Artwork by Matt Priso - Instagram @ sik_abyss

THE RUG

It was the shape of Australia, the stain on the rug, the spot of wine it was, or blood perhaps, and a royal purple scented oil drop that resembled Tasmania. Carl dragged the rug towards the sinkhole. Backwards he slowly shuffled, before touching the barricade with the heel of his leather Gucchis. He paused, released his grasp on the rug and rubbed his palm into his back, massaging the vertebrae where his disc was bulging. He had rolled the cream luxury hand knotted rug and tied it together with three strips of fraying beige twine so that it could be gnawed at more easily. The stain of mainland Australia had seeped through to the underside. He lifted it up onto its end, and then he tipped it over the six foot cage, it toppled over, and it landed with a dull thud.

The sun had long since dipped below the top of the hill, and Carl was alone, and it was cold and windy. He climbed over the barricade that separated the people of Valley Ridge from its famous sinkhole. Carl pushed the rug with his foot to the edge of the sinkhole. The sinkhole opened in 1976 as a small hole behind the Loews Theatre, and a basketball could not fit into it. Over the next few decades, it grew slowly but steady, and as he stared into its depths that evening, an olympic swimming pool could be dropped into its opening. The last researcher to abseil down it, measured its depth at 170 metres, which made it the largest sinkhole on earth, outdoing the Cave of Swallows in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The soil erosion around the surface, and the dissolution of the limestone and salt bed was not the result of circulating groundwater like most other sinkholes. An absence of igneous rock and magma confirmed that the sinkhole was not the result of underground volcanic activity, and no tectonic shifts were ever reported, which made it possible that the sinkhole was an unnatural opening - not an act of God.

The centre will unfold. The rug would unfold, and the rats in the depths of the sinkhole would gnaw at what he had wrapped inside that rug. Are we empathetic or pathetic Carl would often say to himself? To possess empathy for others. To understand and share their emotions. Middle French pathetique, to the late Latin patheticus. The ascription of his human traits turned to inanimate nature. Back to the Greek pathettikos, to be capable of feeling. From capable of feeling, and empathetic, to the miserably inadequate, the pitiful and the sad. Empathetic and pathetic. He rubbed the bandage on his thumb with his other thumb. It was stitched from knuckle to knuckle. He was sure the doctor had left a piece of glass inside it somewhere, just to remind him.

“Becky, this is your astonishing parting gift.”

He gave the rug one last push with his foot, and it was out of sight. He could not hear it land. He rubbed the bandage again.

Have another drink why don’t you?

"You are traipsing mud all over the place, Becky said."

"They are spotless." Carl raised one foot and slapped the sole of his Guccis. "See!" He replied.

"What’s this then?" Becky knelt on the rug and picked up a speck of dry dirt and threw it at Carl like she was throwing a dart. "How many times Carl. Can you get your dirty shoes off the rug.”

"They are spotless," He repeated. "You expect me to jump over this ridiculous fluffy looking thing."

"I want you to have a little respect for once. For me, if not for my things. It is an expensive rug. And why do you have mud on your Guccis anyway?”

“They are spotless.”

“Where have you been Carl?”

“I replanted the tomatoes. They were getting too much sun where they were. We spoke about this. I guess I got a little muddy.”

“Carl, I replanted them this morning while you were slaving away in the office.”

“I can hear the sarcasm in your voice Beck.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. I have not a thing to hide. Can’t a man walk through a paddock or dig a hole without the inquisition. Besides, You could have dragged the dirt inside yourself."

"I wouldn’t do such a thing. I have respect for things. For possessions. For you."

"No, no. You are perfect Beck. Just perfect. Never made a mess at all. Never ruined a thing. What about the floor in the kitchen?”

"What about it? I didn’t cause the fridge to leak."

"No, no. But you did nothing about it. And then look what happened. You could have halted its progress."

"Why is it always up to me? I do everything around here."

"I pay for it all. Your fancy clothes and all the mangos, and the wine, and your addiction to Sandalwood products. All the oils and the stupid candles. What about all the wine Beck?”

"Oh go away Carl, and take the ghost of your mother with you.”

"Don't you speak about her with that tone."

“It’s sentimental, and you know it. And now look at it. It’s all muddy.”

“It’s a bit of dirt. It’ll come off.”

“Where have you been Carl? You haven’t given me one plausible explanation for this.”

“What if I said I was praying down by the sinkhole.”

“You don’t have one religious bone in your body.”

“I was praying for you, for our baby, for your mother. While mine whispered in my ear.”

“You are sick, and leave my mother out of this. We are talking about your lack of respect for me. And I want to know the truth Carl. Were you with Mallary again?

"Oh come on Becky. Don’t you go there, and you hated your mother just as much as you hated your sister."

"Don't you dare, you lying scumbag.”

"Or what!" You can speak about my dead mother but I can't speak of yours? What are you going to do? Throw another mango at me while my back is turned.”

“It won’t be a mango.”

Becky picked up a Sandalwood candle and hurled it.

"You missed, and will you just stop throwing items at me so that we can discuss this matter in civil terms.”

“Civil terms! You are lying to me and I know it. Who were you fucking Carl? I can smell Mallary Boedecker all over you.”

“I swear to God Beck, this is just a situation that you are blowing out of proportion. It’s just a little mud.”

Becky picked up a hand made Huon Pine box containing burning oils and threw it, hitting Carl in the chest. The hinges of the box snapped backwards, splitting the lid, and the oil bottles dropped onto the rug in tact.

“Jesus Beck, did your mother teach you how to throw? You might just be as crazy as her.”

"You are an unbelievable arsehole," she screamed as she picked up a glass from the counter that was half full with 1995 Valley Ridge Pino Noir. A light, bright wine and ruby-red in color. It has a light body, with a thin delicate spine, mostly barnyard and forest floor in flavour, and a mid-palette with notes of cranberry and pomegranate, finishing with hints of cola and liquorice. The glass and its contents were airborne before he knew it.

Carl shrugged his shoulders, raised his arms and stomped on a bottle of rosemary scented oil and dragged his shoe across the rug.

"Have another drink why don’t you, burn another candle for all I care. Dab some oil under your nose. That was an expensive drop of red too.”

The blood and wine dripped from his hand. He went into shock, and then the pain hit.

From his Valley Ridge residence on an autumn day, Carl Jamison Phillips had a dilemma. Becky was long gone. Have another drink why don’t you were his last words to her.

Becky, believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. We are born with two eyes that see things differently, yet converge into one seamless imaginary tale. And now, I can see that on my death bed, I will help clench her fists.

The finer things were becoming cloudier. The small details. He pressed his spine into the couch and wrenched it sideways, hearing it crack in two places near his L3. After the sinkhole appeared behind the cinema, Valley Ridge had a wound that could not heal. Valley Ridge was a place to dream and to forget. Valley Ridge was the only place Carl had lived in his life where he could simultaneously function and disintegrate. The Dreamers: the unofficial moniker for the Valley Ridge Bears. Thanks to the captain of the Cedar Pines Loggers, Benny Woodley, The Dreamers stuck after Charles VanDerbelt hit the upright, ricocheting back into play as time ran out in the 2010 Championship Game. The loggers winning 23-21, their third consecutive Championship victory over The Bears/The Dreamers.

"You choked VanDerbelt. You are nothing but Valley Ridge Dreamers."

FRANK CALL INCOMING.

Carl's knee jolted to the left, and struck the leg of the coffee table, which tipped the beer he was drinking off the edge. He caught the bottle mid air, yet the froth still poured over onto the gray slate where the cream luxury hand knot rug once was. He stuffed the bottle into his mouth, and let the froth erupt onto his tongue, before swallowing the lot, as the contents began to go flat. He raised his Gucci and rested it over the puddle of beer, manoeuvring his foot until the beer was out of sight.

“Real poor timing Frank, I was about to make a very important phone call,” He replied.

“Maybe it’s time to call it a day then, you know that only fools rush in!” Frank replied.

“Frank, are you drunk already?

"Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not."

"Seriously, don't worry about it, something will come up."

"yeah, well, it has been close to a month, and not one contract, and it's all your fault."

"I am not my father Frank. His business is his business."

"I know, I know. Next you'll tell me that it wasn't personal. He can go to hell."

"Look, Frank. I can't get into this right now. I have to call the Village Cinema about my pillow. I’m flustered. Can you send me their number. I'm shaking like a leaf."

“The Village, what! What do you mean, your pillow?”

“My custom lumbar pillow, I left it there yesterday. I got up in a bit of a rush before the credits started. I left it there in plain sight. It’s the type of thing that people pick up and take home.”

“What did you see?” Frank asked.

“Don’t ask,” Carl replied.

“But, I just did.”

“It’s just not really worth discussing, but since you insist, it seems that I have misplaced my lumbar pillow because of Black Water.”

“Is that the one with Dolph? It looks alright.”

“It was okay, JUST! Van Damme is in it too. It wasn't that bad you know. Decent pace. Pasha Patriki's directorial debut, and I must say, he did a good job. Those actors can not be easy to direct, I tell you. With their history together. Their masculinity. It must be intimidating."

"Yes, but they are also very experienced and Pasha could of course lean into that. He is the cinematographer isn't he?"

"That's him, the Canadian. He did Gridlocked a few years ago."

"Of course. I liked what he did there, he won a Canadian cinematographer award for that. He has talent, and I am glad that he has made the jump. Where were you seated?”

“In the IMAX I was, and it was loud. To the left of the centre aisle, row D, seat number twelve, just below the speaker beam that gives off that nice warm wave of heat.”

“I know the spot. I can call Lottie if you’d like. She is about to see a one thirty session in cinema two with her sister. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind asking the ushers to check lost property for you."

“What is Lottie seeing?”

" A Quiet Place."

“Ah, really. I have not heard great things about it, and I think I will give its theatrical run a miss. I’ll wait for it to hit video stores. Is she going with Beck?”

“You know what we agreed. It’s better you don’t know what she is up to, and no, Lottie is with Jeannie.”

“I know, it’s been tough though, you know. Don’t ask Lottie though, I don't want her to think that she owes me a favour."

"Don't be stupid. She is doing her very best as well. You can’t blame her for any of this.”

“At some point, someone has to take a side. We can’t keep this charade up forever.”

“There is no charade. Just let sleeping dogs lie.”

"Let sleeping dogs lie ha. Just like you and Herm. Do you get what I am saying. I don't interfere.”

"But you are holding a grudge against Lottie."

"It's the finer details. She has known me longer. Where is the trust there? Dismantling a friendship group. Dividing us all because of a bit of dirt on a rug. Does that sound like a sane person. Is that someone Lottie should be congregating with anyway. Do you want to be married to someone that congregates with a loony? It'll rub off on you Frank, like a fine piece of mud dries and ends up on a rug, and one thing leads to another from there. Sandalwood starts getting hurled about. You should see how my thumb is healing, I swear the thing is infected. It's a monstrosity. And as for you and my father. Again, finer details Frank. A clause in a pest control contract that you failed to notice."

