'Cool' is a short story set in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in the 1970's. COOL
A. picked up a small smooth stone from the ground and by way of testing it tossed it into the air and caught it. He aimed and in one graceful movement threw it in the direction of a gum tree a few metres away. The stone hit the trunk with a thud. From down below at the bottom of the hill beneath the canopy of trees we heard children's laughter. A. chuckled to himself, as he often did, as though a private joke would be lost if he told it. I felt the hard dusty surface as my toe pushed at a pile of loose soil. I lean back and close my eyes. The sun is warm on my face. 'Nice shot,' I say. 'Yeh.' After a time we proceed on our expedition. Clearly the day was not waiting for us and indeed the sun was already high in the cloudless blue sky. We follow the track up the ridge through clumps of kunai grass. Fumes from the eucalyptus trees fill the late morning air which is abuzz with barely visible activity. It feels as though A. and I are stars in a big Hollywood production. The hill is patchy with burnt off areas and the blue of the dry season sky promises adventure and possibility. In the distance, to our left, we can see the profile of the Owen Stanley Ranges reminding us of our day's purpose. 'Look,' shouts Ant, pointing into the sky. I look up and see a Kitty Hawke circling, carried on a stream of warm air. We soon reach the peak of this line of hill just above the old Show Grounds. Down the hill, along the road, was the glowing white structure of the Drive Inn screen. It felt out of place in the afternoon light, as though someone had forgotten to put it away. An inexplicable cultural artifact, a suburban Easter Island statue. A trickle of sweat ran down the left side of my body. A steady stream of Saturday traffic flowed along Waigani Drive. From up here it felt like another world, almost another time. We started down the hill taking care to avoid the burnt off areas where soft grey ash hid sharp stones, pointy sticks and broken glass. Once on Waigani Drive we begin walking towards Boroko, our index fingers out. We pass the Volkswagen dealership, then the stationary supply shop and the bakery and just when it seems hardly worth it a ute pulls up and we jump in. From the back of the ute the scene is transformed, as the black bitumen road rolls out from beneath the ute like a conveyor belt. Our friends are waiting for us with two truck inner tubes. They seem incongruous among the shoppers. Near us a group of women sit with fruit and vegetables, as well as handicrafts, in front of them. Behind them is the Chinese trade store, with its dark interior and betel nut stained walls. Cars pull in and back out with operatic grace and over everything is an air of cheerful gaiety. The PMV is empty except for two other people and once we begin moving the cabin fills with a rush of wind. We pass the airport and to our right the runway. If a plane landed now we could look up and see its undercarriage, close enough to touch. The road followed the topography of the landscape, and soon the air changes as we begin climbing to the foothills of the Ranges. Then we are standing in front of the pig farm fence. We leave the gumis on the ground and climb over the fence. After a quick search we find some gold tops and climb back over the fence. Neither pig nor person is seen. At the river we eat the mushrooms washed down with lemonade the throw the inner tubes into the fast flowing current and leap in after them. My skin tingles and goosebumps on contact with the cool river water and y thoughts and vision become clearer. Once on the tubes we lay back and let the river carry us. Suddenly the light refracts and what had been clumpy bits of kunai grass and trees on the river's edge becomes a vast, roiling tangle of tropical jungle with multiple layers and shades of green. The river is now a knotted mass of brown and green, untangling and reshaping and, radiating upwards and outwards, the jungle and the river and the sky all one, and us, we, in the thing and it in us. The sun, the light, the reflection of light on the water, the heat, the cold, it is all one. And that is where the memories of that day ends, as though the film in the projector broke or an energy surge had erased the rest of the day. In my final memory I am reclining on the smooth, cool black surface of the tube, feeling its soft solid rubber and air, my feet in the water, and the cool, cold mass of the fast flowing river is carrying us under the canopy of green vines and branches (and above that the sky), and over rapids and around bends, and at one point I turn my head and look behind me, and see the vast silhoette of the Sogeri Plateau calling us home.
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This story is set in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in the 1970's.
