Short 'n' Curly

by Julie Patterson

A collection of poems, prose and short stories, previously published on the Short 'n' Curly website from 2000-2005

Free Edition from www.smashwords.com
Copyright 2012 Julie Patterson
Published by the author. Distributed worldwide by Smashwords
Although free of charge, this work remains protected by copyright and must not be sold in digital or printed form.



Bye

My mind is flooded with images that I don't want to see anymore. They haunt me, twisting my emotions with each frame they reveal. When I close my eyes at night they rise and spool against my eyeballs in a dance of vivid dreams. My history, my life, a past I don't want to deal with thinks that it's time I do. I have nightmares of what happened to me. To rectify the night terrors I don't sleep but this action leads to my mind contorting and creates a haze, a blur where reality, the here and now becomes as castrating as my dreams. It's four days since I've slept and voices are starting to speak, as they do when fatigue wears away at your sanity. I want to fight but to fight I must reveal my current state and I know what fate will befall me if I do. I have to remain out of the psychs clutching hands but keeping the secret is tearing me apart.
I find my mind wandering; I am trying to focus but my direction wanes. This cycle is wearing, for six months now I've been lost in repeat, living by running from myself. I don't want this anymore. Is this living? Is this how it will always be?
When the pain gets to great I want to slash, I want to bleed myself dry, I want some concrete pain, not this internal quake that shreds me away until I feel like an abrasion. I'm tired of finding myself in a foetal position, curled up tight refusing to submit to my pain, my pride is defeatist but it is my pride that has kept me alive so far. I know I have to stop this, I have to heal but my wounds are still fresh and seeping, I'm raw with emotion. To many lights of time flicker past my eyes, these memories they all want my attention at once, my childhood wants to be heard and it's deafening.
All this grit is under my skin making me scratch away at the surface,making me look behind the mask I wear. All this turmoil is because when I was a child I knew things no child should know. When I was a child I felt things no child should feel. When I was a child I lost my childhood to the beast. This beast is incestuous, he consumed all in his path and left us in chaos while he slept in perfect dreams. When I was a child I knew I never was a child. I know what happened to me was wrong but I can't go back and make it right. The sheets have been washed clean of the blood but the stain on me remains and it is this stain I am trying to cleanse. When i was a child I lived in fear. A fear so real it would catch in the back of my throat and make me gasp for breath. This fear was real not an overreaction but real. When I was three I was thrown against the kitchen wall for asking a question my father could not or would not answer. You learn quickly that your life is tenuous. My life still feels endangered but by my hand this time.
There's an ache at my core, a loneliness that cripples me a pain that I can't describe fully, it's the darkness of loss that floods me a part of me drowned never to be seen again.
It's starting to turn into night, the sky is fading I like the night no one can see my tears when I walk in the shadows. I've become a creature of the night, I shall not sleep tonight even though I am almost falling down physically, my mind though is wired, buzzing with restless memories. I am trapped halfway between reason and delusion. I reason out that this is the solution to my nightmares but it is delusion that whispers that logic in my ear.
I'm glad I don't drink or do drugs can you imagine my state if I did. All this on pent up emotion; step right up see the show how long can she last. I feel like a freak on display but everyone passes me by oblivious to the truth. Maybe you only see what you want to see even my friends can't see past the mask. Fuck I'm good. But who am I really fooling only myself, ramble begins to set in I've been playing this game to long. I turn up my jacket collar and walk out the front door I shiver as the night hits me, I fade away into the black but the problem still remains.