For Carl, honesty was depraving Valley Ridge of its worth. Honesty can lead the gullible astray. Honest men win the battle, but lose the war. Frank Atali was an honest man. Lying was winning the war. Honest men experience dreams. For Carl, it was the nightmares where the truth could be found. Honest men never use the word reap. Honest men are never what they sow. Honest men do not run with fury. To belong is to be needed, and to need is to lack some order. And in order to belong there must be a void, a sinkhole or a wasteland. Walk the walk rather than talk the talk. Empathetic or pathetic, empathetic or pathetic. Carl liked to watch things die on film. Frank Atali was an honest working man. Frank was a pest control contractor that his father, Herm Phillips, used to build his empire. Herm had a talent for making a fortune out of a community's problem. Carl watched him hold his mother's hand for hours every day while she slept, medicated heavily on Morphine. It took her two months to die once she went into that ward on the second floor of the Valley Ridge General Hospital. Two months Herm sat with her, held her hand and bathed her in bed. While Carl read to her, Herm brushed her bald scalp because it was the only place above her flat chest where she could feel sensation. Herm held her arm, guiding her to the window every day so that she could either look across the road and watch handcuffed perpetrators being led from vehicles into the Police station or watch kids scale the sinkhole barricade and drop rocks into it. The drama made her smile and sometimes giggle like a child. Rosetta Falzone was her maiden name, and her sense of humour is still with her, and with Carl, whispering in his ear when he needed counsel. The day after Rosetta was buried, Herm created a company that contracted carers to sit with dying patients that did not have any family. The General Hospital could not staff the nurses or orderlies to perform such a role. Herm saw a gap and filled it. He sold HP Sitters for $875,000. Herm used $500,000 of those funds to invest in Beatsy Barricades and Scaffolding. The sinkhole was growing and so was the barricade. Herm and Lincoln Beatsy met with Valley Touring when the sinkhole was 5 metres in diameter and gained approval from the local government to erect a walkway made out of scaffolding across the sinkhole. Sinkhole Sights made $2,750,000 within 3 years until the edge of the sinkhole became too unstable. 2.5 years into the company's tenure, Herm sold his share for more than a third of its current and future 5 year projected earnings. Herm had seen it coming. The rats were breeding from the sinkhole. The government were in panic mode. Disease was the last thing that Valley Ridge needed as its own land was swallowing itself. Herm saw it coming. From meeting an independent Valley Ridge contractor named Frank Atali at the inaugural Pesticon Conference. Herm built The Herm Pest Eradication Service, the largest eradication business in the Southern Hemisphere. HPES focused on dated methods rather than the modern popular humane ones such as trap setting. Herm and Frank attended Dale Crow's lecture, Sustainability in an Otherwise Compromised Society.

"What did you think of that waffle?" Frank sucked on a cigarette and exhaled into the crisp Ohio air.

"By waffle, I guess you mean you are off the fence regarding his indifference to poison?"

Frank nodded, dropped his cigarette on the ground and stood on it.

"I'm here just for the catering. But look, for as long as agriculture has been around, and as far back as three thousand bc, in Egypt you know. Cats were used to control pests in grain stores. The industry of pest control has always been the answer to common problems. Even the Sumerians used sulphur compounds as insecticides, through to the spread of the potato beetle, and now people like Dale Crow are making a living out of scaremongering."

"Herm Phillips," he held out his hand to Frank. Three of Frank’s knuckles cracked as Herm squeezed his hand. Herm had short plump fingers. He was strong. They were hardened hands, having grown up in the logging town of Cedar Pines, sixty miles North of Valley Ridge. He played sport on gravel ovals. He climbed trees and he was cutting them down before he learned to read.

"Frank Atali, nice to meet you. I guess it depends on what you want to exterminate though. Some of what Dale Crow said has merit. In my experience, I have found that different chemical compounds to have different markers on Arthropods."

"I'm not all that familiar with some of the industry terms."

“Arthropods, Arachnids and insects. Not industry terms. It's just what they are. And then mammals, well that's where I think that poison has its true value. It gets really interesting.”

"I'm just finding my way at the moment I suppose. I did find the data on Thallium insightful."

"Thallium. Don't get me started on Thallium."

"Atali. Not a Cedar Pines Atali are you? Nikoli Atali a relative."

"Niki is my old man. Was my old man."

"He was a good man was Niki. I didn't know him well, but I knew his name around town."

"The Pesticide Act killed him it did. They took down his entire fleet of aircraft. The industry went the way of environmentally sound mounted tractor sprayers, which was a costly solution. He couldn't exactly sell a fleet of aircraft modified to destroy army worms, hessian flies, stink bugs and grasshoppers. He lost the war he did.”

Niki Atali was cremated at the Cedar Pines Nektars Funeral Home. Two days before the cremation, Mollie Nektars handed Frank a fact sheet. Several things to consider when scattering someone’s ashes: remember to gain permission from the master of the vessel if spreading them at sea; consider that a park or a recreational ground may one day turn into an apartment block; watch the wind direction, and always wear gloves.

"I’m sorry for your loss Frank.”

“Oh that was years ago Herm, but I tell you what! I still have his ashes under my fingernails. The poor bastard.”

“Excuse me, come again.”

Frank lit another cigarette and exhaled. A bell rang, indicating that the mid-morning coffee break was wrapping up.

“Dale Crow is on again after lunch. I think I will skip it. I have heard just about enough about sustainability. People die. Things must be exterminated. Niki didn’t suffer, and I’m grateful for that. They commonly refer to them as your loved one’s ashes, but really, they are burned in a way that all body matter evaporates. Niki evaporated. His blood, skin, and the eyeballs, poof! and all that is left at the end of it all is bone fragments with the consistency of sand more than that of ash. The kind you think of when you burn a log. So, I ignored the fact sheet that Mollie gave me, and did not wear gloves.”

“I have never thought of it like that. Everyone I have lost, has been buried."

“That’s not all. So when a 30 centimetre Chinook appeared from beneath that fucking statue of Earhart, and splashed a fan of spray onto my hands as I upturned the urn, the ash stuck to my hands like wet sand does.”

Frank handed Herm is business card and the rest was history.

Thallium:

A compound without colour; without a smell and without a taste is a particularly dangerous substance. Thallium can actually be found in the atmosphere, within manufacturing industries, and trace amounts can be found in smoke, as well as the earth itself. Though when larger amounts are digested into the human body, or inhaled, even absorbed through the skin, then Thallium poisoning can occur. Once a popular ingredient in rat and insect poisons, it has since been blacklisted. But still used as a black market poison, common in some very public and famous murders. Within two days, symptoms mirror food poisoning, with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. However, after a week, the nervous system is attacked, severe pain, seizures, weight loss right through to psychosis and dementia like symptoms are common. After three weeks, hair loss begins, and the heart begins to degenerate, ultimately stopping within a month.

"Point taken. I'll let it drop it with Herm as long as you try and bury the hatchet with Lottie. It's not her fault that this happened."

"I'll bury the hatchet for sure."

"Funny Carl. Speaking of ushers and things, did you hear that they let go of the Landry kid?” Frank asked.

“The claqueur,” Carl replied.

“Yeah, a real shame. It seems the sinkhole is putting a dent in their bottom line, and an election puts a good cinema on edge you know."

"I don't believe that for one second. A good cinema will survive no matter what arts funding is splashed around, and no matter how big a nearby sinkhole becomes. But, as for the young Landry kid. I feel for him. He had a booming clap. You watch it diminish now that he can’t use it. It’s called atrophy."

"The art of the claqueur is a forgotten art form you know, most claps you hear at musicals or award ceremonies are warm, respectful and muffled. The Landry kid really did light up a dull matinée. Regulars knew it was him, but those that were more passive in the experience really joined in on the applause, even if the scene didn’t warrant it,” Frank said.

“Listen Frank, I’m in a bind here. I’m flustered and my back is aching.”

"It's always aching Carl, just bite the bullet and get the fusion."

"I need that pillow Frank, can you just ask Lottie then. I'll bury the hatchet with her."

"Consider it done my friend. Just don't expect me to share a beer with Herm at Christmas. I'll be civil, but that's where things end."

"Let bygones be bygones Frank, and I'll do the same with Lottie if she can retrieve my pillow before it's too late."

“Okay, okay Carl, but what I am calling about is just as important as your back pillow.”

“What can be more important than a custom made genuine merino wool stuffed lumbar pillow?”

“Carl, that letter you said you wrote to Becky.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Were you drunk when you sent it?

“No, not at all. I had my faculties. I was drunk when I wrote it though.”

“Well, it arrived.”

“As it should. A letter goes from A to B if the postal service do their job. What did Lottie tell you? Is Becky mulling it all over?”

“Carl, you sent her a postal voting slip. Vote one, Rebecca Whitlock with love hearts all over it. And little arrows through them.”

Carl’s heart sank into the part of the chest where it feels like it was being swallowed. He traced his actions back to the morning he wrote the actual letter to Becky. What have I done?

“Carl, are you there. I’m coming over.”

THE PLIGHT OF CHUBBY CHECKER

Dawn's infancy strangled the bleak taste of nothingness left on the streets the morning that Herm met Rosetta. Sailors spilled into the gutter outside the Loews Theatre. The CAUTION and DANGER signs and the orange barricade tape meant little to the rowdy revellers that had just experienced a Bruce Lee triple: Way of the Dragon (1972), The Game of Death (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Two sailors jumped the opening in the ground. The sun was rising, and a peach coloured haze began to spread across the skyline. For a brief moment, Herm considered pushing a sailor into the sinkhole. The U.S.S Malone and its frigate had docked in the river for a recreation stop over. The sailors shadow boxed, and kicked their way down the main road, and disappeared into townhouses, apartment blocks and alleyways with beautiful women. Windows to apartment blocks were open, Valley Ridge locals let cigarette smoke exit their bedrooms, and in doing so the decibels from the records they played spilled into the air, becoming a collage to Herm. A marvellous audio collage of Jazz and Blues and Rock. His shift was over and his hands were filthy, the deep sweat pores of his fingers were clogged with rat faeces, and he smelled like beer. He washed his hands under a dripping fire hydrant, and watched stray cats and dogs congregate in an alleyway, conspiring or debriefing. Rats scurried down the gutters towards the sewer, ignoring their nocturnal tendencies. The shells of fireworks littered park benches, and the smell of gun powder masked Herm’s whiskey soaked threads. Rumours swept the city that the sinkhole was a conspiracy, and that the U.S.S was here to decimate the place. People were on edge for reasons they had no control over. The sinkhole seemed to be growing before their eyes, and to Herm, no one seemed to care.

He had finished his shift at A Man Is Not a Camel where they played Bitches Brew from front to back on repeat for six hours. It was a groundbreaking record for Herm. He made a promise to himself to buy another copy of it and frame it, but that morning he desired some Monk or Coltrane and the company of a fine woman. The green neon lights of The Everleigh Club flashed before him. He held his duffel bag by his side, and took a deep breath.

“You open?” Herm asked the burly guard on the door.
“Twenty four hours when the ships come in soldier,” the guard replied said with a southern drawl.

“I’m not a soldier, and they there in the gutters are sailors and rats, there’s a difference.

“What you got in the bag chief?”

Herm opened his bag and held it open in front of the security guard.

“Just a change of clothes and a book. Just finished a double at the Camel."

“Hectic in there as it is out here?”

“They can drink. Thankfully half of em were at the Loews triple.”

“What was on?”

“Way of the Dragon, The Game of Death and Enter the Dragon.”

“A bloody Bruce triple.”

“Bloody is a good way to put it.”

