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December, 2010

  1. his four demons

    December 11, 2010 by Mathew Ferguson

    james had his demons

    four in total, their names tattooed on the insides of his arms

    doskeska, tormenta, virol, heartbreaker

    he and lucy were to be married but as the day drew nearer, his demons rampaged and it became obvious he hadn’t defeated them

    doskeska bloody and clawed, whipping through a shopping centre near christmas, screams amongst the tinsel

    tormenta lurking in an abandoned swimming pool, surrounded by gates and wire, warning signs and guards and yet the little children still found their way in

    virol flying down from her high nest to pluck businessmen up and carry them to her aerie where she’d stick feathers to them with spit and toss them out to fly

    heartbreaker whispering in lucy’s ear, doubts and suggestions, lies and suspicions

    it was heartbreaker pushing that had lucy on the phone crying, lucy worrying at her ring, lucy talking with her mother

    books, websites, instructional dvd sets for just three easy payments of $24.99 but not one of them showed how to scale the kilometre high wall of ice, how to find bravery when tormenta’s mud spikers came pouring out of the ground, how to reassure a lover who made a list of pro and con

    moments from an epic adventure:

    james weeping, giant underwater breathing behind a shelf of books, doskeska feebly thumping his tail as dark yellow leaks from three deep cuts

    tormenta riding aloft a wave of mud spikers laughing, james hacking the legs off dead children filled to the brim with corrupt dirt

    a hive of near-bees erupting as hot metal beams melt through their putrid wax inside the hollowed out office building, virol alight and expanding in sheer delight

    james forcing a spike of pure toffee deeper into his chest, the sharp sugar slicing a ventricle and as the beats thumped out of balance, heartbreaker cracking apart

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  2. banana bread

    December 11, 2010 by Mathew Ferguson

    when dad died, the world fell apart

    tasmania was the first, splitting down the middle in a six-minute quake, the dark sea rushing in to fill the gap

    wrapped in grief, my brother james and i didn’t realise this was exactly what dad used to talk about from time-to-time, especially when he was drunk

    he’d be acting the fool, arrogant and not listening until someone would finally snap and tell him the world didn’t revolve around him and he’d say actually it does

    peru snapped off south america and slid under the waves, the entire country disconnected from the continent as neatly as a jigsaw destroyed

    james rang me up as the world collectively lost its mind and asked me if dad was maybe telling the truth

    i said no way but then france lost all consistency and powdered away into a fine dust; mexico rocked and cracked away from its foundations and began drifting out to sea – the mexican president appealing on television for people to stay where they were lest they tip the entire country over; japan simply compacted and shrunk, building grinding against each other, roads narrowing, the entire landscape folding away a neatly as any origami ever made

    at the front door of dad’s lawyer james was panting and red, describing how ireland apparently was sucked up into a tornado and was last seen drifting somewhere over eastern europe

    the will in an expensive leather pocket sealed with a red wax seal was no will but a recipe for banana bread with about once a month scribbled across the bottom

    mr henderson the lawyer glanced away from watching iceland slowly fading from existence to comment that dad had always made pretty good banana bread

    by the time we’d gone to the supermarket and then back to my place, we’d lost most of china (became brittle as toffee and cracked into pieces), new zealand had started to quiver like jelly and canada was by all accounts “gloopy”

    banana bread takes about an hour to cook in a moderate oven and i’ll tell you that is a long time to wait when russia is growing hair, moving like a living thing, a great thudding heartbeat toppling towers all over the place

    come over for some banana bread – it really is quite good

    Category Short stories | Tags: | No Comments

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