I watched as Ito wiped his hands. He had completed painting and stood back for a moment allowing himself time to enjoy his work. It had taken many months. First finding the door and then hanging it in our apartment. I called it the ‘door to nowhere’ because that’s what it was — Ito’s beautifully painted red door that opened onto a blank wall.

When I asked him why? He simply answered, “Why not?”

In time, Ito knew every square inch of the door, every crack, scratch and sound it made. And yes, he believed he could hear the door talk to him, just as distinctly he said as he could hear the slow, methodical in and out of his own breath.

He talked of the door’s solitariness and if he dared swing it open, there would be nothing and yet everything. Every possibility. Every dream. Every kind and horrid word ever spoken. Every form of love. Everything in heaven and on earth, both good and bad, sat behind the door and so he left it closed. » Read the rest of this entry «

Ten months after Samantha left I was still trying to find her, still trying to regain what I had lost. Although at nineteen, if you’d have asked me exactly what that was, I probably would have bored you with some banal statement about my feelings and my love and the unfairness of it all. I know now that whatever I felt back then was guided by only two things — my dick and my stomach.

My relationship with Samantha was never simple. In fact, it was closer to some grasping, sadistic thing that seemed to satisfy and delight both of us on one the hand and send me into severe bouts of depression and her into raging tantrums on the other. Her leaving was probably the only sane thing that happened over the almost two and a half years we were together.

It was sometime during the eleventh month after she left that I decided to cut my wrists with a shiny new Wilkinson Sword razor blade that was once my father’s. I found a packet of them at the back of the medicine cabinet, took one to my room and then tossed a coin to see if I was going to live or die.

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His head newly shaven, he walks to the temple with a slow, regal demeanour. Each stride measured, each footfall quiet on the fine gravel path. His hands are soft and warm. His fingers entwined like tender lovers resting in some quiet ritual togetherness.

A misty rain falls. Feather-like droplets touch his ageing face but he is unconcerned with rain. He stops as he sees the temple rooftop appear above the trees — bright terracotta and angular, cutting the grey mist with waves of orange and specks of gold.

He hears the low rhythmic chanting of monks at prayer, a drumbeat and a frog whose call has a sadness that seems to match his own. And in the distance, he hears the faint step of a sandalled monk approach.
March had been cold and April even colder. No snow, just cold wind and a rain that had seeped inside of him, filling his lungs and his heart.

“Welcome home, Master.”

He smiles and bows his head but does not reply, preferring to hold back, to enjoy his silence a moment longer. He waits, listening as the monk’s tread slowly fades.

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My father died three years ago and, although I didn’t realise it at the time, it left me with a sense of loss that I have yet to truly understand.

Your father died last night in his sleep, my mother called to say.

Losing my father was not like losing my keys. I mean, I didn’t take off in a panic running here and there, calling people and generally feeling frantic and with a pit in my stomach because I was sure someone was now going to break into my apartment, steal everything I owned and probably murder me in my bed as well. In fact, all I remember about the moments after my mother’s call is putting the phone down and repeating back to myself, Dad died in his sleep last night. That’s all. I don’t remember feeling sick — in fact I don’t remember feeling much at all.

One thing that did spur me into immediate action was the realisation that I was over here and Dad was over there. Over there being half a world, one hemisphere and a few continents away. So, getting from Australia to England in time for his funeral wasn’t going to be easy.

I arrived in the afternoon. He had been buried that morning, so I hired a car and drove to the cemetery from the airport. I walked the isles of mud and grass between the marble plaques, passed square-cut English hedge rows and a bright orange tractor and found his new abode, his grave — row 28H, plot 137.

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When I look at a forest I see living things — leaves, flowers, birds, trees. My sister Gail sees colours — greens, yellows, browns. She called me yesterday to ask if I’d meet her at Morococo for an afternoon coffee. We hadn’t spoken in months — said she had some big news she wanted to share. I arrived on the dot. She was fifteen minutes late.