2002


Camel

I'm sick of this I am tired of feeling this way and I want this to stop. No one really knows what this is like, the fatigue and the boredom that it eschews kills me emotionally. I'm frustrated and at my wits end I'm jake of the numb lip I want it investigated further I don't think it a magnesium defiance. My right leg is heavy and my right arm is also causing me some problem and my focus is going a bit screwy. My doctor says that my body is worn out, it's in shut down mode, this episode of chronic fatigue I have is the most severe she's seen. Everything is just bringing me down and I'm tired of fighting what I can't win. I feel like I m going nowhere because every time I get some momentum something else crops up to lay me flat. How long can one be bothered trying to stay upright when you know you're only going to fall. It's not a matter of feeling sorry for myself it's the reality of how I'm feeling, my head hurts and I'm to tired to cry over my health and how it impacts on my esteem and sense of worth.
I have no energy for this self pity or trying to process what is a constant feeling of dread I would rather just sleep and wake up better but that does not occur. I sleep and wake up tired and sleep some more and wake up tired and sleep some more. Except sometimes it's not sleep I have to lay down or I'd fall down so I lay there listening to the wheels turn in my head, the wheels that turn and tell me that I have to lay here because I can't do anything else because anything else wears me out. I go out to Blacktown to pick up books simple task and then I'm flat on my back for three days with a insatiable exhaustion. I feel like my fatigue is eating me alive cell by cell. And this depression of the facts only adds to my dismal state of affairs, yes I'm depressed.
I feel like I need replenishing from some miracle fountain, take me to the shot of life inject me up with 100 cc units that would cure me. If only I could gather my thoughts and find some clarity, articulate what I'm feeling. I have this constant inner shake like my nerves are on high alert and causes a constant light tremble throughout my entire body. I can feel it within, the shake, a quiver that stretches throughout my entire being. It's quite bizarre to feel like your whole body is trembling on the inside and you can't work out how to stop it. It drives me crazy and I don't feel like I can talk about it to any one because I fear people thinking I'm crazy and put me away. But I don't want this mania that is occurring to continue I feel like I am going insane. I'm so fucking sick of being sick this is the straw and my camel is exhausted so worn that she can't pick up her feet and drink the water that will revive her, she's fallen over unable to solve it all so she lays there and is slowing decaying in the sun.


