I have a statue, you know
he lives in the cupboard
dispensing advice
and candy

when I’m sad
he cries
when I need cheering up
he lies

his sneeze is musical
his influence is wavy
his little sun is orbital
his toes are small, stone.

outside my window on morning
a spiderweb of honey
woven by a caramel spider
to catch peppermint flies

an orange juice dog
sloshed by
carrying a chocolate bone
wet paw-prints down the driveway

an odd noise
a flash of … something
an odour
marshmallow birds suddenly silent

i rushed to the door
of solid candy
opened it
turning a bubblegum handle

outside stood a monster
human shaped
but not human
a staggering suit of meat

it slobbered something
with its flesh tongue
reeking, pink
and totally revolting

i slammed the door
and picked up my honeycomb phone
dialled the sugarplum police
with my shaking icecream hands

after much commotion and shouting
they killed it with fairyfloss bullets
i sat inside with my wafer cat
trembling like a jelly horse

all clear said the sugarplum police
but it is not clear at all
a meaty stain is on my nougat drive
and the honey spiderweb is broken

steeling myself, i don my ice-gloves
and get to scrubbing
the caramel spider, perhaps inspired
starts to reweave its honeyweb in hope

Did you know, dear E, that there is a building in which all the lost things of the world are kept? The location is kept hidden so people just don’t turn up. If you apply to search their archives then they sedate you and then you awaken in the preparation room. A very nice man by the name of William is there to greet you. He explains that you can search for as long as you like but in the end can only leave with one of the things you have found. He quickly runs through a very brief list of what they have:

Buttons, coats, jackets, jumpers, shoes, sneakers, coins, photographs, pictures, artwork, love letters, leaving letters, divorce papers, lost courage, lost hope, lost loves, mobiles, string, underwear, emails, diaries, toys ­ both fluffy and non-fluffy, recipes, instructions, screws, tools, computers, laptops, cars, boats ­ both real and paper, hats, earrings,
days, months, years, lost weekends, wicker baskets, tennis balls, cricket bats, pets, music, and much much more. The brief list really doesn’t give the scope of what they have. They have every lost thing that has ever existed.

All of it is there, just for you.

Their storerooms are stacked to the rafters; they stretch off to the horizon. A special electric golf cart, sandwiches, water, rope and climbing equipment, sleeping bag, inflatable mattress, rifle, torch, matches, firelighters, tent, tinned food, GPS locator beacon and box of tissues are  supplied. The search begins on their database. You enter the description of what it is you have lost and it will begin searching. Thanks to their four square kilometres of computers, the answer comes back within thirty seconds, giving a location. You then need to drive to the location; a journey that can take up to four days. Once at the location you may preview your lost thing. You cannot hold it, but only look at it closely through a glass sheet. The thing may be rotated to be observed from each side. If the lost thing is not to your satisfaction, you may continue searching.

Should you be happy with your lost thing, now found, you may mark it for retrieval and then begin your trip back to the entrance. When you return they will again sedate you and then you will awaken in your home, with your
found thing by your side.

Some people enter, searching for their lost transcendent love, only to be disappointed that it is not there, because it never existed. Some people enter, looking for their lost weekend, but settle for a lost teddy.

Others enter and never return. They have lost so much they they spend the rest of their life searching the archives, seeing their lost things and then moving on to the next lost thing. They pick up food and supplies at
certain locations and then continue their search. Unaware of the supreme irony of it all, they themselves can become another person’s lost thing.

G-O, we know what that spells, yeah!
Cos we got spirit, we got flair
We ain’t got no underwear!
We but sluts, we be whores
We be free with the de’amores

Fuck the rich, and fuck the poor
We be free with the de’amores

i had a dream but i kept it in a jar and it died from lack of air

it was a place where butterflies felt safe
wild green and so alive
a place where a cat could spend an afternoon
lazing on the bricks and thinking about tuna

He called her ‘the girl’ and in her mind she called him ‘the boy’ but never to his face, or behind his back. Sometimes, in idle thought, she would consider why it was only ‘to their face’ or ‘behind their back’, as though people had only two sides.

She often thought things like this, and had, until a few years ago, voiced such questions to the world. One that she pondered often was ‘at the drop of a hat’. She wondered what kind of hat it was, where it was kept, whose hat it had been originally. Did they store it in an airtight chamber, or just leave it on the shelf? She would think on this, which then of course led her to thinking about what other objects they might have tried first to drop. Coins were no use, clearly, as they would bounce away. Bees would be no use as they wouldn’t drop at all. A cat could be dropped, but it would probably run away, and not be at all amused by the frequent dropping.

