Don't Say "One Day" (That Day Will Never Come)
Give your brain a one day holiday - Welcome to BrainCation!
Welcome to the first edition of BrainCation!
I’m so glad you decided to take the plunge. You didn’t say “I’ll read it one day”, No!
You knew it was now or never.
Sing it with me now …
Don't say one day
That day will never come
Wash away your worries
and your muffled something
Take your brain away from the everyday
Take a BrainCation reality holiday
There are Australians of a certain age who now have a certain jingle implanted in their cranium, that of the Gold Coast theme park Dreamworld. (SNS)
When thinking of how to relaunch my regular creative dump, I was inspired by memories of idiotic summers where we relentlessly pestered our parents to take us on “a trip away from the everyday”. They finally relented. And we were all happy. (Or were we? Who cares, it fits the narrative).
If you really want to know the full blurb about BrainCation, read the About page.
But you’re here to turn off your noggin and get some entertainment endorphins pumping.
To do so, I am sharing two pieces of flash fiction: The Second Son and Out of the Blue.
Let’s go.
Before you get to read the first story, I’d just like to share the news:
I’ve Been Highly Commended!
For the story you’re about to read!
To give you some background, the John Gavin Writing Competition is run by the Fremantle Round House to commemorate a horrendous incident in Australian history: the hanging of a boy found guilty of murder - the first European executed in WA.
On the 6th of April 1844, Easter Saturday, John Gavin was hanged in front of the Fremantle Round House and buried without ceremony in the sand dunes nearby.
Thought to be around fifteen years old (but records indicate he could have been as old as 17, being of small stature and possibly lying about his age) and having been sent out to the Colony to be apprenticed labour from the Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight, John was convicted of murdering his employer’s son, George Pollard, on a farm in Dandalup.
— Background information from the Fremantle Round House website
Judged by Brooke Dunnell (winner of the Fogarty Literary Award), you can read the winning entries (and Brooke’s comments) on the Fremantle Round House website.
I read about the competition in the Queensland Writer’s Centre newsletter and was drawn in by the mirky tale. They provided links to transcripts of the trial and even newspaper articles of the day. It had the potential to be a set-up or a horrifying true story.
So why did he strenuously deny the murder until making a confession just before being taken to the gallows?
To make it interesting, you had to reference the murder or the trial in your 750 word entry. ONLY 750 WORDS? ARE THEY CRAZY?
My kind of crazy.
I was hooked and had to give it a go. I’m still smiling after getting a nod.
So here, for your enjoyment, is my Highly Commended entry:
The Second Son
The rooster’s crow slashed through my dream, as dawn’s light snuck through our lean-to and stabbed my eyes open.
Startled, I looked at my hands. They were clean. The bloodied battle with Satan had been a dream. The unholy beast’s attempt to drag mother down to hell thwarted by me and my axe.
A dream or a prophecy?
George called me to wash at the river. With father away it fell to the eldest son to take command. He sent Michael to collect the convict to join us. He knew I disapproved, but had father’s blessing to continue this unnatural tradition.
Anything to keep his eldest son happy.
As usual it was I who applied the ash cross to our foreheads. With no local priest the family turned to me for guidance. Having memorised the gospels made me the ideal choice to lead the family in prayer.
Michael and I ate our Ash Wednesday meal of bread and milk before starting our chores. Luckily, Michael preferred working in the barn, allowing me to tend the cattle.
Mother and George had chosen dinner for their Ash Wednesday meal. Of course the convict would eat with them. He and George were inseparable.
They ate together, bathed together, they even sang songs to each other in the evenings. How could he treat that convict more like a brother than his own brothers?
No matter. Today was the beginning of Lent, a time to deny pleasures that lead to temptation. A time to repent one’s sins.
It was God’s will I was born the second child. I would not succumb to jealousy.
My good deeds for Lent began when I blessed the puny convict, as it is up to God to render judgement, not I.
I urged him to reconcile with the holy father ‘ere returning to dust, and he wept. It was the first time I had seen a man cry, and I near felt compassion for his pathetic soul.
But he was a criminal, and an orphan. He had chosen a hard road to find salvation.
With no mother or father to guide him, it was our family’s duty to set him on a sanctimonious road to forgiveness.
The honeymyrtle shrubs stopped rustling as the breeze ebbed. At least the ash trees provided shade enough to avoid sunburn.
I took the cattle down to the banks to drink. The day was not yet at full heat, and they were restless.