Debbie

The air is sticky; the heat is so arid that it dries out your mouth when you speak making you instantly parched and needing water. We walk down the street hand in hand staring in through windows, stepping inside some of the second hand stores along the way, we stop for the walk sign to change, gulping the drinks we picked up, hands drop out of reach, I bend down and tie up my shoelace. The lights change and the beep, beep, beep of the crossing ticks away. You were slightly ahead of me, just a few steps away, but in the crossing. Then it happened. In the fleeting glance of a moment a whole world can change. I stood there frozen unable to speak, shout or yell, like a shadow. Everything happened so fast, the screech of brakes, the thud, your scream, and the wheels squealing as the driver fled. The impact left you bloody and limp and time moved slowly between my leaving the curb and reaching you. I slumped down on the road next to you and yelled at the people coming to help us to call an ambulance. I placed my right hand on yours; I could feel the gravel rash burn; I placed your head in my lap and told you, "You'll be all right, to just hold on to me it will be fine." You looked at me and shook your head.
I heard no sirens. Voices telling me to "Move out of the way" told me they'd arrived; I was somewhere else in my mind, holding you, refusing to believe what I knew as truth. They pried my hands from yours, they placed you on a board and shoved tubes into your left hand, a neck brace was put around your neck and they lifted you onto the gurney. One of them looked at me and said: "You'll have to follow us there", there was no room for me, only you. "Where are you taking her?" they looked at me and kept talking to themselves. "Where the fuck are you taking her?" "RPA." came the reply. I looked around and couldn't comprehend how to get there, I looked at my clothes and I had blood on my pants leg and shirt, no cab was going to pick me up. I followed them as they headed for the ambulance and after they had you inside I pushed and shoved my way inside knowing that regardless of what they said, there was room. There was some banter about not being able to take me and I looked at the youngest of the Ambo's and said "Do you think a cab will pick me up." He looked at his buddy and said to "Leave it be." The doors closed, I looked at you, you were hooked up to drips and tubes; I listened to you breath, so weak, so shallow. The siren churned.
We were there and you were raced out of the ambulance. The nurse nodded at the Ambo as they wheeled you inside, as they left she turned and told me to wait outside. A Doctor appeared running and bumped my left shoulder as he headed for you. "Out of the way" they shouted at me as through the swinging doors she ran, I ignored them all and followed you inside. The room was pristine, so white that it appeared to glow, your blood dripped onto the floor and swabs, tubes and pieces of your clothes were thrown down as well making the room look like a battle field. Doctor's moving about you to the frantic beat of trying to defeat death and you so very still. "Pupils fixed and dilated, right eye is shot, left leg is probably fractured below the knee and her respiration is thready. She appears to be bleeding internally, probably her liver. Multiple trauma to the lower abdomen" A nurse walked over and told me "To please wait outside." "I'm her partner." "Miss wait outside" the words cold and stern. "Didn't you hear me I'm her partner and I'm not going anywhere!"
"We're losing her." Echoed through the room and I felt my heart sink as I stood silently watching at the far end of the room as the machine heralded your leaving, I sank to the floor. "Charge, Ok, Clear" the command was barked; a repeated phrase well rehearsed, your body jolted. Again the words "Charge, clear." I knew you were gone even though they tried to fight it, and after a few more attempts they confirmed my belief. No one spoke to me, they all left as they came, running, and I slid over to you and held your hand and cried.
I heard squeaky footsteps behind me and a hand on my right shoulder; "Miss, Miss you can't stay here. Miss" a hand shaking me. "We have to clear the room" I looked at the nurse and nodded, tears streaming down my face. "Where's she going to?" I asked. "The morgue. You can stay with her there. Is there anyone you like me to call for you?" she whispered. "No." I walked out of the room and followed the signs and waited for you. As you entered the room I walked behind, and based on past experience I decided to lie to the staff telling them I was your sister. They escorted me to you and said how sorry they were and then left. The room was cold and empty, just you and me like it had always been. I pulled down the sheet and looked at your face. Coldness entered my body and I was void of emotion it was like I was disconnected from heart and head.
I held your hand and realised you were clean, no blood. My wrist brushed against yours and I felt the coldness of the bracelet I had given you two years previous, gold filigree with a small Libran symbol, it was for our fifth anniversary, how you loved it, I undid it and took it off and placed it in my shirt pocket, along with the ring, necklace and a braided bangle I'd made for you. I knew that your family would be contacted and that I'd be excluded, our relationship was not recognised by your family or by the law. It's 1978 and we count for little more than amusement or annoyance.
Maybe one day love will be all that matters and gender will be irrelevant but now I knew that I would lose you as soon as your family flooded in even though they had disowned you, cut you out of their lives when you told them you were a lesbian in 1972. Families can be hypocrites, and I knew they would claim you back as theirs in death and deny my place by your side. I hate this world right now; I want you here with me, whole and alive. I traced my finger down your cheek and placed my head upon your chest and closed my eyes and recounted our day together. I don't want to lose memories I thought to myself as I began filing away those last moments into my mind.
I realised it was raining, the noise of it beating against the roof dragged me back into the here and now, and I left running, tears streaming down my face as I headed for Glebe Point Road. As I turned up past the University ground and crossed Parramatta Road I saw what I needed to see, the chalk outline the police left behind of your frame and I sat silent, as the rain grew heavier. Lighting cracked across the sky and the thunder rolled as I watched the storm turn the chalk into a stream of white flowing down the drain. People walked passed as I wiped the tears away; the city's hum is constant and faceless, it continued to pass me by unaware or unmoved by obvious pain. And when the street was clean and the day's events washed away I remembered what life was like before today. Grief kicks in, needles and pins through the splinters.
I headed home to unlock the grief I was fighting brave to keep at bay.
I turned the key and the door stuck as it always did I had to push my way in the house, it was dark and empty. I left the lights off and found my way to our bed. Standing in the doorway I lost what little resistance I had. I slid down the door frame and landed on the floor sobbing. A knock at the door brought me to my knees and I crawled to the front door, "Who's there?" I enquired. "Police." fuck was my only thought. "Ok." I pulled myself up and switched on the light blinding me as I turned the door handle two officers stood on the door frame. "We need to talk to you, can we come in?" "Can it wait until morning? The accident down on Glebe Street this afternoon - that was my partner. Now I'd appreciate it if you left." I said as I slammed the door. Knock knock. "I'm sorry for your loss but we'll need to talk you about that." "Not tonight, please go away." Their footsteps vanished and a rage filled me I stomped through the house to the bedroom and tore the covers of the bed, pelted the pillows out the door and knocked a picture you'd drawn from the wall. I wanted you here, I wanted to find the driver and … I just wanted my morning back. The coffee and the lingering breakfast everything to stay the same as it was before we left the house but time never runs backwards even it you are lost in the past and feel like you're stationary it's not true for time doesn't stop for the living. Night fell hard.
In the morning the police came back and I told them what I could remember. They told me that no one had been able to give a description of the vehicle or a number plate and subsequently they held little hope of finding the person responsible. I closed the door behind them.
Automatic is a strange state to be in but that's where I was in the days after your death, all the arrangements, your family, and the surprise of their attempt at a feigned sense of concern for me. On the day of your burial I felt numb, the service went on and I had an overwhelming sensation of disconnecting, the words I could hear but I did not process them. I stood there by your side long after everyone else had left, I stayed until the dirt had covered you over. After your funeral it was a relief to see your family go. They said they'd let me keep the house and I didn't bother to tell them it was in my name anyway. I had no more energy to fight and bicker over us now that us was I. My heart grew cold and I retreated into myself, into the wound. After six months I knew that your killer would not be found but my malicious side hoped that guilt drowned their soul and that, like me, they were haunted by that days events. I was lost for at least a year roaming from emotion to emotion until one day I realised it had been a whole month and I hadn't cried. The clock had started ticking and my feet need to walk, to be part of the world I had shut out and to take one step at a time.

