Headspring
Volume 1
July 2012
Copyright 2012 Headspring Press
Edited by Kate Krake
Contributors
Jude Bridge
Lisa Dowdall
Adam Hennessy
Stephen Martin
Annette Ong
Wendy Riley
Mark Smith
License Notes
All writing and art in this ebook remains the property of its author.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors and creators.
Cover image excerpt from 'Inscape' by Sam Pash
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Contents
From the Editor
Collecting by Stephen Martin
Comet by Annette Ong
Undercover by Jude Bridge
Ridicule by Adam Hennessy
A Romance in Paris by Lisa Dowdall
Yossi's Story by Wendy Riley
The Point by Mark Smith
Credits and Contact Information
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From the Editor
Welcome to the first edition of Headspring, the journal of new writing and art brought to you by Headspring Press.
Collected for your reading pleasure are seven short stories covering a diverse range of genres, characters and situations. These stories are a collection of worlds sprung from the minds of these new and emerging writers. Stories are living things. Stories are born, they go through considerable changes as they develop into their final product and they continue to change, taking on new meanings, developing deeper nuances as they are read and heard by different people. It with great pleasure that Headspring Press presents these tales and gives them an opportunity to live.
Thanks to the Headspring Press team for working through the massive amount of submissions we had for this first edition. It was not an easy job. Thanks to each and every writer who sent in their words, even if we had to pass on them this time. Thanks also to the artists who decorate our pages and website with their enormous talent, and thanks to you reading this. What's a story without a reader?
If there's something in this volume that you particularly enjoy, our writers and the team at Headspring Press would love to hear from you, so please do drop us a line.
Happy Reading!
Kate Krake
Editor
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Collecting
Stephen Martin
I remember climbing down from the hedgerow with three spotted pale-blue eggs. My twin brother, Tom, his eyes squinting in the noon sunlight, looked at the thrush's clutch, chose one and then tossed the rest. That summer we took everything we could find for our collection: bird eggs, dragonflies, butterflies. Anything at all.
We left the path, squeezed through the wire fence, then waded thigh high into a sea of yellow wheat. Slumped down out of sight, we ripped apart the grains to get at the warm dough-like centres. For a while it was perfect; lying back on sweat soaked shirts, staring up into an immense bowl of brilliant blue, feeling like kings in a secret palace. The buzz and drone of insects were all around us. A gang of starlings sat on the fence line chattering and wheezing. I remember a solitary skylark soaring high and singing; we paid it no mind. We had lost interest. I rolled over in the prickly wheat until my face almost touched Tom's. I could taste his breath; smell the sweat on his skin. The decision was made and with a sudden burst of energy we were up and running, chasing each other, whooping like Mohicans, scything our way back through the golden field, back to the path. It was always like that. Words were seldom needed.
There was a lane behind the estate where we lived. Turn left and it wound between thick hedgerows, past the old windmill, brambles and blackberries and over a series of low bare hills until it reached Devil's Dyke. Turn right and it passed the Vicarage where we sometimes scoffed biscuits and tea with the gardeners. The workers smelt of hard labour and cigarettes and told dirty jokes, but they never twigged it was us who smashed the Vicar's greenhouse.
Further down the lane, past the orchard where we scrumped for apples and pears, was a walled allotment abutting a disused brewery. Hidden from view, we found a way into a massive old cellar. There, deep within the stacked pallets of empty bottles, we hollowed out a cave. It was cold, dank and silent in that cellar and neither the rank smell of thousands of bottles nor any sound could escape. That's where we took that little girl. We lured her with a Mars Bar and promises of treasure. We gave her the pale blue egg. When they asked us why, we told them we were collecting.
About the Author
Stephen Martin was born in Brighton, England and now lives in Australia where he enjoys the climate, people and red wines. His flash fiction has been published in the Canberra Times and Slice of Life Magazine. Stephen is a member of the Diving Deeper writer's workshop and is currently working on short stories and a memoir.
