never eradicated from our colonial roots; it was never abandoned or used to victimise the very people who began it. It has simply only been passed around like a historical burden from one minority to the next. Before Pauline Hanson urges the Senate to acknowledge that

Challenging Pauline Hanson’s “It’s OK To Be White”

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Challenging Pauline Hanson’s “It’s OK To Be White”

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“anti-white racism is well and truly rife in our society”, she must understand that racism has been rife in our society from the very beginning and is still prevalent today. Saying it’s ok to be white only puts anti-white racism on a podium, higher on the priority list than this racism, and that cannot be tolerated.

Despite just being small string of words, “It’s ok to be white” holds origins of racism and white supremacy. It is a phrase that has become weaponised by an age of politics defined by manipulation and chaos. It is one that marks an intrusion of alt-right ideology into mainstream politics and one that has been used by Pauline Hanson to trivialise the racism that has been in this country since its very beginnings. It is a phrase that should be admonished and criticised, condemned and denounced. Because using It’s ok to be white, well that…that’s just simply not ok. ‘

Up the grandiose stairs, around the balustrade, beyond the landing, down the corridor, to the left, we reach a room haunted by some sense of indeterminable intimacy. A bedroom, hemmed in by perennial walls that whisper an indecipherable echo, and with fanlights (transoms shaped like an open glass fan) above the door – whose panes of blue and amber pass tones of tawny gold mixed with opalescent flecks from the corridor – a tender light that bounces off the bathroom tiles, liquor cabinet, and the weathered wood of a big double bed, until it reaches our antique, long oval mirror in the far corner. And it is here that, for some reason wholly unnoticed by visitors, the light pauses. For one, brief moment, the relentless agitation of burnt summer light, stops. And then, it bounces back onto the tiles, the cabinet and so forth…

But it is here, at the mirror, where life slows and one is confronted by our seemingly impenetrable pane of polished metal, that we begin, or end (whichever angle you decide to look at it). For we, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello, the original owners of the place who have shared this room all our lives, are the culprits behind this poetic haunting: the ghosts that are simultaneously subconsciously and consciously evoked within the psyche of those who enter. We have watched quietly, unobtrusively, as the years have washed past, and have grown accustomed to the hazy curtain on mendacity cast over our mirror’s face. And in these early morning hours of another relentless summer night, we, the mirror men, will come face to face, finally, with our truthful encounter.

The night has been uncomfortably punctuated by the groans and moans of the plantation’s sleepless successor on his deathbed. His outcries, drenched with fatigue, have been interjected by his wife’s anxious fussing – “Oh sweetheart, sweetheart” – which have been followed by his gruff “humph”, the agitated rustling of sheets, and then the room has turned silent again. This sequence has been repeated on an episodic loop.

Currently, we repose in a moment of transitional peace. The only sound; the soft, sweet chiming of our mantle clock though the paper-thin wall.

“THAT’S IT! I’ve had it. I’m gonna smash that damn clock!”

A thunderous thud and the tinkling of chandeliers.

“I swear t’God Ida, if you try and stop me” “Big Daddy please, get back here” the woman begs. “Youse is tired

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is all. I’ll go and get you some relief. Just get back into bed I’ll fetch the morphine and a warm cuppa brandy. Be back in a jiffy”.

There is more rustling of sheets and with the rhythm of a charging rhino, the woman’s heavy footsteps cascades down the stairs.

A deep murmur, “thank God for that”, is followed by more rustling, a thud, a groan, heavy breaths, and the sound of awkwardly spaced floorboard creaks. And as we wait quietly, luringly, the ratio of light to shadow between door and wall widens, widens, and a tall, familiar man, fierce and anxious looking, enters carefully through our doorway so as not to betray his weakness even or especially to himself.

“Now. That darn clock” he grumbles, his eyes flitting from corner to corner.

“Uh huh”. Perplexingly, he trudges towards both the mantle clock (which is located on the other side of the room) and us until – “Ouch!” His outstretched hand strikes our cold, metallic surface and he covers his mouth in alarm, muffling any sound that might invite his wife’s intrusion. He lets out a quiet cackle, one that is surprisingly mirthful (quite unlike the bark released at his own crude jokes).

“I guarantee ol’ Straw and Ochello got a good laugh outta that one, wherever they are up there”.

But before he pivots his attention to the real clock on the mantle, he pauses, captivated by the unfamiliar dark circles engrained beneath his eyes, the hollowing of his cheek bones and definition of his jaw. Even inches around his waist that once extended to the mirror’s edges have receded.

“The old man made out of bones has laid his cold and heavy hand on my shoulder…” His voice trails off with smouldering ferocity.

But we can see that his brewing anger is not driven by a fear of what awaits him, but a fear of what he has left behind – of what he has left unsaid.

His moment of reflection is all too quickly interrupted by heavy footsteps, the creaking of the floorboards, the diminishing of light in the corridor. Paralysed, he is too slow, too tired.

“Big Daddy! Sweetheart, what are you doin’ in the guestroom?

You better not have broken that darlin’ mantle clock. Oh thank the Lord it’s in one piece.” Her voice softens. “Come back to baid and

be settled by your pillow, a drink, and the peace of mind that we got a darlin’ grandchild on the way – yais think about that! Our lil Brick junior eh?”

