Narrator Magazine NSW/ACT Summer 2011

By Narrator Magazine

As well as containing the first instalment of the world's first 'breadcrumb novel' - Art and the Drug Addict's Dog - the Narrator Magazine NSW/ACT Summer 2011 edition features contributions from the following:
Albany Dighton, Allison Morris, Aristidis Metaxas, Barry McGloin, Barry Walsh, Bob Edgar, Bonni Arabi, Cathy Tanaka, Cheryl Ianoco, Chris Broadribb, David Stein, Harold Mally, James Craib, Janet Ryan, Joe Massingham, John Ross, Linda Callaghan, Mary Krone, Michele Fermanis-Winward, Mick Langford, Niki Read, Paris Portingale, Peter Tonkin, Ruth Withers, Sam Miller, Samuel Cooney, Stephen Studach, Susan Adams, Toni Paton and Tracey Smith

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Nov 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9780987173195

Narrator Magazine

Narrator began in the Blue Mountains in 2010 as an opportunity for local writers - amateurs and professionals alike - to exhibit their works.As of December 2011 it is now a nation-wide magazine, being rolled out on a state-by-state basis.It's free to submit to, affordable to advertise in, and encourages friendly competition with a secret judge and a People's Choice prize.For more information, please visit the Narrator Magazine website.

Book preview

Narrator Magazine

NSW/ACT

Summer 2011

Smashwords Edition

narrator MAGAZINE is published by MoshPit Publishing

Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779

MoshPit Publishing is an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

P: 1300 644 680 ABN 48 126 885 309

http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/

http://www.narratormagazine.com.au/

Copyright Notice

The copyright for each item in this publication rests with the author of that piece. Please contact us at Narrator Magazine if you wish to contact any contributor featured herein.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other books by this publisher. Thank you for your support.

Short Stories

A Crime by Any Other Name

A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Estate Agent

Brushed

Just Wait Until I Tell My Mother

Miss Bunny

Molly’s Gift

Ned Kelly’s Feast

Plaster Angel

Rikki, Nikki and Connor Transmedia

The Deadly Game

The Happy Moon

The Tribunal

Breadcrumb Novel

Art and the Drug Addict’s Dog

Poetry

Alice

Australian Stage

Bushfire Battlefield

Cancer Loss

Caterpillar’s Crusade

Childhood Dream

Come to Me

Nature’s Tears

Nightshift

On Waking

Pirates

She

The Black Wind

The Book

The Game

The Happy Moon

Scatter

Wine and Rose Petals

Corporate

From the Editor

Cover

Last issue’s winners: Blue Mountains

Last issue’s winners: Central Tablelands

Correspondence

Judging and voting

People’s Choice

Advertising and page sponsorship

Image credits

From the Editor …

Thank you for your interest in Narrator Magazine, whoever you may be. You’ve opened the cover and that’s what counts. We hope that over the coming quarters, word will spread and we will be able to bring you an even greater variety of the creative works of people from New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory—or ‘nuswhacked’ as we’ve affectionately come to think of it in this office!

The purpose behind Narrator Magazine is to provide a showcase for people’s creative short works. When you’re an emerging writer, it’s hard to get your works out there to see what response you get. With Narrator, you can develop your writing skills, get published and perhaps begin to build up a following. Then when you’ve worked out what readers do and don’t like, you can look at publishing an anthology or a longer work, either through MoshPit Publishing or another publisher.

And by doing it online, you can send a link to anyone, refer to it when entering other competitions, or submitting to other journals etc.

Here at MoshPit Publishing we are always on the lookout for original and interesting new writing to help us develop our Australian ebook and print-on-demand collection, so we can’t wait to see what you’ve got going on in your heads!

Enjoy these contributions, which have been secretly ‘guest judged’ by SMH Good Weekend columnist and writer Mark Dapin, and we hope that if your work is not in this issue, it will be in an issue soon!

