Writing on the train: the story starts

No idea where it was going to end up, but the prompt was: returning home and realising everyone thought you were dead

"I know it's really materialistic of me to be upset because my things are gone but there you are," I said as I leaned back in my seat and looked at the good doctor in front of me.

"They thought that you were dead. There were searches after the war and bodies were buried," Doctor Schauss reminded me. 

"And it's a way for them to get closure, I get that," I said. Then I shrugged. "But it's not like I had a lot of stuff to begin with so losing even a little seems like too much!"

"Have you told them all of this?" Doctor Schauss asked me, his pen poised to write down my response.

"Yeah. It lead to another fight though," I said. "I didn't realise coming back from war would throw such chaos into their lives."

It had been five years since the official declaration had sounded but it still felt newer, more recent than that. 

"Sorry, what did you say?" I asked, realising that I had been lost in my own thoughts.

"I asked if your understanding of where they are coming from has changed at all?"

I shrugged. It had become my fallback response when I wasn't sure how to answer. Funny thing is that before and during the war I had hardly shrugged at all. I had an answer for everything, and a filter that only worked some of the time. "Part of me does."

"They buried a body. They thought that body's my was yours. They went through the funeral rites thinking that you were dead."

"It's not like I made them think that," I reminded the good doctor, knowing how petulant I sounded.

"There was testing. A DNA specialist confirmed that it was you based on the sample you provided when you volunteered," Doctor Schauss reminded me.

I had heard it all before. "Well, yeah. The whole point of going off to war against shape shifting zombie creatures is that one might turn in to you after it bites you and start to turn in to you, right down to the DNA."

"One bit you?" Doctor Schauss asked. He hadn't heard that before.

"Yeah," I said, trying to make it sound like it was nothing.

The doctor wasn't convinced. 

"It takes more than one bite to change you into a Shape shifting zombie," I told him. "It takes like a ton more and blood and organ exchange."

"I always wondered that but I was never sure of its accuracy," he said in return. 

I looked at him and raised my eyebrows in disbelief. "You're a medical professional. I thought you would have known all the facts," I told him.

"I am a psychologist, not a field doctor. I only need to know how to help you, not how to become what you were fighting against."

I laughed. Even after so long, so many people had trouble admitting what we were fighting against. They refused to use the words 'shape shifting zombie" because it meant that they wouldn't be able to deny their existence. Part of me wanted to goad him into saying it, to force him to say the words, but a larger part of me just wanted the appointment over and done with. "So, back to my family and friends then," I said in a clear way to indicate that the subject had been changed. "how do we hope about fixing this?"

© Patricia Kekewick 2016

ANZAC thoughts

They fought for us
In wars, experiencing things most of us cannot comprehend.
They deserve to be remembered for their sacrifices, instead of being a reason to have a day off work.
They have earned the right to be acknowledged for doing things most of us wouldn't dream of doing, not trivialised for commercial means.
Even if we do not see war as 'the answer', we must respect those people who fought, because without what they have given, we wouldn't be the nation we are now.
Three words, ingrained in monuments and minds across the country. A statement that makes us sit up and take notice.
Lest We Forget.

Not Your Body, Not Any of Your Business

Here is my opinion, as both an employed person and as someone who receives part welfare payments, on the 'No Contraception, No Dole' discussion.

I get why people are in support of the whole idea. On the surface, it might appear to be a reasonable solution to the way things are happening with regards to welfare recipients.

However, as I read the comments on the Facebook post, all I felt was despair, because it felt that people were 'liking' the concept without considering the depths. Some people on the Facebook posts even went so far as to suggest sterilisation for these people.

People choose, or choose not to, access contraception for their own reasons. The choice to do so, or not, is their business alone. To force them to use it would be to violate their freedom to choose. Their reasons might be moral, religious, health or a variety of others that they shouldn't have to justify to anyone else.

It is also not unrealistic to anticipate that, despite the most stringent use of contraceptives by both parties, might still result in a pregnancy. If that were to happen, what new 'choice' would the unemployed mother (because, let's face it, women will be targeted the most at this point) be forced to make under this idea? Adopt it out or abort? Would they be allowed to keep their child if they did everything they were supposed to do by someone else's decree?

