6F – House

It’s one of the perils of being a serial renter. You know you’re always going to move on eventually. And you are told to leave nothing behind. Not a scratch. Even an absent minded phone number scrawled under the sill can cost you. As far as the house is concerned, you no longer exist. You become a former resident, and some return to sender mail is the only sign you were ever there. Not that I’m getting all emotional about it or anything. Four and a half years is an incredible run when you’re used to six months here, eight months there. It’s even better when you’re paying next to nothing in rent. Thank God for disinterested landlords.

You also know that these things won’t last forever. Renovations caught hold of the street like some kind of reverse disease, the scabs all shiny and upmarket. It was only a matter of time before someone realised that the same makeover could turn my house into a nice little earner.

It’s funny, I still call it my house.

So I found myself on the bus back to the old neighbourhood, creeping through some familiar streets, like I’m moving on autopilot. My feet carried me from the bus stop while my mind was somewhere else, off baking in the heat. And as the day crept on to dusk the odd familiar chord would ring out – a brick wall, a window frame, an unintentional splash of paint on the footpath, worn over by thousands of footsteps. Not things you remember exactly, but just things that feel right, that add up.

And here it is. The street. I’ve walked down it in bright sunshine and through downpours, thunderstorms. I’ve seen each of the streetlights short out when it was their turn. I know the bits of concrete that never got repaired, the odd sections that would wobble faintly as you walked across them. I’ve watched the tree roots begin to push their way through bitumen, showing the flimsy man-made stuff what a little bit of patience can do. The cars are more modern now, got a bit of money behind them. There’s an Alfa, an Audi, a couple of nice, respectable Toyotas, a few I don’t recognise. But no new Minis. You know the ones. About as empty as any other renovation on the street. They’ve become almost a mandatory for this area. But I can’t see any tonight.

The house? That’s it there. They’ve only just started work, really. Oh, some small details have changed, but it feels more familiar than different. If I shut my eyes, I can still remember it exactly how it was. There’s an upper room with the balcony. My room. Then there’s the spare room behind it, with the built-ins where I found the old shoebox, hidden in the space between the cupboard and the wall; somebody else’s attempt to leave something permanent behind. Then take a left and follow the stairwell down to the bathroom, a trip you quickly learn to do in near darkness. I wonder what’s changed? The balcony’s been done, sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the bones of it are pretty much the same. And you know they kept the floorboards. People love the old world details. They’re happy with a coat of paint and a layer of varnish.

So you’ll excuse me if I sit here for a while and try to soak up some of the memories. I’m not going to disturb anyone. I’m well out of the way.

Lights. I can see inside. Past the very modern painting they’ve thrown up on the wall, like a canvas that got caught in a fire but was too valuable to throw away. She’s standing at the doorframe, her hand resting on the switch, like she’s forgotten what she’s doing there. The new resident. I almost feel like I’m watching an intruder.

Of course, its not the first time I’ve seen her. She’s come into this front room on a few of my visits. I sit under the same tree and watch her. There’s something fascinating about this intruder, the way she moves. All pauses. She’ll stop and wait, like she’s listening for something, or like she’s looking for something, and I’ll get the tiniest prickle of adrenaline. But then she’ll snap out of it and go right back to what she was doing. It’s amazing what you can learn about someone just by watching. She makes these phone calls. I don’t know who she’s talking to, but they look like the most amazing rows. She usually leaves the room crying. She’s clumsy too, clumsy or edgy. I’ve already seen two glasses and a vase go down. Sometimes followed by the slightly useless boyfriend, running in to help and sweep up and be comforting. But he’s not here tonight. His car is nowhere to be seen. I even checked the back lane and a few blocks either way. No Mini.

I watch her come to the window. She looks out, this trespasser in my house. For a second I wonder if maybe she can see me, but that’s unlikely – its dark, and the shadows here under the tree are enough to leave me sitting here undisturbed. And then she pulls at the cord, and the blind tumbles down.