At the turn of her last remark, as if a switch had been flicked, Big Daddy Pollitt is overcome by the trembling and heaving of his hot breath. But as he catches another glimpse of his tired eyes, he finds himself staring, not at himself, but beyond, at us, behind the mirror – haunted by our lingering image of uncommon tenderness, by 27 years of anguish that has been festering with the realisation of his son’s life of imprisonment, trapped behind the same smoke-screen that blurs our mirror. And we ask him: why are you so distressed by the truth? Is now the time to draw back the veil? His brows furrow, but his hand reaches out, and we inhale… ‘‘‘

“BIG MAMA WILL YOU QUIT HORSIN’ AROUND? QUIT LYING TO YOURSELF? QUIT KIDDIN’ ME WOMAN! There’s no kid on the way, and you damn well know it. You know your son” his reflection booms. His wife’s reflection presses a fat fist to her mouth as her chest heaves, but his reflection continues hoarsely.

“Haven’t you noticed the way Brick wiped that kiss of his mouth like his wife had spat on him? I’m dying here woman, and the only thing you do is taunt me with the hypocrisy that I lived with for our son’s entire life! Not even as I lay on my deathbed do you… do you show me the dignity – the dignity of our son, of admittin’ that he has married into society because he is so afraid to accept the tru…”

We remind him of our haunting image, of the cloudy, flickering, evanescent, fiercely charged thundercloud of crisis that brews within his son – of inescapable disgust demanding to be at peace.

Like a tidal wave, the couple’s reflection is inundated by guilt.

“It’s because of us Ida! He drinks because of us! He’s just as mortal as I am Ida, he’s not living, he’s just numbing the pain of life, crawling by day by day. You’re just as much as a cat on a hot tin roof as Maggie is, and Mae is, and even, for Christ sake, I am! Admit it!

Jump off the roof! You know there’s no way in hell there’s a kid comin’ Ida. Just not possible when he ain’t truly living”.

With this final blow, he stares at his wife’s cowering reflection in the corner, as tensed and fatigued as a defeated boxer.

We have shown him that she wouldn’t cry, or yell, but instead coil

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with unremitting repentance, angry at a life wasted, at how time goes by so fast and death commences too early, angry at the realisation that before you’re halfway through, it’s over – and all along covered by the veil of mendacity and fear, it has been nothing more than a life half lived.

And we ask: Do you have the courage Daddy Pollitt? Are you going to run to get the ball over the line? Score this last try with your knees grazed, exhausted by the effort? Or are you going to bow out, without a scratch, having never felt the wind on your skin, seen the blinding sun or hear the roar of the crowd?

He blinks. ‘‘‘

“Come back to baid and be settled by your pillow, a drink, and the peace of mind that we got a darlin’ grandchild on the way – yais think about that! Our lil Brick junior eh?”

At the turn of her last remark, he sighs, and we sigh. The room sighs. And he turns away from us, noticing the crack above our mirror that exposes the milky pallor of stars and moon. Somehow, he overlooks the translucency of his reflection, how it appears almost, faded. ‘

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No theatre, no music, no dancing, no Netflix; No fashion, no paintings, no literature, no gadgets, No philosophy, no history, no language, no art Sounds awful – so, why do we keep tearing this industry apart?

The Arts Matter Charlotte Oakley Orator Of The Year

Imagine a world devoid of imagination, Where the banality of reality overwhelms entire nations.

Where all we know is dystopia, no signs of a cornucopia, Filled with people singing and living, revelling in their culture.

We are sedentary and desk-bound, working like a hound with no reprieve from the boredom that we have crowned.

Look around.

Look at what our arts provide: They are the oxygen in our lungs that keeps us alive.

They are the reason people survive.

They are impossible to qualify or quantify.

Which is why I am not standing here asking for you to believe in maths or science; Both are fundamental, but so is this industry. That’s what art is.

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It is the building block of our formative years, It forms our critical thinking; Helps us differentiate the smiles from the tears.

Remember the songs you danced to, the fairy dress ups when you were three?

The stick figures, the acrostic poems? All of that shaped our identities.

You are art. I am art.

It is pulsing through our veins creating neural pathways to the left sides of our brains.

It is how we tell our stories, it is the backbone of our glories, It is why the pen is mightier than the sword, Because we know that society can be explored Through reading and writing – and frankly it’s a little disquieting When the creative industry that holds up civilisation Is discounted and devalued at the hands of over-intellectualisation.

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It’s funny that it has taken a global pandemic and months of isolation For people to finally realise that they reach for arts rather than calculators in their hibernation.

And while we’re the industry that is first to be hit – our concerts and venues closed and ditched – We are also the very first to be called in for voluntary work – a free show here, a live-stream after work.

The Bushfires meant fundraiser after fundraiser, free show after show, Because passion beats payment, and that’s how show biz goes.

We are not an industry to complain that our services are sometimes exploited, – Used for your entertainment – but… employment is employment, Even when you’re sacrificing your pay for someone else’s enjoyment.

But why wouldn’t we volunteer to share our art with a world in crisis?

Our art is a product of that world, it’s a universal gift and it is priceless.

We love what we do and evidently, so do you – sometimes it is just tough to get through.

Not knowing the next time you will work creates a resilience like no other, which is why we have thick skin when time and time again our industry is left in the gutter.

What we are observing right now is a cultural phenomena, where we are content to reap the rewards of artistic labour without supporting the workers who fostered it That is the underlying epidemic in our nation, And if you trace it back, it starts with our education.

The Australian Curriculum was introduced in 2009, Yet only in 2015 did they think maybe the Arts had a place this time.

This independent statutory body took 6 years to be convinced that the arts were relevant, And now my independent body has 6 minutes to try and sell you it.

There has not been one year in my schooling where my peers haven’t asked me “What do you even do in Drama?”

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Whether it stems from good intentions or a lack of understanding, it still raises an alarm.