2003


Dream

Nimble is the hand of fate as she hands out life, merrily she skips along to her own beat.

Head in the air not a care in the world her job has been done now its time to move on.

Look out dodge the live bullets from the gun of unjust who fires upon any one of the tattered remains of the lost souls, pierced, laying in despair,

Some of them still grasping to a sense of trying to survive but so many have succumb to the perils of the event that fell them.

The haunted look.

Many philosophies have been written about the despair of life we tend to take the good things for granted dismissing them almost as our right. We as humanity have no grounding in ourselves, we have faith in our abilities, but we have no dreams.

Adults on a whole forget the fantasy of a child's mind after all its been drummed out of them they have to grow up and be responsible. Its sad.

I have never forgotten how to dream, I still want my dreams to come true, maybe they will. So I might be strange to think this way but I am still very much a child at heart and a dreamer and I see no harm in this.

1997


Eaten Alive

As I lay here in my bed
the room slightly spinning
I wonder when will the good days return?
Chains of broken thoughts decay
Fatigue has kicked in.
I HATE THIS EXISTENCE!
But then there's the reality of it :
No cure, just time, just time my doctor says: "just time."
Time is an idle hand.
This illness is like a wolf, so patiently it waits, one step at a time then it pounces devouring cell after cell
the body retreats into forgetfulness succumbing to the steely eyes that tracked it.
My eyes are so heavy
I stare at my shadow on the wall
a shadow who once had life.

2004


Faded Ghosts

I stare at the person before me, the reflection returns my gaze, and the mirror fogs up again I wipe away the mist trying to reveal the soul inside the facade. Everything is fractured, the image is whole, complete, but the story, the being, the truth is harder to find. How do you build blocks, buildings of the self, memories, when the ground upon which the lay is barren. I can't recall vast sections of my childhood, huge chapters are empty and no amount of dredging the waters has released them allowed them to flow.
It's dark here in this wasteland of time faded, there's no one but me and the echoes of yesterday that blow down the ravines trying to topple me over and drag me down to their abyss.
How do I tell you about myself, when I don't know what there is to me. Do I make up a past like all the others do, lie to fill the void of the un-recalled. People do that all the time invent a life that is not their own, living the one they choose too be real. They dance madly around in the masquerade to the point where they can no longer tell truth from lie. I don't want to be like them, but I don't want to be me.
Can you see the scars?
I look into my eyes and I can see it, the aching sorrow, the little girl wounded beyond belief. She lurks there, hiding in me, an echo that's become etched into my soul but the narrative is fragmented. My memories though are lucid at least the ones I can recall. They never change, time does not alter them, true they remain. Harsh and heavy they tread.
When I was 18 I looked in the mirror and tried to see who I was, what made me tick. I'm 30 now and I no longer search the recess of I for answers I know I can't find. I have discovered many truths along the way the most important is to trust yourself, when the time is right the ghosts will reveal themselves.
My memories of childhood are blown apart, the carcasses lay strewn about my mind, out of order with no synchronisation, no chronologically sound points, but they are my memories.
Where are the missing pieces?

Can you recover what was stolen?

Is there a way to happiness or is it always just out of reach?

When dreams invade and blur reason the heart falls into decay. The fragments of yesterdays taunt me And I fall into and out of sanity.

I'm trapped in a web of pain

Frozen am I,

with doubts that I'll survive.

There was a time in my life when I knew who I was. I was succinct, whole, functional, coping. Or at least I believed I was. I lived in lies, tried to convince myself of the inconvincible, that the ache that I felt at the core of my being would fade, disappear if I just ignored it. Now I know the menacing, how pain lingers, swells and finally encompasses you. Faded into the black. Splintered, fractured, serrated edges that fell apart into the chasm that is my pain.
The past is never past it is always a part of you. You breathe it in and out it's a living element, it's who you are now, who you've been and a factor in who'll you'll be.
I felt it happen, the day that I slipped, the numbness that filled me, the terror that followed, the voices the reveled in their release. I slipped into myself and out the other side, pieces, remnants, splinters, slices, fell out of place and my mind shifted into what I had always feared, finding myself.

2000


Let Us Commune

Cannibals on the TV,
preaching to you and me,
feeding on a prophet
who never realised his dream,
camera pans as the sacrifice takes place,
eat this in remembrance that
Jesus died for our sins.

