'til death do us part

She wondered to herself - not for the first time - how many other's parents had set the bar for romantic relationships so high. So high that their children's expectations for their own relationships seemed a pipe dream. That anything less than what their parents had was a pale imitation. Anything else left them feeling wanting.

Her parents had shared everything. They had no secrets from each other. They trusted each other implicitly and loved each other unconditionally.

They supported and encouraged each other. Cared for each other and lost sleep worrying about each other.

They talked about everything, and they made decisions as a couple, as a partnership. All the way through their marriage until her mother's dementia meant she couldn't make decisions or talk about things in the same way.

Neither of them dictated anything to the other or made the other feel bad for asking questions. Indeed, most questions were answered before needing to be asked. Their relationship was one of open dialogue and transparency. Always.

There were never any power games. Never the sense that one made the other feel they were being given or denied a treat by being able to see the other more or less. When, how and where they met was a mutual decision. They wanted to see each other equally and showed no restraint from either side.

Her mother became part of her father's family and vice versa. She came from a very affectionate family into one less so. But her mother gradually coaxed her husband's family into the habit of hugs rather than handshakes. Growing up with an aunt whose catch-cry was "kissy-up, kissy-up" on arrival and on leaving her home encouraged her mother to engender that level of affection in her father's family. Though she saved kisses on the lips for her husband alone.

She grew up with the example of intimate and affectionate parents. Even as they grew older, she watched them reach for each other's hands as she walked along the streets of London with them. Instinctive and natural.

Their friends were their friends. Not her mother or her father's. The friendships may originally have been made or found through one. But they became mutual friends her parents spent time with, both together and apart.

There was never any compartmentalisation in their relationship, their relationships with others and their lives. They even worked together side-by-side for about 10 years.

Their weight gains and losses were irrelevant. They were the same people beneath the flesh and bones, so what did weight matter?

As her mother's dementia took hold, she saw how it broke her father's heart. His best friend, lover, partner and confidante of almost fifty years changed. Her mother saw him as a stranger, and he recognised the real her only in glimpses of lucidness. But he has never stopped loving her.

In her own life, she felt she'd never truly experienced what they had. What they have.

Others might argue that what she sought was a romantic fantasy. But she'd witnessed it growing up, so she knew it wasn't just in her imagination.

Sure, she knew their marriage wasn't perfect. Their relationship wasn't perfect. None are. But they worked through anything that might have created an issue. And came out stronger together on the other side.

But what she witnessed of their relationship over more than forty years of her life was always one of love, trust, openness, communication, honesty, affection, adoration and longevity. Damn near perfection, in her eyes.

And so far, she'd only had glimpses of pieces of what they had in her own life. Samples. Tasters. But nothing that stood up to the same tests. Nothing that lasted long enough or brought as much happiness as that she'd witnessed watching her parents as she grew from a child to a teenager, a teenager to an adult.

Everything she had experienced felt like a shadow of what she'd witnessed.

When it came to her own relationships, she viewed the possibility of something even three-quarters as good as what they'd had as a chimaera. Something she hoped for but felt she would never achieve or realise. The stuff of dreams. A fantasy.

Except she knew it could be real.

So she kept seeking it out. Hoping against hope. Believing that maybe, just maybe…

But again and again, she returned to the thought that maybe her parents had set the bar too high. Raised her expectations of what love and "forever" might be to something only achievable for a select few; for people of previous generations, perhaps. But not for her.

She thought, not for the first time: maybe she should just let go of all expectations. And forget 'til death do us part, even if it didn't involve any formal declaration or ceremony. Clearly, it wasn't meant to be.

memoirs of an invisible man

In his early 20s, before he'd typed the closing line of his first play, his agent arranged a photographer to visit his attic apartment. She was sent to photograph him for the publicity stills.

The photographer had carried an unwieldy medium format camera and a wooden tripod up the narrow, rickety staircase. He'd had to stay still for long minutes in the soft light cast through the dormer window. Gazing intently at the curious device in front of him. Feeling awkward and ungainly and wondering to himself if she was capturing the dirty dishes to his left. Dirty dishes that had been clogging up the kitchen sink for weeks now as he worked tirelessly on finishing his debut play.

As he forcefully typed "Curtain" - a cigarette dangling from his lips and the last vestiges of a glass of bourbon and dry on the dusty table to the right of the typewriter - he wondered about the portrait. How he would be perceived by theatre-goers, critics, the big names in the industry, and even the leading ladies in the play he'd just completed.

Months later, as he stood in front of the theatre on opening night, his visage gazing back at him at more than double his size, he knew his agent had sent the right photographer. She had captured him as the talented and sophisticated, though currently penniless, playwright he'd always imagined himself to be. He vowed then and there to strictly control his image. To always be portrayed a particular way and not be caught unawares by those around him out of character.

He was meticulous in this aim. As the years went on, he shunned family photographs, casual photos with friends. He found convenient excuses to leave the room whenever someone drew their camera from their pocketbooks. It became more difficult as the devices became smaller. But somehow, he stayed always a step ahead.

Despite his aversion to being captured by keen amateurs, he became a keen amateur photographer himself.

He employed the photographer who captured him that first time to show him how to use a more modern, more compact device. She patiently taught him all she knew, and soon he was capturing candid photographs of the cast as they rehearsed. As well as portraits of the backstage crew as they worked the curtains and lights.

When they both had time, he practised taking more formal portraiture with the photographer as his subject.

Through these lessons and portrait sittings, they became fast friends and then lovers. They traded jokes and flirted as he snapped away, capturing her beauty on film. She appeared as effortlessly beautiful in front of the camera as she was assuredly in command behind the camera. She was the only one he allowed to take his publicity portraits. But he wouldn't allow even her to photograph him at ease, unawares.

On one occasion, he realised she had captured a candid Polaroid of him as they honeymooned. He angrily snatched the still-developing print from between her fingers as she fanned it to speed its development. He swiftly drew his lighter from his pocket and touched the flame to the corner of the print. He watched it melt and burn before discarding the remnants in an ashtray on a table outside a nearby cafe.

He turned on her and reminded her his image was his, and his alone, to curate and control. In that moment, he watched her happiness and love for him also melt and burn away to ash, but he barely noticed through his fury.

She ceased working as a professional photographer to raise their children. She focussed her lens on them, and he sought out a new visionary to direct in his depiction of himself.

Many were competent, and he was able to cultivate the persona he wanted through their eyes. There was something different, though. The images were good but not up to his wife's standard.

Over the years, he and his wife both photographed their children extensively, and he still trained his lens on her. She never photographed him again.

During family reunions, they pored over the snapshots from their travels with their families. Both sets of parents commented on his conspicuous absence in the photos. Seeming to ask if he'd actually been with his family on this trip or that. If he had, he'd seemingly left no trace in the photographs. He shrugged it off and pointed out the photos he'd taken as proof of his presence.

As the decades went by, his plays gained new audiences. They opened in theatres all around the world to packed houses. And curtains closed to standing ovations.

Uncountable column inches were printed discussing the themes in his plays, the characters. How well written they were, how evocative the storylines, and how intense the dialogue.

He was photographed by some of the most formidable talents in the industry to accompany the various articles, biographies, published scripts and programmes for his plays.

Over the years, he continued to maintain a close rein on his image. Even his children were forbidden from photographing him, writing about him or being interviewed about him. It was the one thing he enforced. Always.

As he reached his peak, he was invited to write his memoir by a prestigious publisher.

Writing the memoir was a walk in the park after all the dramatic plays he'd written over the years. He knew how he wanted to be seen, what he wanted to say. His memories were vivid and flowed easily from his heart and mind to the printed page.

But, as he worked with the art director and publisher on pulling together the images and quotes from others for the autobiography, a gap quickly appeared.

For someone otherwise so devoted to his family, there was no visual or written connection between him and this woman and children.

At his request, she had never uttered a word about him to the press in love or in anger. Nor had his children.

The family photographs appeared to be of a single mother with her two children, not of a loving, caring family of four. He was notably absent, even if not actually absent, out of frame or behind the camera.

He had pages upon pages of rave reviews from critics. Lengthy articles and interviews from all the major papers and theatre press. Publicity portraits from each of his plays.

But, as far as his family was concerned - the people he felt most important in his life - he was the invisible man. He simply didn't exist.

landlocked

He was back in front of this window; the window that had ended his school days, every day.

When he was young, he used to stop and gaze up at the model boat and the marine rescue vehicle as he arrived home each day. He would stand there, distracted for long moments.

So long, that his mother - waiting, anxiously, for him to return home from school - would open the curtains and find him stood there. Motionless, head tilted back, mouth slightly gaping and staring up at the boat.

She would come to the front door and watch him for a minute or two, a soft smile playing at the edges of her lips before she bundled him up and took him inside to the kitchen. She would ask him about his day while she prepared supper and listened to the tales he would bring home from the schoolyard.

His fascination with the boat had not waned over the years, but he had stopped gawping at it as he grew older. There were girls to gaze at instead, and as he grew up, they were what caught his eye or kept his attention as he arrived home each day from high school.

As he reached the end of high school, he was usually too busy sneaking in one last kiss with his girlfriend, Sarah, as he unlocked the front door of the house and said his goodbyes for the day.