My hand slides into my pocket and tumbles my old key over and over. I brought it with me this time. I wonder if it still fits.

5F – Squid

I could have had secretive parents. The ones that keep you locked up, hidden from view, wearing jumpers and long sleeved shirts your entire life so that nobody would need to know. All until you’re old enough to hide yourself. But I didn’t have parents like that. I had the “we love our son no matter what, and we’re proud of him” kind. Which I guess I can’t really fault them for. They wanted everyone to get over it and just accept me for the unique, special boy that I was.

Unfortunately, it never quite works out that way.

It never affected them – they would never let it. Because that would mean that they were ashamed of me on some deeper level, and that would be like pulling out the last, fateful ker-plunk stick on the whole business. So I’d come home with bruises and the odd torn shirt from some dickhead who “just wanted a look” and we’d all do our best to act like it wasn’t all having some kind of permanent affect on my mental health. Hold your ground, look them straight in the eye – good advice for anyone who wants a crystal clear shot of an oncoming fist. And, just to make yourself even more popular, be sure to report all transgressions to the teachers.

The TV show had started it all. They tried to set it up by showing everyone how apparently normal I was. How adorable I was. How proud they were of me. The studio was tingling with positive vibes. I sat and waited in the big armed orange chair, my legs kicking, just scraping the ground. The presenter sat down next to me, not nearly as beautiful as she had looked on the box. She stared at me with hard eyes, like she’d wanted something from me. Something big. She paused awkwardly for a second, and then asked me if I would pull my shirt off. And, dumb little kid that I was, I obliged her, my mum and dad watching me, holding hands, wanting things to be right so bad that the veins popped out on their necks.

At first, the audience just saw a run-of-the-mill skin condition, and let out a small moan of pity. But I wasn’t done with them yet. The camera zoomed right in, following the curve of my arm, and the bumps grew more and more detailed on the screen. It was time for their closeup. Of course, no-one’s surprised by it now. Everyone’s seen so many photos of my suckers, the stubble of little fleshy suction cups that cover the inside of my arms, my chest. But this was their first big outing. My squid-limbs. They cut to a sober off-camera interview with a doctor. Our doctor. He did pretty well out of me, that doctor. Aside from the TV appearances, he managed to drag no less than fifteen papers out of my skin, plus several books on cellular mutation and theories on junk DNA being recycled, or something. Even got to name his own syndrome, Barrich’s. Which has got to be any doctor’s wet dream.

So there I was. Exposed to the world. Standing there with my proud parents.

“Do you ever feel… uncomfortable? Having such an unusual child?”

My dad stepped up. Here was his chance to show the whole world how incredibly normal I was. And in his estimation, normal meant that you weren’t self conscious about it, that you could joke about it, that you even went so far as to have nicknames, nicknames like…

Suddenly I knew I didn’t want him to say it. It was our name. They wouldn’t understand. But I couldn’t stop him.

“Squid”.

The audience had been see-sawing between wanting to feel sorry for me, and feeling quite uncomfortable with the fact that they were in the presence of a bona fide, genetically mutated, can’t turn away from car accident of a freak. They did the only thing they could. They collectively burst out laughing.

It wasn’t a chuckle. It was a deafening roar.

Suddenly I was naked. Defenceless. My dad, the unintentional instigator of the riot, didn’t quite know what to do with himself. My mum had gone pale. The presenter looked around desperately, like this wasn’t the Logie-winning performance she was looking for.

They cut to a commercial. I ran.

But that was a long time ago.

I wasn’t interested when the studio called me about their “where are they now” special. But I was interested in the money. Let’s face it, I’ve got nothing left to hide. No parents left to mortify. I’ve long since given up on the idea of having a normal life, so why not ride the wave? And why not make a buck while you’re doing it? So I found myself back in the studio, getting made up, waiting to go back on the box. I sat, waiting in the chair, and just stared at myself in the mirror. She walked in, quietly shut the door and slipped the lock into place.