The burly guard removed the rope from the door and shadow boxed as Herm entered the Everleigh Club. It was a two story brothel on the corner of Main Road, and West Side Avenue. The ground level was a dark lounge bar, the windows had been painted a dark red, and the room was lit by several lamps, all with green globes. A sound system played Blue Train, and two red headed women danced on a triangle platform positioned next to a small circular bar that only served beer and whiskey.

Surveying the room, Herm felt at home.
“Sit down dear, you have come to just the right place,” said an old woman with plaited gray hair that reached to within a few centimetres of her tail bone, a blue bead had been wound onto the end of the plait and it clipped the belt around her waist when she walked. The old woman was Gertrude Everleigh, and she was the best of the best when it comes to managing a house of ill repute. Gertrude was the younger half-sister of the Loews film curator, Jimmy Dunn-Mavis, one of the many Dunn hybrids that owned or managed establishments throughout Valley Ridge. Gertrude had an eye for spotting talented girls, and they flocked from all corners of the country just to lay claim to having been a working girl at the Everleigh Club. Gertrude didn’t just hire any woman; she hired girls with the talent to make a man feel like he is the last man on Earth. Gerty hired her girls carefully, dressed them well, paid them well, and her performance feedback was thorough, but fair. Most of all, Gerty treated her girls like family. But, there was one thing that Gerty could never achieve, and that was employing a classic girl next door type. Gerty handed Herm a Draught beer, and whistled with her thumb and pointer finger. Within seconds a party of five women appeared from behind a velvet curtain, and bestowed themselves in front of him. Gerty began to present them like a car salesman would present five prestige cars. “Take a seat,” she said. Herm rested his weary legs upon a red velvet ottoman, and eased his back into a black leather couch, one leg crossed over the other at the top of his knee cap in a ninety degree angle. He took a large swig of the beer.

"Move forward a little Milly,” Gerty said firmly.
Milly took one step forward, flicked her black shoulder length hair from her eyes, placed her thumb into her chin dimple and performed a slow pirouette, almost losing her balance before correcting herself. Milly had blue eyes like the ocean, and a large smile with straight white teeth. She eased her right foot out of her high heeled shoes, and dragged her toes up his shin. Milly looked like a woman without a trouble in the world, but she was exhausted, and it showed. She had been run ragged all night by bustling six foot sailors with nothing much better to do than bounce from one joint to the next.
“No thank you,” Herm glanced at Gertrude, took a mouthful of beer, and swirled it around in his mouth for two seconds before swallowing it. Swaying from side to side was a short Russian brunette named Vixen. She wore a pink one piece that was jacked up on one side of her buttocks. Herm looked at her up and down twice, just to make sure that they were not related.
“Next,” he said.
Wylde Child rolled some chewing gum around her pointer finger, and winked four times as she stepped forward. Wylde was the experienced one, her breasts were large, too large for Herm, they were oval shaped and something was just wrong about her. Herm liked women that were less obviously made. He raised his index finger from his can of beer in a motion that indicated next. Gerty wondered what kind of soldier he was. To Gerty, Herm was difficult man to impress. Lilac had her eyes closed as Herm inspected her up and down. She had a round pot belly that rose two inches from her hip line, which she moved in gentle circles. She clapped her hands every few seconds in an awkward way to the Miles Davis record that was still playing. Her timing was off by several beats as she sung “pick me pick me.” Herm was a man who valued rhythm, and Lilac had no sense of it. He suspected she was out of it and dismissed her, waving his arm upward with a distinct flicking motion, like he was pitching an imaginary curveball to a batsman. Gerty shooed her away with her knee length red boots, striking her on the shin.

“Ouch Mum,” she said, skipping across the lounge, and disappearing behind the red velvet curtain.

“And that there on the end Mr Soldier man is my Plush. She is my secret weapon tonight, and she isn’t cheap; but she is worth every last cent. If you shoo her away then I might just have nothing for you boy.”
“I’m not a soldier. Besides, there’s a difference between sailors and soldiers,” Herm replied. But he did like what he saw in Plush.
“I like my girls to be clean ma’am."

Herm scratched the side of his face, and drew his palm over the top of his short brown cropped hair. He was telling the truth in one way, but indicated that he was a deviant. He did value cleanliness in all kinds of people, and while he visited brothels regularly, he only did so because he was lonely. He liked a conversation with a compelling and beautiful lady, one that has interesting stories. For Herm, as sure as eggs are eggs, a prostitute has an interesting story to tell.

"So is this Plush here clean ma’am?” He added.
“Of course my dear,” Gerty said with a gentle nod.
“I only employ clean girls, and I only employ the best girls; but as you can see, it’s been a long night for these girls, and these girls are not showing themselves in the best light. You have already tossed four aside. Those soldier friends of yours have run them ragged; but this here Plush is as cool as you can get, and she is as clean as you can get. The question is soldier, are you clean?”

“Madam, I’m not a soldier, there’s a difference. I’m a research psychologist, and if you know anything about the field of research, then you know that we are meticulous when it comes to making sure that we cover all bases. Research psychologists take no chances when it comes to women. We look at all avenues, and cleanliness is next to godliness.”
He was talking out of his arse and Gerty knew he was lying. ”Of course Mr Research Psychologist, how ridiculous of me to ask such question. I care for my employees like they are family, and this establishment has a cleanliness policy which must be enforced. And as for your profession, and where you have come from, it all remains a secret inside these here walls.”

“Very well,” Herm said.
He looked Plush up and down and finished the beer. She had slender legs, her calf muscles were round and defined, and she was wearing a blonde wig to her neck line that hid her own dark brown hair. She had a pink flower tucked behind her ear, which Herm understood to be a symbol of a  woman’s first night as a working girl. Plush was as fresh as they come. She wore a blue size six laced two-piece that cupped her medium sized breasts. She had matching blue high heels. Herm took a deep breath through his nose. She smelled like the ocean. It was an unfamiliar scent for him.
“I’ll take her,” he said.
“Mr Researcher, they aren’t used cars, they are prestige cars, you can’t just take one. All my customers must treat my girl here like they are angels, and if you do that, then you are welcome back anytime. But, if you treat my Plush here in any way that makes her feel as though she is not being respected, then you will not be welcome back here again. And see that big bulk of a man at the door.” Herm turned his head to the man mountain that searched his bag.

“That’s Lance, and people around here know that Lance can’t dance. But when I give Lance a certain glance, he will knock your lights out boy.”

Herm Phillips grinned at Gertrude Everleigh. He liked the way she operated. He enjoyed the company of women that had little care for the establishment that is love. Prostitutes were the out of bounds types that kept society moving in the wrong direction. All five of Gertrude’s women were beautiful to him, even Lilac with her considerably obvious flaws. Herm had never fallen for a working girl before, but if there was one with the ability to push him over the edge, then Plush it could be. Plush took him by the hand, and led him towards the stairwell. It was her first night at the Everleigh Club, but Plush moved like she had been a working girl her whole life. At the touch of each footstep, her hips swung with precision. As experienced as Wylde Child was, with her ten thousand hours of honing her craft, she did not have the natural talent that Plush had. Plush was born Rosetta Falzone, daughter of Germaine and Lindy Falzone, the renowned local winemakers. Earlier that night, Gertrude gave Rosetta the stage name Hush after seeing it on an overpass billboard that morning.

ALOE VERA - HUSH

FACIAL SOAP

EXOTIC - ALLURING

FRAGRANCE FREE

Hush would make a fine name for a new working girl, she thought driving under the overpass. But, Rosetta Falzone misheard her when she suggested it. “Plush,” she replied with excitement, “I love it!”

Rosetta Falzone was a young down on her luck actor, the only living daughter of the popular award winning winemakers. But, she left home to weave her own career path, and it broke the heart of Lindy Falzone. Her innocent girl next door type looks made it easy to find an agent, and she began to find small parts in commercials on television and some voice overs on radio. But showbiz was a competitive line of work that valued fresh new faces, or the type of face that would go the extra mile. Some of the girls that she had met on casting calls were working girls on the side, it was the best kept secret. Prostitutes, escorts, working girls or whores kept society moving in the wrong direction.

“A good safe place like The Everleigh Club will do wonders for you Rosetta. Gerty treats us girls like we are family. And most of the customers at The Everleigh are actually quite charming. The Everleigh Club takes all the risk out of the profession,” said Candice Bricknell, also known as Wylde Child, who had played a small part as a farmer that specialised in comforting cows while giving birth in the television show A Country Practice.

The Everleigh Club’s reputation preceded it, but that reputation was based on the pillars of A Grade women, classy decor, great music and refreshments and cleanliness. Gertrude Everleigh knew something was missing, and it was the types of women that she was employing: exotic, sensual, voluptuous, extraverted, toxic, colourful, experienced. The range was there at any given time, and the satisfaction levels regularly exceeded expectations. Gertrude made decisions on instinct, and those instincts could not be rushed or forced. When the thing that is missing appears, she will see it, and she will have it.

On the third Tuesday of every month, Gertrude closed the doors for a night to give her employees a well-earned rest. However, she did not close the doors for that reason alone. On the third Tuesday of every month it was date night with Peter, her husband of ten years. Date night consisted of fish and chips at A Man Is Not A Camel, a red wine or two, and then a movie at either Loews or The State Cinema. The difference between the two theatres was that The State screened arthouse and foreign films, and the occasional documentary, whereas Loews screened mostly mainstream drama, action or comedy movies. Gertrude and Peter did not have a preference, they were not movie snobs. The decision on where they went, or what they saw, was based purely on their mood that night. On the third Tuesday of January 1981, Gertrude and Peter stood on the edge of the sinkhole behind Loews and peered into it. It was pitch black, deep and big enough to swallow up a bus. There was a cold and unnerving aura about the hole, and every now and then if you stepped close enough to the edge, and listened attentively, you could hear its stomach rumbling. Some say, that when the Moon is full, you can hear a child down there saying “follow us.” But, on that particular Tuesday, Gertrude and Peter could not hear a thing, and they decided to purchase their popcorn early and get a good seat for the nine o’clock showing of The Howling by Joe Dante. Peter liked a good horror, and the trailer alluded that to be the case. He had also read the novel of the same name, written by Gary Brandner, so he was intrigued how the movie stacked up to the book. For Peter, the chances of the movie comparing favourably to the book (in general) were slim. He preferred the way a novel uses digression, and back story. Movies based on books rarely achieved what they set out to do. Regardless, on that particular Tuesday, The Howling would be the movie that best suited their mood.

The two lovers preferred to sit in a middle row, especially at Loews where the theatres were larger, and when they could, they liked the to sit to the left of the middle aisle. They did this at home as well; their couch was positioned off centre because of an old workplace injury that Peter sustained to his right shoulder. His neck tilts slightly to the right, and it is more comfortable for him while seated if he is watching something off-centre. On that particular Tuesday, they had no problem picking any seat they wished to; the theatre was practically empty. The order of the advertisements and trailers was methodical, and was always the same at Loews Theatre:

- Lights dimmed halfway;

- Three local advertisements for products or services;

- An announcement that highlighted the theatres exit doors in the event of an emergency;

- Two mainland or international commercials for products or services;

- Three trailers for upcoming movies within the next two months;

- One trailer for an upcoming movie, two to four months;

- Lights dimmed completely;

- Theatrical presentation.