The model boats, the marine rescue vehicle and the lighthouse baffled him a little bit when he was growing up.

Their home was twenty minutes from the nearest body of water, and that was a river, not an ocean or the sea. Hardly somewhere that a lighthouse or a marine rescue vehicle would be needed, let alone various large boats or ships.

The models were his dad's, but he didn't talk much about them and didn't like being asked about them.

His dad didn't really like being asked about anything. Or talking about anything.

The models just sat on the windowsill gathering dust, hidden from the inside of the house by the curtains. A display for others, not for us.

Except him, of course; he was fascinated by them.

On occasion, when his dad was in a more social mood or simply wanted to distract him while he talked with the grown-ups, his father would let him take down the marine rescue vehicle. Roll it across the rug, pretending he was saving his Lego men from some maritime disaster.

But his dad was always firm about the boat. The boat was not a toy. It wasn't to be removed from the window. He had received more than one firm slap across his legs and buttocks for even inching his fingers up toward the boat.

It was only in the past few years that his mother talked more about his dad's upbringing. It was only in the past few years, as he became more ill and his mind started to slip that his father spoke about the sea. It was one of the few things he could still connect with. That he still remembered.

He didn't remember faces, except his wife's. He never remembered birthdays; that was no change. But he could talk vividly about the sea. The sound of it. The smell. The feel of it on his hands.

His dad would sometimes stop mid-sentence and tilt his head as if listening closely to a conversation through the walls. After a few moments like this, he would invariably ask if they could hear the waves. They nodded and smiled awkwardly, hearing nothing, but knowing that they had to agree. That his dad would look crestfallen and confused if they said "no".

Growing up, he never met his dad's parents. His dad never spoke of his father, so he grew up believing he only had one set of grandparents. He didn't question this for a long time, and then it seemed too late to ask. Too awkward of a conversation to have.

Coming home now, facing the front windows of his childhood home, he gazed once more at the boats, the lighthouse, the marine rescue vehicle. He knew that now he could lift them out of the window and take a closer look. He knew that no one would reprimand him for that.

Since his dad had died, a lot of pieces had fallen into place in the puzzle. His mum had opened up dusty photo albums hidden away in the loft for decades. Too painful for his dad to look at, to speak about, to share.

In the yellowed black and white photographs taken in his dad's childhood, a warm, smiling, middle-aged man gazed into the camera from the railing of a boat.

He waved at the photographer with a look of love.

on the edge

I don't know how the hell I got here.

I mean, really, I do: I walked up here.

Mostly due to the coaxing and pressure from Sean and Nathan not to be a chicken. To climb under or over the barrier off the main path and ignore the clear signage telling us we weren't to go beyond that point.

They were dead keen to see the view. It looked amazing. Me? Not so keen.

I don't like heights for many reasons so sitting up here was a little beyond my comfort zone.

Not a little. A lot. Who am I kidding?

I waver between an overwhelming feeling of invincibility and the overwhelming feeling I'm going to bring up the burger and fries I consumed only an hour or so ago at a nearby pub. They would be preceded by the ice cream I enjoyed about 30 minutes before we headed down the path toward the beach.

The sea below is the most amazing blue.

I simultaneously feel it washing calm over me and calling to me to leap off into it. The second option could surely only result in death.

But the pull of the voice in my head - the physical pull I can't really adequately describe - is real. It's the same pull I feel when I'm right up against the yellow line on the platform in the Tube. A combination of magnetism toward the water or the metal of the train tracks and absolute rigid fear of what my body acting upon that magnetism would mean.

It's equal parts compulsion and revulsion so I avoid both situations as much as I can. Because I'm not ready for what comes after a wrong step; a loss of balance; the loss of equilibrium caused by being that close to the edge.

I sit and talk with Sean and Nathan studiously ignoring the sound of the waves below crashing in my ears. Studiously ignoring the point where the blue of the sea and sky meet that we like to call the horizon.

I focus on Sean's lips. The words pouring out of his mouth are kind of irrelevant. I don't really care about the substance of what he's saying. But they're absolutely imperative to me at this moment. If I lose focus on his lips, the words he's speaking, I lose everything.

I sneak a glance down at the beach. The crowds are growing as the day becomes warmer. Women of all shapes and sizes, in all manner of swimwear. The odd one catches my eye. Sometimes it's her figure. Other times it's an unfocussed splash of colour my eyes burrow into. Colour I can lose myself in. That isn't unending blue sea that hypnotises and calls to me.

Sean is also keenly aware of the women on the beach. He passes judgement and rates each woman who catches his eye. At least from this distance, he can't really see detail. Whether they have part of their swimming costume awry. Whether you can see the outline of their nipples. Whether you can see their tan lines, cellulite, curves ('good' or 'bad') or whatever else he's fixating on this week.

Nathan seems settled at this height but similarly uncomfortable about Sean's critique of the women on the beach. We both stay silent. Listen, but don't engage. Nathan looks out over the sea clearly wishing he was elsewhere, or that Sean was elsewhere.

As vacuous and offensive as Sean's commentary is, my mind focusses on it. Something to distract me from the closeness of the cliff.

I wonder how long we have to stay up here.

I shift uncomfortably on the rock and try to mentally coax Sean to suggest we head down to the beach. The shingle will still be uncomfortable under my arse, but at least I won't be so far up with so far to fall. So far to jump.

The sea never calls me this way when my feet are nestled in the sand or shingle. The sea can lap at my toes as much as it likes but it will never drown me in the siren sound that buffets my ears sat here on the cliff.

I can swim into the sea and feel it buoy me up. I can do handstands and swim out beyond where I can feel the sand under my toes. I can feel its welcoming, hopeful and calming caress against my body down there.

Up here, all I hear is its insatiable need for me to fall into it.

still water

He gazed out over the still water, eagerly anticipating the feeling of the cool liquid on his feet.

The water was so still. It reflected the trees around it perfectly with barely a ripple. He desperately looked forward to changing that.

Not that he didn't enjoy seeing the water so calm and perfect. But he always enjoyed getting his feet wet and watching the way the water rippled behind him and his siblings.

But for now, he had to cool his feet in the dirt on the side of the lake. His mother flapped about bringing his brothers and sisters back into line.

There were feathers to be smoothed. Little ones to calm and coax as they were still becoming accustomed to the water against their bellies. To paddling their way across the lake.

At times like this, he wished he were able to set out on his own and venture forth to pockets along the other side of the lake he'd not yet had the chance to explore. To leave them all behind and set out on his own.

But as the oldest, he had to set an example. He had to follow his mother's orders so the younger ones would too. It was safer for them that way. He recalled how his older siblings had kept him in line in the past.

He joined his mother in bringing the brood together. He herded his siblings into some sort of organised formation, ready to set out upon the water. He helped his mother by counting them to ensure none had ducked away to avoid their daily practice.

They all seemed to be accounted for.

He poked his beak under their feathers. He ruffled them a little in readiness for their afternoon commute. They wouldn't go far, and it wouldn't take long. But some needed to feel protected while they gained confidence in the water.

Their feathers were all fluffy and soft. His had long passed that stage. He had a more defined colour and look about him.

He spread his wings to show off his plumage to his siblings. Show them what they should aspire to. What they would become, soon enough.

One of his sisters nipped at his wing as he brought them back to his sides. She always had to bring him back to earth. He could be a bit of a dreamer and a braggart. But she always kept him in line.

He quacked in her face in retaliation. She took a step back; remembering her place.

Although he asserted his strength and superiority, he secretly knew she was the better swimmer. She was more adept at finding food under the water's surface even when the whole flock disturbed its serenity as they passed. There was unspoken respect between them for their unique qualities and place within the family.

Finally, it seemed their mother might be ready to lead the charge across the water. She fluffed her feathers and raised her voice to rouse the younger ones. To increase their confidence in the water.

He watched as she took one last march up and down the entourage. She straightened a feather here, lifted a beak there. Nudged the webbed feet of another. And then she appeared satisfied they may proceed onto the serene surface without making any unnecessary disturbance to it.

She waddled to the head of the line and gently stepped into the ankle-deep water before setting off gently across the lake. Her children followed. Some more confidently than others, but all of them obedient and remaining in line.

She shepherded them along the lake, taking them into the centre; the deeper part of the lake. She dipped her beak under the water. She fished, making sure her movements were clear and deliberate. Easy to follow by her children following her.

After a while, she slipped to the side of the long line of ducks and observed them as they passed. She watched them closely and coaxed those who needed it.

He proudly paraded past her, paddling under the water so smoothly that the water around him remained unbroken. He couldn't help but be proud of his talents in this arena. He'd practised hard to get this good.

The fishes swimming below didn't stand a chance. Every now and again he would suddenly break the surface of the water with his beak and snatch up a perfect catch. Sometimes he shared it with his nearest sibling. Other times he gobbled it up whole; proud of his prowess.

He looked about him at the still water and the overhanging trees and thought how lucky he was. How idyllic this place was.

burst

I remember that day so vividly.

We'd been told time and time again not to play there. Not to go beyond the chain-link fence at the edge of the village. We had the run of the quiet dirt roads, the open gardens of our home and our neighbours' homes. But we weren't to venture beyond the fence at any time, for any reason. It wasn't safe.