Her face was different, lacking all the blackened teeth and horns that I’d drawn on thirteen years worth of TV guide covers. Despite the obvious changes everything about her was softer than I remembered, more beautiful. She started with the buttons of her shirt, releasing them even as I felt everything else tighten. I sat there and didn’t say a word, watching her unfold in front of me. She pulled me to my feet, dragged my shirt over my head. I just followed, regressing, the dumb kid all over again.

I remember her breathing the words into my ear.

“I’m sorry”

And I remember how good it felt to have her arms wrap around me, and how it tingled when her little suckers grasped the skin on my back.

4F – Cali

Her hand brushed against its skin, much rougher than she’d expected, almost coarse. She stopped. For just a moment everything seemed still, like in a movie, the sound dropping away and the camera slowly panning around her. And then it was all back on in a rush. Someone was yelling something about the blowhole, she was throwing water over it, people on either side pushing and heaving. She knew it was dying, and they were running out of time.

She glanced down the beach. There seemed to be an endless line of them, all the way down to the headland. Reports had come in from everywhere – one after the other, they were making a suicidal rush to the shore. She looked over her shoulder. A cameraman was taking photos of her. Brave Cali, desperately trying to save the dolphins. Her face was all determination now. She started yelling instructions at the group, ignoring the looks that some of the older ones gave her. The cameras framed her perfectly – the girl who brought all of us closer to the ocean, caught in the middle of an environmental disaster.

Anyone who had read Cali’s seahorse and starfish encrusted myspace page knew that music and the sea were the two great currents that shaped her life, a claim she’d penned as proudly as her favourite lyric. And now that her career was taking off, it seemed like her fate was tied to the sea more than ever. She’d had a few stumbling releases that got her a bit of attention, but “Down to the Sea” had taken everyone by surprise. The strange, slightly discordant melody had hit a nerve in the general population, and everything since was a blur. The packed concerts, the interviews, the… well, the parties had been pretty good too. It wasn’t like she’d forgotten how to have a good time. The protests, they were still very close to her heart, although she didn’t get to as many of these as she would have liked. She’d become more of an ambassador, speaking out about pollution, about how plastics were destroying sealife, about the threats to the reef. But she’d learned that there was only so much that one person could do. She would have to be satisfied with being the inspiration for millions. And that wasn’t so bad, was it?

“Down to the Sea” was the song she’d always wanted to record. At age nine she’d been swimming and found herself caught in a powerful current. She could remember only small moments – coughing through the foam, trying desperately to breathe, slipping beneath the surface. She remembered everything going dark. And suddenly, she’d stopped struggling. She felt protected, comforted. She’d come to on the beach, choking on seawater, bile and seawater burning through her nose, her mum hysterical with relief. And there was this little tune stuck in her head. A strange, slightly dissonant melody that she’d never been able to forget. That was the start of her fascination with music. She’d picked up the guitar a few years later and fallen in love almost instantly, the six strings so simple in some ways, but so full of endless possibilities. And every so often, she’d pull the odd tune out of the back of her head and pluck around it, never quite capturing it. She’d done the singer/songwriter circuit for a while, recorded a few EPs, even headlined a few shows. She was always told she had a beautiful voice, but her songs never really seemed to stick with people, they were almost cloud-like; just as you began to recognise something in them they drifted away into another shape.

And then one day the funny little tune just clicked. It had taken two guitars, one detuned, and several heated arguments with the engineer. Technically, it shouldn’t have worked, and on their own each of the elements of the song sounded pretty horrendous. But when they were played together, somehow the result was magical. Suddenly she was playing massive shows, meeting people, being interviewed about ocean conservation, picking up awards…

She looked around, and saw hundreds of people running across the beach. She wondered how many of these people were actually here because of her. Because she’d awakened their own love of the oceans. Because of her song.