When they met it had seemed as by accident they should be at the same place at the same time. But for a slight alteration she would not be there, or he would not. She wondered if they would have met anyway.

Super Monkey Group

The Blurting Beetles of Baloogo Loogo

Chapter 2

Written By

Mathew Ferguson

www.chaoticempire.com.au

mathew@chaoticempire.com.au

Chapter two

4.6 days later they were ending a class on advanced camouflage techniques when Electro was replaced by the image of Cornelius.

“Hellooo? Anyone there?”

The chairs and desks in the room were gone and in their place were plastic bushes and trees. There was no sign of Tia, Max or Po.

Cornelius checked the rooms via video camera but they were nowhere to be found. He switched on the ship loudspeaker and broadcast over the boat. “Are you anywhere on board? Tia? Max? Po?”

A tree in the control room spoke. “I’m right here Cornelius,” said Max.

“Tarook,” said another tree.

“Hi,” said a shrub near the control board.

“Gah!” said Cornelius, his voice echoing over the loudspeaker.

The three of them burst into laughter and stepped out of position as tree, monkey-looking tree and shrub.

“So we’re here?” said Max, still laughing as Cornelius switched off the loudspeaker and brought up a local map of Baloogo Loogo.

“You know how I feel about talking trees,” said Cornelius with a shiver. Before he’d ended up on Sanctuary he’d once spent a night in South German haunted forest with its rare talking trees. A local farmer had poisoned the trees, hoping to take the land for himself. The poisoned trees spent their time trying to scare people away. Cornelius had cured the trees but he still sometimes had nightmares about cold leaf-covered dark forests echoing with get away get away get away …

“It was our camouflage class. You programmed Electro so it was you who got us to dress up like this,” said Tia.

“I programmed the start of Electro. He learnt all by himself after that. Talking trees, no way!” said Cornelius, pressing a button so the island map zoomed in.

Po shrugged to Tia and Max as the map image rotated and showed an island overview. The central mountain was surrounded with mudflats. Some roads were marked and there were paths through the jungle but apart from bands of green jungle there were no structures to indicate human habitation.

“Wild animals?” asked Tia, double tapping on the map to zoom in on the jungle.

“This is a very old image. We lost satellite access a few days ago and The Gourmet vanished – I’m still trying to work out why – so we have to rely on old information. Our best info has the beetles living here.” The image zoomed out and centred on the mudflats surrounding the mountain peak. “PhosperCo were bought by OmniMine and there are zero records about the island wildlife. An old application from twenty years ago stated ‘no wildlife on island’. Yeah right.”

The application appeared and was whisked away. “I suggest gear up, be careful and I’ll try to get satellite access again. Sending map.” The onscreen map flew toward them. Their watches beeped as the map arrived.

“Get ready. And again – be careful!” Cornelius vanished off the screen but not before he pointed at two pale circular scars sitting above his left wrist and gave them a significant look.

“We’ve got days before Toran gets here,” said Tia, seeing Max looking down at his own arm.

“Toran made it so he can never leave Sanctuary because of that spider and as for The Parents …” said Max.

Tia nodded in agreement as she started to pull off bits of her tree shrub disguise. The conversation about that night always followed the same pattern: three years ago they’d run to the control room after hearing a tremendous explosion, the windows of the bedrooms lighting up with a gold glare. Finding a dead Agora spider and a bitten Cornelius gluing a covering across his eyes. The Betserai returning to Sanctuary sans The Parents but with the final golden monkey aboard. Cornelius taking off the eye covering while on the highest peak of Sanctuary, the extreme incurable agoraphobia from the spider venom kicking in so he could never leave the island again. The Parents not returning in a day, in a week, in a month, in three years…

“One day we’ll get the evidence to put Toran in prison for a billion years,” said Tia.

“Rarook,” said Po, throwing plastic bushes into the corner.

“I’m not sure you’re allowed to throw green bananas at prisoners but I like the idea,” said Max with a grin.

*

After removing their tree camouflage, they trooped up on deck to take their first look at the island. Green jungle with bright flowers. Yellow and white sand stretching off into the distance. Clear blue water.

The Gourmet with its anchor down.

A smaller black boat standing out on the beach like a pimple.

“Ah, Cornelius, we’ve got a biiiig problem. Toran’s here,” said Max.

“What? Not possible. The instruments aren’t picking up anything,” said Cornelius from a speaker near the door.

“We’re looking right at it,” said Tia. Without waiting for a response she stepped inside and double-tapped on The Betserai’s image on the map and dragged from their current location to behind a curve of the island. Once she clicked CONFIRM and SILENT MODE, the engines started up and the ship cruised away.

