The topic for this task
was Psychos. See below for some of the
responses.
A Waiting
Game by
Dorothy Vicary
The bucket and mop sit in the corner of the kitchen, a huge
pile of clean clothes rest on the lounge chair. Sunbeams
stream through the opened louvers, and the open planned rooms
sparkle. She is a hard working wife, and has a reputation on
this army base, as being a spotless housekeeper.
The planned gardens are edged with painted white stones and
the lush green lawns spread soft, and sweet smelling, over the
earth. All the paths run neatly around the house. A line of
tall banana trees act as a wind break to stop the dust from
the wirlies, that spring up during the dry season.
He'll be home soon. She sighs and reflects. The inspection
will commence as soon as he walks in the door. Rising from her
chair, she walks towards the back door, which she opens. The
rocks will be repainted tomorrow and he'll hand trim the lawn
edges.
Perhaps, I should fold the clothes and put them away. No,
he is sure to remove them from the draws and cupboards and
refold them. Last week, the pegging of the clothes on the line
offended his sense of order. Hankies, undies and socks must be
pegged on the inside of the clothes hoist, and everything
remaining is pegged according to size.
The sound of the black cockatoos squawking through the tall
gum trees sends shivers up her spine. I know the rifle will
come out if their noise bothers him, she muses. It's sometime
since he went on a shooting spree. The meow of a cat in the
back yard causes her to remember the day last year, when he
went outside to remove a screeching cat off the Kingswood. It
was a feral cat; there were many of these creatures, lurking
in the bush; thanks to those who left them behind, after being
posted south.
The fierce cat clawed its attacker and his scarred face
became the talk of the base. Time to prepare dinner she
ponders, I'll get a large onion, peel it, and as soon as I see
the car coming down the road, I'll start to slice it. He loves
onions; I don't they always make me cry.
Friend or
Foe by Liam O’Reilly
I met Ted at a general staff meeting. He worked on the 4th
floor in the IT Department, while I was situated in Sales on
the second floor, lower in every sense of the word. I
immediately liked the fellow – he was charming and outgoing
and had a great turn of phrase. We seemed to hit it off from
the first day. I am slow to befriend a person and with Ted,
for some reason, I was even more wary. He revealed very little
about himself on that first day, but even after we got to know
each other a bit better, that hesitancy on his part remained.
We found that we lived not far from each other and had an
interest in footy in spite of loyalties to different teams. We
met at the local pub a few times and exchanged social visits.
I suppose you could say we became casual if not close
mates. He and his wife and young child were visitors to our
place at times, and we attended some of his get-togethers.
Ted’s house was big and modern and had all the latest
conveniences and gadgets. I often wondered about that, and
what I was doing wrong. I knew he earned more than me, but not
that much. I couldn’t afford half of the gadgets he had.
As we watched TV one evening at his place we saw an ad for
a resort offering a great weekend of fishing.
‘Hey, let’s do that, John. We’ll hire a 4WD, drive there
and have a great couple of days’.
He was excited. I like to think things over and move more
slowly, Not Ted. He talked me into it this time and we spent
the few days together. It cost a lot more than I expected or
could afford, - a worry for me, but seemingly not for Ted.
‘We must do this more often, John. Bring the families, next
time’.
I muttered something non-committal.
A week or so later I ran into Ted on the ground floor.
‘John, the Cowboys are playing on Saturday. I’ll get some
tickets and give you a call during the week’.
‘Great’ I said, as he rushed away.
I waited the rest of the week for news of our tickets and
outing. Nothing – no news. I noticed this happened a lot with
Ted – the promise of a phone call or some other communication
that never materialized. No answer, no explanation, no
apology. I eventually learned not to expect too much.
I began to notice other things about Ted. At the pub he
drank a lot more than I would consider safe, and he would have
no hesitation hopping into the car to drive home. I spoke to
him about this a few times but he dismissed it flippantly. One
time he told me he had hit a dog on the way home. He did not
stop. He laughed about it, seemingly without a thought for the
animal or its owners. I concluded he also gave little thought
to the danger he created for himself, his family, or other
road users.
I now worry about Ted and his attitudes and lifestyle. I
looked up his profile at work and found that his
qualifications were a lot different to those he had divulged
to me in small increments. He is difficult to talk to; you
can’t sit down and have a serious discussion with him.
‘Everything is fine, no problems’ he always says.
You know it must be different. It’s difficult to be his
friend or confidant.
Outwardly, he appears a decent and fine fellow, but one who
seems to move through life wearing a mask.