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Comet
Annette Ong
"He's lying out there again."
"Who is?" I ask. I move to peer around Gary's shoulder as he stands at our window staring down into our neighbour's backyard.
"The loony next door. Strange guy." Gary stretches his arms over his head, and let out a yawn. "I'm beat." Hauling his body to his side of our bed, he collapses back, eyes already shut and surrendered to sleep. His belly protrudes over the greying waistband of his pyjama pants, wobbling with each exhalation, threatening to spill out and escape. This is one of Gary's new features, one that has steadily grown since our wedding day. Other features include irritability, exhaustion, reticence, and an escalating indifference towards me. The effects of being lowered down a mine shaft three weeks at a time, according to him. Perennially tired, he returns from work and morphs into a hefty, snoring body.
Turning back to the window, I squint to get a better view of the garden next door. I try to discern the dark outline of his body as he lies in the grass, but I don't see anything. He is gone.
"I still don't see anything." I remember saying to him once. We had finally reached the point where our conversations were no longer peppered with the superficial pleasantries exchanged between two neighbours, people who are still unsure of each other.
He chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. "Sometimes, there's nothing to see," he replied.
I moved to the side and he bent his tall body, crouching down to the level of the telescope. He had thoughtfully adjusted its height to mine. Peering through the lens, he moved its position a fraction higher. The sky was different that night. Grey and empty of stars, it was lit by an expansive moon, a silver disk reclining on a plump cloud pillow surpassing all else.
"Wait here," he said as he strode to his back porch, his long legs making it in a few measured paces. He left in search of another lens, one that might help me see.
I had never set foot in his house, had never laid eyes on the wallpaper, the shabby couch or out-of-order fireplace, all of which are my imaginings. I came close to crossing the threshold once. It was a Wednesday evening and I was hanging out washing. I worked in the dusky light, my face lit by a dim sunset. A smoke alarm rang out, a sharp, shrill, persistent sound. I hurried through the hole in the fence and knocked on the door. The smell of burnt fat filled the air. He answered the door brandishing a spatula and billowed by smoke.
"Yes?"
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yes. It's just the snags. Managed to save them though," he said.
The alarm had stopped, but I didn't retreat. I stood there, willing an invitation.
He ran his hand through his hair sheepishly. "I guess, I mean...I have enough for two, if you'd like to join me?" he asked.
Together, we both moved forward. His body barred my entry. "We should sit out here," he said, "It's a nic
e night and you can see Venus clearly." We sat on the back step, with a pan of overdone sausages between us, their skins ripped open and bellies bulging.
He told me about walking home one evening, with thoughts of work on his mind, his years of building furniture. Wardrobes, dining tables, study desks and chairs, all hammered, glued and glossed. Daily he measured planks of wood, cut decorative grooves and varnished them to a slick shine. Yet, he was left wanting, questioning whether it was all worth it. Stopping to stare at his reflection in a shop window, he tried to discern his features by the light cast by a failing street light; the hollows under his eyes, the soft peak of his nose and his thin lips. He thought perhaps it was time to down tools and begin afresh. A weary uneasiness that came with familiarity prompted him into action; like a splinter trapped beneath the skin of his finger, this feeling left ignored would soon turn septic. That's when he had his first sighting. A silver streak behind him reflected across the shop window. A falling star, flashing white light vanishing against an opaque sky. Gone before he had time to turn around. Born from the death of a star, his new love.
He studied hard. Every day and every night, any spare moments and the ones in between. Even when the sun crept through his window, he was still cocooned in the mysteries of the night. He went to bed with stars in his eyes. The sky did not leave him. He bought telescopes, lenses and books. He found solace, joy, an inner expansion of himself, when he looked above. He had turned away from his harried reflection in the shop window that night and with it abandoned his former self, walking away stronger and feeling much taller than he was.