Peter had a weak bladder, and two glasses of red wine at A Man Is Not A Camel filled that bladder to the brim. During the second local advertisement (which was a thirty second advert for Wayne’s Second Hand Cars), Peter took an early restroom break. He asked Gertrude if she would like anything from the concessional stand. She said “no,” as she had hardly touched her popcorn. The third local commercial was for Fox Trot Real Estate, who specialised in low to middle market properties. An ideal agent for newlyweds or singles ready to enter the market at affordable prices. Gertrude placed her lemonade into the drink holder and swallowed a mouthful of popcorn in an expressionless, dumfounded manner. The Fox Trot Real Estate Agent was a handsome middle aged actor that played the role of a salesman convincingly. The Agent was showing a young attractive couple through a waterfront unit by the Bay. The script was poor for a number of reasons, none more so than the fact that the waterfront unit did not align with the Fox Trot Agency brand of real estate. However, Gertrude was dumbfounded for another reason. It was the young female actress that said, “honey look at the size of the bed.” The male says, “sweety, the bed doesn’t come with the unit,” and the agent replies to both of them, “well at Fox Trot, we can make anything happen.”

Honey, look at the size of the bed.

Honey, look at the size of the bed.

The words went over and over inside Gertrude’s head as she stared at the young female actor. Peter arrived back from his piss stop with an empty bladder.

“What's wrong, what did I miss? You look like you have seen a ghost,” he said.

“Honey, look at the size of the bed,” she replied.

Confused, Peter shrugged his shoulders and took his seat for The Howling.

Gertrude couldn’t concentrate on The Howling, and when Peter asked her what she thought afterwards, she said it was what she expected. Nothing more and nothing less, but Dante certainly can direct a horror movie. Gertrude did not tell Peter about the Fox Trot advertisement, or the female actor; because she knew that she would have to go to extreme lengths to acquire her services, and Peter did not approve of her extreme lengths methods.

Gertrude knew that she had to make a call to Candice Bricknell; Candice knew everyone in local showbiz.

“I’m sorry sweet thing for calling you on your night off, and for calling so late of course.”

“Gerty, it’s okay, you know I’m not up to much anyway, what is it, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing is wrong, well not yet, but if I don’t get what I want then you know how I get.”

“Don’t I know it, what do you need, and how can I help?”

“You went to the movies last week and saw Scanners didn’t you?"

“Yes, Beau and I quite liked it actually.”

“Was that at Loews?"

“Yes, it is not the type of movie they usually play, but the new year often starts out slow, so they screen pretty much anything for a week or two.”

“We just saw The Howling,” replied Gertrude.

“Oh, we saw the trailer for that. I mentioned to Beau that I hoped it screened for long enough for us to see. We loved Piranha, so we figured a Joe Dante movie is a movie to watch. Was it good?”

“Yes, it did get a little strange though.”

“He certainly has a career ahead of him, doesn’t he?”

“Candy, I don’t want to waste your time talking about movies, but did you see all the advertisements that played before Scanners?”

“Yes, I think so, I’m sure we did.”

“The local adverts as well?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We got there before the lights dimmed because Beau is paranoid about getting a seat. There was no point of course, because horror films at Loews are not that popular, especially B Grade horror like Scanners.”

“Perfect, I need to ask you a series of questions about the local advertisements you saw that night.”

Candice was curious and wondered where Gerty was going with the exchange. Was it some sort of test, and if so, then what for?

“Do you perhaps remember seeing a real estate advertisement?”

“Ah, yes, I can. Beau chuckled actually, in fact we both thought it was quite funny. Especially when the Agent replies, “we can make anything happen.”

“Perfect, and do you still have friends in the industry?”

“Ah, yes, of course, we are all quite close still. You never drift apart if you care enough.”

“Perfect, and do you by any chance know the female actor that plays the girlfriend, or the newlywed, it was a bit unclear, but I suppose it is irrelevant.”

“Yes, yes, I do. We went to school together as a matter of fact. Rosetta, Rosetta Falzone. Her mother Lindy manages the vineyard now. She was in Medium Cool actually.”

“What do you mean manages it now? And which character did she play in Medium Cool?”

“Well, something happened to Rosetta’s father, he just vanished one day. And, as for Medium Cool, she was just an extra.”

Candice knew where Gerty was going with this now, and once Gerty sets her eyes on something she must have, that must have doesn’t have much hope of knocking back her advances.

“I need to see you, I need to know everything about Rosetta Falzone. I need an angle, a weakness, I need a foolproof plan to lure her in.”

“Well, if you are talking about girls with weaknesses, then Rosetta Falzone has plenty of them.”

When Rosetta’s cat began to shed weight, and lose its appetite, Rosetta Falzone began to skip auditions, and spend more time on the couch with her ill Burmese. She loved that cat with all the love she had left to give. The money eventually stopped coming in, and her agent dropped her after she put on three kilograms. When Rosetta received an eviction notice for a failure to pay her rent, she only had one place to turn, and that turn was prostitution. She asked Candice for Gerty’s phone number, and then made the call that would change her life forever.

“Candice told me you may be calling my dear, said you were having a rough trot. How old are you Rosetta?”

“Ummm eighteen, and a half.”

“And you were the girl in the Fox Trot Real Estate advertisement, correct?”

“That is me, yes. I played the girlfriend that says something silly about the bed.”
“I know Rosetta, it is a funny little piece of acting. When can you start my dear?”
“Start, wow, that was easy and quick. Ah, immediately, my pussy is sick and I need quick cash.”

“Oh, well that won’t do then. I’m afraid that I only hire clean girls.” Gertrude knew she didn’t have an ill vagina. She knew exactly why Rosetta was calling, because she was responsible for the plight of her Burmese.
“No, No.. Miss Everleigh. My cat, Chubby Checker, he is the one that is ill."
“Oh baby girl, my apologies. Call me Gerty, please dear. I hear things and automatically go one way with it. This profession has taken the innocence out of language.”
“Never mind, I guess I should watch what I say a bit more. But, I need to get my Chubby back on track, he is frail, too frail for a Burmese. It’s chronic kidney disease I’m afraid.”
“Oh Rosetta, isn’t it the worst when your loved ones fall ill. What stage is Chubby?”
“Stage four, I’m all torn up about him.”

The International Renal Interest Society produced a system that classifies and places the disease into stages. Those stages advance as the the severity of chronic kidney disease (CKD) increases. Early diagnosis of CKD is critical as early intervention (before symptoms present) can halt the progression of  the disease, and improve the likelihood of a long and happy life.

Gertrude Everleigh knew that Rosetta would call that week, because she poisoned Chubby Checker with AirFreeze, a scentless radiator coolant that when digested over time by pets can destroy their kidneys. Gertrude (of course) did not do the poisoning herself, she used Candice’s intelligence to plot the scheme, and she bribed Lance to tip the coolant into the cat’s water bowl.

“I’ll owe you one Lance.”

STAGE 1

Chronic kidney disease is a disease that is progressive and iterative, with signs and symptoms becoming more apparent as it advances. No direct symptoms are present in stage one, and a normal concentration of nonprotein within the blood (urea and creatinine). However, damage to the kidneys, or some form of disease still exists. If the causes of the disease is known at the point, for example Neoplasia, then treatment can still reverse any progression of the disease. Other underlying issues or disorders that are likely to cause disease prior to this stage are Polycystic Kidney Disease, Renal Amyloidosis or Hypercalcaemic Nephropathy. Symptoms may not be present as the loss of nephrons (microscopic unit of the kidney) does not detract actual functionality. In fact, the remaining nephrons can actually become larger to compensate the loss, which can be labelled Super-nephrons. While the Super-nephrons do an adequate job during this stage, they will eventually become tired, and wear down. Functionality can seem quite okay until seventy per cent of Nephrons are gone.

STAGE 2

Still problematic to identify symptoms, especially if the patient does not occupy the home for large periods. Laziness can creep in, energy levels can drop as fatigue grows. Quality of the coat, and eating can become quite poor; however these signs are often blamed on ‘old age’. The patient will produce larger amounts of urine, and thirst will be excruciating. Creatinine doubles in the blood, and at this stage renal failure is occurring. Much like the first stage, reversal of the disease is possible if the initial cause of failure is highlighted, and treated with an anti inflammatory. It is crucial that managing high blood pressure during this stage is methodical. If not adequately managed, then it may call serious eye damage, such as rupturing, detachment and twisting of the vessels inside the eye.

STAGE 3

Creatinine in the blood is considered severe. Signs become obvious as the disease progresses, such as: weight loss; dehydration; protein in the urine. The disease will progress rapidly, and the thyroid will expand, as will joint disease. The patient will lose the ability to groom itself. Long hair during this stage can become matted or dreadlocked. Treatment during this stage is merely to halt the progression, reduce pain and discomfort, and extend the life somewhat. The increase in creatinine will need to be treated itself, rather that it being a contributing factor to other progressive symptoms. Reducing protein in the diet is important. Drugs and special fluids will be required to prevent constant vomiting.

STAGE 4

Considered end stage renal failure. Creatinine is abundant in droves. Prevention and treatment is close to impossible. Drugs and other treatments are aimed at managing the protein in the urine, and other associated side effects, as well as making life pain free and enjoyable as possible. In the lead up to death, ailments such as muscle loss, constipation, anaemia, urinary tract infections will run rampant, and ultimately a loss of heart and the brain function will cease life. Chronic kidney disease  is common, and only behind trauma, it is the most common form of death in middle to old aged cats.

“Well Rosetta, we have a ship in and its frigate, and with it being a national celebration and all, I need an extra girl or two.”
“Fabulous.”
“You have a nickname? Something I can introduce you by?”

“No, my friends call me Rosetta, or just Fumbly Falzy.”
“Well, that’ll be no good. It’s best for no-one to know your real name. We would hate for someone to get too attached and track you down. Valley Ridge is a small place you know. Fumbly Falzy is a nickname that could easily be traced all the way back to your family.”
“What about Honey Muffin?” Suggested Rosetta.
“No, baby. That won’t do. But I spotted a billboard today that gave me an idea for a marvellous nickname.” The phone crackled. “How does Hush sound?”
“Plush! WOW! It sounds HOT! I like it. In fact I love it.”
“No baby, Hush! You know, like the soap.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Aloe Vera. That’s a shame, my phone line is playing up.”
“My dear, I can hear it in your voice, Plush it will be.”
“Sweety, you come down after twelve, and I’ll take a close look at you, and if I’m satisfied, then I’ll have an outfit ready for you. You’ll go straight into my lineup.”
“Like a new trade in a basketball team?”
“Like a new trade in a basketball team. You’ll be in my starting lineup.”
“Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. Chubby Checker will be right before he knows it!”
“I’ll need your size before you hang up.”
“I’m about a six or thereabouts.”
“Thereabouts? A girl should know her size.”
“I mean, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the couch with Chubby, and I may have jumped a size or two, but Candice says that I am a girl next door type and that I would fit right in.”
“I have heard about your looks my dear, and I of course love your performance in that commercial. Now, you have a good wash, and have all your faculties about you. That means no Vodka. We have a girl here named Lilac, and she is on her last legs I’m afraid. You keep away from her, she can be trouble if she is on a lean patch, and a lean patch she is currently on."

Rosetta’s hand was cold, and it shook with nerves as she led Herm up the stairwell. Nine stairs covered in red shaggy carpet. On the walls were paintings and sketches of fields and mountains, and there was a photograph of the sun setting over the Valley Ridge Bay. “Is this just the coolest brothel you have ever been in?” Plush said with a voice that fluttered.

