Creative Writing

Unicorn Dance

S L Arber / Creative Writing / Creative Writing, Fiction / 0 Comments

August 23, 2020

Lily sprung out of bed, Today was the day!

“Today. Today. Mummy Today!”

Lily skipped down the hallway, abandoned toys skittling out of her way, scruffy hanging from her hand by the ear. Scruffy; a well-loved unicorn, who’d lost some stuffing over the years.

Lily brushed and brushed, to free the knots from her hair, scrubbed at her teeth until they shone white. Skipping back up the hall, her mind wandered to that dress, with the flouncy tutu and lilac sequins shaped like a butterfly.

It was a princess dress, the truest and twirliest princess dress, her favourite. She twirled for hours in it, making herself very sick once.

Today was special, Today was the day. Today she needed a princess dress. The sweetest, sweet ballet shoes slipped onto her feet, she ran up the hall, ready to leave.

“Mum, come on, we’ll be late.”

“Mmm, it’s too early to leave, I need to get dressed.”

Lily jumped on her Mum’s bed, and shook her awake, scruffy in tow, they were ready.

“Let’s go.”

While Mum shuffled about, doing the things Mum’s do, mumbling something about coffee, and it being too early.

Lily sat on the couch and chatted with Scruffy, she showed him her dance and taught him the steps.

“You know, Mr.Scruffy, this dance with you, has been the most fun.” Lily laughed and twirled Scruffy around again.

Finally, they could go, Lily skipped out the door, she couldn’t contain her excitement anymore. Lily laughed and twirled all the way to the car, waited for the beep, and scrambled in the door.

They drove, and they drove. Through the city streets, Lily watched an old man push his trolley on the footpath. A lady and her son pushed the crossing button. Workers nearby trimmed hedges and trees. Slowly but surely the were less and less people. The streets were fewer, they became great big open spaces of green, lined with trees.

“Mum! Look Cows! Mooooo.” Lily laughed, her Mum did too.

Lily fell asleep on the seat, it seemed like forever since they had left. The car bumped in the drive; Lily jolted awake. They rolled down the gravel and stopped at the gate.

“Are we here, Mummy?”

The dog came running, barking as they do; and Lily just knew.

The car stopped dead, Lily leapt from her seat; car door flung open, she ran to the gate. No time for latches or opening things up. Lily scrambled up its side and jumped from the top.

Running the rest of the drive, she could see the brick path, she followed it around and came to the back door at last. Laughing and hopping, she ran inside. Bounding and skipping, Lily jumped up, arms open wide.

“Nan! Today is the day. We can visit again!” Lily squished her face in Nan’s neck and hugged her tight.

She sprung back with a hop, “Look, Nan, Scruffy and I made a dance.”

Lily twirled, and she whirled. The joy in her dance matched only by that in her own Nan’s face. Today was the day, they could finally embrace.

Fog on the Moors

S L Arber / Creative Writing / Creative Writing, Fiction / 0 Comments

August 17, 2020

Sun peaks over the green of the valley’s crest, dancing across my face. An awakening I am finally ready for. Trudging through the mossy crags of the valley floor. I am lost in this place. It’s beauty encapsulating. Palest pink flowers dot the shrubs, as I pass their limbs catch at my pants. The fog of my breath lifts in the air, dancing for eternity on the rays of early morning light. Illuminating, with every step.

Clear of mind for the first time in what seems like centuries. I have longed for this place. I have longed for its beauty, the rugged countryside, and the oblivion of isolation it provides. Escaping, that’s all it can be called. Coming here from my home, where I am forced to withhold my true self. To this place, this space, and the freedom of it all.

Stumbling on a rock, hidden in plain sight, I fall to my knees. The grass, damp with last night’s dew, chills my hands and seeps through to my skin. It cuts to the bone. Hauling myself up, the trudge continues; if I keep moving, if I just keep moving, it will all be ok. The fog begins to lift high above, dissipating as the earth warms. Damp knees, less inclined to be so easily remedied; but my heart, it beats with renewed strength.