CIRCA 33AD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The body of Christ has been slain,
a sacrifice for all to see.
The Son of God was dead!
The resurrection myth kicks in.
Fact or fiction,
truth or lies.
Maybe this is how the ritual
of communion began.

Step, step, step the pagans crept up towards the tomb. Upon entering they looked up, they looked down, to the left and to the right and did one final full circle. Jesus lay dead, killed by Romans. And here they were alone with the Son of God. But whose god? Not their god, so they feasted on his body, carved up the sweet flesh. Oh it was good, my it was tender, and it filled their bellies. His blood refreshed their thirst and when they were full and refreshed, they took doggy bags of his carcass with them for their journey east.

Out into the desert they walked.

For three days they walked in the desert never seeing another soul. Water was becoming scare. The sun burnt down upon their flesh, etching into their skin, its anger; reminding them that they are nothing continuously it circled them. On the third night they camped, tired, weary and hungry. But there was nothing to eat the meat would be off, what would become of them, into dreams they fell.

Visions filled their heads of better times,

when,
meat was plentiful,
the water was cool
and
soft rain fell upon them killing the suns fury.

For three hours these dreams filled their minds, the three of them tossed and turned, turned and tossed. Temptation, teased, titillated and tormented, them. The sand upon which they laid, stirred, sending, suffocating slithers into the sky, which sunk around them covering them in shrouds. Still they slept. Silent in their soliloquy.

No relief for our travellers, morning mimicked the madness of the night. Minds were filled with aches that centred on the diploe and inched its way further down the cerebellum leaching under the skull finding it's way into the capillaries. Demented, dirges, decried, these diplocardiac deserters. Hunger, lurched inside them and soured their mouth with regret. No food they cried, no food. Then one of the pagans realised that there may be food, if the flesh had was still good, hallelujah he shouted, the flesh had dried, wonders of wonders, "FLESH jerky" the others cried, at last they were saved.

Meanwhile back at Jerusa-slum the faithful had made a ghastly discovery. They wailed, they wept, they whined, wallowed with grief they were. Who could do such a thing to Jesus? Must have been the Romans, as if it wasn't enough to march him through the streets, nail him to a cross, mock him and await his death. No they had to feast on his remains. Leaving nothing but his bones. Or maybe it was the pagans; they had heard stories of human consumption. The travesties of the turning of the tide weighed heavy on their hearts. Mourning throughout the morning, mourning through the night a never ceasing river of tears flowed.

Tiny footsteps tread…
The desert wind removes their memory……
Footsteps trod small amongst the dunes…………
Day spins on itself…….
Tiptoe slowly the footsteps etch……

Fading memories…. longing recall!!!!!!
To the east a star was seen, shining in refractory light:
(the light grew into a hope upon which the lies bred)
The boy child savior was born: hail god almighty: 
(the wisdom of the ages makes fools of us all)
In a manger in Bethlehem the angels fell: blind lead the blind: (where is faith if not in one self)
blackness fills the light of tomorrow…

Choppers swirl searching for evil, dancing in the blue.
Bodies beneath shiver in dust,
smoke shrouds the city.
Terror in the mind, murder in their eyes.
Fire in the hole!!!!!!
Landscape cut, the scar will follow.
Ghosts emerge still alive running down darkened streets hoping to find life.
Announcements flash, THIS IS REAL,
phrases are repeated, images replayed.
It's three AM; I can't believe what I see.
Snugly strangers sleep as planes fly 'cross the screen living out the scream.

Religion killed humanity,
bombs fall hunting out each other's lies.
Where's the heart of society.
HERESY!

Take this bread, eat it in remembrance that Jesus died for us, take drink this in remembrance that Jesus died for us. In the name of god, the father and the son forever and ever Amen.

Cannibals in the church, feeding on the masses,
feasting on the woe.
Reference for a martyr,
no admittance of the fool,
Cannibals in the church getting fat of me and u.

Click end to close session, pass go but do not collect $200. Close the door on the way out, rememb'r not to slam the door. Stand behind the line toes not touching the yellow line.

Cannibals in society, contorting our free will,
Church and state divided,
I think not, 
they whistle marching off to war,
the religious propaganda stings.

2000


Light

Flickering candles in the window ignite the pain within
Faltering footsteps I now walk as memory seeps in
What can trigger one is strange and unrelated
But none the less here I am.

Night covets me akin to the hidden
It folds in and holds me safe amongst its veil
No one knows I'm here, they can't see in the dark, but I can.

Up past the streets that are lit I walk and into the abyss
There is no one here, they fear the shadows where I play
I'll stay here until I regain what the light took away.