“Advanced camouflage technology … how did he? … we need to get a sample of that ship! After you the Blurting Beetle are safe, of course,” said Cornelius, tapping practically every button on his console. The deck cameras switched between normal mode, night-vision, heat-sensing, magnetic imaging and others, as they photographed. The images appeared on the screen. The Gourmet wasn’t in them.

A few minutes later they were looking at another beautiful beach, lush jungle and clear water, this time with no Gourmet to ruin the view.

Tia and Max grabbed their backpacks and Po put on his special vest as Cornelius briefed them. “Still no satellite so no evidence how Toran got here first. Sensors are detecting some large heat signatures, lion-size, but they are currently six kilometres to the East. No sign of Toran or his crew. Watches updated with new starting point, mission still a go but threat level is HIGH. Good luck.”

With this, Cornelius vanished from the screen. They heard a quick “test, test” over their watches, to which they all responded (yep, yes, ook). Now he wouldn’t contact them unless they were in immediate serious danger. After a quick final gear check they leapt into their small boat, Traveller. Po hit the switch for the silent solar-powered electric motor and they glided to shore.

“We have to move quick,” said Max. They pulled the boat up onto the beach.

“Ook,” agreed Po as he looped a rope around the nearest tree and tied Traveller. Checking their watches, which showed a red directional arrow, they stepped into the jungle.

And almost right into one of Toran’s goons.

He was a few metres away, leaning up against a tree, tapping buttons on a phone. If he turned his head even slightly he’d see them.

They froze, sheer shock stopping them. They’d been talking on the beach. Why hadn’t he heard them?

Max raised a finger to his lips in a shhh motion. Tia pointed to her ears and covered them with her palms. Max and Po saw the thin white wire leading from the phone up to ear buds. In the silence they heard the faint sounds of heavy metal drumming turned up so loud the goon would be destroying his hearing in no time. They edged backwards until they were on the beach again. As quietly as possible, they sneaked away and untied Traveller. Walking knee-deep in the calm water they pulled it down the beach, away from the goon and the path they were meant to take up the mountain.

They didn’t speak for ten minutes, although Po used finger language to say “We should have knocked him out with some cheese!” with Tia responding in finger language “But Toran would know we were here.” Once they were quite a distance away, Po retied the boat and covered it with leaves and tree branches.

“Ooooooook,” said Po, finally breaking the silence.

“Too close,” said Max, pulling out his water bottle and taking a big gulp.

“So it’s not only The Gourmet that’s shielded now. It’s goons ‘n’ all,” said Tia, tapping a button on her watch and aiming it back the way they’d come. The watch scanned the area but showed no sign of the goon they’d come across. It did however show large blips three kilometres to the east.

“We’re going to have to go stealth and keep an eye out for the bad guys,” said Max.

“Karook,” said Po.

“Or anything that wants to eat us,” added Max, leading the way forward.

The jungle was deep and dark and although quiet, there were the faint sounds of hidden insects moving, creepers growing and leaves sometimes falling.

After ten minutes of walking, Tia stepped on a branch which exploded with an echoing CRACK.

“Shhhh,” shushed Max, his shhhh almost as loud as the crack itself. Tia poked her tongue out at him. They continued on, watching where they put their feet as they followed the red direction arrow. A half-hour later they came upon a cleared area.

“There’s no one there. Just some fruit,” said Max.

“Let’s go around,” said Tia.

Max shook his head. “Clear ground equals no branches to break, Godzilla, equalling quiet. C’mon!”

Tia stuck her tongue out at him again as Max led the way. In the clearing it was brighter, the jungle cover opening up to let in sunlight. Near the clearing’s edge grew bushes covered with yellow fruit.

“Wicked, I think the berries are see-through,” said Max, walking forward. As he stepped closer, the fruit on the bushes started to tremble.

“Max, I don’t think -” Tia didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. The fruit on the bush exploded in a burst of yellow goop, splattering Max from top to bottom and spraying Tia and Po. A cloud of yellow shot up into the air and spread over the clearing. Max thudded backwards onto the ground and rolled over onto his hands and knees.

“Oooh, gross,” he said, wiping the yellow gunk off his face. Tia and Po rushed forward to help him up, getting more yellow muck on them as they pulled him up.

“What kind of stupid bush explodes on people?” asked Max, turning to face the bush in question.

“One that doesn’t like people stomping near it?” said Tia with a smile.

“Or ones with bones at the bottom,” he said, looking down. Spread under the bushes in a fine carpet were pieces of bone, some with shreds of meat still attached.