Do we actually have to spell out that these subjects are far from bludges, They are multi-faceted, complex and have possibly the harshest judges?

There is no correct answer to your performance, no solution to your folio of artwork, The arts are subjective which is why they’re so selective, so please stop making me justify the merits of my work.

But it’s not your fault that you’re asking these questions.

We’ve just been conditioned to undermine the arts in our reflections Of what is academic and what is not; what is worth the funding and what could be stopped.

Our government is not any better, look at our sector and you’ll understand the aggravation of “Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications” I wasn’t personally aware that Scomo’s late-night Netflix binge was helping Yarra Trams’ networkings Sorry – I know it is an exaggerated illustration of the 650,000 creatives that have to acquiesce to this label of ‘Communications’ According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, due to COVID, this industry has been disproportionately hit With only 36% of our artists left standing in the debris of an economic blitz.

And while the creative and cultural spheres of Australia contribute $111.7 billion dollars to our GDP, Aviation is granted a $750 mil package almost instantly, even though they are a sixth of the size of our industry and bring home only $18 billion to the GDP. So when will we realise that this is a cultural, not a factual discrepancy?

Clearly, we have been indoctrinated to believe that if a field’s priority is entertainment We can take advantage of it, then abandon and shame it Only at the beginning of July – almost 5 months into the pandemic

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A $250 million dollar rescue package was granted to alleviate the panic.

But is it too little too late? With nearly 200,000 of those artists denied the Jobkeeper wage, questioning their fates?

I feel the list of inequities is dull and exhausting, And I have no doubt we will be fighting this battle for many more years 
 So all I urge you to do is to recognise how much of the arts are embedded in your life: This speech, your Spotify playlist, your fashion on a Friday night.

And appreciate the people behind the work that makes you laugh, that makes you cry; Because it is an inextricable part of your life, and is certainly the most important part of mine. ‘

A Missing Scene From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Child’s Play

Charlotte Oakley

[ A fair summer sky that thaws into dusk accompanies Big Mama as she bursts out of the gallery doors from Brick & Maggie’s bedroom. Her body is an entrance in itself, and it quickly catches the attention of the guests on the first floor, as well as Sookey, one of the plantation’s workers.]

Big M ama: Hold your hawses! Big Mama hasn’t said g’bye yet!

G’bye Hugh! G’bye Betsy!

[She laughs like hell at herself and crosses the gallery to her and Big Daddy’s room. It is grand and panelled with faded intricacy. The brass king bed forms the centerpiece of the room – perfectly made – but there is a sense of decay to its centrality – almost like a fountain that has run out of water. Down stage right, there is a mirror and a table, where Big Daddy sits still – relieved? Contemplative? Quietly agitated? – and stares vacantly at the report in front of him. His stillness has a detached quality, and the way Big Mama proceeds as she enters the room shifts entirely from her liveliness in the gallery. The audience should read the room at the same time as Big Mama.]

[Beat]

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Big M ama: [ breaking the silence, tender] Did ya say g’bye to Hugh an’ Betsy? They was waiting to hear from you! I said g’bye for the two of us.

[She pauses to gauge Big Daddy’s reaction – more stillness – so she continues; busying herself and slipping into a stream of passionate, one-sided dialogue ] Well, I just had to rush in and tell Brick & Maggie the news – an’ I am sure Mae an’ Gooper will want in on the celebration too! Oh, I could’ve sworn the dread in my heart lifted as soon as we received that report from the Ochsner clinic. And on your birthday, too! No wonder I’m eaten up with so much joy as of lately. [a shrill laugh that ascends and spans two octaves] Nothin’ but a spastic colon!

Big Daddy: [ firm and distant]Ain’t nothin’ to get worked up over, Ida. You just keep to yourself now – an’ quit buttin’ your old body in places you shouldn’t.

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Child’s Play

Big M ama: [pouting, although expecting the blow] Oh, Big Daddy.

Big Daddy: [overlapping] It was my news to tell an’ you had to take it all for yourself.

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Big M ama: Why – [She begins rifling through the drawers downstage left as she speaks, sifting through millions worth of flashy gems and making an honest effort to fit them over her stubby fingers. She glimpses herself in the mirror, moves on.]

It was never my intention t’ make you feel so – [slamming the drawer shut] unkind about yourself!

Big Daddy: Hell, Ida – [inhaling deeply from his cigar, exhaling his words] The cat is a selfish beast.

[Her restlessness as she walks about the room is an attempt to cover the hurt – she picks and fusses with the door knobs, the brass bed frame – even the black and white figured chiffon dress that falls unattractively off her body, like the rolls of fat on an overfed bulldog.]

Big Daddy: [dismissive and returning to his concern] Did Brick say anythin’ or is he drinkin’ himself back into a pile a’ mis’ry again?

Big M ama: [now standing opposite the bed, stage left] Pile a’ mis’ry? More like a pile a’ indifference! Couldn’t care less about poor Maggie if he tried! The poor girl – an’ she’s so sweet, too. Shoulda seen the little lace dress on her – huggin’ her body like– Big Daddy: I don’t know what Brick’s doin’ drinkin’ with a woman like that at his dispense. She’s too nevous an’ too goddamn desperate. There’s no love in that marriage.

Big M ama: Maybe you don’t need love in a marriage for it to work.

[Beat. In an uncomfortable attempt at being seductive, she lowers herself to the edge of the bed; yet there is an incongruity that is off-putting to Big Daddy. He regards her with a grimace that masks chronic annoyance and disgust. The bed should appear almost too small for Big Mama – like a child’s toy that has collected dust in a neglected cabinet and is only brought out to play every other year. There is an unappealing desperation to Big Mama and she, too, is cognisant of this deep down.]