Of course, that meant we had to. It was a challenge, not an order, wasn't it?

We imagined all sorts of horrible goings-on beyond the fence. Even though nothing was really hidden by it. We could see what was there. It wasn't really dangerous, was it?

Dangerous was something you couldn't see.

Dangerous was falling down the rainwater drain in the kerbside. Falling into the sewers below and being swept along in our neighbours' wastewater. The foul water filling our mouths, our noses, our eyes and our ears before anyone could hear us calling out.

Dangerous was strange men in strange cars offering us sweets. Men who shouldn't be approaching girls our age. We'd been told what dangers lay in accepting candy from strangers. Those men were old and odd, and we weren't interested in them. But we knew they were dangerous even then, so we never entertained the thought of breaking the rules for a few morsels of candy.

Dangerous was playing too near the nuclear power plant that overlooked our village. We'd heard the local butcher telling our parents stories of animals that had wandered too close to the plant that had developed strange defects and growths. He'd slaughtered them with his own hand but buried them rather than selling their flesh to the village, even as feed for other animals.

But beyond the fence, all we could see was the sea. The beautiful ocean shimmered in the sunlight. Blue as the blue sky above it. The waves generated a cacophony of sound that reached our bedrooms. That lulled us to sleep each night in summer when the salty air wafted in through open windows to cool us.

We watched the waves draw up over the shingle while the boys played football in the street. Our fingers curved around the metal diamonds in the fence. We pressed our foreheads against the intersections of metal and watched the foam as it inched its way up over the dry pebbles. Drawing away to reveal wet pebbles. We were mesmerised.

It was our birthday.

Maybe that's why we were such good friends and had been for so long. We were born on the same day, in the same hospital. Our mothers hadn't known each other. They met in the maternity ward and her family ended up moving to our village just after. We'd heard the story over and over. We didn't really care about the details, we just wanted to go out and play together, and rolled our eyes each time our mothers retold how they'd met.

We each had a balloon in the shape of a star. The star in each was transparent. We pulled faces at each other through them. We pushed our noses and mouths against the plastic to distort our features. We laughed until we thought we might burst.

We ran along the street to the fence with our balloons flying in the air behind us. The boys were playing football, as usual, but we were more intent on seeing, if we ran fast enough, would the balloons lift us off the road? Would the run-up we had and the lightness of the balloons allow us to take off and carry us up and over the fence?

It was worth a try.

But, of course, it was a fool's errand. It was fun, but not going to get us where we wanted.

Instead, we knew there was a section of the fence that had been cut away. Opened up by older kids to access the shingle beach so they could gather after dusk to drink and skim stones on the ocean and make out.

We checked the boys were still distracted by football. That no one was watching.

We shimmied through the fence. Protective of our summer dresses and balloons as we did so. Not wanting to tear one or burst the other.

We made our way down to the water, kicking our jelly shoes off as we got closer. We slowed, the shingle awkward and uncomfortable under our bare feet. Despite that, we continued forward. Intent on feeling the coolness of the water on our small toes. Knowing we were doing wrong but doing it anyway.

Because it was our birthday. We could do anything on our birthday.

She waded into the water ahead of me. The waves lapped at our hands, we giggled and laughed together, the ribbon of our balloons still clasped tightly in our fists.

Behind us, suddenly, we heard a collection of screams. The screeching of brakes. We turned back toward the fence and the road beyond. We instinctively reached out for each other's hand and held our breath.

She let go of her balloon. It wafted gently on the wind back toward the fence.

We watched in horror, everything feeling like it was in slow motion, as our parents and our friend's parents ran out into the street.

We watched as her father scooped up her brother's lifeless body from the road. We watched, horrified, and wondered if this was why our parents had warned us about going beyond the fence. If this was why it was dangerous.

Even now, we wonder if it was our fault.

beautyberry

They unfurled the blanket on the damp ground. The sun had appeared. The rain had stopped long enough ago for them to feel confident of a pleasant, warm spring afternoon. But the soil beneath their feet still held a lot of water. And, here and there, raindrops still rested on the leaves, flowers and berries around them.

The berries, in particular, caught their eye. A royal purple. A vibrant, saturated colour set off by the green of the leaves separating the bunches along the branches. The berries clustered in groups at regular intervals along the stem, like disordered regiments at ease on their tea break. Clustered but unorganised.

They talked while they unpacked their afternoon's repast. They laid out their plates, cutlery, glasses. The cheese, crackers, fruit jelly and wine.

The sun licked at their cheeks. Added an extra pinkness to their complexions; a gentle glow.

They kicked off their shoes and took a seat. They nibbled at the tasty morsels they'd gathered together. Feasted upon the cheese; drank deeply of the wine made from the berries that overhung their current resting place. It warmed them from the inside while the spring sun warmed their skin with gentle kisses.

They spread the jam - made from the berries festooning the clearing - across their scones. Placed generous daubs of clotted cream upon it. The sweetness was overwhelming and welcome.

Once they had eaten their fill - talking animatedly throughout - they reclined on the blanket and gazed up at the blue sky. The light breeze caught the berry bushes' branches and caused them to swing in and out of their line of sight.

She looked up at the berries and let her gaze drop in and out of focus. As she let her eyes rest and her focus soften, the berries took on the soft, blurred, bokeh appearance of lights photographed out of focus at night.

She reached a hand up and gently twisted a berry off the branch with her fingertips. The berry still held the last vestiges of the spring shower, causing its purple blush to stain her fingertips as she rolled it between them. She drew the berry under her nose to smell its scent of crushed leaves.

As she turned the berry between her fingers, they talked of immortality in all its guises. The banter between them outlined the potential pitfalls of an eternity of life. They lay side by side curled up against each other, lost in a comfortable silence.

Unbeknownst to each other, both their thoughts turned to how pleasant it would be for this moment to last an eternity. They both sank into this thought, unaware of the collective power it held over them. They closed their eyes and let the spring sun warm their skin as the thought warmed their hearts.

They poured more wine and drank it as they talked more with each other. Listened more to each other. They nibbled at the remaining cheese, sliced apple and beautyberry jam. They roused themselves enough to draw out the Scrabble board and laugh their way through a close game.

As the game ended, the sun's warmth receded. The light had dropped without them noticing while they were absorbed in letters, words, high scores and banter. They pulled their jackets about them, feeling the cool afternoon breeze caress their arms and cheeks.

They gathered up the remnants of their meal. Their belongings. They shook out the blanket. The beautyberries that had fallen onto the blanket as they sat and conversed, teased and taunted, and lost themselves in the moment and each other, scattered around them.

The purple berries settled into the damp grass around them. They unwittingly trampled them underfoot as they moved around the clearing gathering up the detritus of their picnic. As they packed away the last of their picnic items, the remaining morsels of food and drink, and bundled them up, a light shower started to fall.

They moved faster, now conscious the clouds coming in threatened a greater downpour, but they savoured the touch of rain upon their faces. Dampening their hair. They paused as they both reached for the picnic basket.

He paused to wipe away a raindrop from her cheek. She paused to taste of the sweet rain that rested on his lips. They shared one last moment that felt like an eternity before turning to run, pell-mell, for the car.

They reached the warmth and dryness of its interior as the summer rain started to fall with full force. Pelting the windscreen and obscuring them from view of the outside world.

leonine

She shook out her hair, giving nary a care, and glanced around at the flock
She arched her back, gathered her pack, and plotted the demise of the stock
She watched and she waited, anticipated, observing their comings and goings
She paced and she paced, assessed the enemy she faced, she watched for their weaknesses showing

The air was so clear their words she could hear, they drifted across on the breeze
She took it all in, their clamour and din, as it carried across narrow seas
She awaited their landing from where she was standing smelling their scent on the air
It seemed such a long time but in the meantime she prepared for their imminent scare

Meanwhile on the incoming boat her enemies they stayed afloat, oblivious to her presence
Their doe-eyes distracted, their future seemed fractured, but they clearly had no sense
Of what was soon coming, no hawing and humming, their future by her was well-mapped
She openly taunted, her strength it was flaunted, but meanwhile those sheep were well napped

As she yawned her teeth bared, they were suddenly scared, they saw from the boat their demise
Too late they foresaw the strength of her maw, too late their route to revise
She slavered and drooled, her hunger it ruled, her teeth gnashed together in anticipation
Her mind was intent, her appetite unspent, she eyed her incoming meal with elation

From the shore she surmised their growing surprise at the future that faced them on landing
It gave her great pleasure to enjoy at leisure their burgeoning understanding
They were cowed and they wavered, their lowing it quavered, their courage it turned to milk
They flocked together, as if by a tether, shimmering as though they were silk

The shepherds and crew, devouring their stew, continued oblivious below decks
They had not a worry for nought but their curry, but definitely not for their necks
The men would continue to strain every sinew and entertain each other
They'd chew on their gristle and emit a whistle and fantasise 'bout their lover

They drank deep, ate hearty, they dressed oh so smartly, they exhibited oh so much style
They sang and they jigged, their boat they had rigged, to carry them one further mile
Their journey's end was in sight, they continued to enjoy the night, oblivious to what may await them
They revelled in anticipation, experienced overwhelming elation, despite the oncoming mayhem

