Sunglasses
Stained glass, framed in metal wire, hooked over the ears and worn. If I had to come up with a definition, that would probably be it, but I think they are more than that. Not more than that in a sappy, 'that song means so much to me' kind of way, but in a 'there's more to sunglasses than just shielding your eyes.' Sunglasses are a physical barrier; to the sun, other people and world around us but sunglasses are also a different kind of barrier. I wore them at my mother's funeral, to hide the red-rimmed, tear-stained and sleep deprived eyes. I wore them the day after a 'big night out' to sheild my bloodshot-eyes and try to reduce the impact of the world around me. I wore them when leaving the room where my parents told me they were getting a divorce, to sheild the world from my anger, my pain- to keep everyone out. Sunglasses are a 'get back' symbol. That's why all the badass characters wear them. We assosiate cool people with sunglasses. Is this because they can better hide thier emotions? Not seem as weak? If so, maybe it's better if we don't wear sunglasses.
Land Down Under
Alright, before I start, there is something you need to know about Australian slang.
50% of it is made up on the spot. So if you ask where the saying originated from, it's most likely that we can't tell you. There are 3 categories of slang. The shortened slang, replacement slang and long slang. Shortened slang is where we try to make life easier by shortening words. Replacement slang is made-up words used to replace normal words. Long slang is where we make life harder for ourselves because... well, we can.
These aren't all, but the most common.
Good luck...
Shortened
Arvo [Ah-voh]: Afternoon
S'Arvo [S-Ah-voh]: This afternoon
Barbie [Bah-bee]: Barbeque
Brekky [Breh-key]: Breakfast
Brolly [Bro-lee]: Umbrella
Chrissy [Chris-ee]: Christmas
Ciggy [Sig-ee]: Cigarette
Defo [Deaf-oh]: Definitely
Devo [Dev-oh]: Devestated
Flannie [Flann-ee]: Flanelette shirt
Mozzie [Mozz-ee]: Mosquito
Servo [Serve-oh]: Service station
Replacement
Billy [Bill-ee]: Tea pot/Kettle
Ankle Biter: Child
Bogan: Like a hill billy
Bush: Outback/Middle of nowhere
The sticks: Outback/Middle of nowhere
Crikey: An exclamation of suprise/shock
G'Day: A shortened version of 'Good Day' but it means 'Hello'
Dag: Nerd/Geek
Drongo: Idiot
Iffy: Risky/dodgey
Knickers: Female underwear
Lollies: Candy/Sweets
Ripper: Fantastic/excellent
Sneakers/Joggers: running shoes
Stiffy: An erection
U-ee [Yew-ee]: A u-turn
Long Slang
AccaDacca: ACDC (the band)
A cold one: A beer
Bloody oath: an exclamation of frustration/shock
Choccy Bikkie: Chocolate buiscuit
Take the piss out of: Mock
Crack the sh*ts: Get angry
Good'on ya: Good job
Stubby Holder: Beer holder.
Look at Me
'Here Dad! Look! I drew you a picture!'
He sits at his desk rubbing his brow
He stops,
Looks at me.
'Show me.' he says and I beam loudly,
Passing him my paper.
'It's a picture of us'
'Who's this one then?'
'That's mum.'
He stops
Looks at me
My beaming is bottled as I see his cloudy face
'What's wrong?'
'Nothing. Nothing. It's very good.'
My smile appears again and I skip off
To join my teddys at the school I made.
I emerge from my room, school backpack on,
Shoes tight and stiff with the smell of new leather.
He stops
Looks at m
'Show me.' he says and I give a little spin.
'I'm a big girl now!'
'Let's look then.'
I stand against the wall, he makes a scratch with a pen.
He stops
Looks at me
His cheeks are wet, sparkling with tears
'What's wrong?'
'Nothing possum.'
My smile appears to mirror his
Wiping his face, he pens 'First Day at School'
I emerge from my room, my hair all done up
Face all made and ready to go
He stops
Looks at me
'Show me.' he says, I give a small sigh,
Take him to the door where we greet the poor boy,
Standing there in his stiff shirt, tie a little awry..
His eyes say enough, this boy is a good one.
He stops
Looks at me
His eyes are tinged with fear
"What's wrong?''
'Nothing. Nothing. Have a nice night.'
My smile spreads and I promise to be home by ten.
He sees me walk away,
hand in hand with some other boy,
down the garden path-
A twinge of fear, as he sees him,
Stop
Look at me
Our eyes meet and I beam,
not for Dad, and he feels a little sad.
He knows I'll leave soon,
he can't hold me forever.
Stop.
Please look at me...
My little girl,
once so vulnerable
but now she blooms,
without me.
Weaving
I sat at her feet, as she threaded strands,
Piece over piece of my tangled red hair,
Wove it into a braid, secured it there.
Now, father weaves, as we silently stand,
The silence of loss, betrayal despair,
Fills him as we stand together, a pair.
She put in flowers as she showed me dreams,
I wove it myself, with new found self-care-
The dreams she wove, at a touch, weren't there.
The next time she left, it wasn't so bad,
We were a team my young father and I
Together we strove, we claimed all the sky
I braid my own hair, now a simple task,
My father and I, we walk together.
Holding our breaths, the edge of forever.
Still.