Passivity by
F N Karmatz
The man’s hand was busily filling in the blues, greens,
greys and whites with the flat side of his brush. His easel
was planted solidly in the scrubby sand, his palette clipped
on to it, so as not to be blown over by gusts. The wind-swept
lagoon lay before him and he was enthralled by the fuming
colours and hues the rough air created. Seemingly deserted,
wintry and barren, he wanted to capture its primeval pristine
quality, with the stunted shrubs and weedy grasses along its
edges. He painted quickly, rewetting his brush with every
stroke, the wind blowing his canvas dry in seconds, even as he
stood blocking it. He wiped his free hand on his fatigues and
added water with a syringe to his palette paints.
When he next looked up, there, half across the lagoon, a
bright orange inflatable canoe, a child’s wading toy, was
being blown seaward. A small boy was paddling unsteadily and
uselessly into the wind. The orange object ruined the
unspoiled ambience of his scene. It was an obscene colour. It
was destroying his mood. He tried to ignore it and started
painting the foreshore instead.
Sideways, the inflatable was caught by a wind gust and
flipped. The boy’s head appeared, bobbing in the water, his
arm desperately reaching for his canoe. But the wind had
already blown the upturned boat meters away. The boy cried
out, the sounds carried by the water, but the wind turned it
to whimpering.
The man continued filling in the sand colours with a
pointed brush, almost dot-painting. He painted quickly,
rewetting his brush with every stroke. He was almost finished.
He added a few more strokes—a sharp orange brush stroke in the
far background and what could be interpreted as fingers, a
small hand and wrist just sticking above the white capped
lagoon. He thought they added a colourful surrealism to the
scene.
Checkmate
by Brian Rowell
‘Don’t delay lunch for me today, Irene,’ said Josef as he
shrugged on his winter greatcoat. ‘I’m a bit under pressure
today…something that has to be finished.’
‘Yes dear,’ replied Irene, in the act of clearing the
breakfast table. Still sitting at the table, young Rolf, their
son, smiled up at his mother as she lovingly ran her fingers
through his hair. She was shorter than her husband though not
by much and, as usual, an imaginary crumb was there to be
flicked away from the immaculate uniform that stood before
her. A ritual, she tugged the lapels, straightened his peaked
cap. Detached and unmoved, he turned to go.
A bleak winter landscape greeted them as he made to depart.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Must go,’ he said. ‘I have to be at
the Kommandant’s office this afternoon…another meeting.’ He
smiled wryly. Kommandant Eduard Wirths was an oaf spending
much of his time pursuing carnal interests while Josef was
left to plan most agenda. He made sure this didn’t do his own
career any harm.
‘Someone from HQ. So, I’ve got a lot to get through this
morning. But don’t worry. One way or another I’ll get back for
Rolf’s birthday party late afternoon.’
He turned to go. ‘Rolf missed you badly when you were away
for his last birthday, you know’ said Irene, ‘so he’ll be ever
so pleased.’
‘Another snowfall overnight,’ he mused aloud, rubbing his
hands together as he set off. He enjoyed walking in the
pristine snow. ‘That should finalise my Noma Lab trials.’
Again he smiled and turned briefly to admire his trail of
deep footprints in the wintry landscape. Like our journey
through life, he thought - come the midday thaw there would be
no trace of his passage. But he, Josef, would, one way or
another, leave his mark He’d vowed this to himself when
serving on the Eastern Front.
The building where he arrived twenty minutes later, though
deep within the camp, was the subject of intense security.
Only credentialed personnel allowed; Papieren checked daily.
He approved of Teutonic thoroughness. His gleaming boots rang
on the cement floor of the corridor as he made his way to the
office. Chill tiles and grey cement stretched in every
direction with, here and there, side corridors leading to
laboratories marked: X-RAY, BATHS and one mysteriously, TWIN.
Another was labelled DWARFS and yet another, NOMA. It was in
this last division where he’d laboured on experimental drugs
to cure the symptoms of noma - open sores that never healed.
Gypsies shipped from Eastern Europe, particularly the young,
were ideal subjects. They exhibited the classic symptoms of
noma, ulcerated mouth and genital area. Due to malnutrition,
there were hundreds of cases in every draft. First, the
infected parts had to be traumatised to resemble battle wounds
and to accelerate gangrene. Experimental treatments had
progressed through a range of Degussa and IG Farben
sulphonamides with near one hundred percent failure rate. As a
result, Josef’s division was under increasing pressure. A cure
was urgently needed for the treatment of infected battle
wounds, particularly for German frontline troops on the
Eastern Front.
‘Guten Morgen, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer.’ As Josef entered his
office, the Administrator threw up a nervous salute and Josef
knew instantly something was wrong.