I listened as he talked animatedly about the endless wonders and mysteries of the sky and how he came to love them. He then pointed out Venus and under her heavenly gaze, somewhere between discussing the Milky Way and Orion's belt, something within me shifted.
I am alone again. Gary has left for work. I imagine my husband enveloped by chilly darkness as he descends metres below the earth. I sit on the back porch, surrounded by silence except for the sound of a lonely twitching cricket. A door swings open followed by the slap of a flyscreen and I know he is lying out there again.
Curious, my bare feet crunching over dried grass, I approach our shared fence. I struggle on tiptoes. The rusty turned-up pail I precariously stand on almost dislodges, threatening to send me toppling to the ground. The shaky fence I hold on to leaves a splinter in my right palm. I quietly shift from one foot to the next, keeping balance. I watch intently, silently and unaware my presence is felt. The almond tree casts an imposing shadow over the backyard. Tens of almonds, still encased in their furry green pods, lay scattered across the lawn like discarded particles of a falling meteor. The pail moves and creaks beneath my feet, betraying me.
"Join me," he calls suddenly.
I step off the pail and move along the sagging fence dividing us, hands searching for the loose pickets like a blind person grappling in the dark. I find the few of least resistance and I push them forwards and to the side, making a cavity to pass through. A toothless gap left in a decaying wooden smile.
He does not look away from the sky but motions for me to join him. I shuffle in on his left side, the hard ground, cold and firm against my body. To another, he would appear lifeless, save for the faint warm breath rising in languid plumes from his mouth, but not to me. I know his story, what brings him here at this hour. We lay wordless and waiting. The night wraps us in a blanket of frosty air. All is silent, although I am certain I can hear the beat of his heart, perhaps full of sweet anticipation. The sound of my own heart grows louder and rhythmic. The bass line throbs in my ears. They feel water logged. All other sound is flooded, and drowned out.
My eyes search the night sky. It is softly illuminated by a small band of flickering stars, struggling to let their light shine, shadowed by darkness and on the brink of extinction. Across my stomach, I clasp my hands together and rub the numbing cold from my fingers. He senses my actions and without moving his eyes from the unchanged sky, he reaches across and grabs hold of my hand. His hand is warm but rough and calloused. Sandpaper skin, a legacy of his former career. His action kicks the bass line into overdrive. It throbs, deafening.
Lying here beside him, I am reminded of the time we had first met. I was pilfering almonds from his tree. That day I lay frozen to the spot, embarrassment emblazoned across my face, sent tumbling by an upturned ladder and those too-loose fence pickets. Flat on my back with a bump on my head, he came to my aid. He saw me through his telescope. Cradling my head, he stayed with me until I got up. On shaky legs, more shocked than hurt, I followed him next door. We sat together on his back porch, his table spread with all manner of telescopic lenses. His favourite, the refractor lens.
"It bends light to a single central point," he explained.
I listened as he chattered about all things cosmic. Afraid of myself and making an excuse to slip through the hole in the fence, I said, "Gary will be home soon."
The truth: Gary was not due home that week so I was left to wander the house alone. Alone during the day is different to alone at night. When the blue sky bleeds to amber, the world pulls down its shutters and turns inwards, to warm cosy lounge rooms and shared meals amongst loved ones. The world at day's end becomes its own refractor lens with all light bending to a single central point of family, friends and children. I moved from room to room imagining what could be.
Now we lie waiting and watching; my mind full of memories, his full of stars. Until finally, she arrives in all her otherworldly splendour and he strains to breathe. She owns the sky, if only for a second. In an instant, she is gone. Left in her wake, the struggling stars are blown out like candles on a cake. Everywhere is darkness. He lets go of my hand. The show is over and anticipation met.
"Beautiful." A low whisper, slow and hushed, like a voice lowered in prayer.