The sheep and the cow, alert at the bow, gazed upon her mane
The second mate and the drunk navigat-or revelled in their shame
The boat it did falter, its course it may alter, but none at the wheel were prepared
To change the ship's course, avoid all remorse, so lives of those creatures were spared

They bobbed on the waves, contemplated their graves, they lowed and they baa-ed until hoarse
The shanties below, sung by every young fellow, drowned out their sounds with such force
Meanwhile on the land, the lioness took her stand, she focussed on what was to come
She stifled a roar, surveyed the seashore, and wondered where had they come from

Her pack stood attentive, eager yet pensive, intermittently licking their lips
They paced and they wandered, their energy squandered, their eyes fixed on the ships
They maundered, meandered, their thoughts underhanded, victory certain as life
Their leader so strong but the boat's approach so long, their attention, it turned to strife

They fought and they tussled, their fur it was ruffled, they argued amongst one other
They were distracted with thought, they played and they fought, they pursued another's lover
In short, they grew weary, some grew teary, their minds moved away from the prize
They bickered and teased, they snickered and sleazed, they mislaid the element of surprise

As the boat drew up to the shore, she let out a heart-stopping roar, that made the boatswain faint
Her teeth bared, ferocious, her manner precocious, the crew all prayed to a saint
Quite clearly it wasn't the same one, as their salvation wasn't won, so their fate lay in the paws of the beast
Her mercy was not what they hoped, the weaker ones fell and they moped, as she came at them from the east

Despite her pack's distraction, the campaign gained much traction, they tore apart man, sheep and cow
The blood it flowed quite free, it coloured all the sea, the colour red still dominates it now
She watched her pack quite proudly, she expressed her gratitude loudly, they dragged the creatures one by one back to the den
She knows the outcome could have been different, though she's not one to be diffident, but this time it was simply a matter of when

tunnelling

He ran his fingertips along the wall as he walked toward the light. The surface of the wall crumbled away, falling to the tunnel floor as he moved forward. He raised his fingers to his nose, looking ahead into the light, not pausing for a moment.

The smell as he ran his fingers under his nostrils brought back so many memories. Days spent with his mother in the yard picking strawberries from the patch. Gathering blackberries from the bush out front of the house.

The damp, dank smell of the tunnel mixed with the dirt to bring back a sense of petrichor without the grass. There was no grass to be seen.

He felt it should have been an unpleasant smell, down here, but the mixture of scent and memory made for an overwhelming feeling of inexplicable nostalgia. Inexplicable because he had never been here before.

The light from the stone, glassless windows played on the wall. The wall's uneven surface glimmered a little in the sunlight. It brightened and darkened as the sun played over it, and as the clouds moved across the face of the sun.

He gently placed his fingers on a sun-kissed patch of wall and felt the warm clamminess of the soil forming it against his fingertips. It brought back overwhelming memories of days spent by the local creek on sweltering summer days.

He pressed his fingers into the warm, moist mud and watched the soil curve around his fingertips. He wondered if the sunlight ever dried the wall out, or if it just warmed the moisture like it was doing now.

He dragged his fingers down the wall with movements more deliberate and less tentative than those previously. The surface of the wall smeared and distorted with the movement of his fingers.

He left his mark on the wall but doubted it would remain. For he could see no evidence of another's presence here beyond the existence of the tunnel itself.

Clearly many had been here before him. No one man could have created this opening, this entrance, this channel, on their own. No solitary man was up to that task.

This was a collaboration. A mammoth task. But around him he saw no evidence of man. No evidence of those before him. The tunnel appeared untouched, but simply by its existence it could not have been. He was not the first being to have wandered through this darkened hall.

He moved forward. He was drawn forward without really knowing why. He just didn't feel that moving backwards was an option. A valid avenue to take. The light led him forward. The possibility of what was beyond enticed him. It scared him, but he was hypnotised by the prospect of what may lay ahead.

To be honest, he didn't even really know how he had come to be here. He felt he had some vague sense of 'before', but it was just that: vague. It didn't really make a lot of sense and was just a mixture of sounds, smells, lights, tastes and textures. Nothing solid he could put his finger on.

Not like the warm, earthen tunnel walls his hands continued to gently glide over as he moved forward.

Before he had felt smothered by the dark. Warm, cocooned, safe. But smothered. As he moved forward he felt less so. He felt the air thinning. Less choked with the musty, but homely scent he'd become used to.

He tentatively but optimistically moved forward. He noticed new scents. Ones he couldn't identify. Confusing. Fascinating. Terrifying. Enticing. He felt overwhelmed but knew that turning back wasn't the right way either. His curiosity overpowered his fear. Drove him forward, despite not knowing where it drew him.

The light grew brighter. He saw colours around him now, not just shades of black, white and grey.

He heard sounds beyond what he'd heard before. Previously they were always muffled. Calming, but unclear. A dull aching sound that he'd wanted to draw closer to and hear properly. Like listening in to a conversation through a wall that you can't quite make out.

The sort of muffled conversation that keeps you awake nights as you catch an exclamation, a cry, a sob here and there, but you can't quite make out the context. What it all means. Whether the people you hear are arguing or conversing, happy or sad, excited or angry.

But as he moved closer it felt like a lens coming into focus. A camera zooming in on the scene. It all became clear.

crying in the shower

I mostly cry in the shower. Or more specifically, in the bath, because I can't currently stand to shower.

I could be all poetic and say it's because I can hide my tears, even from myself, in the shower. The tears mingle freely with the spray from the shower rose as I douse my head; rinse shampoo and conditioner from my locks.

But it's not that. It's just that they seem to come most freely in there. Where the white noise from the water and the exhaust fan drown out everything but my own voluble and constant thoughts. Thoughts I can no longer shut out.

Crying in the shower feels cleansing; even just for a day. Until my next shower; the next time I'm completely alone with my thoughts again, and they well up, unbidden, once more.

The shower might be where I find myself in tears the most often, but lately I find myself crying almost anywhere. Everywhere. I struggle to think of a day in the past couple of months where tears didn't catch in my throat, even if I somehow managed to stifle them from pouring forth.

The first time they came, despite my best efforts, when saying goodbye at the end of a heartrending afternoon to a woman who looked like my mother, but only briefly appeared to be her, in glimpses.

She knew me when I arrived. She greeted me with open arms and a hug, despite her confused state about almost everything else. That gave me hope for just a little while, but as she repeated the same questions over and over to the hospital staff and my father, that hope died a little each time. My heart broke when she wanted to leave with us, saying 'I just want to spend time with both of you', but we knew we couldn't take her with us for at least another day.

I tried to hide the tears from my heartbroken father over the coming days, but they choked me when I tried to speak more often than I could control.

When my mother told me in one of her lucid moments, 'Don't ever let this happen to you', I hid my tears over her shoulder as I hugged her close, and left the room as soon as she became distracted with one of her newfound obsessive rituals. Barely able to breath, the tears finally streaming down my face in the next room.

Since then, I've cried in shock, in pain, in frustration and anger. In fear and panic. For what I've lost; what I'm losing.

Through my life, I've mostly managed to go without crying much in public. Not unrestrained ugly crying, at least.

But I was crying in the airport as I turned away to go through Security after she asked me when I'd be back and told me to come back soon. I told her I would, knowing full well that by the time I return she'll be gone; one way or another. As I promised, I saw that she could see the look in my eyes, and she looked like she knew she should look the same but she seemed confused about what to feel; why I might have that look in my eyes.

And I ugly-cried in a light plane over Bass Strait. I didn't care that the stewardess could see me as she went through her safety demonstration. I didn't care that the other passengers could hear my sniffles and sobs. I couldn't have stopped it, even if I'd cared.

For about a week my morning ritual consisted of tears. Tears of frustration at myself and others for the things I couldn't do unaided. For shower roses out of reach. Over the inability to lower myself to the floor of the shower or raise myself to standing to get dry. Over being left alone to do things I would usually do alone, but I couldn't.

When my mind manages to drift away from family for a while, I've cried for things I wish to be so, and things I believe will never be. I've cried in his arms. I've cried because I can't be in his arms.

Every day I've felt sure I have no more tears left, but then I tell someone about my mum. I talk with my dad and watch the heartbreak wash over his face again. We cry together over Skype, and I cry later about being so far away when all this is happening. For not being able to take away the hurt, the frustration; for not being able to change any of this.

I cry because she's already gone. Even if she's not yet gone.

And then I cry some more.

a bird’s eye view

They talked of little things. Of big things. Of middling things.

The sort of things that stuck in their craw, or alternatively that made them sing. Not that seagulls are particularly known for their singing. If you can even call it that, and most don't. But sometimes, just sometimes, there were things to speak of good enough that they made them sing, even if they were the only ones to call it that.

To be fair, she talked more. He mostly listened. He interjected sometimes with an amusing quip or anecdote and then dropped into the background, letting her speak her thoughts aloud.

Sometimes the deepest thoughts. Sometimes simply gossip about the other birds roundabout. They had views on most things, albeit mostly a high level aerial view, with the odd deep dive into society and its mores. They were dab hands at picking up tidbits around and about, but getting clear of it all when shit went down.