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[ continuing, keeping face] When a marriage is on the rocks, d’you let it go malignant without tryin’ t’ save it? You use what’s available t’ you. An’ as for Maggie... Her looks haven’t faded one bit… [a sigh] Y’know there must be somethin’ in the air that’s keepin’ all of these women under the Pollitt roof nice an’–

Child’s Play

Big Daddy: [dry] They ain’t under my roof, Ida. They’re on it.

[A cruel pause. Big Daddy moves to the opposite side of the bed to face her.

There is a sense that they have both acknowledged the subtext in their conversation here.]

Big M ama: [In an honest attempt to go back to a world in which you can talk about ordinary matters] Where are your suspenders, honey?

Big Daddy: Why? Big M ama: Well, you’re not goin’ to your own birthday party dressed like– Big Daddy: Why not?

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Big M ama: Because– Big Daddy:I can wear whatever I goddamn–.

Big M ama: Not when you’ve just received a report from the– Big Daddy: Crap, Ida! Big M ama: Here, let me– Big Daddy: I don’t need your– Big M ama: Just let me– Big Daddy: Will you– Big M ama: It’s your birthday–

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Child’s Play

Big Daddy: When will you STOP – TAKIN’ – OVER? [The set does not change, but Big Daddy’s booming voice should shrink the room. There is a suffocating quality to the air, and the walls don’t feel as stable – rather, they should feel as though they are on the verge of collapse.

Big Mama stares at Big Daddy from across the bed with her mouth agape, and gasps before stifling the sound with a jewelled fist. She sits self-consciously on the bed, eyes cast to the mirror downstage, where she glimpses herself in the reflection.]

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[Beat. Big Daddy walks away from the bed.] [under his breath] Bossin’ an’ talkin’ an’ buttin’ your fat old body where no one wants it. Don’t need your goddamn help.

[He exits through the gallery doors to Brick & Maggie’s room for his birthday.]

[Big Mama is left completely alone now, and she feels it. Lost in her reflection downstage, her expression is reminiscent of someone who has encountered a stranger with a familiar face that you just can’t quite place. She mouths to herself: ‘Who are you?’ – a question that, although softly spoken, reverberates through the walls of the Pollitt plantation.] ‘

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A Missing Scene From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Untitled

Tilly Vorath

[ Mae’s footsteps make a fast-paced knocking sound upon the indoor floor boards. They gradually grow louder as she reaches the gallery door, her kitten heels striking the hollow under bellied veranda wood. She stops abruptly, grabbing onto the strong tall wooden pillar of the veranda’s skeleton, with her right hand. Caressing her cheek with her left hand, she stares out onto the plantation that spreads towards the horizon. A wave of relief rushes over her restless face. Unaware of this, Big Mamma is sitting quietly and watching from afar, keeping a steady eye on them. ]

Big M amma: I couldn’t think of one thing that could have got you looking so goddamn depressed.

[ Mae spins quickly around to see Big Mamma. Aware of her lost composure, Mae brushes her dress and tucks her hair behind the ear before she looks up again at Big Mamma. ]

M ae: Depressed! Oh no, not at all, the kiddies just told me how beautiful the sunset was tonight and I just had to come out and see it…and oh isn’t it one of a kind?

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[ Big Mamma nods, shifting her attention elsewhere. The pearl necklace which she is rarely seen without clearly holds much resonance, reminding her of a bygone era, when Big Daddy first wed his bride. Now, the pearls look somewhat ridiculous, as one could swear they look more like a collar worn by the obedient family dog. The strings are suddenly lost within the folds of her neck and chin as she looks back down and stirs her ice tea. Mae pushes herself off the pillar and walks a couple steps closer with that momentum. Big Mamma takes a focused sip of her drink. The children’s screams in the house fade into an ambient buzzing of the crickets.]

M ae: You know, I have to admit this would have to be my favourite place in the world, just right here. There’s something about these strong pillars. I don’t think God himself could rip them out of the ground if he tried to. Being here, I feel like everything comes back into focus. Into perspective, you know? You must feel like that too don’t you Big Mamma?

Big M amma: Yeas… Uh I gotta get back in there and see what’s taking Brick so long.

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[ Agitated, Big Mamma sets her drink aside and pushes herself up out of her chair she had sunk into. Mae rushes over to pick up the drink and hands it back to her.]

M ae: No, why don’t we stay out here for a while… let Maggie run the show for a minute or so. I’ve got all my kiddies dressed in their whites, I’m sure Maggie can manage to make sure he doesn’t take too much longer.

[Big Mamma collapses back within her chair and looks towards Mae with unease. She takes the glass from her and sips the final mouthful of the bronzed liquid. With a single somewhat bothered motion, she drops the glass onto the table top.]

M ae: I love being together in your beautiful home. You are such an accomplished Big Mamma. I could only hope to one day be as fulfilled and successful as yourself. I’ve admired like forever the way in which you have brought your boys up. I too hope and pray that my kiddies have half the opportunities to turn out as successful as both Big Daddy and Gooper, with such strong morals you’ve given them to guide themselves. You’re the backbone of this family.

Big M amma: How incredibly generous. I’m curious, is there nothing you want for yourself? You know... all this can be a bit consuming, I can see that it could be easy to lose track of what really matters to oneself.

[Big Mamma lifts her thick right hand to rotate her wedding band. It merely turns one degree clockwise on her purple swollen finger.]

Big M amma: Coming from your family background. You must have some hopes and dreams of your own, you know...Before Gooper and the kiddies.

