Smooching Like There Was No Tomorrow

A soaking tub was needed. How long had it been the fluffy white towel remaining unwashed, six months? a couple years? Remember the last rushed storage, thinking, next time, it can wait. Finally the Viet place in Paisley Street was recalled. Op Shops didn’t carry such items. Teta Maria had bought Bab the impressive gift for a birthday and it had passed down. After a decent washing, rinsing and wringing out on the line it looked to have regained its fine bone colour, if not quite purest white. Two full days were needed for a thick, heavy weave like that to dry. A short while later, however, the discolouration had returned. Not long after that too, by osmosis more or less, there you were on the first landing of the Studio stair washing your feet in the tub rather than showering, the other towel and soap brought over from the bathroom. Ah, yes indeed. What else? In childhood the old briquette and wood boiler had only come on for Friday wash-days. The rest of the time it was washing of face and feet before bed-time—in the same tub and of course proper order, you silly little Duffer!... Raw onion, spring and shallots. Garlic. Bread. Thinly cut cheese and oil. Tatters not as yet managed, though you were hungering for them too, cut in halves and in their jackets. It was the unwashed ones that should be purchased. The large sauerkraut jar from the Circle remained unopened on the shelf. (The container would come in handy for storage of other foods.) Another element too was the bicycle. More than a trifle absurd granted a man now in his mid-sixties glorying in the pushie around the streets. Worked powerfully subterranean that. Gardening did the trick always. Of course you were a totally fraudulent gardener, but not to worry; among the younger generation a position as maestro was yours for the taking there. Weeding was well within competence, likewise pruning. Shortly, in the Spring, info from the Net would extend that to some planting. Finding the sharp purple creeper alive and well, drought tolerant clearly, arrived like a telegram. Unique it had been in that neighbourhood and a surprise indeed to find the very same up in the Tropics. The ragged sleeves on the old thermals fitted the bill; there was great reluctance to discard that item even with the threads hanging so loose. In the village it was not the Savici, and most certainly not the Radonici, who were reduced to wearing rutinje, rags; though exactly what sort of an assemblage of fabrics and cuts was managed there could only be guessed. How long it had been since a knitter had measured across one’s shoulders, using her hand span or needles? In youth Bab had knitted garments for her younger siblings and continued with her own children out in the new country. Down at the State school her kids were not the only ones either in those years little more than a decade after the war, turned out in the rudely home-spun. Washing the clothes by hand felt virtuous and hanging on the line, stretching up toward the clouds, the echoes could almost make one cry. Aglio olio for supper, prepared for the first time in almost ten years. Old Bab’s culinary skills had never extended even that far. When young King Peter came to dine in the neighbourhood, over at Steel Street at the Croat Royalist Janko Krizmanic’s house, Bab had not been one of the ones asked to help in the kitchen. They couldn’t even trust her peeling spuds properly. Didn’t she cop it all through teen years for her woefully inadequate cuisine, always the same time after time. Disgraceful really. Taking the dishwater out to the back garden and rinsing the plates under the tap was getting near too, cozying up close. Some poor sods were never given the opportunity to make amends and continuously castigated themselves for their wild, intemperate words and behaviour. You though gave thanks to Dragica in the next street for her example when she came round to visit her dear old friend. Visitors had largely peeled away by then; Bab had outlived many too. Drage’s spectacular tenderness and warmth came as a great surprise. Shows of that kind of feeling were extremely rare among our lot. The first time Drage was seen showering her kisses there was a kind of lunge from her in the beginning. The woman was totally indiscriminate, raining down her affection on the cheeks, on hands and shoulders, on the top of a snowy white head. Everywhere. Babi had squirmed and winced a little, twisting her head girlishly under the storm. We ourselves were never kissers; luckily Drage showed us how. Dragica had her children minded by Bab in the early years, taken to school, fetched and fed. We feasted on Drage’s fine pitas, cakes and biscuits days after her visits.