“So, what’s the big news?” I asked, as a lanky waiter wearing a black t-shirt and a fez led us to a corner table next to a pile of hand-woven rugs. We both ordered coffee and I ordered a Moroccan coconut cake to share.

Gail wanted to tell me about her latest boyfriend, Jason. “He manages this really cool, newly renovated two and three dimensional fine art gallery out in the burbs.”

Then, halfway through the cake, she says, “But the big news is — I’ve started to paint.”

“Paint! Paint what?” I said.

“Paint! You know, paint things — people, flowers, trees, streets — anything really.”

“I didn’t know you’d been studying art.”

“Well, I’ve only just started — but Jason says my paintings are really good. He thinks my abstracts will speak to people.”

“Wow! That’s fantastic, Gail, you really must show me.”

A few minutes later we left Morococo and caught a taxi to Gail’s apartment. There, in her living room, were eight oil paintings propped against a wall. All of them were coloured white. We’re not talking white and red or mainly white, we’re talking shades of the same white colour — nothing else, just white on white on white on white.

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When your only true-blue friend is a cockatiel named Bird, your life cannot be lived the same as everyone else’s. On Tuesdays, when you visit the local library, your best friend is perched patiently on your shoulder, whistling a happy but obscure tune. And, as you approach the library door you notice for the umpteenth time the printed sign saying, ‘No Animals or Food Allowed’.

How do you feel?

How do you feel knowing your best friend is supposed to wait, perched on a railing in a draughty hallway, while you enjoy yourself hunting for this weeks’ read?

Maybe a more practical cockatiel owner would have left his bird at home, but not Tony! Tony and Bird were inseparable. Which meant, wherever Tony went, Bird went as well.

I’ll warn you now that you may end up thinking this story a little far fetched, a little too hard to believe. Yet I can assure you there have been many witnesses to Bird’s uncanny ability — including myself.

At first, Tony says, even he didn’t believe it. But in the end he couldn’t deny it either.

One day Bird just started: “What’s a Dacha? What’s a Dacha?” And he carried on like that until in frustration Tony said, “BIRD! For Christ-sake shut-up! A bloody Dacha is a Russian weekender, a holiday home for the rich and the bloody famous.”

That’s how Tony says it all began. How it finished was Tony realising that Bird had been reading over his shoulder.

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It isn’t hard to imagine a wall: grey bricks, mortar between, neat, tall, 6-foot maybe. Behind the wall a narrow path disappears into the backdrop and looks as if it goes on forever. The path is leaf-strewn with colours from red to brown, green to orange. Small areas of gravel occasionally show through and we know the path will provide a satisfying crunch under foot. The doorway in the wall is arched, opens outward, fits tight, made of thick wooden planks painted almost black. A small pile of leaves sit this side of the door, not high, just enough to suggest the door has not been opened in a while. The lock is metal, no key, set to the right. The handle is also metal, waist-high, bolted to the centre of the door. A tree, maybe a Willow, grows behind and above the wall and to the left of the door. Some of its branches traverse to our side and we understand intuitively that it is possible, even easy to climb.

We hear the regular crunch, crunch of someone walking on the path. We know the sound is not that of a man, not heavy enough, not direct, not forceful enough for a man, so we think a child or maybe a woman. The tree moves, not from the breeze, a few branches dip and sway and we think someone is beginning to climb. We watch that space. We consider running, maybe hiding, but we’re too curious. Our hearts beat, our palms feel moist, our breathing quickens, our eyes flash from side to side then back to the wall. We see a hand, fingers, nails, small, very small, our breath slows, we relax, a small person, smaller than us. We focus. Now both hands, an arm and then the top of a head. Hair: shiny, brown, straight, long, maybe a girl, a young girl. The face appears, not a girl, a boy with thick brown hair falling to touch his shoulders. Small nose, angelic eyes. Is he smiling as he completes his climb and sits atop the wall legs dangling on our side, arms crossed. Is he singing? Humming softly, maybe.

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