[Mae stands silently for a moment, her face stiffens. Feeling exposed, she unsteadily reaches for the railing of the verandah. The sultriness of dusk has revealed sticky heat beads that form across her own decolletage. Unlike the cool droplets that cling effortlessly to the glass pitcher of iced tea.]

Big M amma: Are you alright child? Looks like a cat caught your tongue.

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M ae: Well of course there are things that a girl wants, but surely not as much as she would want a happy healthy family?

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Big M amma: Oh come on, Mae. I know what it’s like. I’ve been where you are, felt what you feel. The grandness of it all, it’s consuming. Us girls, we have to stick together.

[Slowly, Mae can feel the tension in her jaw subside and she releases her grip from the railing.]

M ae: Big Daddy is a fine man with fine things, isn’t he just Big Mamma? Gooper is a fine man too isn’t he just, but we got to give these boys a little pushing in the right direction sometimes if you understand me...oh of course you do!

[Mae spins around to look out at the horizon in a trance, Big Mamma lifts herself up out of her chair and joins her, leaning her weight against the balustrade.]

M ae: The things I could do with a place like this…

Big M amma: Child, you should understand something. This world is not and may never be yours. One cannot genuinely believe they can climb from cotton carnival queen to queen of the cotton plantation. I was brought up for this life. My Mamma and Pa, showed me how. You may have married into this family, but so have I, seamlessly. No sort of pushing and shoving that you describe, then or now. I am exactly where I have always been and exactly where I want to be.

[Mae looks at her in disbelief, utterly taken back by her sudden change of character. Big Mamma breaks her concentration towards Mae as if she too has broken out of a trance. She reaches for her pearls, readjusting the string as if they had just constricted around her neck. Picks up her empty glass and walks toward the front door, before turning around.]

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Big M amma: So maybe all your pushing around just shows that whatever you are searching for is unnatural, just not for you…

[She leaves Mae stunned at the door.] ‘

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Seeing Yourself In The Fictional World Maya Wilsmhurst Allan Patterson Public Speaking Award Winner

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A little girl, maybe five.

She’s sitting on the couch, her eyes are wide.

The screen in front of her shows a face One just like hers...

Excitedly she turns around Look, look, look what she’s found!

No, she tells her brother adamantly It’s me.

Her little arms reach out to the screen It’s almost as if there’s nothing in between Her mother laughs, is that you?

Yeah. It’s me.

It’s me.

Representation matters. Seeing yourself matters. Being able to look at a screen, look at a character and see your own life as the centre of a narrative matters. For Jenna, the image of Chinese American actress Phillipa Soo as one of the central stars of the filmed musical Hamilton, allowed her to see someone who looked like her at the centre of a story and allowed her to finally point to a character and say “its me”.

Hollywood tells stories. And ever since we’re little it’s these stories, in our favourite movies and tv shows, that become the lens through which we see the world. A fictional world as an image of our real one. But for so long these stories haven’t been truthful.

While we’ve largely transitioned away from the blatant examples of whitewashing such as white actor Mickey Rooney playing Japanese landlord Mr Yunioshi in 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the truth is that whitewashing has simply become more subtle, more nuanced, more hidden, with experiences that aren’t white being pushed to the periphery, erased from our screens. 2016 saw 86.1% of Hollywood’s leads cast as white actors. It’s this method of storytelling, underpinned by a racist past and a continually discriminatory present, which reaffirms the place of whiteness as the majority and as the story we want to hear and of all other groups as the voiceless minority.

Personally, I’m lucky. I’m lucky in that as a white female, when I go to the movies, I see myself everywhere. I’m the heroine, the villain, the dumb sidekick, the genius friend… this feeling of being

everywhere is so common to the point where white audiences don’t even notice it anymore. I don’t walk into the cinema and think finally! A white lead… good I can finally relate to a character. So, when I was writing this speech, I struggled to come up with ways to explore it in a way that was truthful to an experience completely different from my own. And I came to this, I’m just here as someone with the privilege of seeing myself, hoping, asking, that everyone gets this privilege. No, not even this privilege. That everyone gets this right.

In his 2019 Ted Talk, Jon M Chu, director of 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, describes his experiences growing up as an Asian-American in the US. 1991 saw young John, a budding director in charge of the video camera on his family holiday. He sat his family down on the couch and pressed play on his home video edit of their trip. Images and videos of them site-seeing, eating and swimming flashing across their living room screen. In his words, “they cried. And cried.”

Not because of the prowess of the 12 year old director’s videoing, but because they saw themselves. They saw themselves as a “normal family that fit in and belonged on the screen in front of them.”

In a 1976 research paper, George Gerbner and Larry Gross coined the term ’symbolic annihilation’. For them, “representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation”. Erasure from the fictional world, from the screen as a means of maintaining social inequality within the real one. As a means of telling someone that their identity, that their story isn’t valued by society, that it doesn’t matter.

But it’s not enough to just see your skin colour on the screen.

You need to be on screen right. Not as a one-dimensional “card board cut [out] that [stands] in the background of someone else’s story” as Latina actress America Ferrara described but as an actual person. As a person with flaws, with complexity, that isn’t reduced to simply being the ‘genius Asian’, the ‘sassy shoplifter Latina’ or the ’troubled Pacific Islander teen’. As Constance Wu called for, what we need is “narrative plentitude” – enough stories with enough different people at the centre so that no one character has to encapsulate millions of diverse experiences.