Like a pistol shot, Josef’s swagger stick slapped the
leather of his gleaming boots. The Clerk fell back a step,
blinked and stood to attention.
‘Experimental Laboratory No.3, sir. Noma. The…the subject
expired at 0517 hrs, sir…unexpectedly, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer!’
His eyes were directed at a spot high on the wall above the
Hauptsturmfuhrer’s head. Frozen silence greeted his words.
‘We…we have replacements almost ready, sir. Slavs, male and
female, are undergoing manual trauma to the affected parts and
should be ready within…’
Another pistol shot from the swagger stick and
Administrator Feldwebel Lange shrivelled and fell silent.
There could be no appeal, he knew, in this court.
Several minutes trembling silence hung in the air before
Josef spoke in words of cold steel.
‘Report back to this office in FSMO at 1600hrs today,
Feldwebel Lange. There will be a travel order awaiting your
collection. Understand?’
‘But, sir, where…?’
‘They are desperate for men of your calibre on the Eastern
Front!’
At four o’clock that afternoon, Josef, as good as his word,
was on his way home. Rolf’s birthday present rested
comfortably in his pocket. The meeting had gone well and the
morning incident was obliterated from his mind. First stars of
the evening were just beginning to prick a sparkling sky tight
with frost and Josef felt the joy of fulfilment. Lights blazed
from his house and the merry laughter of children danced
through the winter air.
The door opened on a flood of light and warmth. Obediently
before him stood Rolf surrounded by three of his school
friends. Josef Mengele and son greeted one another with a
formal handshake as Josef gave the boy his present, a box,
richly tooled in leather.
‘Danke, Papa,’ said Rolf. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’
The box opened to reveal a miniature chess set, each piece
exquisitely carved from finger bones.
Crime: The
Eye of the Beholder by Liam O’Reilly
I like this room, nice and bright. Better than the last
court I was in, but of course, I have a better class of
offence this time. I’ve moved up in the system. Doing well,
you could say – supremely well – I hear this is the Supreme
Court.
Quite a few people here. They’re all starring at me. Must
be the suit that lawyer fellow made me wear. I look great. I
smile brightly at them, looks like a nice day outside. That
must be their mother over there. She seems to be crying, so I
give her a smile too to cheer her up. I think the girl looked
a bit like her, but I did not look at her face a lot – I had
other things on my mind!! Ha Ha!
They’re making me stand up. A woman walks in from the back
with that silly wig-thing on her head. Everyone bows. She must
be the Judge – or is she a Judgess? Must look that up when I
get back to the cell.
We all sit down. A bloke with a craggy face and squeaky
voice is telling everyone how I broke into this big house in
Bulimba – no one should be allowed to own a mansion like that.
When I get out of here, I’ll go back and wreck it a bit more.
Get the mates to give me a hand. He says I beat up this kid
who was 13 years old. He deserved it, told me to get out,
would you believe? We were in the kitchen – looked more like a
restaurant to me – so I grabbed a knife and stuck him in the
belly. The look on his face was really something – wish I had
had a camera. When he fell to the ground I kicked him around a
bit, and then with the knife, carved up his pretty face and
made sure that his posh clothes were really messed up. This
fellow in the court is now using a lot of fancy words telling
everyone what a great job I did. It seems the young fellow
died after an hour or so.
His sister came in when I was dealing with the kid. Boy,
was she a stunner? I stopped having fun with the knife and
went into the even bigger room with all the leather furniture,
where she stood like a statue. She started to run when I came
towards her but I knocked her down and turned my attention to
finer things. More fancy words from the craggy man – not a
good description of my handy work - assault, bodily harm,
rape, indecent something or other, intent, murder, deadly
weapon, break and enter, robbery, minor, it seems she was
sixteen. Looked a lot older to me, but who cares? I had great
fun. She scratched my face a bit so I got the knife again to
show her that was not a very nice thing to do. Plenty of blood
now all over the carpet as well as pools of red on the kitchen
floor.
After I finished with the girl she wasn’t moving so I lost
interest. I toured the house picked up a few things, and
knocked a lot more over. It was fun, but I soon got bored. I
found a Visa card in the girl’s bag on the table and thought
that could be useful. Bad mistake. That’s how the cops caught
me. Must remember that next time.
They’re making me stand up again The Judge/Judgess is
leaving. It seems that’s it for today, we’ll be back tomorrow.
I’m pushed along by one of these fellows in uniform. I’ll fix
him later.
I hope this doesn’t drag on too long. I have things to do,
people to see.