Occasionally they fraternised with the other birds. Other seagulls and pigeons mostly. But sometimes they travelled further afield and crossed paths with blackbirds or magpies, or other smaller neighbourhood birds. Tits, robins, sometimes the odd starling. Though the starlings tended to be a bit too obsessed with flying in formation, which didn't make for much opportunity to just chill out and network together.

They squabbled with other birds over morsels left behind by the humans, or they talked about nesting and raising their young. Exactly how much they should feed their young through regurgitation? How young was too young for the hatchling to fly the coop, or the nest? You know, the usual, really.

Despite the draw of the seafront, they didn't really like crowds much. Their favourite place to perch was over the town square; the one with the church and its churchyard. It was more peaceful and less overrun by tourists - both on the ground and in the air - than the waterfront. The nearest pub was down the hill, so apart from the Sunday sermons, the area was quite quiet.

They liked to watch the humans congregate one day a week in fancy clothes. Occasionally they would swoop down to snatch a beribboned bonnet from a small child or a prim and proper lady, causing a bit of a ruckus, soon forgotten.

Something colourful for the nest was always lovely to have. Something to brag about to their neighbours. When the humans weren't looking, sometimes they took a stroll around the churchyard to gather up the colourful tributes left behind on the graves.

What good was a colourful ribbon, an evergreen plastic leaf, a shiny bit of tinsel, to one of their lost ones? Surely it should be enjoyed by the living? These things made for beautiful touches on an otherwise dull nest of twigs and dry leaves. Something shiny and colourful to brighten up one's home and make the newest member of one’s family feel welcome.

On Fridays they feasted on fish and chips like good locals. They weren't as keen on vinegar and ketchup as their human counterparts, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

Some of the local humans had put out bird-feeders in their front or back gardens around the square. Leaving seeds and such out for their feathered friends. Despite initial reservations, they didn't seem to mean any harm; and though the meals on offer were basic, they were mostly hearty.

In between times, the worms surfaced from the earth in the churchyard when the rain fell, and the bins overflowed with takeaway options. The square was a relative smorgasbord without the long lines and bickering to be had by the sea.

They watched from above; surveying all below. They knew all the humans' gossip, but there was little point in knowing it because they couldn't convey it to other humans, and other seagulls just rolled their eyes to hear it. And rightly so.

The humans would never change. They were lower beings. Why bother to observe their ridiculous comings and goings? As long as they left behind the odd scraps to feed on, or left enough fish in the harbour for them to catch their own, then all could live well enough together.

Things had become a little out of hand lately as the humans were leaving the ocean in a right state. Some fish not fit to eat because of pollution, plastic in their bellies, or any number of other reasons, but there was still just enough to go around for everyone. For now.

Meanwhile, the sun was shining. The sky was blue. What more could a seagull want? What a glorious day to go fishing.

encrypted

I don't remember when death was first explained to me. Strangely, because I have a lot of vivid memories from childhood and adolescence. I feel like it's something I should remember.

When did I first become aware of the fact that everyone dies? That my grandparents would die? That my parents would die? That I would die?

I, strangely, don't know. I don't remember that ever being explained to me.

I remember hearing that my grandpa had died. The first of my close family members to pass away in my lifetime. But what I remember most about that was that my parents decided that we children wouldn't go to the funeral. That my father would go, but my mother and the three of us kids wouldn't. I don't remember the whys or the wherefores, but I guess I was okay with that.

My parents had tried to keep us away from seeing him the way he was towards the end. A non-smoker dying of emphysema. A horrible way to die.

My younger brother insisted on visiting him in the hospital to the point that my parents finally relented, but I recall being told that all my grandpa could do was wink at him, as he would always do when he caught our eye across the dining table as we carried on playing in their lounge room while the adults talked around the table and drank tea.

I don't remember the explanation for death I was no doubt given as a child, at some point.

I remember the talk about making love, having sex, fucking. The explanations of puberty and menstruation. The books my mother borrowed from the library to help me understand what would happen to my body as I moved through that awkward stage between being a child and being a woman.

Those discussions, her openness and the books she gave me to read meant I didn't face those things with fear the way her mother had. It meant I could ask any question of her about those things that I wanted an answer to. But I don't remember asking her about death, ever.

I remember my mother telling my brother and me that one of my father's former co-workers in the Northern Territory had passed away from AIDS when we were both still in primary school after we'd moved to Melbourne. Her explaining homosexuality in a non-judgmental way and probably a vague explanation of AIDS; as much as we needed or wanted to know at the time. I guess I didn't ask many questions. I listened. I took it all in. I learned homosexuality wasn't bad from a young age, but I never really thought about his death as deeply.

Then, in 1992, at 14 years of age, I found myself in a cemetery in New Orleans. A cemetery many know from the film 'Easy Rider'. A cemetery full of vaults built above ground to avoid human remains draining off into the river.

I was fascinated. This was the closest I'd ever come to death and I found it intriguing. The way life and death was celebrated through these places. The way their graves were created in as elaborate a fashion as their homes.

They were beautiful, despite the death they encased. They were time capsules. Memorials to those inside. A fashion statement. A record. Bragging rights after death.

Even at that young age, I knew I didn't personally want to be buried, but I had fallen in love with cemeteries. With graveyards. With the art of the stonemason. With the ceremony. The ritual.

Over the years I found myself consuming books about death; documentaries about death and the places people are buried. About how our bodies are handled after we die. About burials. About graveyards. About cemeteries.

I've spent countless hours, camera in hand, wandering through churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, and whatever other names you want to call those places where people are laid to rest.

Generally, I find them places of peace, of relaxation. Like parks, but with the remains of those who came before still present in them.

But I know they often have reputations of being places of unrest. Of disrespect to those interred there. Not all of these places are peaceful or have been peaceful in the past.

In the decades since my grandpa died, I've managed to avoid the realities of death. At 42 years of age, somehow, I've managed never to attend a funeral. Never to have seen a dead body. Never to have spent time in the company of someone in their final hours or watching them pass from this world.

I consider myself lucky, but I'm also aware that I live a closeted life by not having been exposed to those things. Death is, after all, a part of life. From the time we're born we're dying. This is a simple fact not even I can escape. And for someone who actively seeks out the final resting places of the dead, it's not lost on me that I’ve managed to evade being exposed to these things.

However, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality. I’m conscious this impacts me in terms of my fear of falling, for example, but also my reluctance to get a driver’s licence. My fear of others around me dying. My fear of dying. And more specifically, my fear of dying alone and no one knowing or being nearby to prevent that.

I often choose a solitary life which means I’m more likely to be alone if something unfortunate happens. Best case scenario: my flatmate will find me hours after the fact, too late to change the outcome. Worst case scenario: he or someone else will find me weeks later, again, too late to change the outcome.

Even in my worst stages of depression, I knew I wasn’t a suicide risk because what was making me most unhappy was not living my life the way I wanted to live it. I’ve always loved life and been aware of how much more I want to do, so my depression has always been related to not being able to live the life I’d like. Not due to wanting to end my life. I count myself lucky again for that.

But it doesn’t lessen my fascination with death. With how we handle the dead.

Despite my fascination with graveyards, I don’t want to be buried. I’m an outspoken advocate for organ donation (and, in fact, donation of anything that can be donated) and, as an atheist, I don’t believe in the hereafter or reincarnation or anything that requires my body to remain whole after my death.

So, while I love the stonemasons’ artistry, and the pomp and circumstance of heraldic funerals and elaborate mausoleums, vaults and headstones, I’ll settle for returning to ashes and the earth when it’s my time.

Though I hope my time doesn’t come anytime soon.

a room of one's own

She circled the brown wooden structure, running her fingers along the wooden slats on the side and the back of the building at waist level. Feeling the texture of the wood and the few remaining thin daubs of white paint worn away by wind, rain and the salty sea air over the last few decades.

To the left of the door, she ran her fingers down the canvas nailed to the wood. Revelling in the contrast of its texture to the wooden slats.

The door's peeling surface revealed layers of varicoloured paint applied over the years. A variety of browns with an underlying coat of dull yellow peeking through.

Despite the erosion of the paintwork, she marvelled at the fact this structure was so intact when so many similar buildings dotted over the shingle beach were in such decrepit states. Fishing nets haemorrhaging from broken walls. Doors sagging on hinges. Burnt struts exposed to the elements like skeletons.

She approached the door, running her fingers over the exposed door handle. Wondering at its seemingly bonelike colour and appearance. She curled her fingers around the doorknob and turned it, expecting resistance. Surely this small building was still in use and therefore locked, with its four walls, corrugated iron roof and door still intact, despite all the wear and tear from the elements buffeting it, placed so close to the sea.

To her surprise, the door creaked open with no resistance.

She almost stepped back in surprise.

The door opened outward. She pulled it toward her, hesitantly peering around the door jamb at what might be inside. She realised she had held her breath, unconsciously, and on becoming conscious of the fact, exhaled heavily then inhaled deeply; the smell of the ocean mingling with the musty smell of the interior of the building.