Recently, world wide media controversy was fuelled by the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Japanese manga character Motoko Kusanagi in ‘Ghost in the Shell’. Defending her casting, Scarlett

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stated that as an actor she “should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal, because that is [her] job”. First of all, I’d just like to say that I think she would make a fantastic tree… But. Any person. Sure, an actor’s job is to create fiction. But. When there are people willing and able to give voice to experiences in a more truthful manner, people who aren’t being given the opportunity to audition, then sorry, but she shouldn’t be able to play that role.

The truth is that Hollywood has the power and the responsibility to shape our view of the real world through their fictional one.

And until that fictional world shows us the truth of the real one, until it stops resisting the multiplicity of voices that defines it, and until it stops erasing experiences, people in the real world are paying the price.

We need to we get to a place where everyone can point at the screen and say “It’s me” but where no one does, where Hollywood’s so used to telling truthful, multifaceted stories that films like Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther don’t make headlines for having an “allminority cast” but are instead celebrated for being funny, and having hot actors, and just being a good story. And where no little girl has to widen her eyes at seeing someone who looks like her, at a story that looks like hers on the screen, because she’s seen it hundreds of times before.

That same little girl, maybe five, She’s sitting on the couch, but her eyes aren’t wide. ‘

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Number 1: Descriptions. Treat Africa as if it was one big country.

Homogenous landscapes and sprawling safari plains. And one, but preferably multiple, emotive descriptions of the big red sunset over the African savannah.

How To Write A Story About Africa Maya Wilmshurst

Number 2: In terms of plot, there are a couple of subjects you can’t include: normal domestic scenes, school children who aren’t suffering from Ebola, or AIDS or living in an impoverished rural community. Pretty much, if your characters sound like us, then you’re definitely doing it wrong.

And finally, Number 3: you must have some vivid descriptions of filthiness, of misery, of extreme poverty. It’s important that you capture the real Africa, for authenticity. Because remember, these people aren’t like us, and this dark continent, Africa, it’s not like here.

This story of Africa, our single story of Africa, is one of catastrophe.

Our single story is one of hopelessness, it’s one of conflict, of poverty, of famine, of death. Our single story, is one of difference.

With only one story presented to us in literature and in the media, we risk a tragic misunderstanding. With only one story, we take away the voices and dignity of people and cultures.

Now, I have to be careful not to oversimplify what is a very complex and nuanced issue. While the media undoubtedly portrays African countries in an oversimplified and stereotypical manner, focusing on images of starving children and war-torn landscapes, it’s undeniable that this characterisation gets results for both the media and for charities. It’s shocking. It’s horrifying. It forces us, as a Western audience sitting on our couches in our cushy living rooms in front of our plasma tvs, to feel guilt and a desire to give.

In 2016, donors from the US alone gave 9.86 billion dollars in aid to countries in Africa and charitable events such as Live Aid have been powerful vehicles for foreign aid, fueled by the power of this single story.

And in many ways, these representations of Africa can be viewed as being anchored in truth. A Malawi woman taking part in a RadiAid research campaign described a Save The Children ad depicting homeless children as “depict[ing] a true sense of what is happening there.” This is a truth that needs to be shown, however it’s not the only truth. What we need to consider is the danger of the single

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story – which exists not in what it provides, but in what it takes away.

Now, let me ask you a question: in the last 20 years, the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has: A. Almost doubled B. Remained more or less the same C. Almost halved This was one of the questions asked as part of Hans Rosling’s Ignorance Project and of the American population he surveyed, only 5% picked the correct answer, C. Yep, the proportion has almost halved. So why are we all so negative about the state of those living in developing countries? Media bias. In order to attract attention, the media focuses on sensationalised accounts of horrors over there that reduce Africa to a place of negatives, that make us sit back and think, wow, I’m glad I live here, I’m glad I’m not like them.

In her 2009 Ted Talk, Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes her experiences starting at a university in the US; her roommate’s surprise at her English fluency, at her lack of ‘tribal music’ and at her understanding of how to use a stove. She states that “her [roommate’s] default position toward her, as an African, was a kind of patronising, well-meaning pity”. For this roommate, and for so many of us, we unconsciously view people from this continent as being completely different from us. We reduce them to objects of pity, and nothing else.

I went to Kenya and Tanzania with my family when I was younger where we visited the Maasai people, a group who live in tiny mud huts and wear traditional clothing. At the time, I’m ashamed to admit that these people were my image of all African people. They all fit under this one single story. A single story in little Maya’s mind that couldn’t account for our multilingual Kenyan tour guide, who was almost fluent in French after having learnt it for 5 months. He simply didn’t fit the story.

Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novel Heart of Darkness, describes African people as a “whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling”. This is not human.

It is this image that is so readily presented to us and which strips away humanity, which exacerbates the divide between “developed” and “developing” between us and “them”.

When we define Africa as only a place of negatives, as only a

story of poverty and alien, backwards cultures, when we define it by only what it does not have… we take away the dignity and the voices of millions of people. In the words of Chimamanda, “stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity”. We need more diverse representations, we need more stories.

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Poetically Haunted

A missing scene from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Maya Wilmshurst

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[ At the rise of the curtain a faded man is sitting in a chair. The setting, like a reproduction of a faded photograph, is gently infused with a soft sepia light, emanating from the slowly dying evening visible through the windows above the bed. The soft glow absorbs some of the harshness from the wooden floorboards and the metal racks lining the walls, as well as from the emotions that will much later be experienced there – that absorption is needed. In a harsher light, the juxtaposition would perhaps betray a stronger sign of deliquescence in the stature of the man, but no, not in this light. The bed in the centre is empty, sheets drawn across perfectly – almost too perfectly – as if to cover for the loss of something; a presence and a tenderness of emotion that was once there. Warm Negro voices seep in, singing “Pick a Bale of Cotton” on the fields out of view. ]

Big Daddy: [unseen, with an ostensible ferocity] Whatcha doin’ at the house now, Billy? You chasin’ around that girl o’ yours? HAH! – I could get me a girl like that one! I swear t’ God I could.