The Market A Short Story The living room floor glowed amber brown catching the light filtering through the fly wire mesh . The house was quiet except for the steady hum of the ceiling fan rotating overhead. Outside children shouted and a dog barked. Where had everyone disappeared to? An hour ago the house was abuzz with activity as his family prepared to leave and now they were gone, leaving the drama without a climax. His toes felt the wooden surface of the coffee table carved in the shape of a crocodile which his father had bought at Smugglers Inn, in Madang, with its seahorse shaped pool and restaurant looking out over the Arifuan Sea. The fan moved air causing the pages of a magazine on the coffee table to flutter. Then his mind turned, as he knew it would, to the events of the previous afternoon. The memory was there and always would be. It would form a cornerstone in the structure of his mind and already he found it difficult to remember what it was like before he had it. The weather on the previous afternoon had been much the same as every other day in the dry season - hot and bright, the sky a deep, cloudless blue. He and his mother drove to Koki Market to purchase fruit and vegetables for the coming week. At the top of Three Mile Hill he looked across the grey, green landscape, dotted with rooftops, then across to the blue, ever changing, white tipped ocean. The horizon was a sharp dividing line between the sky and sea, and it reminded him of peeling the label off a bottle. He imagined peeling the sky from the surface of the sea. Would the sky tear and everything fall apart? The air from the floor vent touched his bare leg. At the bottom of the hill the view of the sea disappeared to be replaced by auto repair shops and car dealerships. Soon they were driving into Koki Market, a series of open structures with cement slab floors and corrugated iron roofs, beneath which women sat, their produce arranged in front of them - mangoes, paw paws, bananas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, taro, as well as handicrafts- necklaces, bilums, woven baskets, clay pots. The car park, which in the wet season was a series of large puddles, was today a dusty expanse. He left his mother and walked towards the Chinese trade store across the main road. Betel nut stained the cement stairs up to the stores broad entrance, which at night was secured by a metal grid. On entering the store, once his eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the light, he was struck, as always, by the space in which he found himself. Every inch of the ceiling and walls were covered with household items, each more exotic or mundane than the next. What wasn’t on shelves, or locked away in glass cabinets, was hanging from the ceiling or stacked on tables crowding the room. Pots jostled with paraffin lamps, T shirts with trinkets, fabrics with firecrackers. The brightly colored Chinese letterings on the labels of foodstuffs glowed through the haze. In the corner, at the end of the shop, barely visible, was a counter and here he purchased a coke and some salty plums. When he stepped back out in the brightness he was surprised by how close the ocean felt, its scent carried on a sea breeze. In the car park he saw a group of people milling around some central drama. He heard shouts and laughter. As he approached the group he saw his mother standing in the middle, crying. She shouted at a man holding a large stick. At their feet, motionless, lay a skinny dark haired dog. His mother turned and saw him. She spoke one last time to the man, then turned and walked through the crowd. They didn't speak on the drive home. The fan beat overhead and his heart was filled to overflowing with love for his mother. 2010/2012 Düsseldorf Here is a short story I wrote about the time, when I was 11 or 12 years old, living in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in the early 1970's. The Tunnel by Clinton De Vere Standing on the cool packed earth at the entrance of the tunnel, the boys, the three of them, turned and looked into the darkness. It was a bright dry season afternoon and if they had taken two steps backwards they would have been bathed once again in the clear sharp tropical light. He couldn't remember how and when they had first discovered the tunnel but now it was part of their every afternoon. He looked down at his bare feet and then at the cement and stone storm water drain that disappeared into the tunnel. Outside, above them, he imagined the shaded space of the university's main building, with the roof high above the great amphitheatre, caught in the reflections of the library windows, all cooled by a steady breeze. He imagined, as well, students walking through this space, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the smooth cement surfaces. He looked into the tunnel and felt a thrill at the cool, quiet, dark space, with its unexplored corners, its muffled drips and dank smells. Ian and Peter had already plunged in, following the storm water drain, feeling their way along the wall. His eyes adjusted to the dark. The tunnel’s first turn was to the left, at ninety degrees. It was here he felt that the tunnel really began. From this point the darkness became thicker and air cooler still. Ian recited Churchill: “We will fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them on the landing grounds. We shall fight them in the fields and in the streets. WE…SHALL…NEVER…SURRENDER.’ As always the tunnel was completely theirs. They never expected to meet anyone and they never did. Not once in all the hours they spent there, after school or on the weekend, did they meet a single other soul. It was their tunnel, their domain, their Aladdin’s cave. Peter continued with Churchill: “All I have to offer you is blood, toil, tears and sweat.” In a distant corner water dripped. A right turn formed a corner in the drain which he enjoyed stepping over. Next came the longest stretch of tunnel and, as with every section, it evoked a particular feeling in him. The entrance lifted his spirits and made his heart jump. The long straight line of this part was pure adventure, high drama, and he felt like he was in a movie, one that was fifty times better than anything he had seen at the Skylight Drive Inn or at Wards Cinema. Those movies gave him something, certainly, but not this, not the singular uniqueness of this. At the end of this part they needed to crouch to get under the squared structure of air conditioning duct. On the other side the ceiling was lower, the space more intimate. Here they sat in the dusty soil leaning against the brick walls which formed an alcove. He felt the bricks hard against his back. Over to his left he could see the rectangle of light formed by the frame of the door that he knew opened onto a small basement tutorial room. One day they entered the tunnel through this door after having walked down the stairs near the library, then along a short corridor. He pushed some dirt with his toes. He could just make out the shapes of Ian and Peter. Listening carefully to catch any sound he was surprised by how many he could hear. He heard voices, muffled, from the room nearby and the drip of water, as well as the hum and rattle of the air conditioning unit for the main lecture theatre above where they sat. One day a kid got pushed against the dark glass doors of the theatre, smashing the glass and sending out great shards of glass. There was lots of blood and glass everywhere. After that, every time he passed the door, he looked at the stain of the kid’s blood on the cement floor. There was the sound, faraway, as though from a distant planet, of an electric drill. They stood and stepped back onto the cool path. This was the last part of the tunnel and it was narrow and already hinting at the day outside. The dripping water was closer and the wall damp and mossy. They stepped out into the day. It was so bright that needed to squint and cover their eyes. The afternoon had lost none of its intensity. Bougainvillea hung from the silver grey rock wall and in the car park widescreens caught the sun and multiplied it. Their bikes were where they had left them leaning against the stone wall of the library. Soon they were pedaling away from the university along the back road, a strip of asphalt cutting through the bush. He felt the breeze on his face and chest. His shirt was open, as were his friends’, and as they pedaled, they shouted across the space between each other. The land was flat and they were surrounded on all sides by high kunai grass. If sitting in the tunnel had made him feel safe and calm this gave him a sense of freedom and exhilaration. He whooped and laughed and pushed harder on the pedals so as to overtake his friends. ‘Ha ha ha!’ he shouted, as he stood, pedaling hard, gripping the handle bars and taking full control of the bike. Suddenly the day felt still, lulled by the heat and light. Alive but sleepy, their movements apparently providing the only activity in an over lit landscape, like hyperkinetic cartoon figures rushing across a flat background image. Of course the stillness was an illusion and the boys fed off the bush’s pulsating energy and the life that filled every particle of matter. He thrilled at the cool breeze, created by the forward movement of the bicycle, which touched the film of sweat on his body. He saw Ian and Peter closing the distance between him and them, so he pushed harder, as hard as he could, and by the time he started to climb the hill to the back blocks of the university housing his friends were far behind him. He stopped and placed one foot on the hot surface of the road, while his hands continued to grip the handlebars. As he balanced there on the road, in the bush, at the top of the hill, he felt he was part of a great tableau. He turned his head slowly towards his friends, and like the final scene in a movie, in the movie of his life, he saw his friends, figures in a khaki landscape, smiling, waving and pushing their bikes up the hill towards him. Clinton De Vere Düsseldorf 06. 02.10 / 29.03.12 |
Clinton De Vere
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