My heart is calm and regular and the grass is cool and damp
The tree I rest my back upon tickles my skin
Night falls unto me I wait for the end of recall.

These terrors, these trembles of the soul bind me to the past
A mind craven to the future held by yesterdays riddles
An endless skip
And I'll survive the night as I always do running from sleep for in sleep
That's where the memories creep.

Shelter

Skylark of the night wind sky
The leaves are flying turbulent
Some are sharp
They catch my skin
A lone bird harks as it tries to retreat
Looking for safety among the city landscape
And I to am looking for shelter from the storms
Both internal and external
My frame shakes as the leaves fly
I don't flinch as another one digs in
My eyes adjust to the night as I move further from the main drag and into the alleys
I feel safe here amongst the shadows my eyes continue to align
themselves until I can see my surroundings.
A cat howls as I cross it's turf and it's hiss is a signal of its victory over the invader
The wind whips through and lightning cracks overhead briefly lighting the path I tread
I wish I could see what I am running from so clear and bright.
The leaves blow around my feet and are crushed under my faltering steps
I know not where I am going and I don't care.
As my mind unravels and leaches into my heart my fingers start to go numb from the cold,
Why can't I?
I feel raw.
I shove my hands inside my jacket pockets they'll warm up soon.

2005


Stationary moments

I sit here waiting,
time is but a slither in a tock,
tock a fragment in space,

silently I wait,
with the clock on my car menacing away,
furiously dancing in syncopation,
the sky is gray.

Steely clouds cover up the moon I know is there,
I find solace and comfort in her presence.

A train toots and moves away.

The person I’m waiting for has arrived,
and soon I will take up my leave to return home.

The start of the engine,
well o.k. the hopeful start of the engine.
after all this car is 20 years old,
I gave her a heart transplant last year,
and tis only occasionally she refuses to ignite (cynicism is rife)

My friend is near now,
I can hear whistling, she's clicking her tongue at the dogs in the back, excitedly they respond.

I will nourish myself in conversation tonight,
I gaze once more at the moon,
click goes the engine,
and I’m gone.