A strange mixture of nostalgia washed over her: one of childhood summer holidays by the beach mixed with memories of the storage space under the stairs of her grandparents' house. For a moment she felt lost in time, and the darkness of the interior she looked in on made her feel a little off-balance.

The day was overcast and a little hazy, so much of the interior remained darkened until she opened the door fully; and even then, her eyes took a while to pick out the details in the shadows not illuminated by the daylight.

She wandered in, letting the door close gently behind her. She had established that the door had no lock, so she didn't worry about being trapped inside, though she felt slightly apprehensive about what she may find in the darkness.

She turned on the torch on her mobile phone and shone it about her. The building contained a lot of the same contents as so many similar structures along the beachfront: nets, motors, rusted machinery, and implements she knew not the purpose of. Strange artefacts she wondered at and thought may make interesting decorations for her apartment.

Her phone, previously indicating plenty of battery, suddenly turned off. The interior of the building was quickly thrown into darkness, and for a moment she felt like she was blind. She stood stock-still, feeling a little off-balance again, but waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

In a few moments, a small amount of light seeped through between the wooden slats. A tight polka dot pattern of light came through the canvas, albeit pale. She let her breath out, realising she'd been holding it again.

Despite her initial discomfort with the darkness, as her eyes adjusted to the low light she found the space quite calming. The sound of the sea reached her through the walls but was less overwhelming when filtered through the canvas and wood.

She moved toward where she thought one of the walls was, navigating the space slowly and carefully. She hesitantly reached out her hands at a forty-five-degree angle, expecting her fingertips to connect with the rough wooden surface quickly, but it took far longer than expected.

When they did connect with the wood, she ran her hand gently down and moved from standing to squatting, using her other hand to check for anything at a lower point. She skimmed the wooden floor of the building with the palm of her hands before seating herself between what felt like a reel of net and some paint tins.

She sat there in the dark, letting the distant sound of the sea wash over her. She slowed her breathing to match the speed of the waves as the water swept onto and away from the shore outside. She felt a strange calm. A peace she didn't often experience. In the darkness she closed her eyes and just focussed on the sound, letting it wash her away.

new york, new york

She'd walked these streets so many times.

Sometimes slowly, taking in the apartments along each block as they moved from utilitarian buildings to grand terraces. Sometimes quickly, dodging and weaving between the other pedestrians on the sidewalk; looking mostly at the concrete, or dashing out in front of yellow cabs, but not taking in her surrounds.

The sounds of the city washing over her. The various vehicles and people clamouring to be heard, but all of the sounds merging into a cacophonous melody that threatened to overwhelm her.

She'd meandered down long avenues of brownstones, wondering about the people who lived within their walls. Coveting their homes, their lives. She strolled through the Park watching the couples. Some engaged in affectionate banter, some in excessive displays of public affection, others bickering and verging on violence, if only in words.

She walked rapidly along the back streets at night, neon lighting up the rain-soaked streets; her head down, but her senses charged and alert for any potential threats.

She'd skipped quickly down the Subway stairs, making a beeline to the platform. Careful not to brush against others if she could avoid it. Focussed on where she was going and avoiding all eye contact.

Her lips and tongue competed with the sun to consume ice creams in the sweltering summer. If the sun won, she would only get the benefit of half of the icy treat. If she won, it would be some insurance against the fatigue the heat brought with it, but it would be scarce protection against the trickle of sweat that would wend its way down her spine, and no protection at all against the cling of her blouse to her skin.

She would gaze up at the skyscrapers, marvelling at the engineering. Admire their sparkle and shimmer in the sunlight, despite despising the ostentation and arrogance of their blocking out the sun.

She watched diners in the prestigious restaurants self-consciously ensuring they were being watched behind the floor-to-ceiling windows. Pinched women with tiny fluffy dogs on the end of leads or stowed in their handbags.

She circled the Square. Watched the advertisements a storey and more tall attempt to sell her a lifestyle she could never afford and probably didn't want anyway.

She visited with Travis, Susan, Patti and Carrie.

She absorbed the art oozing from the streets. Lurked in underpasses. Experienced clubs and bars and cafes, and listened to the music pour out of every orifice. Out of a basement record store. A passing car. A strip club. A busker on a street corner singing Simon and Garfunkel off-key.

She counted her way across intersections. Marking city blocks until she reached the intersection of First Avenue and 42nd Street. She only knew which way the sun would set by the Es and Ws on the street signs; and how far north or south she was by the number of the street.

As she walked through the streets taking in the modern buildings and street scenes, her mind flashed back to the 1970s and ‘80s. The memories of these places stowed deep in her mind from so much exposure. She heard the echos of stock market crashes and organised crime.

All of these visions and sounds washed over her. She lost herself in the moment completely.

For a moment she lost herself so completely that she forgot where she was. And then she remembered.

She remembered that she wasn't where she thought she was. In fact, she had never been there. She had never walked those streets. She had never smelled those smells; heard those sounds; seen that flash of yellow as the cab passed by. Never done her duck-and-weave trick through a sidewalk of people ten-deep between the shopfronts and the kerb.

She'd simply shared a collective dream. Tasted the concoctions and potions of the City mixed together by some of the best filmmakers and writers over the years.

Her memories were poor imitations of their realities. Their stories of a city that never sleeps. Of a city on the edge. Of people on mean streets on a dog day afternoon. Of a Broadway, a Manhattan, a Central Park and a Brooklyn she'd never stepped foot in.

She'd never smelled the Subway on a sweltering hot day. She'd never raised her voice to be heard over the clamour of car horns in the centre of the city at peak hour. She'd never stood on the 102nd floor and gazed out over the city.

She'd never climbed out an apartment window to sit on the landing of a fire escape and swung her legs back and forth whilst indulging in witty repartee with a friend over a bottle of fine wine or a cheap bottle of beer.

The sign above her, not yet illuminated in the afternoon haze of a warm spring day, spelling out the name of a place everyone dreamed of going to 'make it', was about as close to the Big Apple as she had ever managed to be.

Her eyes swept down from the sign to take in the flashing lights and squawking sounds of the arcade behind it. The children attempting to claw soft toys from the machines, and buffeting a puck back and forth in air hockey.

The sign overhead and the ‘Zoltar’ machine spitting out fortunes for a pound were about as close as she would get to New York for now.

[This project is being published as early access on my Patreon. If you want to enjoy new instalments a week before everyone else, become a patron].

fairy stories

As she flicked through the brightly coloured pages, the smell of the paper, the ink on paper, wafted into her nostrils in great waves. It drew her back. Back to the sunny front room of her family's home in Aspley. The sun falling on the pages of the book of fairy stories her grandparents had given her for her sixth birthday. She lay on her belly, propped up on her elbows on the green and black mattress of the stacked beds in her mother's sewing room. She was utterly engrossed by the tales of witches, evil stepmothers, princesses, princes, cats, wolves, frogs, soldiers, giants, pigs, bears, genies, elves, dwarves and birds of many varieties.

Since learning to read she had devoured books. She completely lost herself in the worlds they created. Even when there were no pictures to accompany the words she could see the imaginary worlds in her mind's eye. The faces of the characters, the houses they resided in, the cities they inhabited.

At six years of age, of course the concept of princes and princesses was alluring. She asked her mother how you became a princess. Her mother told her you had to have blue blood. She pressed her fingertips against the veins in her arms and swore the rivers that flowed below the skin were blue, but whenever she grazed her knee in the yard or the doctor took blood it was always, disappointingly, a deep crimson colour. Not blue at all. She had not been born to be a princess.

As she grew older she learned more about fairy stories. Their origins as warnings to children about the dangers of nature, of predatory adults, of greed, sin, pride and such. She learned the stories she grew up with were sanitised, censored, made palatable for consumption before bed without driving small children to nightmares, though originally they were intended to strike fear to the very heart of children to keep them close to home and out of danger. The darkness that inhabited the original fairy stories was muted to a dark grey, instead of a deep, deep black. Gruesome endings became happy. Good conquered evil, always.

As she grew older she grew to prefer the darkness of the original stories. There was more reality in the original stories, though they were often heartbreaking. The darkness of the stories drew her in much more than the saccharine, over-bright palate of the stories she read as a child.

She wanted less and less to be saved by a handsome prince, and more and more to save herself. Or be an intelligent woman and avoid any of the traps that befell those princesses in the first place.

She grew up to learn the reality of princes and princesses was one of decisions made for them by others. Everything was strategy and allegiances; not love. For all the romantic stories she grew up on, history told her those were just stories. The realities were about diplomacy, alliances, war, peace, and cold, hard cash. Most princes and princesses were puppets without the free will to choose their love, to choose their lovers.

And yet, the myth of the perfect, all-encompassing love continued to endure in her mind. It pervaded everything, blinding her to the realities of this imperfect world she inhabited. A world that shared more in common with the original brutal fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and their compatriots. A world not easily drawn into the whims of a ceaseless romantic who truly should have outgrown this fantasy world well before now.

And yet. And yet she grasped onto this ideal with white knuckles.

She built a castle around herself. She secured the moat, drew up the drawbridge, surrounded herself with soldiers to keep this ideal safe away from the bruising realities of life. Perched on a mountain top, she surveyed the lands around and wondered from which direction this one true love would emerge. She gazed across the lands around her, wondering when it would emerge. She waited. And waited.

