The Write-Me-Back Falls: Episode 3

Previously on Cum Tacent Clament…

“Stop changing the subject and tell me what’s wrong,” I yelled.

“We can’t,” explained OG in a voice that implied I was missing something flagrantly obvious, “We’re not all here yet.”

“Oh good grief,” I groaned. “Who else could we possibly be waiting for?”

“For me, of course,” said a voice behind me. And since I was standing with my back to the cliff edge, that was a little disconcerting. I turned around slowly and realised that it couldn’t possibly have been anyone else.

“Nice of you to join us,” I said to … Samantha Triton.

And now… Write-Me-Back Falls continues.

Ba daah, de dat daah da de dah de dat dat daah – Dat daah de daah de dada daah Daaaaaah.

“Theme music? Really?’ asked Samantha “On a text only blog?”
“Shut up,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“And as if Write-Me-Back Falls would have the theme from A Country Practice as its opening titles anyway.”
“…I was going for the theme from Jurassic Park, actually.”
“You really need to learn to sing better.”
“I really do. How come you can fly?”
“Rocket Boots,” explained Samantha as if it was obvious. She touched down with a hint of overdrive and toggled the rotary speaker effect off.
“Of course,” I sighed. “I suppose there’s no point asking why you’re teaming up with OG and BL over there? I thought you were on my side.”
“Of course I am,” she said, with reverb.
“Then this doesn’t make sense,” I said, by way of plot exposition. “Oxfam Girl is almost completely imaginary, and Biscuit Lady is one hundred per cent metaphorical. You’re real. Or at least, you are when you’re being a piano. Not so much when you’re a flying woman. Also: Why are you dressed like that?”
“I’m a time-travelling space pirate.”
“YOU’RE A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT!”

“I hate to interrupt,” interrupted Oxfam girl. I suspect she quite enjoyed it actually. “But could we get on to what’s really going on here?”
“I’d love nothing more,” I said
“Hmph,” hmphed Biscuit Lady.
“We’re all here because we’re about to be blasted out of existence,” said Samantha, a little too matter-of-factly.

“Don’t be stupid,” I replied, “It’s clear that none of you exist except in my mixed up mind anyway. What have you got to be worried about?”

“That,” said all three of them in unison, pointing out to the electrical storm gathering over the ocean. I laughed at them.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little rain cloud?” I chided. “What kind of tropical girls are you?”
“I’m from a musical outlet in Brisbane,” said Samantha.
“I’m from an Oxfam Shop in Sydney. Sort of,” said Oxfam Girl.
“I’m a sociological metaphor, and I don’t like thunder,” said Biscuit Lady.
“Besides,” said Samantha, rolling her eyes, “That’s no ordinary thunder storm. If you look closely you’ll see the lightning is flashing steel blue, with a band of green around the middle.”
“That is unusual,” I admitted. “What do you suppose is causing it?”
“We don’t know,” admitted Biscuit Lady. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I asked the Bureau of Meteorology about it and they said they don’t really have a classification for it yet either.”
“I have a bureau of meteorology in my subconscious?” I asked.
“Stay focussed,” said Oxfam Girl. “No-one knows what that thing is, but we all know it’s dangerous. We can feel it.”

“We’re calling it Resolution Seven,” said Samantha.

“That’s… an awesome name for a thunder storm,” I said as a brilliant flash of blue lightning, the colour of the ocean at sunset, was followed by a particularly resonant thunderclap. And it was certainly getting closer. I watched, fascinated, as the clouds blew in and hovered over the cliff top. The imaginatrixes shivered beside me, and Biscuit Lady was looking decidedly pixelated.

“Get behind me girls,” I said as I smiled insolently at the storm, “This will only take a second.”

It sure did. Almost without warning, a steel blue thunderbolt flashed straight through my chest. The ground shook around me, but I stood my ground, just barely. As a good Christian Boy, I’d never felt more Weird. And as the fireball dissipated and the rain began to fall in warm, huge splotches (none of this rubbish southern rain, thank you very much. It’s my brain after all), I looked around to make sure the girls were okay.

They were gone.

In their place stood a piano, a 'make poverty history' wrist band and a plate of damp biscuits with a 'highly commended' certificate. I smiled, nodded once to say goodbye, and left them behind. As the storm of Resolution Seven closed in, without looking back I stepped to the edge of the cliff and jumped.

This is the part of the dream where I’m supposed to wake up and get on with writing. Apparently I still haven’t. It’s possible this blog is about to get really strange. Either that or I’ll be back in 2013 with more of the usual nonsense. Who knows?

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

Christmas Spirit

I’m a little mixed up this morning. I try to keep on top of headlines and opinions, and this morning, just a few days after the darkness of the Sandy Hook massacre, I’m reading stories and articles about how people are angry about being encouraged to give to charity.
It’s a week before Christmas. Matt Young is telling us he won’t be giving to charity to because his inner-Sydney urban lifestyle is too expensive. And also in Sydney, a bar in Surrey Hills has banned the Salvation Army from entering its establishment because apparently the homeless people at the Salvos shelter up the road are often intoxicated, and the pub doesn’t hold with that sort of thing. And to top it off, someone is trying to kill Oxfam Girl, whose only crime is being too imaginary.

I don’t mind people having a go when the charities get a little too cheeky. I’ve been known to have the odd crack at them myself. But the Christmas season is not the time to start whining about people asking for money on behalf of those less fortunate, especially when the only reason we’re complaining is because the cost of living is going up, which, while it’s a nuisance for us, is likely to be catastrophic for those who are struggling to get by as it is. And not struggling in the sense of “I’ve no money left at the end of the pay period," but struggling in the sense of “I guess I can go live in my car for a while.”