You drew me in
like a bee to a flower,
with intoxicating smiles.
You trapped me
like a bird in a cage,
to see but not to touch.
and yet,
in spite of everything,
I still love you.
You filled my heart with
pretty lies,
you fed my appitite with
with hearty words,
and yet,
in spite of everything,
I still love you.
Those promises
you never kept,
all the crocodile tears
you wept,
and yet,
in spite of everything,
I still love you.
The bruises you leave
ones that lay unseen,
still ache within my
bleeding soul,
and yet,
in spite of everything,
I still love you.
The empty space you have left,
the gaping hole in my being,
the places you branded
with heated kissed,
still burn,
and yet,
in spite of everything,
I still love you.
Dances in the Moonlight
There in the night, when crickets sing,
To our song played on cicada wings
Our own world to create as we wish.
Our own world to discover!
We'll dance through our land together.
Breath in the air and its crystal clearness.
Listen to the stars as they spin around us.
Sharing stories of how they crossed lovers.
Not like us, yet just like us.
As we dance in their light forever.
How sweet a song we hear as we dance!
The one of fate and unwavering chance.
Two worlds colliding into a nebula.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
Chaotic.
Exciting.
Our creed to create.
Our need to love.
Our bond through time.
Forged there, way above.
Chapter 1:
When I wake, I am greeted with the smell of…
I can’t remember what you call it, but I can see where I am laying. The room is white and quite, the only noise being faint goings on from the other side of the white door. I try and sit up but the movement is too much and I collapse backward into the pillow. It’s soft, which is pleasant but I can’t shake the fear of being somewhere I don’t recognise. I rub my eyes to clear my mind. It stays foggy. The place where my mind reaches to find things is dark. My stomach clenches in fear. There’s nothing I can recall or find, it’s all a mess of fog and darkness. My pulse picking up I look down at my arm, a small thin tube links me to a bag of translucent fluid and I try and pull it out. As I manage to do this, not without hissing in pain, a figure appears in the door way.
“Miss Hunter! Don’t!” he runs in and quickly picks up the needle end of the tube, beginning to bring it toward me.
“No!”
I twist away from the man and he gives a tut of irritation.
“You must be adequately supplied with the anti-biotic, you have some nasty injuries.”
I glare at him, untrusting.
“I’m a doctor. I can help you.”
The silence is waiting for my response. I reluctantly offer my arm to him and he goes about reinserting the needle.
“See? Much better.”
He pulls a clipboard from the end of my bed and stares at it for a moment. He fixes the glasses that had been put askew in my little protest and levels his gaze at me.
“You’ll need to tell me roughly what height you fell from, Miss Hunter.”
I look at him blankly.
“Your head. You were badly concussed and had several fall related injuries.” I reach up to feel my head and freeze when my fingers touch the stubble that was all over my scalp.
“Many apologies, we needed to do that to treat you head wound. Do you remember what occurred before your fall?” I shake my head slowly. He jots something down.
“It seems you have sustained a much more serious head trauma then we thought. You seem to have some memory loss.”
No shit.
“I’ll be back later tonight after I’ve done some fact checking and see how you’re going.”
All I can do is nod as he leaves, white coat swishing. I close my eyes and sigh deeply but regret it instantly. A stab of pain through my ribs has me biting my tongue.
“Kat?” I open my eyes and level my glare at the intruder.
“Jay, was it?” He flinches at my words but enters the room anyway.
“Yeah. How are you feeling?”
“Alright I guess”
“That’s good,” he says, “I guess.”
I quirk an eyebrow at him.
“You said we were fiancés. You know me?”
“Of course, I do…” A light flicks on in my head.
“Alright then, what’s my name?”
“Katerina May Hunter”
“Hunter? That’s my family name?”
“Yeah. You’re twenty-one-and-a-half”
I frown.
“I’ll ask the questions.”
“Sure.” he says, taken aback.
“Who are my family?” I ask, he hesitates
“You don’t have a family, so to speak. No one in the Academy does. It’s complicated.”
“Surely I have a father and mother?”
“Ye-es. Although no one in the Academy is really meant to know who their parents are.”
“Do I- Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Another hesitation.
“Your mother died when you were young. She was part of the Council with your father, she died from an illness we called Lentum Moris or ‘the slow death.’ Your father was killed in a rebel uprising.”
I take it in, my mind eager to clear out the fog that dwells inside.
“What is the Council?”
“They are a board of people who run our world.”
“What’s the Academy?”
“It’s a place where people learn stuff…”
“Like?”
“It’s complicated.” I wait to see if he was going to expand on that, but he didn’t. I decided to breech a more pressing issue.
“You do realise I can’t remember you.”
“I know…”
“So, any relationship we had before… I remember none of it.”
“I know…” His face is shadowed with an emotion I can’t pick.
“Are you okay?”
He shrugs half-heartedly.
“Look, I’m sorry. I guess we can be friends, right?”
He looked at me sadly.
“Sure. Friends.”
I nod and shift uncomfortably in my bed. I was feeling more and more restless, like I had something I needed to do. Jay looks at me in thought.
“You wanna go get some food?”
I want to deny the offer, still wary of this stranger, but my stomach growls as if on cue.
“That’d be great…”
“I’ll just go get some supplies and I’ll be back to pick you up.”
All I can do is nod as he leaves.