And still, somehow, the cynicism that drew her away from dreams of princes and princesses and fortunes and kingdoms and all of that pomp and circumstance didn't seem to dim her belief in something she had still yet to see or to have known to even be sure that it existed. Her belief in logic, in fact, in truth; that all took a back seat to her undying belief in something more when it came to love. Despite her better judgement.

nesting

She stumbled toward the edge of the forest. Broken, bewildered, disoriented. She wasn't sure quite how she got here or quite how she was going to get home. She wasn't really certain of anything, of anyone. Of herself.

As she entered the forest, the birds gathering on branches above her called to one another. An insect hum provided a white noise bass line to their melody. The snap and crack of branches underfoot as she walked further into the forest created a syncopated, faltering percussion.

As she walked by one of the redwoods, she stumbled, her bare foot catching on a fern frond curling across the forest floor. She reached for the strong, thick old trunk of the tree; grasping it to catch her fall. Though the bark of the tree scraped skin from her forearms as she embraced it to stop from falling, she held it tighter as she regained her footing, as though her life depended upon it (and maybe it did).

She turned and leaned her back against the tree’s trunk, listening to the sounds above her. She closed her eyes and let the sounds - primarily the birdsong - wash over her. She became vaguely aware of the sap from the redwood’s trunk dripping at a seemingly glacial speed onto her shoulder as she stood, mesmerised by nature.

She shook her head, brushed her wild mane of hair back from her face, opened her eyes and looked around her. Eyes lingering on the eternity of trees stretching out in front of her, then the glimpses of sky through the canopy overhead, then falling on a cluster of mushrooms at the base of the trunk of the next ancient, towering tree.

She wove her way through the forest like a somnambulist. Dazed, her eyes unfocused. She felt like she'd somehow ended up being the last person on earth. She felt isolated, yet liberated. Free from other people, the crowds, the harsh sounds of the city. Surrounded by creatures possessed with the gift of flight, of music; self-sufficient in nature, without any need of humans.

She watched as a squirrel scurried across the forest floor and ascended to a branch to hoard its findings. She watched ants moving in armies up and down the length of a tree trunk, carrying morsels from the undergrowth into a knot in the wood. She envied them the simplicity of their lives. The ordered way in which the ants collaborated and cooperated. The home the squirrel had made overhead.

As she walked, she stooped from time to time to gather up some of the larger fallen branches until her arms were full. She moved toward a nearby clearing and carefully arranged the branches on the ground. She gathered more branches, not really thinking closely about what she was doing, just following some sort of instinct; a calming instruction sent directly from her mind to her limbs. She moved back and forth between the trees; selecting, collecting, depositing, nesting.

After a time the branches took on a form; a circular, welcoming shape that drew her in, made her feel more calm, more settled. At home. She continued adding to her construction, not thinking, just doing. Like the ants, but alone. The placement of the branches methodical, precise, yet appearing haphazard. The curve of the branches raised on one side and lower on the other; like some sort of pottery dish moulded by an amateur not yet skilled in the art of ceramics.

She paused as she approached her construction. Surveying it to assess whether it needed anything further, or was it complete? A gentle smile touched her lips as she decided it would do perfectly.

Her bare feet raw and stinging from walking back and forth across the forest floor; across twigs and branches and the odd soft cluster of fallen leaves and scattered fern fronds. Her shoulders and back warm with a satisfying ache from bending, lifting and carrying. She stepped into the circle of branches, bent her knees and gently placed her arse, thighs and lower back against the curve of the side of her construction, and leaning to one side, moulded her spine along the wall of the nest. Her hair tumbled over her face, obscuring her vision as she closed her eyes and the sound of the birdsong seemed to lift in her ears. She wrapped her arms around herself, embracing her aching body.

As she lay there in the forest, the thick smells from the undergrowth seeped into her nostrils. The smell of the wood, the soil, the musty smell of the mushrooms growing nearby. In her ears the continuing call and answer of the birds overhead, the hum of insects echoing across the space.

As she curled into herself further, one sentence gently circled in her mind: I am home.

into the blue

They walked together in the cold dusk air in silence. Holding hands, gazing up at the clouds moving across the sky. The clouds transforming, breaking apart and reforming, moulded by the wind before their eyes. The blue hour came and went as they walked along the beach; a layer of sand clinging to their damp feet, the excess falling from their toes as they walked. The clouds, at first plump and white before sunset, became thin and wispy and moved at the whim of the salty night air. As the sky darkened and the sun disappeared below the horizon the clouds became less and less distinct from the sky. But as the moon rose in the sky and the clouds moved between them and it, the moon’s glow picked out the frayed edges of the clouds. They watched as the shapes of the clouds morphed, reminding each of them of one thing then another.

As they moved through the club, the music so loud they felt it in their bellies, the lights moved through their cycle of colours. Pink, red and yellow, then green, violet and blue. The strobe pulsed with the bass. Lighting up the dancefloor like a camera flash; capturing still moments while dancers moved in time with the music. She led him by the hand as they walked through the crowded club. They made a bee-line toward the dancefloor sticky with spilt drinks and humid from the sweat of so many bodies in such a small space. The smoke machine by the DJ's booth belched out coconut-scented smoke, masking the odour of so many sweaty bodies and the scent of sex. They danced for a while; favourite songs pouring out of the speakers. Their bodies in rhythm with each other from so many nights spent together on dancefloors around town. When they'd had enough they collapsed into each other on a stained and worn velour couch that's original colour was now hard to discern even when the house lights went up at 5 am. They sank blissfully into the couch and each other's arms.

They sat on the sand, the headlights from his car providing light for them to see each other by. Rugged up in coats and blankets, mittens and beanies, they curled up close to draw heat from each other. They couldn't light a fire on the beach, so they shivered in the spotlight of the low beams, watching the fog drift in from the sea and their warm breath billow against the cold night air. They giggled together as they attempted to blow smoke rings into the sky. The car radio, picking up the only station nearby, played a mixture of golden oldies, and love songs and dedications. They pressed their faces, blushed pink from the cold, together in an attempt to bring feeling back to flesh. Their warm breath mingled and rose into the cold night air as though from one person. They lay back to stare up at the cloudless sky and the stars overhead as the classic hits continued to pour from the tinny speakers in the car’s dashboard.

Their clothes were strewn behind them, discarded on the sand like breadcrumbs in fairytales, as they ran through the rain toward the waves. The beach was deserted this time of night, especially in this inclement weather. There was no one around to see their antics or their naked bodies as they ran into the water. The water still warm from the heat of the sun earlier in the day, but cooling on their skin. They waded together and splashed each other with the salty, foamy water as they moved into the shallows. As they sauntered further in they savoured the lapping tide moving against their bodies and the rain falling on their bare skin. The water now up to their waists, they clasped hands again and moved out until the water was almost up to their shoulders. They leaned their heads back in the water, lifting their feet off the seabed, floating with eyes up toward the sky. After allowing their bodies to float for a while, they swam together, heads under the water. They rolled over in the water from time to time and opened their eyes to look up at the night sky through the waves. Watching the ripples of moonlight and the lights along the boardwalk refracting through the water's surface. Marvelling at the patterns and shapes of light drifting through the water. Lost together in the beauty of the moment and submerged in their muted underwater world.

on the rocks

I watched you as you talked. My eyes read your lips as you spoke, though I could hear every word. When you paused my eyes rested on yours; watched your eyelashes as you blinked and squinted in the sunlight. In the longer pauses, I let my eyes leave your face and follow your gaze out to sea.

We'd found a quiet spot above the rocks by the water, nestled away from joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists. The sandy patch where we sat was too small for strangers to feel comfortable joining us. Couples peered down from the path from time to time but moved on to find their own secluded space along the waterfront when they saw us.

We hadn't sought out somewhere private, isolated. We happened upon this spot, and from the path above noticed some interesting rocks. Gun-metal grey pebbles worn smooth by the high tide. The sun-bleached bones of a bird. The latter drew us down here for a closer look. After balancing on rocks inspecting the skeleton we gravitated to the sandy patch of earth behind to continue our conversation.

It was one of those slow, lazy, relaxed conversations old friends have. The ones that nestle on comfortable silences. The kind that comes easy, flows smoothly but drifts off into natural silences from time to time. This is how we talked most times we caught up. Especially on long summer days when we didn't have to be anywhere in particular. Though from time to time we'd meet at a bar and talk over each other in excited bursts. Especially when we hadn't caught up in a while and there was a lot to tell.

On a day like today where we both found ourselves on a break from work, we would meander along the coastline. Enjoying the sea breezes. Seeking out creatures, living or dead, amongst the rocks. And talking like this.

But today felt different. From the first moment we met and hugged, as we did each time we met. Something unspoken seemed to be between us and this time it didn't feel like it was only from me. As soon as I thought that, though, I brushed the thought aside. Wrote it off as my imagination. An overactive mind. Dismissed it completely. Or so I thought.