“It is a classy one.”

“Well, I am glad you didn’t pass it up as you walked on by Mr Sexy Soldier Boy.

Rosetta had more energy and spark than any prostitute he had paid before. He had never had sex with any of them. Herm Phillips simply liked to talk with them and find out what made them tick. Most prostitutes interested him, but lacked Rosetta’s vigour, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was about her that made her a girl next door type. If someone would have asked him heading up those stairs who Plush reminded him of, he would have said Greta Garbo around the time she starred in The Saga of Gosta Berling or Rita Moreno in The Toast of New Orleans. The way that Plush spoke to him made him feel as though he was the last man on Earth. And if a prostitute can make a man feel that way on her first night, then she was born for it, a god damn natural hooker.
Plush opened the door to a comfortable looking room. It had an ensuite, a queen sized bed, two lounge chairs and bedside tables. The bed was dressed in black cotton linen, and round purple pillows. It was not a bed to be slept in. On the bedside table closest to the window was a stainless steel pitcher filled with water, and a larger steel bowl with two bottles of Draught laying on a bed of ice. On the window sill was a clam shell the size of a hand with several assorted sized, flavoured and coloured condoms And next to the shell of condoms was an ashtray with three cigarette butts in it. The window was slightly open, letting in a gentle breeze, but the smell of stale cigarette smoke lingered.

“Say, how long have you been on the water?” Plush said. She sat at the base of the bed and stared at Herm. He was the first customer that night who had looked at her in the eyes. She thought he was a good looking man. She slipped off her high heels, and flicked them to the side as she parted her legs slightly. He stared at her back, and did not reply. He was nervous as well, but in a good way. Plush’s hands shook, so she sat on them.

“What’s wrong soldier, cat got your tongue?”
“No, no, I’m not a soldier, I’m here on field work actually. Besides, a sailor is not really a soldier, there is a difference.”
“What is field work?”
“I’m gathering information to use for a larger body of work.”
“That sounds intriguing” Plush replied. She stood and started to gyrate in front of Herm, which then moved into a gentle dance. “Valley Ridge is in dire straits isn’t it? He said.

“It has its problems at the moment,” Plush replied.

“I could be researching any one of its many problems, and still get nowhere.”
“Which one are you researching?”
“I’m not ruling out that they are all related,” Herm said, unbuttoning the button below his collar, and pulling it over his head. He threw his shirt on the floor and folded his trousers and placed them on the dresser. He did this regularly to make the women feel like they were turning him on, but really, all he wanted to do was hear their stories, hear something real and true. After all, Herm was one big lie after another. He picked up one of the bottles of Draught, opened it and swigged half of it down in one gulp. Herm looked at Plush, smiled and wondered for a moment who else she had been with that night.
“What do you think about when all these sailors come to town, doesn’t it get tiresome?”
“I don’t know much about all that business, tonight is really a one time thing for me to get my pussy better.”

“Your what?”

He took her hand, placed his beer on the floor with his other and cupped her hand with both of his. “I have a sick pussy, and Gerty said this rigate and its launchers would get me more than half way to fixing it.”
“You mean the frigate out there?”
“The what?”

“The U.S.S Malone is the actual destroyer, and the frigate, the other boat, it protects it. But a frigate can also handle its own if called upon to destroy.”
Plush was polite, and with genuine curiosity asked him what a frigate was, and clarified what she had meant by her sick pussy.”

“In a nutshell, I suppose you would say a frigate protects larger ships.”
“Like ships with launchers and things. How interesting, so sort of like a defensive linebacker or something?”
“More or less, a frigate’s purpose is simple: it's the simple art of deception. The larger ships are the targets, and their frigates tend to get ignored. BUT! frigates generally have marvellous weaponry, and they are built super strong.”
“Like tricksters then?”
“Yeah, Plush, I suppose that you could say that.”
“Well you look strong,” Plush said, twirling her finger around her fringe. “I like a man with strength.”
Herm sat on the bed next to her, and kissed her on the cheek. He had never done something like that before, but he felt drawn to her.
"I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said. “We are told not to do that in return. I can’t kiss you back I mean.” “Oh.” He felt foolish.
Plush stood at the base of the bed with her first day school girl nerves and a seductive smirk. She raised her foot from the floor and placed it on his knee cap, and caressed his quad muscle with her heel. Her eyes were deep wells of gold yet to be mined. To Herm, she was comforting yet unfamiliar.
“Gerty tells us to keep something back, something of ourselves. But, I can dance for you, I’m quite the mover and the shaker.”
He looked at her again, and placed his hand on her leg and rubbed it with his palm.

“I can see that,” Herm replied.
“You are not backwards at coming forwards are you soldier?”
“I’m not a soldier, and I’m the one with something to lose here.”

“What do you have to lose here tonight?”

“Well, Plush, I think I may have already lost it.”
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t usually kiss and tell, but there is something about you that makes me feel like home. How about we just chat for a moment?”
“I’d like that, but it’s up to you. You are the valued customer here. We can do what you like, with the kissing exception of course.”
“That, I am a valued customer, and it will be some chatter that I want to pay for first.”
“If I feel like home, then where is home, and I would like to know your name. I can’t call you Mr Research Psychologist all night, or morning, or whatever the time is.”
“You really are new at this aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry, I guess you just look trustworthy.”
“My name is Herm Phillips.”
“What a lovely name, my cousin just named his baby boy Malcolm. So he is going to get Mal at some stage. What is Herm short for?”
“Hermanian.”
“What a long and an important sounding name. How long are you here for Hermanian Phillips?”
“I don’t plan on hanging around, this place is a little dark. I just need to get to the bottom of it all, the sinkhole is just a ruse, smoke and mirrors. Us researchers think that the rodents are playing a larger role in it all.” He was unsure why he kept lying to her, but the story gathered momentum, and he felt more important the larger it became.

“Oh, I read that the sinkhole was the Earth swallowing itself, and that the rats were just bystanders in it all.”

“That is what they would like you to believe. I read that piece as well. That is why I am here though - to save you all.”

“So, when do you leave?”

“I have to report back to my contractor in a few days. I have a few theories, but I don’t like to speculate until I have something solid to base it all on.”
Plush laid back on the bed with her head on the headrest, and removed the rest of her clothing, arching her pelvis to the ceiling as she slipped her underwear down below her knees.
“You’re the finest girl I have seen all year, maybe longer than a year.”
“That’s such a lovely compliment for a girl like me, and I’m a little nervous.”
Plush moved her hands up and down her bare thighs and then caressed her stomach. She thought about Chubby Checker and what he would think if he knew she was going to all lengths to extend his life for a few more months. She had been paid six times by customers that night for a bit of conversation and a few blow jobs. Gertrude told her to expect that. “Men sometimes just like to hear the voice of a woman, sometimes they don’t like to hear it at all.” Herm and Plush spoke about everything under the sun. When he showed genuine compassion and empathy for the plight of Chubby Checker, Plush began to fall for him.
“He needs a kidney transplant, she sobbed subtly into her syllables.”
“They do that for cats?”
“Do what?”
“Transplants.”
“Yes, he isn’t well at all. There are four stages of renal failure in cats, much like cancer. There is a   rating system. One, two, three, four.”

“What stage is Chubby?”
Plush began to sob, plunging her face into her hands. Herm took her by the hand again, and dragged his thumb across the top of her hand.
“That tickles,” she said, “You are quite a man Herm.”
“I’m not the man you think I am,” he replied. For a moment he considered coming clean. But he continued to lie.

“I was bullied at school. They called me Herm the Germ.”

Plush and Herm got along like a house on fire - like a brothel on fire. He asked her about growing up in Valley Ridge. Plush spoke about her childhood at the vineyard, and he said that he did not have a great one after his parents died. He explained his love of music, and then felt foolish when he divulged that he wanted to own his own eradication business one day. Here he was, drunk (but feeling sober) in a city plagued by rats with a hole in it, sipping beer in a brothel, talking about cats and letting his business plans slip slip to a prostitute named Plush after little more than thirty minutes. Plush was impressed. She had never met a man so deeply imbedded in how life worked, and how he wanted it to work. To Plush, the men that lived  in  her city were scum-buckets, and Herm was not one of those men.

“I love the arts, movies and music, and painting, all of it,” she said. “They make me forget about all of the world’s horrors. And guess what?” She added. Herm looked at her as though she was the last woman on Earth.

“Then I guess what” he replied.

“You make me laugh you silly billy. No, no, I have been in a few commercials.”

“You have been in adverts, anything that I may have seen?”
“Well, Mr Herm, the Researcher” Plush replied. “I suppose that depends on how carefully you watch your commercials. I play one of the newlyweds in the latest Fox Trot Real Estate commercial. When the agent shows the couple through the waterfront unit, I say ‘Honey, look at the size of the bed.’”

Herm had not seen the commercial, but he lied and said that he had.
“You are a bit of a natural, I must say. You have a sporting spirit for someone so young, and I think you’ll go far in the movies if you stick at it.”
“Oh don’t say that, you are embarrassing me. And I’m old enough. Too old, probably.”
“You shouldn’t be coy about it all.”
“I don’t know, everything I do, it seems that it is all just for marginal gains. I’m tired of playing the long game.”
“The long game is worth it. Just keep plugging away at it, pound that rock, it’ll turn around, it’ll crack open. You have all the time in the world."
“That’s just it, I’m not sure any of us have all the time in the world. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this, I guess I just feel like home with you.”
“At least you are no bystander like the rats are. Tonight’s plunge into prostitution proves that you are willing to move heaven and earth to save your cat, and I like that in a girl.”
“You like that in a girl, or you like me?”
“I like you.”
“Lets play a game. Tell me something real Mr Researcher, and I’ll do the same.” Plush dragged her fingernails through his short brown cropped hair, and placed her pointer finger into his chin dimple.
“I thought you would never ask.” He leant into her slowly, and the two kissed for what seemed to them both as an eternity.

“I had blood on my hands tonight,” he added.

“You what. What blood, you got in a scuffle?”

Herm was lying.
“A scuffle, no, let me get there. There was some sort of a rally down by the docks after the boats came in.”
“A rally for what?”
“I don’t know, they were holding up signs that contradicted the next. Freedom I suppose. It’s not uncommon around this time of year.”

“Oh, what a waste of time. I hate rallies,” Plush said.
“So, I was walking by and two young women began arguing what the best Prince record is, and one thing led to another and blood was spilt. I was pushed into the one that was arguing for Nineteen Ninety Nine, and I got covered in her blood, pouring from her nose it was.”
“Oh how horrible, was she okay.”

“I’m not entirely sure. I turned back towards her, and the two had disappeared into the chanting mob.”

“That’s not as real as I thought you’d get. But, I suppose a deals a deal, and now it is my turn, but one thing’s first, what is your favourite Prince record?”
“That is a very good question, and I love talking about my favourite records, and my favourite Prince record has to be Purple Rain. It took me a while to get it, and for a while I preferred Dirty Mind, but Purple just takes me somewhere, it’s hard to explain.”
Plush stared at Herm for what seemed to her like an eternity, yet it was only seconds before she replied.