Okay, so groceries are expensive. Petrol is insane. Electricity bills are set to go through the roof. The point we all seem to miss in this is that even when they’re expensive, we still have ready access to food, fuel, electricity and roofs. There are plenty of people, even in Australia and in the centre of Sydney who struggle even for these basic things. Not just struggle to pay for them; they don’t get them at all. Thank God for organisations like the Salvos who are prepared to stand in the gap and speak for them.

It’s fine if you don’t like their religious stance. And it’s fine if you want to criticise their corporate structure. But if you can’t spare some change for the homeless while you’re enjoying your nine dollar apple cider, then I don’t care what your philosophical or economic stance is: you’re doing it wrong.

So in this season of giving, try to find a little bit of extra light in your heart, and buy a sandwich for an inner city wanker who might have to unplug his plasma TV for a while to manage his electricity bill.

To the rest of you: Merry Christmas!



Garry with 2 Rs

Keeping Busy

It’s been a little bit too long between posts hasn’t it?

My problem at the moment isn’t so much that there’s nothing going on for me. It’s more that I’ve got so much on the go constantly I don’t get any time to sit and write any more. And nothing going on that’s really worth a whole post in its own right anyway. Well… nothing that I’m prepared to post to my blog yet, but that’s a non-post for another day.

Meanwhile the Christmas season continues to cartwheel along. I’ve got my usual array of carols services to attend, plus the never ending procession of Christmas parties, housewarming parties and weddings. It’s a hard life, isn’t it?

It looks like of I’ve got work lined up for at least the first six months of next year. Meanwhile I’ve joined the committee for the Australian Sepak Takraw Association and applied for a place at the Uniting Church National Young Adult Leaders’ Conference. I’m really extremely busy and important, don't you know?.

I’ve had a few – okay one person – ask me when the next Write-Me-Back Falls episode is due for production. Unfortunately the Mythological Creatures and Imaginary Women’s union have staged a strike and are demanding a pay increase of eight per cent over three years and an end to single episode contracts. I attempted to recast, but the production crew voted in solidarity with the imaginary women (I think they’re a bit frightened of them, which is understandable) and aren’t working until the dispute is resolved.

So bollocks to the unions. They’re a pack of bludgers, the lot of them. If I’m keeping so busy that I don’t have time to write, I can’t see why they can’t deign to show up in a post every now and then. Bally Bolsheviks. So…production on the Write-Me-Back Falls is on hiatus until the cast see reason and come back to work. Apparently they can’t be moved at the moment because they’re standing by the waterside. I pushed Biscuit Lady in, just to make my point, but I don’t think it improved the general situation any.

I’ll keep you posted.




Garry with 2 Rs

Wedding Jitters

So I’ve written before about my new hobby/job as an organist for hire. We had a big wedding at my church last weekend and I got approached for the job. It was a big Tongan wedding, but I had thought it might be a fairly laid back affair. And judging by the attitudes of the groomsmen, pastor and just about everyone else, I was dead right. But I wasn’t employed by any of them. I was employed by the groom’s mother. Oh my sweet dancing optometrist.

 First of all: who in her right mind plans a wedding at two o’clock in the afternoon in Darwin in December in a church with no aircon? The groom’s mother was from Sydney, and might have been excused for not knowing what she was in for, but surely the bride or groom must have had some idea along the way that this was a really stupid idea. Apparently not.

A few weeks out from the big day the stage manager/mother of the groom sent me at list of music for me to learn. I didn’t mind putting a bit of extra work in, as its all an investment in being able to play them in the future for other weddings, but I did think four separate organ voluntaries for the bridal procession was pushing things a little bit. I managed to get them all up and running in time, including a setting of Ave Maria for the Groom’s mother herself to sing as the bride walked down the aisle.

 The wedding rehearsal was a bit of a shambles. It must have taken us a dozen tries to get the bride to walk in at the just the right time between Mendelssohn and Bach. And then, after I’d sat up the night before making sure I could play the Bach well enough for soprano to sing along to convincingly, the stage manager/soprano/mother of the groom decided she didn’t like this key after all. I now had less than twenty four hours to relearn it transposed down by a fifth. Sopranos are soft. Lucky for her, I’m really quite something when it comes to throwing a half-arsed effort together at the last minute and disguising it as the real thing. We got there.

The wedding ceremony came at last. We were all there at two o’clock, some in traditional Tongan dress, others in the more contemporary Australian suit and tie. In any case, we were all sweating it out, hoping the ceremony would be fast and on time.

At about a quarter past two the groomsmen arrived. They wandered up and took their place at the front, and then realised that they had only brought one ring with them. They quickly dispatched someone to fetch the other one. The bride was due any minute.

They needn’t have worried. The bridesmaids didn’t arrive until about a quarter to three. I got the nod from the stage manager/groom’s mother and gave Pachelbel’s Canon a whirl. There were five bridesmaids but fortunately no-one really notices the difference if you play the last few bars of Pachelbel’s Canon over and over again; that’s kind of the point. Then the trumpeter came out and played a small fanfare, before marching down the aisle and waiting for the bride to step out so we could play Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. We all kept waiting. And waiting.

 Eventually some relative or other came running down the side of the church to the groom’s mother and announced that the bride had disappeared. I played Pachelbel’s Cannon a few more times while we tried to figure out where she had gone. Apparently she’d had a last minute attack of cold feet and had taken a lap around the block in the car to get her head together. She finally reappeared and walked in to the Mendelssohn and the then Ave Maria. Only an hour late.

 And then it was done. The ceremony itself took about twenty minutes. I tactfully declined an invitation to the reception: I’m told it went on for about five hours. I swear, one of these days I’m going to get my head around exactly what motivates the finer points of some of these wedding ceremonies.

But not today.




 Garry with 2 Rs