‘Wise guy! Jolly joker! Who may I ask are you?’ A man’s voice echoed through the room while a golf club nudged Letitia in the back.
With a shriek, Letitia tossed the genealogical document into the air causing it to splat inelegantly onto the homemade patchwork quilt.
‘Who are you in my bedroom, wearing my wife’s clothes, and reading my family history?’ the man accused half in jest.
Settling near a waterhole framed by reeds, Dad built up a fire on the coarse sand while our family friend, TR rolled up his trousers and dipped his toes in the pool. ‘Hey!’ He pointed and did a little dance. ‘A fish! I see a fish!’
Read more "Story Behind the Painting–Ormiston, the Other Side"Letitia peered at the magazine of a disinterested patron to the left of her. “Behind the Iron Curtain” the cover advertised. Letitia leaned back to check what that article was all about. The man narrowed his eyes and glared at her. Then, he stood up, marched to the counter, and spoke to the manageress in muffled tones, furtive glances and fingers pointed in her direction.
Letitia’s chest tightened. They’re going to ask me to leave, she thought.
While Anthony marched ahead to find the rock paintings before they disappeared, I trailed behind and nibbled my nuts and chocolate. Needed reinforcements to do the walk.
Anthony vanished around a corner. A few minutes later, he appeared, jogging towards me. ‘They’re here! Come look!’
The thing at his feet moaned. It sounded like a man.
Friedrich gulped. He knelt down. He held out his shaking hand. He touched something soft and greasy. Was that hair under his fingertips?
Anthony trekked after me as I trudged over to the graveyard that looked more like a neglected paddock of red sand than a cemetery. We gazed at the iron crosses of the early missionaries such as Kempe, and a sad tombstone of a Latz baby of 10 weeks.
‘Vogelsang, who’s he?’ I asked.
As she stepped through the double-glazed sliding doors she blinked. Confused. The busy street in a haze of humid summer heat was not how she remembered the station in Antarctica. Classic Holdens and Fords running left and right roared past her. The tunnel of three-or-four storey buildings arranged in many shades of grey competed with the brilliant blue sky above. She squinted and strained her vision for a sign and some sense to her whereabouts. A sign at the corner of the street read “Argyle Street”. She could discern the ominous presence of a police station over the road just past the traffic lights. She decided to walk swiftly in the opposite direction. Letitia had no intention of being labelled an illegal alien.
Read more "Out of Time (2)"‘Oy! Oy! What do you think you’re doing?’ Dad yelled.
I bolted on southwards and upwards to the spur. Even menacing prickle bushes didn’t stand a chance as I charged through them. Behind me I could hear the Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! as Dad hacked his way in pursuit of me. ‘Come back! You can’t go off on your own!’
Stealthily, she reached for the medical report that was slung at the end of the cot, pulled it towards her and scanned the details. She trembled. My goodness it really is 1967! she thought. With hands shaking, she replaced the chart on the hook, and resumed her unconscious repose, hoping that her racing heartbeat would not alert the two nurses to her altered state of consciousness.
Then, without a second thought, she pulled out the plug to the monitoring system to be sure.
I snapped a few more photos and climbed into the Ford. Anthony was drumming the steering wheel. After I’d fastened the seatbelt, Anthony turned the ignition.
Nothing.
‘O-oh!’ Anthony muttered and tried the ignition again.
The Ford started, then shook and shuddered.