[He guffaws and then pauses abruptly, reasserting authority] Ain’t you got some more work to do out in the fields? Whatcha up here for?

Billy: [softly] Mistuh Peter askt me to get yuh t’come see ‘im.

Big Daddy: Alright. Now y’head on back out there, alright?

[Big Daddy’s steady footsteps approach and he peers through the half-opened door. He is a well-built figure, shirt pulled taut across a body firm after years of working in the fields. His fierce look slowly fades into one of latent tenderness, and you should be able to momentarily imagine him as a boy sitting reading on a father’s lap.]

Big Daddy: You asked for me, sir?

[Ochello doesn’t look up.]

Ochello: Yes, son. Y’know as well as I do that it’s time we talked about your role in the plantation. Now you’ve been overseer here for 10 years now, worked the fields and worked your way up, and it’s time that we start thinkin’ about the next generation of crops, and whose hand will grow them. Because eventually,

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once I’m gone, the plantation’ll need to be handed over to someone else, someone we – I! – trust with it.

Poetically Haunted

Big Daddy: [with a certain tenderness] Why are we talkin’ about this sort a’ thing now? You’re not passed yet.

[The ensuing conversation should be characterised by a distinctive Southern ferocity, spoken quickly with few or no gaps, leaving little room for a truth that may emerge in silence. This truth - inaccessible to Ochello - is the truth of mortality, not as it can be described in broad strokes, but in the nothingness and grief for those left behind.]

Ochello: [not looking up] Because, now, it’s time that we come down to the facts o’ the matter – the truth! – yes, the truth o’ the matter. When this body is finally laid in the ground to have its rest, this plantation is gonna need someone with – [Ochello looks up as if as a lion tamer suddenly aware of the spectators surrounding him in the ring] – the ambition and strength to continue our – my! – legacy.

Son, the human animal is a beast that dies, but the fact that he’s dyin’ don’t stop him from carrying on his work and his legacy in the land he sows.

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Big Daddy: [sharply] I don’t know what the hell you mean by all

this – for God’s sake, what are you tryna say?

Ochello: [desperate] The truth! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Big Daddy: What truth?

Ochello: [ he unconsciously glances over at the bed before quickly and forcibly looking away] The truth – of the human animal and his life and that life ending and of continuing to grow a plantation with his own hands and the hands of – Big Daddy: Crap… Don’t give me that. You haven’t been able to properly see the truth since ole Straw...

Ochello: [cutting Big Daddy off before a truth is revealed to others, and perhaps more importantly, to himself ] HELL! I’ve been living with

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the truth my whole damn life! Isn’t it the truth to build up your plantation from nothin’? To take in a straggler and see him build himself up? Isn’t that the truth? To know – to recognise!

– that the human animal is one that dies, and that once he’s dead an’ gone that there’ll be another to take his place? … [ his voice mellows] Don’t you want to take over this place? Son? [Big Daddy stands with the ball two feet from the goal, but falters.] ig Daddy: This is crap. You know as well as I do that the truth B ain’t any of this. The truth is there.

[He points to the bed, an action imbued with both a ferocity but also a gentle understanding.]

And you haven’t been able to look at that bed for weeks, let alone sleep in it!

[Silence for five beats.]

Ochello: [ betraying something underlying – anger? fear? sadness? A mix of these with perhaps something else] What are you – trying! – to say! [ Big Daddy suddenly takes the pillow from Ochello’s chair and places it onto the bed.]

Big Daddy: [ gently] Sleep here. It’s more comfortable.

[Ochello slowly fades back into his chair. A nebulous orange glow emanating from the dying evening gently coats his broad, but hunched, chest and legs.

More than before, we see that he is a shadow of a man – the rest of whom lies in the softly pulled sheets of a bed he’s refused to sleep in for weeks and in the delicate truth of another man’s heart.]

Big Daddy: Now, you let me know if you want anythin’ alright? I’m just gonna go out there and make sure your fields are bein’ worked right. And then, once this rutten sun goes away, I’ll make sure mine are. I’ll make sure they are, alright?

[Big Daddy moves out of the room and closes the door softly behind him, leaving Ochello once again like a bird in a cage. Beat. He stands up and walks to the bed, carefully so as not to betray any hint of his movement even, or especially, to himself. He takes the pillow back to his chair and sinks down, his eyes drifting to the bed and then forcibly being pulled back. The last glow of the decaying evening finally fades away.] ‘

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A missing scene from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

[At the rise of the curtain, a servant, Susie, is standing in front of the guest room, gripping the sides of a food tray. Her hands are trembling, causing the cutlery to clang discordantly against the platter.

She is suddenly shoved aside by a belligerent Gooper and Mae, who shoot her matching glares of aristocratic contempt. Pools of shadow line their eyes and jittery neuroticism is manifest in their movements – fidgeting hands, darting eyes, and an occasional glare at the other for standing too close. Susie timidly follows behind the couple as they enter inside and starts to tentatively unload the tray onto a nearby table. Brick is standing by the alcohol cabinet with his crutch, serenely bathed by the pale light flooding into the room through an open window. Maggie is luxuriating by the window with a wine glass in hand. She is donning a bright sundress to confront the present day of reckoning, cheeks flushed a delicate, hopeful pink.]

M aggie: [with gleeful mischief ] Why, Sister Woman! Didn’t bring the little pets with you? Golly, they’d scream their lil’ heads off when you get a whole twenty-eight thousand acres of land for them to scamper around on today!