“Can I just for a moment sing you a line or two. But, you must promise not to laugh. What do they say? I’m a whore in sheep’s clothing.”
“I don’t know what they say, but as for your singing, what if it’s funny and I can’t help myself?” “Just promise Mr Research Man, just promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Here it goes then.”
Plush closed her eyes, and arched her back before dragging the fringe of her wig behind her ear with the middle finger of both hands. She sung the second verse of the title track to Purple Rain, and felt immediately silly for doing so.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m wasting all your well paid time singing like a blushing little Prince fan. You came here for a reason I suppose, so just take me whenever you want.”

“No no, Plush, please, you sing fine, but singing someone else’s song is not authentic. You still need to tell me something real.”

She composed herself. She was ashamed at how deep things had become.
“Okay, okay, so my mother is a winemaker, lives here and all. But she had a child to another man when she was very young. So I have a half sister and she had a small part in Medium Cool.

“You are kidding me."

“It’s the truth, it’s all real. As real as these,” she said taking both of her breasts in her hands, cupping them and pushing them upwards.

“So you are related to someone in Medium Cool?”
“Yes, my sister, my half sister. I’ll show you. I’ll prove it.”
Plush skipped along the shaggy carpet, and closed the door to the ensuite behind her. She removed her blonde wig, and threw it onto the tortoiseshell laminate floor. She adjusted her dark brown hair behind her ears again, and took a deep breath and mumbled to herself.

“I can’t believe this, of all the places,” Plush said to herself. She looked at herself in the mirror, and shook her head in amazement at what was happening. Is this what love at first sight feels like?
She opened the door, and stepped onto the carpet. Herm looked at her up and down. With her wig removed, she looked even more beautiful to him.
“Okay, so I’ll start with the opening credits, you know the part don’t you? Just run with it okay. We are at the part just after the car takes the exit route.” She acted the first few lines switching from character to character.

“Here it goes.”
She switched characters again to the part her sister played.

“My sister was the French girl in white, standing next to Robert Forster. She spoke about the dangers of the profession. She did a good job with the accent.”

“You are French?”

“It runs in my blood, but no. I was born here. My sister too, but she left when I was young.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But, I’m surprised she didn’t feature in more films. Medium Cool is one of my favourites. You know what I find so interesting about that beginning?”

“Please tell me.”

“The woman that crashed her car. She changed her mind. She didn’t want to take the exit ramp, and then look what happened.”

Herm entered The Everleigh Club early that morning to have a conversation with a prostitute, and to relax after a long shift. He didn’t expect to fall in love with a prostitute. In all his life, he had never seen someone so beautiful, and he had never spoken to someone as though he was speaking English for the very first time. He was often left speechless in front of Plush, he was floored, FLAWED, and he was not afraid to show it. He was raw and poignant. There was something about Plush that made him want to marry the one time whore. From the street Herm looked up to the second floor at Plush who stood at the window and smiled down at him. The air smelled like fire crackers. Stray cats still roamed alley ways as music beamed through open apartment windows. She blew him a kiss and waved at him. Herm pretended to catch the kiss in one hand, and stuffed it into his mouth, and he waved back at her.

8.40AM

There was an influenza strain that winter in Valley Ridge that put a lot more people in hospital than ever before. The wind was strong and you had to be careful wherever you went. There was an unease about a lot of things. Three girls fell into the sinkhole in a gust of wind. A passenger ferry sank in the Derwent River, and three people drowned, and its cause was never investigated. Sixteen people died in seperate road motorcycle accidents. The mountain that overlooked the city was snow capped for forty days in a row. High levels of zinc was found in waste water, and three people from a nursing home were kidnapped and released the day after for no reason. And, although they are a nomadic bird, every single Black Swan left the river, and headed inland. People started to fish from the river again that winter, but it was not safe to eat them. And then there was the slashed body in the Botanical Gardens, splatter on the petals of white Petunias, and not one arrest was made. That winter, Carl avoided the flu, but he still had to navigate the Solstice, and election week. Voting always makes a city go around the bend, and then add in a Solstice and you have trouble on your hands. People of the city, under the light, squeezed in tighter by more darkness. There isn’t a thing that you can point to that stands taller and stronger during an election that falls on a Solstice. Making a choice is hard enough when there are all the hours in the day, all the light. Carl had already voted, but the Electoral Commission received a handwritten letter intended for Becky Weum, not Rebecca Whitlock.

Through the window Carl could see a gyre of protesters swarming around a child, they were all chanting something and pointing to the placard that the child was holding above her head. Carl couldn’t quite read what was written on the placard. Next to the window was a frame with a page inside it. He rubbed his eyes and moved a little closer. There was dust on the frame and the glass was clear. The edges of the words were soft, the sentences were blurry, and the paragraphs cloudy. He loosened the faded strap of his navy blue tumbled cow leather bag, and let it drop to his side. He unzipped the front pocket, removed his glasses from the pouch, wiped them with his sleeve, and placed them on the bridge of his nose. With a tear in his eye, he moved even closer to the frame. It was addressed to no one. It was a letter certifying the Medical Practice to conduct business from the residence. Three short paragraphs about compliance matters. He pressed his thumb and finger into his temples and massaged them with soft circles. His brain ached and his heart raced. He let the tear travel down his cheek towards his square jawline. It had only been three weeks, yet it had seemed like an eternity. Before the letter, there was never a spoken word, nor a written sentence that contained his truth, or genuine expression. He pieced it together and then he let it fall apart. Peace from the lips of a lier. It was all the beginning of his war. Everything reminded him of the letter that he had posted. Every newspaper he read, the contents of his bookshelf, the subtitles on the foreign films he saw, every letter box he walked past on the short walk to the bus stop, every post office box the bus passed, courier vans, postmen on motorcycles, news agencies, just motorcycles, and now the certification letter. It was all part of what was building inside him and what was ready to explode. At the bottom of the certification letter was an expiry date. If only the contents of the letter that he had written had an expiration date, then he would not need to be seen to by a medical professional. He would bide his time and absorb the punishment with the knowledge that it would pass in time. However, what he had written could not expire, there was no coming back from the contents of the four paragraphs, the thirteen sentences, the eighty seven words, the three hundred letters. What he had written could not even be interpreted a number of different ways, and he wasn’t even sure who had read it.

Magazines fanned out across the coffee table in the middle of the waiting room, a copy of yesterday’s newspaper with the headline MISSING. On the floor underneath the table was a copy of the Bible with its hard cover torn from its spine. Carl picked up a May 2017 edition of National Geographic. The receptionist drew a blue ribbon from the rear pocket of her white cotton pants, and wrapped her hair into a bun neatly near her crown as she approached a different frame on the wall that was parallel with a noticeboard full of pamphlets, different diseases, things to watch out for, and someone offering a spare bedroom to rent.

A middle aged man with gray hair dressed in blue overalls entered the waiting room through a maintenance door carrying an industrial barrel shaped vacuum cleaner. The sound of him dragging it across the cream coloured tiled floor was excruciating. The receptionist seemed unaware of his existence, and continued to flutter around the noticeboard, rearranging notices and posters and business cards, before removing a photo of a diseased lung from the frame, and replaced it with a poster: CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU DON’T FEEL BETTER SOON. Carl’s hands shook. The racket in the room was too much for the picture frame. It shook and fell from its mount and crashed to the floor. Glass scattered over the floor around the receptionist in small shards. The man in the blue overalls shrugged his shoulders.

“Shit,” he said.

He proceeded to move the vacuum over the broken glass. The glass fragments that were being sucked into the cleaner pierced through the rubber housing that led into its chamber, a fine whistle punctured the racket, and the receptionist clamped her palms over her ears. Carl turned his attention back through the window where a tree branch flinched as a blue bird dropped dead into a bed of dry brown and orange leaves, and a rat the size of a cat swooped upon it and disappeared out of sight before he could blink. The philosophy of the stars and beasts and his dreams were akin.

Carl opened the National Geographic magazine as the receptionist made a phone call, and he flicked through its pages in search of tribal breasts, or an article about a new strain of Ebola - anything to grasp on to. It opened halfway to a two page spread that had been dog eared and scribbled on. Several paragraphs were highlighted in yellow. In the centre of the second page was a grid of four varieties of Silver Birches: The Curly Birch, Young’s Weeping Birch, Orna’s Birch and a Moss White. Carl smiled at the photograph of the Weeping Birch and for a second forgot about the letter. He knew the tree well and had fond memories of the seven trees along the fence line that Herm once planted. As a child, Carl always looked forward to late March when the catkin flowers began to turn brown, and it was when they began to turn brown that the barrels shaped catkins could be twisted. They became little bombs that would explode on impact, scattering its tiny seeds everywhere. If the wind happened to be up (and the wind was often up in Valley Ridge), the seeds would get in the eyes of his enemies.

“The Mythology of The Silver Birch,” The tree was noble, it was monoecious, from the same tree, those catkin weapons could come in male and female form. And the myths of the birch, it symbolised renewal and purification, for in Celtic times the branches were waved around to send old spirits away. In even recent times farmers used them to purify their gardens. The Birch was even known to symbolise fertility. Brushing an infertile cow with the branch of a Silver Birch will allow it to bear calfs, and a pregnant one when brushed with it will bear healthy ones. Carl wondered whether other trees had similar folklore. The Birch has very deep roots, and is one of the only plants that does not suck the soil dry of its nutrients. The Birch cleanses and improves the soil that feeds it. An impressive and splendid tree - a great article, Carl thought.

The receptionist placed the phone receiver down and peered above the computer monitor at Carl. She had seen a lot of strange things during her twenty one years as a medical practice receptionist, but had not seen someone in all those years so fixated on a National Geographic magazine. The receptionist was short and thin with sandy blonde hair that was greying around her ears. There were soft ripples of skin beneath her eyes and waves of it underneath her chin. The ripples were accentuated by dark shadows.

“May I help you sir?” She asked.

Carl turned around and approached the reception desk, leaving his bag by the wall. He dragged the tip of his tongue across the back of his bottom teeth. One of his lower incisors was chipped, and the edge was sharp. He tasted blood as he removed his reading glasses.

“Argh yes,” his voice shook, “I have an eight forty five with Doctor Landry.”

He forced his broad shoulders back, lifted his chin and he took a deep breath. He scratched his cheek and studied the receptionist who had scribbled something in CAPITALS on a notepad that he couldn't read from upside down.

“I apologise about the racket earlier, our cleaning contractors are not that careful these days. Mr Phillips is it?”

“Yes, Carl Phillips for Doctor Landry.”

“I must apologise again Mr Phillips, Doctor Landry has needed to take the morning off due to personal reasons.”

“He what! What for?”

“I am unable to divulge the circumstances in which Doctor Landry has needed to take some time off. That is confidential. We have pushed his appointments this morning back.”

“You have pushed them back, and you didn't think to let me know.”

“I left a message for you first thing this morning, but I presume now that you may had already left. We only have the one number listed here for you.”

“Ah, yes, I was on the bus early. What time, when?” Carl shrugged his shoulders, and sucked the blood from his tongue.

“Doctor Landry has prioritised you Mr Phillips. We know about the letter. He can see you at two thirty this afternoon.”

The receptionist had endured tough conversations with patients many times. Cancelled and postponed appointments, unhappy patients, angry patients, complaints. She had seen and spoken to sick children and mothers and fathers, people dying and people bleeding. But, the look on Carl Phillip’s face was a new one. Carl looked like he had seen a ghost and then swallowed it. She pulled at the collar of her white shirt and removed her blazer. The air conditioner rattled, and she could hear a siren nearby, rising above the protesters outside.