1998


The Day The Bombs Fell

The bay is calm and silent as I sit here watching the sun go down. Hues of pink and orange meld into the blue as the fire ball retires and the moon ascends. I've been doing this for the past three years, no one else but us come here. The rest all huddle together in the massed variants of the city believing that their savior will come, that life will return to what it was before the leaders went insane and lead the world astray.
I was in the city when the first of the bombs fell, smoke, glass and bodies plummeted from the sky and a fine ash covered the ground, sirens whirred and the screaming of the souls caught up in the aftermath filled the air with an eeriness that I still can't describe. It made my skin crawl and terror filled my heart, the pounding of it in my chest was suffocating. I had one clear thought, only one, my own safety disappeared, all I knew was that I had to find her. I'd only come into the city for a lunch date as I didn't much care for the smell or crowds of it's hum and now all I could think about wasn't finding safety or escape but finding Carol. I ran through the streets as chunks of buildings fell all around me up Elizabeth Street searching through the decay that was setting in, looking through the smoke for ... something... a sign.. .a familiar voice... I was spinning round searching...then I saw her sitting there with dirt in her eyes and a cut on her arm. We looked at each other both covered in cement dust and dirt form the fallout from the rubble, we mimicked walking ghosts all the horror movies had come alive. The clear blue autumn sky was disappearing under the shroud of decay. Glaring lights from sirens and choppers cut through haze, people ran towards the sound but I stayed still even though she tugged on my arm, I knew we had to leave that more was to come, that if we stayed we'd would most likely end up like those poor souls in the buildings that took the brunt of the attack.
I grabbed her hand and we left the park on foot and I headed for the one place I new we could find a way out up into Redfern, a quick glance and into the store I went stepping over a body. I looked up at the wall and grabbed a set of keys, I looked for what I thought was the most appropriate a dirt bike...I pushed it out the back filled the tank and turned the key the bike started and we headed out of the city. I'd never stole anything before in my life and I knew this was just the first of many times I would. The bike I was sure would get us out while anything else could leave us trapped in the waste. We rode all night there was nothing else to do, our building was gone and so was all we owned, we had to accept the fact that for now we were all we had and we clung onto that as the autumn night bit into our skin through the leathers we took from the store. A sense of guilt kicked in that here we were and there were others clinging to life, other buried alive and those lost...while people searched for them.
As we rode out of the city a mass of people poured out of building all staggering and clinging to what they could find but none were truly moving, they looked like swaying flags of people frozen rigid to the pavement. I just kept the bike heading out. We had to get off the main roads so the back streets through the city and alleyways, footpaths even become our roads. The bike weaved through the maze before us in a snake like fluid motion until eventually I had not option but to lead the bike back to highways, onto the M5, it was so quiet, eerily so. We were now past Campbelltown and heading down Bulli Pass, I was tired and cold the adrenaline was wearing out.
Up ahead I saw a building I turned the bike into the driveway and cut off the engine. We needed to rest and get food into our bellies if possible and this looked like it might provide both. It was an old fashioned service station they'd come back into trend, people had grown tired of the separatist attitude of business and the wise started being accommodating. As we walked up to the door there was sign blowing in the wind: "GONE TO THE CITY." We opened the door and walked in, fired up the stove and started to prepare food and coffee, she turned the TV on and we sat in silent morbid fascination as the news flicked across the screen. Most of it had been hit from Hornsby through to Parramatta, I shook my head in disbelief and relief that I choose to head south and not north. A demanding whistle from the kettle shook my sensibilities but try as I might I couldn't take my eyes away from the images. I walked backwards to the stove and made coffee for us and stirred to pot of food and headed back to watch the story being broadcast. Food came and went but the footage remained and it grew worse and worse. A sense of imminent dread filled the room and breathed through us, I started to cry all the fear, anger and fatigue poured out. We huddled close, shivering every now and then, then the power went out and we were alone in the dark with our demons. I didn't know what else to do but close my eyes, sleep encountered me but it was not restful as the days events stirred through my and didn't cease until I awoke next day.
Day bought no better news, the estimate was close to 1 million dead. A million people it was hard to take in, the enormity of it, the horror, the guilt that here I was safe and with my lover. My phone beeped I read the message: I'm ok are you? I wrote back to Jen and told her that we had left the city and headed south. She wrote back saying she was leaving the city were we sitting tight or moving on. I told her we weren't going anywhere to head to Malula Bay that we were holed up there. Ok was all she sent.
I hadn't thought of txting anyone or thought of turning my phone off. Shit I had no power cord and I didn't want to use up my battery but I subsided in that thought as I realised that stealing would become my way of life to survive I had no money and all the ATM's were malfunctioning so I'd just grab a battery charger and use it if the power came back on. I sat down and sent the same simple message that Jen had sent me: I'm ok are you? I sat down and waited and watched the TV. The day came and went and the only text I got was from Jen when she hit Gerringong I gave here the best direction I could and told her to text me again when she reached the main drag and I'd come and get her. 2 hours passed and then I left and returned with her, my lover was still asleep the note I left for her still folded, unread.
Jen and I sat there in total dismay. I looked at her and said "No one else has wrote back." "I know, it was silent my end too. I road out past Stacey's it gone, the whole street it just rubble." "Shit." "I don't, think anybody else will have made it" Jen said. I stood up and looked out the window no words, no tears. I walked back to the table we were sitting at and said the only thing I could think: "Shit what are we gonna do?" "I don't know came to reply." We sat in silence. Then she looked at me and said: "Your place." "I know. That's why we're here there was no point in staying in the drop zone." She nodded. "Is there food here." "Yep just scrounge around." I walked outside to get wood for the fire it was getting dark and soon the chill would hit and I didn't want to have to search in the dark. I walked around crying all my friends except Jen dead, a million souls the world has gone mad.
Over the next few days I fell into a routine check the news, cook the food, get the wood, I was nesting. The news never changed the death toll decreased though to around 700, 000 dead. It's strange to think that I felt a sense of relief about that but it was far less that the initial reports. Jen and Carol played cards, stress relief I suppose. We put a sign up saying OUT OF FUEL SORRY. Some stopped and pumped gas anyway but at least most just drove past. We had one visitor in the first two days, God Knockers, I just looked at them and told them to try elsewhere that I didn't believe in God, the kept talking as I closed the door. I got mad with them but I usually did not because of their message but because they have trouble understanding the word no. God Knockers, I started laughing here we were in the middle of the south coast sort of off the main roads and God Knockers still come a calling they're like Avon except Avon respect the word no. I went back to my routine avoiding what I knew was coming, if I keep busy then I don't have to process all these emotions, dangerous ground to tread but I was treading water faster than I had done for years and my head still kept on going under.
No one had claimed responsibility for these actions which made it hard to know who to be angry at, at least with a target you can vent efficiently but who ever did this were not putting up their hand and waving their flag in the victims face. Watching the TV many theories expounded but none were provable and the city was going mad turning it's grieve in on itself, riots were taking place, souls lost in the dank insanity that had set in and I knew then that I did the right thing to leave. I walked out of the room and down to the glorious bay and watched the sun set and started to cry and grieve for all my friends that I could only assume were dead or missing. Deep heavy, heaving, horrid pain leached out of my pores so immense that it swallowed me up and the bay became a blurred vision through the salty tears, the sky was red with fires and my rage leapt from me and I picked up the nearest thing a stick and started beating a tree. "What that tree every do to you." Carol had wondered down and we fell into each others arms and released the wailing of a primal instinct, echoing bouncing of the cliff further down the beach, the day disappeared under our heartache but the heart kept beating while thousand of others had ceased. Survivors grief crawled upon my skin in a tight fit like it did for every other person still living.