Early Morning Trucks, Planes, Crows & Magpies

Decelerating trucks coming off the bridge were difficult to differentiate from planes, with memory overriding the altered period now. Early morning the carpenters started up at the townhouses nearing completion on the Stone’s old block. (With Arthur gone there was almost no one else in the street left whose memory went as far back as the Stones.) Earlier still, at first light, the upper branches of the lemon were cast upon the white side panel of Carlo’s wardrobe in front of the Studio bed. Down the street at Bab’s old place Robbie reported the magpies at the top of the Norfolk Pine had been replaced by crows, directly after which the former inhabitants were recalled by an unexpectedly expert throaty warble from Rob. (In the penning here a plane coming in for the descent at Tullamarine, soon replaced by trucks further along the freeway.) Yesterday a long walk was taken by the Yarra into Richmond with a friend in melting autumn light. Every few hundred metres we remarked on the glory of the scene. Was that super real manicured grass near the Tennis Centre, or fake?  (After so long in Singapore one was alert to trickery.) Gossamer veils from the red spectrum fell in different quarters as we walked, stage set after stage set unfolding before us. Still small scale the towers near Flinders station, not oppressively looming. (It was further along on Southbank that the giants were sprouting.) The greenery on every side thrust up its prime lushness like a form of mute pleading. Without exaggeration—difficult as it will be to believe—during the walk there came regular stops with wide-armed flourishes like Emcees made on television for those surrounds. The feeling was shared equally on both sides. Hard on, George quipped deadpan. They did masterful verge plantings in Sing too. What was the difference here? The light possibly, even more than the temperate comfort. No wonder the Chinese & Indians with $$$$ were flocking to these shores—up until very recently, and would resume again immediately the virus was conquered. Nights were chilling and early mornings more so again, as Arthur had often remarked. Tucking in between the sheets and pulling the bedcover over the ears as Arth described his own practice, the stab of his sudden passing returned like clockwork. The vanishings of death left no words, no matter how familiar one had become with the phenomenon.

NB. Retrieved from the Drafts folder a fortnight and more later. In this vacant, contentless time it was hard to put pen to paper, or finger to screen.

Publication news: “Crisis Central” - The Blue Nib

Hallo everyone

Hope you are all very well in these testing times.

A publication to announce again.

“Crisis Central” comes from the mean back-streets of Inner Melbourne, where the crises among the homeless and drug users are a daily constant.

First drafted over 10 years ago, CC has just been published by a lit. journal up in Ireland. Fair warning, some ripe language in this one.

The Blue Nib is free access here—

https://thebluenib.com/crisis-central-gritty-short-fiction-by-pavle-radonic/

A little over 2,000 words.

Cheers & all very best wishes
Pavle

Publication news: “Anonymous” & “Subversive Farm”

Hallo everyone

Trust you are all very well in this hard time.

A pair of publications to announce, hot on the heels of the previous. (In fact another two are scheduled for May. A hot little trot.)

A flash written about 5 years ago during a visit to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, titled “Anonymous,” has just been published by a lit. journal in the States, based in Florida this one. It takes a while for them sometimes to see the light of day, revisions on top of revisions; &etc.

Panoply is free access here—

https://panoplyzine.com/anonymous-pavle-radonic/

Anonymous – Pavle Radonic Many of the sights needed to be passed over and absorbed as a matter of course; swallowed whole as it were. People knew such images from the screen and there was an abundance of the same everywhere… panoplyzine.com

Then a piece surveying an unusual phenomenon in Singapore, a fruit & veg. farm. Not in this case housed in a building under lights & temp control, a real one rooted in soil and breathing open air. There are in fact a number of small farms in SG, none though to match this particular example.

“Subversive Farming” was written earlier this year; published by another US online journal.

Open access again here—

 wildroofjournal.com

Both pieces are short flash.

Cheers, safe passage 

& pozdravs

Pavle