“This is all a joke right! This is a critical appointment that I have been waiting a whole week for. I explained to Landry on the phone that things are building inside. He knew about all this, and he goes and takes the morning off. Doctors shouldn't be allowed to take absent days.”

“Mr Phillips, for the fact that you travelled all the way in here, I apologise, but our Doctors have the same rights as any other employee. Are you able to fill in a few hours?”

“And do what?, it is dangerous out there. He said pointing to the window. It’s an election week. You do know that what I wrote and sent has put a target on my back?” He added.

“Yes, Mr Phillips, I know about the letter but not about what you wrote. As I said, Doctor Landry has prioritised your consultation this afternoon. For that reason, Doctor Landry has spoken with me about the letter, and I understand what you are going through.”

"What has he has told you about the letter? He hasn't even read it.”

“No, not the contents of the letter or who it was sent to. Only how the intentions and the consequences of the letter are now conflicted, and that it has resulted in a medical issue for you. There are elements of Doctor and Patient confidentiality that a receptionist is not privy to.”

“Yeah, well this conversation is not helping. Conflicted, you are right about that. Tell Landry that I intend on making a complaint to the Medical Board about all this here this morning. What kind of Doctor takes personal leave anyway. Landry should place himself on a pedestal higher than the normal employee with standard leave entitlements. I don’t need this stress. What am I supposed to do for the next few hours?” Blood had coated Carl’s top teeth.

“There is a polling booth set up at the Library where you can vote early. There is a Solstice parade at noon I believe. I know Black Water is playing at the Village this week. There is plenty to take in.”

Carl turned his back on the receptionist and took one last glance at the compliance letter before exiting through the door.

“Iv’e already fucking voted,” he mumbled to himself.

The receptionist looked at the notepad and shook her head. “You idiot,” she said to herself.

DON'T TELL HIM YOU HAVE READ THE LETTER.

Carl's heart was pounding in his chest, and small beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He kicked the curb with his foot and began to walk south down Elizabeth Street and through the passionate electoral heartland of Denison, a division named after Sir William Denison, an old Van Dieman’s Land Lieutenant Governor from 1847. Elizabeth Street is a three-kilometre stretch of road that starts at the wharf and travels northwest through Hobart’s business district, ending at New Town. Cafes and coffee shops were covered with political propaganda. The Liberal Party’s blue posters: VOTE ARCHER, the Labor Party’s red VOTE WHITLOCK, and the Greens Party’s VOTE BURNETT in green.

An old man and an old woman stood in the middle of a rose garden in the front yard of a townhouse and waved two identical political banners NO CABLE CAR VOTE 4 GREEN at oncoming traffic. Car horns honked and a black Labrador jumped a retaining wall and began to bark at the banner wavers. Carl turned his head to the side and then lowered his eyesight to the pavement as he approached the gyre of protesting hippies that had congregated outside of Jackie’s Bikes. His bag fell towards his right side, and his shoulder slumped forward. He rubbed his ear, spat blood onto the pavement and avoided stepping on the Labrador’s paws. It had begun to rain. He could hear a helicopter in the direction of the hospital but could not see it. He moved the bag strap to his left shoulder. He had calmed down. The next bus wasn't until 4pm. He needed to fill in the day, avoid anyone that may recognise him and trust that Landry would be able to fix all this after 2pm.

“SAVE OUR LOCAL,” the hippies shouted. “SAVE OUR LOCAL. SAVE OUR LOCAL,” they continued.

Women of all ages, and men that looked the same age. The child, a girl, emerged from the pack of protesters holding her Mother’s hand, while her other hand clutched a banner that was beginning to tear down the middle. Carl took his hat out of his bag and placed it over his brown wet hair and pulled it low, concealing his eyes. The young girl fixed her attention onto him and she let go of her mother’s hand and approached him. She reached into her pocket. Carl’s heart skipped and then began to race. A knife! he thought. Why did he write that goddamn letter? not only was it written, but it was posted. Now a midget assassin had been paid to 'off him' with a knife at a protest. Paid to remove the knife from her pocket at an opportune time, just as the hordes bellowed “SAVE OUR LOCAL.” It is likely sharp enough to enter flesh like it was butter, easing into his liver with little effort, pulling downward into his large intestines, and then sideways across his abdomen and down into his groin, severing arteries and organs aplenty. He looked at the girl in the eyes.

“Do it,” he said. “I wrote it, and I sent it. I deserve all of the horrors that you can afford me. I deserve no mercy and no forgiveness.”

Carl did not bother running. What was the point when the wretched conspirators had gone to this much trouble to remove him from the world because of the things that he had written. The labrador barked and he now saw the helicopter moving north with the low-pressure front.

“Would you like to save our local mister?” The girl said.

“What?” replied Carl, blinking rapidly.

“Labor! It’s so wrong. They want the gaming machines removed from our local pubs and clubs.”

“Okay I guess. What do I need to do?” He waited for the knife to enter his rib cage. He would feel at peace with it.

“The campaign if successful will effectively kill off the gaming industry, which is their modus operandi, however at the same time, the hospitality industry will also suffer.”

The girl stared into Carl’s dark brown eyes. “I’m not that concerned about gambling myself as I am too young to comply with the vice, but I feel for people like my mother.”

“I understand the concept. I’m just unsure what one man like me can do to help. All this here! It’s rigged! The whole system. Things are building.”

Carl raised his head to the sky.

The rain had stopped but the helicopter was now directly overhead. Stationery. “SAVE OUR LOCAL,” the mad mob continued. He held his palms open and upward toward the helicopter.

The girl looked at him. Confused. Her mother called to her.

“DEE DEE NOW!”

Carl closed his eyes.

“I messed things up in the most monumental of ways.”

“It’ll all be okay sir. It’s never as good or as bad as you think. It’s always somewhere in between.”

He felt the girl drop something into his palm. He opened his eyes, and the girl and her mother had vanished. The hippies had disappeared. He looked back up at the sky, and the helicopter had flown away. The Labrador had stopped barking and was sitting next to the old man and the old woman who were still standing in the middle of the rose garden in the front yard of the townhouse waving two identical political banners NO CABLE CAR VOTE 4 GREEN at oncoming traffic. The bell clock tower above a cathedral opposite Jackie’s Bikes chimed ten. In his palm was a card:

LUCY’S PALM READING AND DREAM INTERPRETATION– FREE CONSULTATION.

“I have to vote again anyway,” he mumbled.

9:05AM

Carl had thirty minutes to vote and make his way up Collins Street before The Village screened Black Water. He walked West up Liverpool Street and could hear a group of people singing happy birthday to someone from an open office window. Fresh and sharp in his nostrils, the air smelled like cindered pine and bus exhaust. The tables outside Beaujangles Cafe and The Electric Wombat were occupied with workers and early morning shoppers consuming coffee, bagels, raisin toast and Eggs Benedict. There was already a lineup at the tourist information centre booth, and Strandbags was full of leather bag shoppers. A busker wearing a fluorescent yellow high visibility jacket, tight blue jeans and shin high Blundstone boots stood in the middle of the sidewalk singing Dancing Queen by ABBA in baritone. Several tourists, who had just departed from the Red Decker Bus, surrounded the busker and dropped coins into his bucket. Carl ordered a long black from Yellow Bernard Cafe and scanned the newspaper while he waited. Page 34 included a short sections of letters to the editor. He massaged his temples to provide some relief. He imagined his head was a lava lamp, and whatever was building inside him was the floating light, morphing and lighting up his brain. Lava! Mount Wellington, the sacred Kunyani where Aboriginal Tasmanians or Palawa people were laid to rest. NO CABLE CAR VOTE 4 GREEN. The dormant mountain was due to erupt. That would be the leveller he desired. Then his letter would not be a concern. The barista handed him his coffee and he walked the next block to the public Library without looking at anything but the pavement. From twenty metres behind, a boy that should have been in school kept his eyes on Carl as he sipped on his coffee and navigated the morning traffic and pedestrians. The boy weaved through pedestrians like a formula one racing car until Carl reached the foyer of the public library, where a queue had formed to vote at a pop-up booth before official voting opened on Saturday. Carl stood in the queue, and the boy stood behind him. A group of school children, led by a female teacher, congregated at the base of the stairwell that led to the non-fiction books on level one, and the fiction books on level two. On the wall halfway up the stairwell was a map of the world with coloured pins on cities that have hosted Olympics and also started wars. Carl approached the electoral officer.

“Next please.”

Carl pulled his hat down lower on his forehead and moved forward.

“Name please,” the electoral officer asked.

“Carl Phillips”

“And your middle name please.”

“Jamison.”

“Your electorate.”

“Lyons, the division of Lyons.”

“And your address please.”

“18 Cole Street in Sorell.”

“And have you previously voted in this election Mr Phillips?”

“No. My other vote didn’t make it to its destination.”

“Excuse me.”

“Don’t worry, it is a long story.”

Surely Becky didn’t re-post his voting slip. It was the vote that got away.

The electoral officer handed Carl a slip of paper and an envelope to seal his vote. He removed his reading glasses from his bag, and dropped the bag by his side. He grasped the pencil attached to a piece of string in his hand, and then numbered the candidates 1 through 26.

1 WHITLOCK, Rebecca. For a brief moment he considered placing a love heart next to, but did not. He wanted this vote to count.

He folded the slip in half and slid it into the envelope and sealed it. The act reminded him of the letter that he wrote and posted. A level of shame washed over him. The emotions of shame, regret and embarrassment flip flopped, often coercing together to form a monster emotion that he labelled ‘something building.’ He placed the sealed vote in the depository box. His sling bag had vanished. The school children and their teacher had made their way to level two, and an announcement could be heard over the PA.

“Could Layla Sheldon come to reception please, Layla Sheldon, could you approach reception, we have your daughter here.”

“Ah excuse me, Carl said to the Electoral Officer.”

“Yes sir.”

“I just voted and my bag was here, and someone must have picked it up.”

"Where did you leave it sir?”

“It was right here, next to me. Did someone return it?”

“Return it where sir? I have not seen your bag and no-one has returned anything here. Have you tried lost property?”

“Where is lost property?”

“I’m not an employee of the Library, I’m here temporarily, because this is just a pop up booth, you will have to ask reception sir.”

Carl approached the receptionist. He was an older man with a bald head and wore round spectacles. He was dressed in a beige suit and a black shirt with an open collar. The lost Sheldon child was seated next to him. Layla Sheldon had not returned and tears streamed from the boy’s eyes as he scooped yoghurt out of a bowl using a teaspoon.

“Excuse me.”

The receptionist looked at Carl and smiled, “yes sir, how may I help you?”

“Has anyone returned a bag?”

“A library bag you mean.”

“No, my bag. My personal bag. I was downstairs voting. I guess I left it in the queue, I'm not sure. I finished voting and it had vanished.”

“I am sorry sir, nothing at all.”

“Well, can you look at your footage?”

“What footage?”

“Your cameras are recording something.” Carl pointed to the security camera above his head.

“Oh,” the receptionist replied. “I will have to speak to security sir. We contract those services out, but luckily enough for you, their headquarters is on level 4. Give me a moment and I'll be right back.”

The child licked his bowl, pushed it to the side, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He looked at Carl and said, "when I get to heaven I want to own a big big house painted green that has lots of books in it, and a row boat so that I can row down the river."

“Did your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”

“My Mum is missing, what’s your name?”

“Maybe your Mother spoke to the wrong stranger too.”