They continued to work. A news crew had come down for an interview. But the animal was weak, and fading fast. They tried desperately to get it into the shallows, but it was dying. Cali was sobbing on national TV, and the whole country ached for her. Donations to the emergency fund had been pouring in all day. Sales of “Down to the Sea” were through the roof as well, and the airwaves were choked with it – it was on high rotation on every radio station on the eastern seaboard. In the midst of the immense tragedy that was unfolding on beaches all the way down the coast, the song had become a rallying cry. People had abandoned jobs, businesses, long planned holidays and driven for miles just to help out, to join the struggle on whatever beach touched the hearts of their family, to try to turn the magnificent creatures back to safer waters.

And suddenly he was swimming. Slowly at first, he slipped out past the breakers and into deeper water, and then was gone. News choppers got shots of him heading for deeper water. Cali’s dolphin. Too tired to cheer, most of the rescuers stood there, hands on knees, breathing, preparing themselves to move on to the next animal. Cali stood and looked through shimmering eyes up the beach. There was a tent set up to provide refreshments for the rescuers. Next to it, someone had made a makeshift stage and rigged up some impressively large speakers. They kicked in to life and she heard it, from the first atmospheric swish that she knew better than anyone – her song. One by one, the crowd lifted their heads, and looked up. Cali felt an immense warmth spread through her. Even if she never had another song, even if she never really made it, her life would be special because of this one moment. She had changed the world.

The song played on. As the frequencies of two melodies and Cali’s strangely beautiful voice wove in and out of each other, it created a strangely dissonant chord, almost imperceptible to the human ear. Out to sea, Cali’s dolphin heard the song. Danger, it said. Help. Overcome by instinct, he kicked madly for the beach.

3F – Ice and Milk

He stepped out and waited for his eyes to adjust from the artificial daylight of the convenience store. Ice cream afterimages quickly began to fade into the fascias of darkened buildings, shut down for the night, grated, locked and silent. He twisted his right hand around the bag of ice to get a better grip. That was what she’d needed. Ice and milk. His left swung with the milk, a smaller bottle, synthetic and a little slippery in his hands. He stepped past a glowing Korean restaurant and glanced inside. It was closed, undergoing renovations, and the owners were still at it, attempting to attach some kind of woven screen to the glass. It was almost comforting to see someone else up and about. They had their job to do, and he had his. Ice and milk.

It was strange, walking down a street at one a.m. with a bottle of milk and a bag of ice. People would probably look at you a bit funny if they saw you. But there wasn’t a whole lot of people about. There was a police car parked down the way, no sirens but lights on, maybe something had happened, regardless most people had cleared out. A teenager power walked past him, mumbled something into a mobile, but he couldn’t catch it.

He waited at the corner for the lights to change. The ice was getting heavier. She was waiting for him too. Even if he turned up now it wouldn’t be soon enough, and each passing second would only add to that particular burden. The lights were taking forever, and he hadn’t seen a single car in the last five minutes. Screw the lights. He cut quickly across the street, and reached the old Salvation Army building. They still had a Christmas display in the window, a strange, slightly twisted looking manger, the figures shadowy behind the glass. To the left of this was a laneway, nondescript, windowless, and at least two minutes closer to her. He stopped for a moment, resting the ice on his foot to keep it from the pavement. Then he ducked into the laneway.

It was remarkably clean, given the neighborhood. No garbage. No dumped furniture. Not even the usual prickly scent of urine. Then he heard the scrape of a stone on bitumen, and a small, heady shot of fear trickled through his system. He turned.

He didn’t see him at first in the shadows of the wall, small and completely still. A boy, maybe eight years old, watching him. He wanted to say something, something adult and responsible. He wanted to ask where the parents where, or if he were lost or in trouble. But then he looked at the kid’s face. Not lost. Not in any danger. It was calm, patient.

He turned and kept walking. He could hear small steps trailing after him. He cleared his throat, attempted to cough some the discomfort out of his system. It was an eight year old. Not exactly a threat to a forty five year old man armed with a bag of ice and a bottle of milk. He glared over his shoulder. There was a group of them now, maybe nine or ten kids, boys and girls, all around the same age, some even younger. All walking slowly after him. They stopped when he stopped.