Why did George always get more than me or Michael? It was unfair.
George got a book of ballads at Christmas. Granted, I had my bible, but he always received more than me. He was already promised a prize selection when he came of age.
I dare not ask mother or father why his selection should have a spring, while mine would require carting water from the river.
But George is the firstborn son, and by the good lord’s grace, I shall not succumb to jealousy.
A ballad floats on the air from the house. He fills my ears as well as my mind. Again, his sins will go unpunished.
I watch the convict leave the house for the carpenters. Jesus was a carpenter. Would he have forgiven this thief?
He had stolen and been sent here as punishment. And I see the way he looks at George, and how that fondness is returned. It is unnatural.
I rise to my feet and start for the house. The sun has burnt my neck, starting a headache.
Walking into the kitchen I drink the milk that has been left out. Realising I should be fasting I pray for forgiveness. But I blame the heat and what it is doing to my head.
“Mother?” I call out. She appears from her room.
“I have a terrible headache,” I tell her.
“I think it’s the heat,” she says, “I’m starting to feel one as well.”
“George shouldn’t be singing. He promised to give up singing for Lent. It’s not right.” I say.
“I enjoy hearing his songs,” she says.
“You will go to hell,” I say.
“I can’t help hearing him if he’s singing nearby,” she says. “God won’t punish me for having ears.”
”That is God’s decision,” I say.
“But I will protect you, mother. Go rest and I will tend watch over my herd. Satan will not harm you today. It has been prophesied. I will save you. I will save us all.”
Cheerful, right?
On a different tack (and not related to the above story at all) (AT ALL), a friend and I have agreed to create a website called “Sour Grapes” where we publish submissions to writing competitions that are obviously far superior than those that won. We are of course kidding. I’m going to print mine here.
I’m kidding of course, I really enjoyed reading the winning entries in the competition - there isn’t a sarcasm setting being put here, I really did enjoy reading them. I felt the second placed story should have won. But that’s what judging is all about, isn’t it? Maybe you should have a read of them and make up your own mind.
In next week’s update (Biting The Hand That Feeds) I’ll be sharing thoughts on writing competitions. Look at that. Making promises. I feel like I’ve joined the big boy table of publishing.
On a lighter note, here’s a quick story I wrote when I first started attending the Carindale Creative Writer’s Group. Based on the prompt ‘out of the blue’. Gee. I took this one literally.
Out of the Blue
The clouds looked so close you could almost touch them. In fact you could. The closer you got, the faster they disappeared. A mist. A miasma. Dewy but not wet. And then all was white.
Like a flash the blue appeared - a living canvas sprawling as far as the eye could see. Turning slowly anti-clockwise the topography morphed into gold, green, white and black. Man-made towers rising from the shoreline, but seen from up on high, more like miniature figurines in a game. The occasional lower cloud now passing out of view as the earth rushed upwards.
Time was moving quickly, yet frozen, as blood quickly pumped through aided by a massive rush of adrenaline. Details were becoming clearer. Skyscrapers no longer looked like shards lodged in ragged patches of green, but the fully formed buildings that they were. The beach was becoming wider, the occasional shadow upon it possibly another person looking up at what was coming down.
And the ocean! The ocean continued to tease and beckon. Shimmering sunlight reflecting back off the rippling waves became clearer as the plummet brought you closer.
BOOM.
Someone somewhere pulled the ripcord, wrenching you back skyward, rising back above the others on your joyride adventure. One by one their shutes also filled, shooting themselves up past you, back into the blue.
Again the features before you clarified. The buildings, the beach, the ocean. Now more slowly as the trainer eased you towards the target - still a blur on the tiny strip of sand below. How impossible. How incredible.
You could now make up the body surfers in the waves below. The foam rose up as the breakers crashed onto the shore. The marked drop zone now noticeable, four flags on each corner now easily spotted. But still, so small! How did they know how to find them from that high up to begin with?
The experienced parachuter strapped behind was carefully guiding down in a dizzy circle. The blurry dots became blurry people became excited onlookers holding their phones up to catch a fun video to show to their friends at home.
And with an impossible lightness the sand was beneath your feet. The parachute slowly fluttering down behind you. The blue sky, back above your head where it belonged.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for taking time out with me.
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Until we connect digitally again, remember to live your best life based on the classic words from the Dreamworld jingle: “Wash away your worries and your muffled something”.