The Sheldon boy stood up and ran down an aisle of books to where the group of school children and their teacher congregating.

The main compartment of his bag contained Death in the Afternoon, a Vegemite sandwich, a long sleeve Abramelin top and a leather pouch with coins in it. In the front compartment contained his reading glasses and a duplicate of the letter that he had written to Becky but had sent to Rebecca Whitlock. He always wrote two of everything, just in case. He thought of the letter that his Grandfather had written to Henrietta and how straight to the point he was, how famous he had become because of it. It was an important piece of war correspondence, and it was the only copy. If he had a duplicate then Henrietta would have a copy too.

To my dearest Henrietta my love,

It has only been for a short while, though thinking always of you and our baby.

Sydney is full and the mood amongst the Allies is indeed tense yet nevertheless hopeful.

Last night the planes flew low over the harbour, and I held your letter to my chest, closed my eyes and I was there with you, walking on the beach and Bamboo was splashing about in the sea, chasing other dogs.

The band is going along well, our nerves are jittery, even so we keep spirits high. We do not express sentiment, that is not our post, just the same, deep down in my heart, I wonder what any of this is worth.

I will see you soon I am sure, where there is a will, there is a way.

Give Bamboo a smooch for me.

Always with you,

Your love.

Matthew Nathaniel Falzone

The elevator rose to level 4. Carl’s escort was a security guard with a black moustache. He wore a blue uniform with yellow shoulder blade patches.

“So James tells me that you have misplaced your bag, and that you have accused the library staff of the matter. Let me tell you a little something. I have known James and Elsie for years, salt of the earth they are.”

“Who is James?”

“The receptionist is James. And he handled the book regeneration program for years.”

“The what?"

“A book can only be read so many times before it begins to become unreadable, that’s where James came in. Nowadays they just buy more, but back then, James regenerated them by hand.”

“Okay, and Elsie, what does she do then?"

“Elsie oversees the loan system.”

“I just want my bag back. I have had a messy morning already, and it can't just disappear. I’ll pay a reward, hell, even a ransom if that is what is happening here.”

The security guard led Carl to an office with a wall covered in monitors.

“Was there anything important in the bag sir?”

“Yes, of course there was. There is some very important correspondence inside it.”

“Well, lets take a good look then shall we.”

The security guard typed something into a prompt.

“Roughly what time did you notice your bag was missing?”

“Maybe 10 minutes ago. I was voting on the ground level.”

“Voting hey, could be a tight election. Labor are in it up to their necks. Maybe a hung parliament. Get it? Hung parliament up to their necks,” he chuckled.

Carl wasn’t in the mood for jokes. The guard typed something else into the prompt bar and hovered the mouse cursor over a still image of ground level where the pop up booth had been assembled. The guard had bulging arm muscles, large veins visible on both arms.

“You know, in fighting, if one fighter stops fighting, the fight usually stops, much like a war I suppose, or a battle. But what would happen do you think if we all just decided not to vote in this election? just stop voting all of a sudden. Make a collective stand.”

“We would all receive an electoral fine I suppose.”

“That’s for sure, but I wonder what would happen to government. Would it roll over?”

“There, right there! zoom in on the kid behind me there.”

The guard zoomed in and rewound the footage. He pressed play and the two of them watched the electoral officer handed Carl a slip of paper and an envelope to seal his vote. Carl dropped his bag by his side, grasped the pencil attached to a piece of string in his hand, and then numbered the candidates 1 through 26. He folded the slip in half. A boy walked up behind Carl and picked up his bag as he slid the voting slip into the envelope. The boy had a white feather tattooed on the side of his neck, and he had straight black hair worn just below his ears, the dirtiness of it was hidden by a blue Yankees cap. He wore tight black jeans cut off at the knee and a black t-shirt. Behind his ear was a half-smoked cigarette.

“What a stealth,” Carl said. “I’m impressed.”

“Incredible,” said the security guard. “He is a quick little bugger isn't he?”

“I didn’t even see him coming.”

“You never had a chance.”

“Can you zoom in a little more, and take a screen shot, print it off for me?”

“I can sir, but it will only be in black and white.”

There was nothing he could do about his bag now. There was no point reporting it to the police, it was gone. There was something called street justice, and the boy had it coming. Carl knew what the white feather tattoo represented. It was highly likely that the contents of his bag had already changed hands several times. Death in the Afternoon, his Abramelin sweater was his favourite long sleeve. His coin pouch was an heirloom. But the letter! He began to perspire and his hands shook. It wasn’t like Carl to drop his bag on the floor like that and leave it unattended. He did not even trust the baggage bays on busses. It was careless, reckless and irresponsible of him, and it was all Doctor Landry’s fault. People are mysteries and contradictions, but Doctors need to be straight down the line. It does not cost a thing to fake empathy. The grand failure of general practice had raised his heart rate, causing absent minded mistakes, and now his duplicate letter was on the loose.

The white feather tattoo on the boy's neck meant that the he belonged to The White Feathers, a network of mastermind pick pocketers that roamed the Valley Ridge streets. The boy saw weakness in Carl, he was a target, but for how long? Carl was unsure. Had the boy been following him all morning? For weeks even? Was he on the same bus? Was he moving through the mob of protesters? Did the boy know about the letter, and that there was a duplicate? These were the questions that Carl asked himself as he lined up in the cinema queue to purchase a ticket to Black Water. These were the questions that were left unanswered.

9.40AM

Carl needed to take his mind off matters, and a movie, whether it be good or bad always did that. Black Water was showing in the same theatre that he had taken Becky to on their first date. It was a special midnight screening of Goddard's Breathless. Becky had fallen asleep during the 23 minute bedroom scene. Carl turned to Becky, and manoeuvred his arm around her seat, and placed it on her shoulder. Her head slumped to the side. He placed his ear close to her mouth to check that she was breathing. She awoke, startled and slapped his leg.

“What the hell are you doing?” She said.

“You were breathless. People die of natural causes during films all the time. It’s got something to do with the air conditioning.”

“They do not, and I’m fine Carl.”

“I have heard stories of movie lovers slipping away peacefully, and when the credits roll and the lights come on, all hell breaks loose.”

Black Water was the first screening of the day and the air conditioning was warming up the frosty theatre. Carl rubbed his right arm with his left, and then his left with his right. He placed his large popcorn on the seat beside him and removed his shoes. Two couples sat in a row towards the front of the cinema, their eyes glued to the screen. An older man sat in the same row as Carl across the aisle with a notebook in his lap. Carl presumed that he was a movie reviewer.

“Fortune Teller” by the Rolling Stones began to play through the speakers, and a young female actor sat in a chair opposite an older lady with her palm facing upwards. The old lady smiled, nodded her head and said something to the young girl. The advertisement cuts to vision of the young girl skipping on a beach with a small Labrador running beside her. Along the bottom of the screen rolls the words LUCY’S PALM READING.

It was that little gremlin DEE DEE.

After all that Carl had been through, the last thing he needed was for some old lady fortune teller with grey dreadlocks that smells like incense to confirm what he was anticipating. Aristotle had the view that lines were not written into the human hand without reason.

To hell with it, Carl thought. The world is obviously trying to tell me something today. He reached into his back pocket for the voucher card. If it was good enough for Aristotle then it was good enough for him.

Previews of The Fist Purge, The Equaliser 2 and Hot Summer Nights played before the lights went out. Title sequence began ten seconds later with a dramatic soundscape as the production team’s logos flashed upon the screen, followed by white capital text on a black background, introducing:

SABAN FILMS

TAYLOR & DODGE PRESENTS

A DAWN’S LIGHT PRODUCTION

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ROBIN ENTERTAINMENT, LTD

A FILM BY PASHA PATRIKI

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME

DOLPH LUNDGREN

BLACK WATER

Carl slouched into his chair and raised his feet onto the back of the empty chair in front of him. The film reviewer had already begun to write notes. Carl wondered what he could possibly be writing so early on. The opening scene begins with a tap dripping as the camera pans onto Jean Claude, who is playing a character named Wheeler. He is laying on the floor, and as he awakes it becomes clear that he is in some sort of cell, a prisoner, and he is unaware where or why he is where he is. Wheeler begins speaking with another prisoner in an adjacent cell. The prisoner is Marco, played by Dolph Lundgren. He is smug and charismatic and asks Wheeler what the last thing he remembers. Predictably the scene digresses into the past, where it becomes clear quickly that Wheeler is some sort of agent. Wheeler and his partner, who is his lover are in possession of a device, two computer dongles that have files on them which could compromise national security. An assassination attempt is made on the agents, an attempt to retrieve the dongles. Wheeler escapes, and it appears that his female partner was killed, and the assassins were able to retrieve one of the dongles. Wheeler is eventually captured, however he is no longer in possession of his dongle. The CIA are in possession of a submarine, which is used to harbour secret prisoners. Prisoners that no longer exist. Wheeler is locked up, and an interrogation begins. Wheeler is a trained killer, he is built numb, and the interrogation fails. Black Water is a well-made action film, and the acting is standard, and appropriate. Jean commands the screen throughout the film, and he has aged very well and is still more than capable of kicking arse. It is unsurprising though, and the viewer can see the multiple double crosses coming a mile off. Wheeler ends up escaping from his interrogators by dislocating his thumb, and pulling his hand through the cuffs. Carl wriggles in his seat as the film reaches the half way point, needing to urinate. It becomes a cat and mouse film for a while, and Carl is not prepared to piss himself for Black Water. He leaves his popcorn where it is, and notices that the film reviewer had left, he’d seen enough.

The foyer was busier, and the line-up to the refreshments stand weaved its way to the doorway of Cinema Two, the IMAX was due to screen Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. His heart skipped a beat and it felt like his stomach had sunk into his abdomen. He felt sweat dripping from the top of his temples down the side of his jaw and below his ear lobe. He had not seen her for weeks. Becky had lost weight, which made her look taller. She had cut her hair into a bob and was wearing pearl earrings that dangled low from her ears. Her make-up was thick and she wore blue jeans and a pale jumper that matched the colour of her earrings. She was with someone, a male. He was much shorter than Carl. They were holding hands.

“That little critter stole my woman,” he whispered to himself. Carl wanted to disappear, become invisible, but he still had to navigate his way past them and back into Cinema One. He turned his head in the opposite direction and obscured any possible view that she would have of him by walking behind the queue to the refreshments stand. He hid behind an Equaliser 2 standee, a six-foot cutout of Denzel aiming his gun right at Becky and her new critter. Like Wheeler, he wanted to disappear into deep cover, get imprisoned in a submarine a kilometre beneath the sea. Carl wanted to simultaneously suffocate Becky in the popcorn machine at the concession stand and kiss her. He wanted to be built numb like Wheeler. Why did he care after all this time, and why did he worry all the time,? he thought to himself as he ducked and weaved his way behind other cardboard standees for upcoming films: Venom, A Star is Born, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween and Mission: Impossible-Fallout.

The rest of Black Water was a blur. A headache came and went and he imagined Becky in Cinema Two with the midget critter. He wrote a letter that he could not un-write. That wasn't the problem though. The problem was that he posted the letter. He wondered what the chances were of a letter going missing during dispatch or the journey.

Wheeler released Lundgren in the last half an hour, and the submarine got shot up real good. The only line of dialogue that Carl could recall from those last forty minutes was “sorry kid, it’s just business.”