“What do you want?” he yelled. “Ice? Is that it? I don’t have anything else!” They said nothing, their eyes huge and glittering in the night, watching him. He started walking again. They followed.

The ice was getting heavier, but he didn’t drop it. He started to run.

The laneway narrowed and twisted. He looked up. There was a crowd of them, waiting for him. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be more of them, stepping out of shadows, from behind garbage hoppers, all stepping silently around him, surrounding him.

A sharp blow to the back of his legs dropped him to his knees. The ice crashed to the ground and split, spilling across the pavement and bouncing into the ring of small feet that surrounded him. The milk rolled away, its cap knocked loose by the impact, and began to seep out towards the gutter. From the middle of the group, a larger boy came forward, at least a foot taller than the others.

“We want a story.”

Across the pavement, the ice had already begun to melt.

2F – Cigarette Man

He curled his toes inside his shoes and retreated further into the fur-lined surrounds of his jacket. Despite the cold, the night was still and clear, and he could make out the odd star struggling its way through the light pollution. He stepped back within the comfortable confines of the dirty red pillars, their paint long since worn by a thousand posters. At his fingertip, a tiny coal of a cigarette glowed, the only thing that made him visible from the shadows.

He stopped, sighed, and took a very long drag of the cigarette. A tiny cascade of sparks tumbled outwards. Then he flexed, rolled his shoulders, bowed his head with all the reverence and severity of the conductor of a once-great orchestra, and exhaled.

As he breathed, the smoke curled out as a perfect ring. It seemed to move so slowly at first that the air almost looked dense. But then the form of the ring began to spread and blossom outwards, with sinews of smoke slowly beginning to twist, tugging at its shape until it eventually broke apart and drifted away. Impressed, the smoker waited a brief moment before tapping the cigarette with his finger. Shards of ash scattered across the walkway, blinked out and disappeared.

Again, he lifted the cigarette to his lips, dragged and exhaled. Again, a smoke ring spun slowly away from him. He watched, curious, as the ring split on one side, looking almost like a fish chasing its own forked tail. Delicate fins of smoke clung to its sides, and he thought he could almost see the shimmer of scales at its edges. A smoky mouth seemed to gape open, and the fish broke the circle and began to twist out, struggling against an unseen current. Then the smoke spread out, deteriorated, and with one last, desperate flick of its tail, the fish was gone.

The smoker stood, alone again, just breathing, as his cigarette crumbled down to orange sparks, then to dark grey flecks that floated away and blended into the night. He looked down at the burning coal between his fingers. There wasn’t much in it – probably just one quality drag left. He pulled in closer to the wings of the building for shelter and breathed in the last of the cigarette, his chest heaving as it drew in the smoke. Waiting a moment, he held the fire within his lungs, and then, standing dead straight, with his head tilted slightly upwards, he breathed. Even as he exhaled, the smoke seemed to coil around itself, making a dense ball of cloud that hung in the air in front of him. He blew gently with the last of his breath, and the tiny cloud stirred. It seemed to almost unwrap itself, as wisps of smoke gradually unfolded from within. He watched curiously as first one, then another leg stepped out of the cloud. From the middle, two vaporous arms straightened out into the air, with even a suggestion of fingers at the tips. A backbone-like ridge of smoky coil slowly uncurled to reveal a tiny head, set with large, curious eyes.

The figure hung in the air, cycling its legs as if treading water, gazing at unfamiliar surroundings. And then it turned and saw him. The smoker’s face looked completely calm as he watched the figure float in the air in front of him. And then, for a moment, the smallest curl of cruelty appeared at the corner of his mouth. He leant forward, inhaled and blew sharply at the tiny figure. It dangled there briefly for a moment, distorting, desperately grasping at nothing. And then it was gone.