Continuing down well-worn goat tracks, I glimpse moments of my reward, I can see oceans of waves taunting me as I broach the occasional rise in the path. They are strong, driven into sure by unseen forces, ever moving and ever changing, the reality of this place. Reshaping whole coastlines every second of every day. They are constant, steady, reassuring.

Grass slowly gives way to age-worn rocks, and sand wrought with time. The cliff’s edge now well within my reach. I stand there, on the precipice, staring down at the steady stoicism of the waves below. The way they lash the beach, smoothing each pebble as it rolls back and forth across the sand… Look at how far you’ve come.

Florentine Rainbows

S L Arber / Creative Writing / Creative Non-fiction, Creative Writing / 0 Comments

August 9, 2020

I see you there, waves lapping at your feet, eyes downcast, hand outstretched. A rainbow kisses the sky, light dances across your features. It mocks me. Like a joke, just between that rainbow and I. Sand slides awkwardly beneath my feet as I run to you, the space between us insurmountable, grief grips my throat…

The grating sound of the alarm fills my ears. My arm, nestled under the pillow, unwilling to move. The false comfort of these springs someone thought to call a mattress draws me in. Found it, silenced. That dream again, tearing me away, unable to breach the waves. The distance between us, pushing me back, despite hoping to find you in the turmoil. You are lost to me here.

Whack! Oh, there it is. Hand on my forehead, I duck out from beneath the bunk, the sore spot pulsating beneath my fingers.

“You ok?”

“All good, just making sure I’m really awake.”

Yvette scoffs, and I smile to myself. She’ll get used to me. Come on, body, you can do this. Andiamo. Feet out into the cold, floorboards, rough with wear.

The room is a sliver of the building: two bedrooms, a kitchen, perched on top of each other. Everything just a little bit gritty, cliché terracotta tiles, walls rendered, radiators for heat.

“You know, setting a start time of 7am would be considered torture in some countries?” Yvette’s British twang spilled into her cup; tea with enough milk that I question its validity.

“Apparently not this country, for me, this is a sleep in,” I wait for Yvette’s scoff – there it is – even an eye-roll this time, “I can’t wait to get out there. I’ve never left Australia before, never thought I would until the kids moved out.”

Grinning Yvette says, “You’ll love it, Mum and Dad brought me here last year, Florence is Dad’s favourite city.”

The youthful innocence of Yvette, it was endearing, I remember that girl.

A train to Florence at peak hour and not a seat to be had. I struggle against its pull; balance was never my forte. Palms clammy, blood rushing in my ears. The scent of expensive cologne tickles my nostrils: my gut wrenches, a tightening my throat.

“Firenze Santa Maria Novella!” Breathe Zara, you’re almost there… Clambering off the train, bodies crush against me. I can’t find the horizon in here, no view to the exit. The air hangs heavy trapped and circulating under platform rooves. There it is mocking me, that rainbow looming above, confined in this sticky humid air, suffocating.

I filter through the crowd, finding familiar faces. Final headcount and we leave the station behind us. Outside, cold hits my face like a spray of needles.

Marching together, I concentrate on the integrity of my ankles, the cobblestones fighting me at every step. Suddenly there it is, the Duomo. The enormity of it, sun peaking behind its uppermost curves, illuminating the pearlescent white marble of its exterior walls. Its terracotta roof glows majestically, touching the sky. It dwarfs every building, every person, a marvel of engineering, 722 years old. In its shadow, everything else loses significance.

“Impressive, isn’t it!” I almost jumped out of my skin, Yvette!

“Yes.”

“It makes me feel like I could do anything if I wanted. If this could be built hundreds of years in the past, I can do anything here in the future.”

I let that statement sit with me for a while. Trapped in my rainbow prison, doing anything seemed far beyond my grasp.