I wait. My breathing irregular. He turns to me and searches my eyes in the dark. I feel pierced through under his close examination. He's seeking the same comet flash, hoping to uncover the same magic, but finds only a misplaced adoration. Blinded by the comet, he gets to his knees and crawls to his back porch. He sees nothing else. No one else. He leaves wanting nothing more than this cosmic sight, the brilliant uneclipsed light to which none will ever compare.
I lie in the dark. My body shrouded by night. I strain to hear his movements but he has long gone. Alone, I stumble, fumble for the loose fence picket and slip through the cavity to my side.
The sun continues to rise, continues to set, and the stars forever shine bringing with them new days and new nights, but I move through the world blinded, his presence a supernova exploding all too quickly and leaving a vacuum of darkness behind.
About the Author
Annette Ong is a writer of fiction, articles and reviews based in Australia.
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Undercover
Jude Bridge
I walked that night drenched in thought, the shivery streets slick as a whisper. Had it not been for a fortunate flash of lightning illuminating the road outside the drinking house, my boot heel would have crunched her skull.
She was unconscious, a thin string of whitish saliva dribbling from her slack mouth, her toothless gums far from a healthy pink. Despite the intense cold, she wore only a thin singlet and her bare legs were mottled blue. A smashed bottle lay dangerously close to her soft, baby face. Carefully I lifted her, a light and floppy body drooped in my arms. All I could do with this unloved package on this frosty night was to press her chilled little form to my heart while the wind howled despair. I could feel her heartbeat, fluttery but holding on. Her hairless head rested on my collarbone. I wrapped my thick coat around us both. We were silently alone in that moment, she and I, a tiny bump in a squall of wind and rain. When one of her arms moved slightly, I bent my head to hers and saw she was sucking on my clothing, her hands kneading the wool on either side of her mouth. She was hungry. Good, I thought. The sick have no appetite. Although I knew there were customers cravin
g my company that dreary night, I set off for Grimble's End post haste, trying not to think of those who waited for me in vain.
My neighbour, Mrs Slurry, a garrulous woman approximately three times my width, was surprised to see me not only because it was past midnight, but I because I usually avoided her as often as I could. I have no stomach for the endless prattling of those who murder language with their sloppy words and dull stories.
She was still awake, one baby clamped to her enormous breast, another in her meaty arms. She looked at me suspiciously but her eyes softened when I revealed the baby under my coat.
"Whatchoo doing with a baby?" she said suspiciously. "Did you steal it?"
"No!" said I, shocked. "I found her outside the drinking house."
Mrs Slurry's watery grey eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to sell her, are you? I don't wanna buy no baby, I got plenny of me own. If you got any turnips, though, I'll take three. Planning to make a stew."
I fought the urge to punch the foolish windbag in her fat face. "I didn't steal her and I'm not selling her, I just found her."
"Whatchoo call her then?"
"Nothing, nothing yet, as I said, I just found her."
"She'd have a name by now. There's many name a baby before it's borned. I meself consider it bad luck to name a child before the wee thing's drawn its first breath. S'like eating a potato raw, innit? Don't give the potato a chance to be the best it can be."
Although I thought the analogy a poor one, I nodded. I was soon to ask this woman a favour.
"Looks like a Deborah to me," continued Mrs Slurry. "Poor lamb! Here, give her over, I'm shooting out so much milk me husband wants to sell me to a dairy." She threw her head back and laughed uproariously, her broken teeth catching the light thrown by the stinking candle. "Take this one for me, will you? Can't juggle three kiddies, not with these udders."
I stifled my revulsion, took the sleepy child who had slipped off her breast and handed over the newly named Deborah.
"Um ...," I said, feeling spreading warmth as the Slurry child regurgitated over my shoulder, "this might be a bit of an imposition, but ..."
Mrs Slurry whipped off the Deborah's wet singlet and wrapped her in a blanket. She latched on to Mrs Slurry and sucked away earnestly at the huge brown nipple.
"... could you look after her for me? Just until I can find an alternative arrangement? I can't look after her, I work nights."