On to the topic of females being targeted in this plan, let's look at what people would be asked to provide to either Centrelink or their job networks. Most contraceptives that involve a doctor's visit are more likely to be used by a female than a male.

I feel like this also is a very dismissive plan, which with that statement 'no contraceptives, no dole', omits those people in same sex relationships, while practicing safe sex, would not be accessing contraceptive items for the 'birth control' aspects.

Let's also recognise that people would just say that they use it, have all the right documentation to get their payments, but then forget all about it unless called in to question about it.

These are, at best, my concerns in this plan. Agree with them, or do not, but consider them and consider also what you would do if someone in an office, which is not a medical professional, were to ask you what form of birth control you use. I know if someone in either Centrelink or my job network were to ask me this: it is none of their fucking business. It is not for us to try to control the actions of others, to dictate what they choose to do with their own bodies. It isn't any of our business.

Hard to breathe... A Commentary

Warning: Here lies darkness...

We get so down on people who are depressed and suicidal for not asking for help, but when it comes to it, do we realise just how hard it is to say those three words?

Do people who have never been there know how those words get stuck in your throat, unable to move and making it impossible to breath?

Do they know the pain of reaching out, only to be made to feel as if you were a burden for speaking of these horrible dark things and ruining their day?

Do they know that you feel selfish for asking them to hear, really hear, what you have you say?

Do they know that really you're just waiting for them to notice how you are not dealing with life?

Do they know the pain of having your every effort dismissed as if it were worthless, making it even hard to open your mouth and tell them the pain they are (likely without meaning to) causing you?

Do they just assume you are cold and distant because you have nothing to say, not realising that if maybe they asked you why, you might tell the truth instead of just saying that you're fine?

Depression chokes us. It tells us the lie that we are a burden on the world, that we are being selfish for wanting to talk about it out loud with someone, that what we are doing is making their lives that little bit darker and harder yo deal with. Depression shows us for who we are, and those vulnerabilities and truth make other people afraid of us.

One day a year we ask people if they are ok... Maybe we should ask more than that and actually listen to everything they are communicating with us, from their words, to the non verbal communication.

Because it is so easy to say that we are fine, that we are okay when people ask us, because our depression allows us to shape those lies, because it knows that people will accept them at face value,

The real fight is to go beyond the choking sensation and look someone in the eye and tell them that no, you are not okay and if they can/will listen, you might be able to fight your inner demons long enough to express the words that you need to say.

Sneak peek of upcoming project

We were taken on a tour of the facility.

We saw the rows of beds where participants were bound to as their bodies adjusted to the hardware. The stench of fear was overpowering, smelling akin to human bodily waste. The sheets on the bed were messed, as if the facility had been abandoned on that last day.

We went to the Procedure Chamber, where our looks of revulsion were barely mirrored in those horrible shiny blue tiles that were cracked under their film of mildew. The smell of excrement was strong in this room, wafting to out nostrils from the rotting, sodden mattress on the bed in the middle of that room. A dish of lights to shine down on people hung from an angle in the ceiling. Several of those globes were cracked or completely missing. The dish itself was tarnished.

This was not a space to linger in.

(C) Patricia Kekewick 2014

On the train ride home...

It was the jewel that got my attention first, not the silver lacework setting or the long chain that it hung on. I only had eyes for that large, red, multi-faceted stone.

I told myself that it had to be a fake stone. I thought that no one would wear something like that in a town like this if it was real.

Then, to distract myself, I looked closer at the setting. I really paid attention to that silver, metal lacework. It was an unusual design, a unique one. One such as only few people ever wear it.

Whoever this woman was, she was either a brave sort of stupid or someone very dangerous.

It couldn't be, I told myself, forcing my eyes to the phone in my hands. I lifted it as if checking a message and snapped a photo of her to show my friends.

Then I dropped the phone back into my bag and went to looking out the train window as if I thought the back yards we passed by were utterly compelling.

I couldn't wait to show my friends that I had finally seen one of Them.

On you marks, get set...

It's almost Camp NaNoWriMo time and because I am super organised, sometimes, I am getting my ideas together so that I can add another 35 000 words to Dark Destiny, bringing it to almost 80 000 words.

I am getting my picture prompts, one sentence ideas and character sketches ready.

So much busy.

So many words.