We skirt around the Duomo’s vastness and find the professors’ favourite café; the sweet scent of Nutella and coffee fills the air.

“I adore the renaissance, historically, the way humanity’s perception of itself changed during that time fascinates me.” A half-truth. “At least here we can leave the problems of home behind us.”

“I’m lucky like that, I have no problems at home, just life stuff.”

“There is growth in adversity.” Zara, how pretentious. “At least I keep telling myself that,” I say, letting out an awkward chuckle and stepping out onto the street.

Even here, the Duomo dominates the sky. All things slip away beneath it. Its magnificence—built in a time when people expected their creations to last, and its legacy, a memory.

I remember that rainbow, how hard I fought for the rights of all who stand beneath it, how I would fight for them still. I remember her, that girl, treading a well-worn path, certainty ahead, turmoil in her wake, my Yvette. A memory, resonating, imperceptibly. You made your choice; I won’t ever reach you beyond the waves.

A Dying Breed

S L Arber / Creative Writing / Creative Non-fiction, Creative Writing / 6 Comments

August 2, 2020

Standing at the edge of the bed, looking in.

“I can’t lose my cowboy,” I hear her say.

He looks frail. This pinnacle of strength, the constant in my life; grandfather, parent, confidant. Cowboy isn’t the right word, drover, stockman, cattleman of the high country, last of his kind, a dying breed. And for the first time, I recognise him, in this hospital bed, heart pumping, barely holding on. But strong. I picture him, on horseback, Akubra perched on his head, sun in his eyes, cattle jostling about before him. This picture of a man, a rarity in this fast-paced world.

The creases of his face, earned in the foundation of a post-war Australia, in a time before political correctness, a time long since passed. A time I have tried my best to challenge the ideals of, our conversations, more often debates; modernity almost a foreign language to him.

But the horses are no more, and the cattle are gone, the rolling hills and scrubby bush; all gone, replaced by the sterility of this place, the fragility of his face. I wish I could have seen it, the time that got you; When Ron was a drover, a stockman, a cattleman of the high country. Now, you’re my grandfather, and the life you experienced remains only in the stories you tell—the stories I will hold dear to me for the rest of my life.

Lazy Days

S L Arber / Creative Writing / Creative Writing, Fiction / 0 Comments

July 30, 2020

Lazy days, taking on a colder tone—consistency; the one thing is knowing you’re alone. Too fragile for this world, feeling too much, loving too hard. This is all of me, I have given to you, and I just can’t see my way home anymore. The mirror reflects a stranger, pale, pasty, sick. The carefree sun-kissed girl slipped away, seeking solace and safety, I can’t find her here, the walls close in, the people, humanity, I am too fragile for this place.

Constraint, suffocation, I drive and drive, escape does not come. Concrete and brick gradually slip away, blending with the greenery, vast open spaces of grass, fringed with eucalypt. Traced with memories of what once was, replaced with the humanity of order, shape, and form. As far as the eye can see, the land is pristine, cultivated, medicated, and mediated.

Gravel crunches under tyres as I roll into the car park, here the trace of memory is close enough to touch. Eucalypts hang low over water, the clear brown of it, stained with their roots. Clambering out of the car, the first breath, reborn into the land I once called home. My need for this place, this space, I run back to it; breathe deep, drink it down, like my Gin on those lonely Saturday nights.

Gravel pricks cruelly into my feet, crossing the car park, a penance for the length of my absence. The only way I can get to the water now is to cross the punishment of these stones. I drift away, to days when cool grass, and fallen leaves, paved the way to the water’s edge. Toes finally kiss the wet coolness of the river—another breath, deep. I slide right in, let the water take me. The silence of the rivers flow fills my ears, light breaks through the trees, as I lie here, looking up, entirely at the river’s slow mercy.

I am above myself here, looking down, drifting, free. The only place I can ever truly be.