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M ae: [acerbically] Maggie, honey, I’m more worried about your baby.

Ain’t the bump supposed t’ be showin’ by now?

M aggie: Dear thing must be a late bloomer.

[Susie finishes with the tray and obsequiously retreats into the corner to await further instruction. The atmosphere between the two women has become charged, electric.]

M ae: You’ve been doin’ a fine job keepin’ up pretences, but I got proof Brick and you don’t have a baby Maggie’s laugh is shrill and incredulous, but the slightest hint of a tremor permeates her voice. Her troubled gaze drifts outside. Unnatural streaks of crimson and purple create fractures across the sky. Angry thunderclouds encroach the distant horizon.]

Yeah, ‘cos Brick’s not into… See, he and Skipper we-were knockin’ around…

[Maggie blanches and whips around to glare at Mae. Brick freezes in the midst of seizing another bottle from the cabinet.]

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M aggie: Now what– Brick : [ loud, sharp] What do you mean by that?

M ae: You remember Rob, Rob Cross. The joint announcer for the Football Union? See, he’s an ol’ friend of mine and ran into you an’ Skipper a couple of times on the job. There’s always been suspicions about you and Skipper y’see– something uncommon between friends–

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Brick : [with a vice-like grip on his crutch, bellowing] For the last time, it was FRIENDSHIP! [The sudden outburst causes Maggie to yelp in surprise, the glass of wine slipping through her fingers. Drops of the red liquid stain the white carpet like blood.]

The reason you all have to warp this pure an’ true thing me and Skipper had ‘cause all of you don’t got a speck of it! None of you greedy, lyin’ bastards– [In his hurry to down yet another shot, Brick loses his footing and frantically grabs onto the cabinet. Still, he falls hard on his crutch, the fragile wood splintering beneath his weight. Maggie rushes over to help retrieve the fallen crutch but is rebuffed by Brick, who obstinately continues his monologue.]

You all think me and Skipper were queers? Fairies? Is that it? Or is this a ruse to get money, all this mendacity– [Big Daddy suddenly bursts into the room, causing Susie to jolt in fright. In the span of a few weeks, Big Daddy’s athleticism has withered away to reveal a gaunt, haunted old man. Even so, his eyes still glimmer with an unsettling mania. The room has lapsed into a jittery but eager silence upon his entrance.

Their fate hinges on his words.]

Big Daddy: [notices Brick’s scarlet face and broken crutch] What the hell’s goin’ on with you, son?

Brick : [uncharacteristically aggrieved at Big Daddy’s inquiry, launching into a tirade] Goin’ on with me? For this damn house, everyone’s lyin’ and cheatin’ and gettin’ pregnant when they aren– M aggie: [desperately] SKIPPER! [Beat. The deafening sound of thunder rumbles in the distance as Brick and Maggie stare resolutely at each other.]

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We were talkin’ bout Skipper. See, Brick’s been real cut up since his death an’ sister woman brought it up jus’ to get a rise outta him!

Act Four

M ae: Naw, Big Daddy! The thing is – Maggie’s lyin’ about her

baby!

Big Daddy: [slowly] Is that true, Brick?

M aggie: Hold on– Big Daddy: I said BRICK! [Maggie’s fingers are splayed across the pale arch of her throat, her doe-like eyes earnest and pleading as she gazes at her husband. For the first time in a while, Brick looks squarely back at her – no rage, no dismissive aloofness, no hiding behind the hard stuff. It is enough to steal her breath away if she did not realise the bitter inevitability of the truth. But Maggie realises. They all do. Susie squirms in the corner, silently planning her escape.]

Brick : Yeah. There’s no baby.

[Mae and Gooper glance excitedly at each other, their triumph barely concealed behind twitching mouths. Maggie is silent. She simply gazes down at the carpet which has gradually shed its snowy exterior upon getting stained and is now wholly steeped in scarlet wine. Unperturbed, Brick takes another drink, the clink of the wine glass against the cabinet is the only sound in the room. Then, Big Daddy roars with laughter, his guffaws reverberating around the room. He sounds manic, almost hysterical. His chuckles continue for a long while until they transition into a coughing fit.]

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Big Daddy: Yes, mendacity! That’s the name of the game. And all of us – cats! Lyin, dyin’ cats on scorchin’ Earth yowlin’ at each other ‘til we drop dead!

G ooper : [palpably disturbed but trying his best to hide it] Uh… ye-es, but

do you see, Big Daddy? Maggie’s not pregnant! You ain’t leavin’ th’ house to that pair of no-good liars in this inheritance meetin’, are you?

M aggie: [unbroken and furious, she whirls to Gooper with frightening ferocity] Don’t you pretend you haven’t been bringin’ your no-

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Act Four

neck monsters around here to butter Big Daddy up, eyeballin’ the fortune all this time with that bitch!

M ae: [screeching] BITCH? YOU–

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Big Daddy: NOBODY! [In unison, the family turn to stare at him.]

NONE OF YOU LYIN’ SONS OF BITCHES ARE GETTIN’ ANYTHIN’!

[Brick begins snickering, but he is soon drowned out by the confused, incredulous yelling of other family members. Amidst the chaos, Susie slips out of the room. As she scurries down the hallway, an open window draws her attention.

Outside, the storm is still on the horizon. However, the twilight sky is now unexpectedly suffused with tender, blending hues of light pink and amber.

The sun has set at last.]

THE CURTAIN COMES DOWN THE END ‘

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Scribo, Scribere, Scripsi, Scriptus: Verb – To Write

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