2004


Vamp

I don't understand what's happening. I awake from dreams and my heart is racing, my skin is clammy and I am chilled to the point of my skin reacting. I'm panicked. I can see images of death that are so lucid that I'm beginning to dread sleeping. What if what I dream is real. It's a silly thought but I can taste my dreams they linger in the back of my throat, tempting me with an unholy craving. A lust for a state I should abhor.
I rise each morning a little more drawn, and with a thirst I can't comprehend. I used to try and fight these cravings, forcing myself to stay awake in the hope that at night I would fall into my fatigue and rest. But rest finds me during the daylight and cocoons me, my eyes are no longer able to resist the temptation of revival. I have become a prisoner of the macabre.
At night I walk the streets where the cats prowl and the demented hunt. I lurk into the shadows, seeking, searching for my needs. I shudder trying to shake of the shackles of my desires but I am eternally bound to the blackness of my being. There are many myths about us for most that's all they are myths. But there is one that will be your undoing, you cannot defeat us, there are too many of us.
I feel the quickening, the scent rises filling my head with giddy abandonment and lust. I see them ahead they sense my presence and quicken their step. It's cold tonight and there breath leaves a trail of condensation, they are easy to follow. They look around searching for the cause of their unease but they can't pinpoint the trigger for their concerns. I strike, bite down filling my head is alive buzzing with adrenalin, tonight I will recruit, the clan needs to evolve and I like his face, he will be mine, I touch his cheek, his eyes struggle, he's trying to fight, but now they recede they have the hunger to. He rises and together we fold into the night blending into the dark, we are the unseen.

2000


Whisperings

The night wind howls through the Shea oaks, darkness as dense and thick as fog unfolds its tendrils leaching within the canopy of the forest trapping the living in the veil of death that only stirs on nights like tonight. Nights when the world is turned upside down and remnants of dreams become a lucid reality that no one would believe to be truth. On nights like tonight I wish for decay to find me and to cease this being that I have become a being that is neither here or there a being that love can not reach because hate has filled every pore and flooded every cell with its whisperings. It's a virile disease that I carry I am contaminated, stained by the mark of revenge and I will not rest until I relieve the burden of it. So I listen to the wind through the forest and meld into the darkness for this is my home, my labyrinth and in it's canopy I am safe from you but are you safe from me.
It's on nights like this that reason wipes it's feet on logics doorstep and sanity is cast aside for the howling has entered within and the ill wind of time raised it's head from the dead and burn like hells fire within my veins. I am possessed with rage tangible and nothing will stop me, not you, not any other human, not even your god will show mercy on you. You know I stalk you but you know not when I shall strike, that is the demon you live with, my cometh and I shall come with a force so corrupt that the angels shall fall from heaven and the sky will open up cleansing the wound on me that you left. Can you hear me, are your dreams filled with the truth, the one you so cleverly hid, truth never dies it may lay hidden but it never dies and the truth will cut you down like the wood gathered for timber. So get down on your knees and pray to your god, worthless words spoken by worthless air for he won't save you from me.
When you take from someone there has to be some remittance, a consequence for your actions. The payment is based on whether you took only what was offered or if greed and power steeped in. When the balance is tallied up and the cheque is due you better be on the right side of not negotiable for the interest rate is severe and no bargain will be entered into. It's all about morals and if you have them or not.
So in the dark I come for you it will be quick I move through the forest I stand outside your window watching you warm your hands, alone you are as you should be. I am a little girl no more, my innocence you removed and now I will erase you. One quick swipe and the blood spills, one nimble step and I am gone and so are you, never more the whisperings, never more will you infect another child with your fetishes, into the Shea oak forest I walk aware that what I've done is wrong but I'm also aware that what you would do remains a threat no more.

1997

Julie Patterson writes, sings, plays stringed instruments, takes photographs, paints - but she just won't dance.
http://users.tpg.com.au/juls2/short2.htm