“Larook,” said Po, pulling on Max’s arm.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” said Max.

A low echoing yowl broke the quiet murmur of the jungle. Yowls answered in concert.

“Oh, not good,” said Tia and checked her watch. The heat marks of the animals three kilometres away were racing towards them with frightening speed.

“Run!” shouted Tia, pointing toward the mountain peak.

They bolted, heedless of the noise they were making. Behind them they heard crashing branches. Large hungry things were in pursuit.

Leaping over fallen trees and avoiding tangling creepers, they sped through the jungle. Whatever was chasing them was getting closer. Ten metres more and the jungle ended. The earth dropped away into a deep chasm. They slid to a stop.

“This isn’t on the map!” said Tia, looking down at the sheer edge, like the chasm has been cut into the landscape with a knife.

“Bro-ook!” shouted Po and pointed to the left. There, about thirty metres away was an old wood and rope bridge. They took off again, running down the chasm towards it. Behind them, the noise of breaking branches changed direction as the pursuing animals angled across to intercept them. Po led the way, leaping with his monkey agility over any obstacles. Tia followed, trying to keep her eyes on what Po leapt over – and away from the huge drop to her right. As Po reached the bridge and turned around, Tia jumped the final log and landed, turning to see Max trip and fall flat on his stomach in the dirt.

“Wah!” he yelled as he slid. Po leapt forward, reached over the log and grabbed his arm as a huge black and white paw swiped from the jungle, catching the bottom of Max’s pants. It pulled, dragging him away from the edge. Po pulled back and the bottom of Max’s pants ripped away as he was dragged up and over the final log.

“Hurry,” said Tia, grabbing his other arm and pulling him up. From the jungle something screamed, mere metres away. Without hesitation they turned and ran across the rope bridge as it swayed and bucked with their passage. They reached the far side and turned as giant black and white striped tiger-like animal appeared. Behind it, striped faces massed.

“It’s a liger, tiger-lion crossbreed, wrong colours, wrong pattern,” panted Tia.

“Gotta destroy the bridge,” said Max, pulling out a laser cutter from his pack and hitting the power button. The cutter scanned his fingerprint to verify the user and a thin green beam appeared. The liger growled a low continuous rumbling as it crept toward them, tail down and ears flattened. Max held the laser against the right side handrail rope and gave it a burst of power. A thin twirl of smoke spiralled up, the rope handrail dropped and the liger stopped in place, snarling. Max cut the left handrail. The liger roared at them and dug its long claws into the swaying wood beneath it.

“I don’t want to kill it,” said Max, kneeling down and getting ready to cut the bottom ropes if the liger tried to run toward them.

“Wait,” said Tia, staring at the ferocious animal. The liger stood growling and looking back at the jungle behind it and at them as though deciding which direction to run.

“MAROOK!” shouted Po and put his foot on the bridge. He pushed it up and down and the bridge started to swing even further.

“Go back the way you came!” yelled Max.

Tia clapped her hands and waved them over her head, trying to make herself look as big as possible. The liger roared once more then ran back to the jungle. Once safely on ground it turned and roared before disappearing with the other ligers. Max sat back on the dirt, keeping a careful watch on the jungle.

“Mook-mook,” said Po. Tia checked her watch and held it out for Max and Po to see. The ligers were hidden in the jungle.

“They’re waiting for it to stop moving,” said Tia.

“We’re going to have to find another way back,” said Max and used the laser to cut the two remaining ropes. They split and the bridge fell, cracking against the flat rock wall as it hit and hung like a ladder to nowhere.

“The ligers are moving … to the right. We need to get going. This can’t be the only way across,” said Tia, watching the red dots moving across the screen of her watch.

“Nearly there,” said Max, checking his leg. The liger had shredded the bottom of his pants. A dot of blood was sitting at the top of his sock where the tip of a claw had pierced his skin. “I think it’ll be okay,” he said, after rolling down his sock and seeing the wound had already closed up.

Tia checked the map again (“definitely no giant death hole in the ground” she noted) and pointed towards the mountain.

They continued their climb upwards. Once they were out of sight of the chasm, a furry black shape leapt from a high tree branch across the gap and followed them.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The Blurting Beetles of Baloogo Loogo free eBook download

a million ancient bees erupted from the earth
on the day i was married
i didn’t take it as a sign for me
i blamed global warming

the poor bees, confused and lost
searching for flowers that don’t exist
swerved down through the town
oh, they didn’t know about car windshields either

our wedding photos in the botanical gardens
going quite well until that low squeal approached
did you know that ancient bees didn’t buzz?
well, they don’t
down they came, those ancient bees
heading for my wife
i told her that her dress looked like a stupid giant flower
i haven’t been more right

the swarm collided and surrounded and loved and embraced
those poor bees desperately trying to feel at home
my wife swatting them down
did you know ancient bees have no sting?

not long after and the ancient bees are gone
squished and crushed and mashed and splattered
my powerful wife did them in
and i still didn’t take it to be a sign

While looking through short stories to post up here I came across some stories I hadn’t looked at for a loooooong time. In one case it was at least two years.