Then, as we sat by the water talking about everything and nothing, skimming grey pebbles across the soft, low waves, the feeling came back. As the sun became stronger at the peak of the afternoon we felt lazier and both lay down. Our knees bent, our forearms resting across our eyes to shield them from the sun. Without thinking, we'd ended up laying down side-by-side. But that was never a big deal before so, again, I brushed the thought aside. We were comfortable together. And it made conversation easier as the sound of the waves grew louder in our ears.

But then, laying next to you, a little more relaxed from our time in the sun and the sneaky pint of cider I'd had over lunch, every movement felt magnified. More significant. As we spoke about memories from years ago, your hand gently slapped my thigh as you broke into peals of laughter. As your palm connected with my skin, it felt like a jolt of electricity. I tried not to flinch or show any outward sign of how it made me feel. But the feeling coursed through my body to other places, out of my control. I laughed with you, distracted. I wondered if you'd noticed. But then a plane flying overhead changed the course of our conversation. And the moment passed.

As we talked, I snuck furtive, sidelong glances at you. Trying to figure out if my senses were right or if it is was the sun addling my thoughts. You continued to talk to me as you always did. And again I brushed aside the sense that anything was different. I listened to the sound of your voice; so familiar, calming, warm.

The tone of your voice leapt as you remembered a night we'd gone out together many years ago. Your voice was full of laughter as you rolled over onto one elbow to face me; to observe my expression as you reminded me of it. I removed my right forearm from one eye to watch your animated face as you spoke, whilst still shielding my gaze from the sun's harsh light.

Before I had time to think, my left hand sought out yours resting on the sand next to me. My hand curved around yours. Clasping it gently, but at the same time conveying everything I was feeling. I pulled my right arm away from both eyes now, gazing straight into your eyes. I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity.

colour theory

It started slowly at first. Shoes, of course, were a given. Socks were par for the course, though she always ensured they were as close to the original pairing as possible. Being the same colour and style wasn't enough. They needed to be of a pretty exact equal length, equally worn. At least bought at the same time, even if it wasn't possible to ensure they were a 100% matching pair from those bought.

She rarely owned matching knicker sets. Apart from the few sets of His Pants for Her pastel no-underwire bras and panties she had in early high school. Most days she could only match her blacks and her whites when it came to her bra and knickers.

So she settled for matching her tops, knickers and socks instead, where she could. If she wore a red top, you could be certain her underpants and socks were also red. If she wore a blue, black or white top, her socks and jocks would match. If she couldn't match them, she at least tried to work with complementary colours. In those days, her wardrobe consisted of blue denim and corduroy jeans, black trousers, black skirts (often worn over the trousers), a scuffed-up pair of 8-up Docs, and a navy blue pair of scuffed-up Converse One Stars. Variety in terms of colours was restricted to her tops, underpants and socks.

The colour-matching of socks, jocks and tops became a bit of an obsession. Sort of like a lucky charm wrapped around her to get her through the day; keep her safe. And it stretched on for many years until finally, she settled on a favourite skirt style and her mother offered to make her skirts for work based on that.

Standing in the fabric store with her mother she picked out various shades of blues and purples, and a burgundy. Her mother matched the material with lining and disappeared into her sewing room to make the skirts for her. Voila! A full week's worth of skirts and a variety of tops to match with them. At that point, her colour coordination obsession really started to amp up. She still had plain black or white shirts. But now whenever she went looking for more tops for work she would ensure they complemented the selection of colours from her collection of skirts.

Pretty soon she had her top and skirt combos down pat. A bit of switching between tops depending on the weather, the season, or her mood, but she had a colour-driven uniform. Her opaque tights and her shoes were still black, but from neck to knee she wore one colour, sometimes just one tone.

When she wore dresses they were vibrant and colourful vintage dresses or pastel 'granny' dresses found in charity shops. In the warm Melbourne summers she rarely wore tights, but in winter she would pair dresses with black opaque tights.

Until she discovered a treasure trove of vibrant and colourful opaque tights in a local mall and fell in love. By this point, the arse had literally fallen out of her last pair of secondhand men's Levi 501s. That gave her the perfect excuse to buy a pair of opaque tights in every colour (except yellow or orange, because ugh!) She even managed to overlook the misspelling of the brand of tights as 'Tention'.

In high school and college, she favoured black and white film for her photography. She found colour distracting from form and composition, and felt her colour work was always weaker. More likely to be 'record' shots than anything creative. In the moment, all she could see would be the colours. But when she got the prints back, all she would see was the bad composition and lacklustre images. Her wardrobe had always been pretty colourful, but that sense of colour hadn't managed to translate into her photography.

Now she started visualising photographic ideas with colour as the starting point. Her self-portraits and portraits were often inspired by an outfit or a setting, and without fail, that usually came with a particular colour. The colour of the material; the colour of the interior of a space; the colours of the landscape. She learnt to work with the colours first so they were integral to the image, but didn't distract from it. Remembering the colour theory she'd studied at college, she could now create a palette for a shoot before raising the viewfinder to her eye or setting up her tripod.

By the end of her self-portrait project, she'd fallen in love with green with red, green with pink, and pink with red. And blue with orange, blue with pink, and blue with red. And blue and green, though others told her they should never be seen without a colour in between (for what it’s worth, the sky and trees beg to differ).

As soon as she thought about a new-old dress she'd bought at a charity shop she could think of exactly where she wanted to set her next self-portrait. The ideas would bleed into her mind in full colour.

And then she moved back to London. And rediscovered Hush Puppies. And fell in love with colour even more than she already had been. Her work days were head-to-toe colour. Solid blues, reds or purples. Vibrant colour combinations. Or a single eye-catching accent colour to brighten up a black dress and shoes.

That obsessive colour-coordination may also have seeped into her home with linen matched to wallpaper, paint or photographs hung on the walls.

She surrounds herself with colour.

in dreams

Another restless night. She doesn't know any other sort of sleep. She doesn't always wake from sleep during the night, but often the act of sleeping is more tiring than not sleeping.

Her dreams are, by turns: disturbing, hilarious, heartbreaking, nostalgic, violent, melancholy, full of love, full of anger and frustration, sad, arousing. Sometimes they are all that at once. They are always vivid and full of passion, whatever the overarching sense is.

Sometimes she wishes she didn’t feel things so intensely, even in sleep. But when friends or family tell her they don't dream — or at least they don't remember their dreams — it makes her feel sad for them. She would never want to stop dreaming, or to stop remembering most of her dreams. Despite all the ways her body physically ties in knots during the night. Despite all the ways her mind mangles itself as her eyes flicker under their lids in the dark. She would never will that other world away; want it gone.

The tension in her muscles. The ache in her bones. The tangle of nerves under her pale skin as her body physically responds to what is happening in her dream (or is the storyline in her dream dictated by the sensations in her resting body as it recovers from the previous day, week, months?)

She feels the emotional and mental sensations of her dreams through her body as she sleeps and wonders that it remains mostly prone while she’s unconscious. She wonders that she doesn't wake up physically entangled by her bedsheets, imprisoned in them, given the way her mind and heart often feel when she wakes from dreams in tears or in anger, her throat dry and hoarse as though she’s been screaming or yelling in reality as well her imagination.

From time to time she’s awoken by her own voice, albeit trapped in the back of her throat. She wakes to uncontrollable tears. To shaking; to breathlessness or ragged breathing; to unutterable fear and a racing heart. That one time she woke to laughter, her own, opening her eyes to find her partner staring at her through the morning light, incredulous at the sight of someone laughing in her sleep.

She dreams of sleepy, but impassioned, entanglements as her body lies beside another. So vivid that when she wakes to find them breathing deeply, sleeping soundly, she’s startled it was just a dream. The pleasurable ache between her legs lingers for long moments after waking, making her question everything around her.

Most nights her body temperature rises. She sleeps lightly clothed, aware that too much material close to her skin will cause her to overheat. Will cause her to wake in the night, her hair a damp mass encircling her neck, strangling her.

Other nights she shivers, feverishly, though the night be mild. Conscious of the need to add layers, she nevertheless dreads uncurling herself and unwrapping herself from her bedclothes to venture into the fresh night air to find more clothing. She curls into herself, knees drawn up to belly, elbows and wrists aligned, cupped hands clasped together and nestled between neck and pillow.

She dreams of houses she's lived in and those she can only dream of living in. She revisits houses she's never physically stepped foot in, but that she remembers from other dreams. Houses of many rooms, and many corridors twisting and turning. Lavish in parts; derelict in others. She makes her home in them or moves from them. Oftentimes they unexpectedly fall apart, become derelict, or she simply finds herself evicted.

For months before and after travel she dreams of planes and missed flights; of being far from home; of uprooting her life yet again to other shores.

She dreams of family long gone as though they weren't. Those dreams are often the hardest, as it's like saying goodbye all over again as she wakes.

She learned years ago that if you force yourself to wake from a bad dream to escape it, you need to fully wake, rouse yourself completely from the dream, or you will fall back into the same dream. But if you are woken prematurely from a beautiful, pleasurable dream, you can never just fall back into it, no matter how you let your mind run over the memory of the dream as you fall back into slumber.

Her mind is a tapestry to be woven then picked apart. An embroidery to be carefully created with fine needlework only to be tattered with sharp blades. It creates its own reality, then breaks it up into a million pieces. All within a matter of hours. Every night.