I found an incomplete story that was clearly under construction. There was even a note in there saying *man I’m tired zzzzz* in the middle of text. If this story were a physical thing it would be a few pieces of wood held together with tape and various partially constructed bits lying around it. At a glance you can see what it is meant to be but you can’t quite see how it’s going to come together. There are too many leftover parts and random bits of wood and metal piled up.

Anyways, I had completely forgotten that I had written this story. As I read through it was like reading it for the first time. This could have something to do with how very tired I apparently was when I wrote it. The time between then and now is clearly a factor.

I laughed a true and honest chortle at one of the sentences.

Wow.

Sometimes I laugh when I’m writing – often because whatever the writing bit says to me is unexpected and I’m the first person hearing the joke. This makes me sound like a mad person but it’s probably the best way to describe the creative process. For me it is this: I hear me who is the one writing this post. This is the one the world meets. Then there is the other me which is the writing part. That voice, for lack of a better term, is a chattering idea-producing dynamo. When I reach into the dark it is the one with the words waiting. And always with the freaking ideas, all the time, even when I’m trying to sleep, which can be really annoying. Then there is the other me who is also an idea generator and has debates with the idea dynamo. It’s like two characters who are madly enthusiastic and build on what the other has to say.

“Wow! That’s great! What if we add x, y, z and then a, b, c and how COOL would that be?”

“Then we can twist this part and then we can connect it to that other-”

“Yeah! And after we twist that we can tie this other bit around to-”

And on it goes as I sit there listening to all this and sometimes contributing my own bit to the process.

There is another part as well – a slower deep thinker who listens to it all and ties deeper structures together. This is the part that speaks up when I’m in the shower and it says “Hey Mat – you know that bit of the story you’ve been stuck on for six months? How about this?”

Then out will come some amazing package that has clearly been worked on for a while and it is divinely beautiful.

Let your stories rest

To improve your writing you need to give it time to rest. Time for you to forget all about it while that deeper part works way in silence. Long novels in particular need time for you to step back and consider the structures you’ve built. To go back to the building simile, you’ve hammered together a magnificent towering marvel of words but you need to leave it for six months to see which parts fall down because they were only held together with tape in the first place.

Forgetting your writing allows you to see with a critical eye the weak parts that need to be cut or strengthened.

A little more on writing and the creative process

Imagine you watch a football match. There players running around, the ball is flying around the place, all kinds of crazy patterns and plays are occurring and there you are in the stands writing it all down. Now if someone gets their nose broken in a burst of blood and violence it would be ridiculous for anyone to say to you “why did you do that? Why did you break his nose?” Your answer would be “I didn’t break his nose! Another player broke it. I was simply recording what happened.”

This is how some of the best writing happens. The characters have a life and spirit of their own and you are writing down their actions. If you attempt to force them to do something against their nature then they will refuse to move.

Now imagine a stage show where you are playing all the characters. You put on the “Dad” costume and come out on the stage under the searing lights and clumsily read out Dad’s lines. Then you go offstage, change into the “Mum” costume and come back out on stage again. You read out Mum’s lines. Then you change into the dog costume. Then the policeman costume. Soon you are hot and sweaty and hating every labourious moment out there. The whole process is hard and there is no flow and you start thinking about killing every character right then and there.

This is how some really terrible writing happens. The characters don’t have a life and spirit. It’s just you, attempting to shove and pull and animate the cast but you can never ever know what they would say or do in response to anything because they are dead puppets.

You’ll hit these hard bits sometimes. Yes, you should power through because in many ways it can be like a rehearsal for better work. During the writing some of the characters may start to come to life and you don’t need to jump into their costume. There may still be some empty costumes out there but as the cast come to life they may too.

Lesson: let stuff rest (for a looooong time if you can).

Lesson: take yourself out of pushing and pulling and animating. Let the characters come to life and simply observe them.

Lesson: (although not in article) – good writing is closely connected to blood sugar level and sleep. Rest well and remember to eat at regular times! No athlete would exercise with no food that day – no writer should attempt to write whilst hungry or low in blood sugar.