Jenny Mosher

December 2011

Caricature:

Jenny Mosher’s caricature (above) by artist Todd Sharp. For more info, visit http://www.toddasharp.com/.

Cover: ‘Tram Graveyard, Sydney’ by Steve McLaren

Steve McLaren is a multi skilled artist, curator and mentor. He is currently Vice President at Tap Gallery, Darlinghurst, the oldest artist run initiative in Sydney (23 years).

Steve was a short listed finalist in the 2007 National Aust indigenous Reconciliation Art Award, 2007 and 2008 runner-up in the Australian Environmental Art Award and the Australian Ethical Art Award, and a finalist in both in 2009, as well as being the 2010 Winner of the Australian Ethical Art Award for Environmental Art with his work ‘The Murray River Gums’. Steve’s works are held in numerous collections in Australia as well as New York and Singapore.

He has been selected to co-curate a show with Cherry Hood for the 2012 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and to expand the Mardi Gras to the country and the nation’s capital with a show called 'Wylde in the Country’ featuring works from selected gay and lesbian artists and which is due to open at Goulburn’s South Hill Gallery on 11 February 2012.

Steve’s passion is changing to encompass photography and the cover photo represents one of the last images which will ever be taken of Sydney’s Tram Graveyard, soon to be demolished to make way for luxury apartments. For more about Steve, friend him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/stevethebodymechanic/

A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Estate Agent

Peter Tonkin

Lakemba NSW

The porch of the weatherboard house creaked beneath Norbert’s weight. His practised eye scrutinised the faded, peeling aqua paint, the gaps between the grubby window panes and the warped frames, and the spider webs festooning the wrought-iron work under the roof. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and summoned words of praise:

‘Rustic charm, ideal vehicle for market entry, opportunity for first-time investor, realise your dream of home ownership ...’

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ asked the old woman in the floral print dress, fiddling with her hearing aid.

‘Nothing, I was just trying to think of the best way to describe your lovely house, so as to make it most attractive to potential buyers.’

‘So what do you think it’s worth?’

‘In today’s market, about 450.’

‘450 what?’

‘Thousand.’

‘Really? This old place? Fancy that!’

Norbert drove back to the office, rearranging the words in his head.

After mounting the kerb and running a red light, he decided that he’d better stop and write it down.

‘All the charm of a bygone era combined with the convenience of inner-city boutique living,’ he scribbled on his note pad. Then he gave the road his undivided attention. He made it back to the office without further incident and sat down at his computer to do the listing for the property.

‘Did you say something?’ said Megan.

‘Who—me?’

‘I thought you said something about a boutique.’

‘Oh yes, I was just thinking: ―boutique living‖. What does that evoke for you?’

‘You don't live in a boutique. You shop there, then you go home, to your house, unit, caravan, whatever.’

Norbert sighed. Why did Megan have to take everything so literally? But he soon forgot her quibbling as his fingers scrambled across the keyboard, struggling to keep up with the torrent of words welling up from the fount of his imagination.

Megan stomped into the manager’s office on high heels and in high dudgeon.

‘It’s sexual harassment and I won't put up with it!’

Steve craned his head up over his computer screen and his gaze followed Megan’s outstretched arm to where Norbert sat, his lips twitching.

‘No, of course not, why should you? As I’ve made clear to everyone, this company has a zero-tolerance attitude to sexual harassment and, umm ... do you mind telling me exactly what it was he said? Or did?’

‘He called me ―a renovator's dream‖.’

‘I see. Well of course that’s totally unacceptable, and I’ll deal with it in accordance with our harassment and bullying policy. So, if I could just get you to fill in the form and give your account of what happened, and then, while I sort it out, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?’

‘OK. Thanks, Steve.’

When Megan had left, Steve called Norbert into his office.

‘Look Norbert, I think you've been working too hard, and it’s starting to impact on your interaction with other team members. Why don’t you take some time off? You’ve accrued almost four weeks—why don’t you use it and, like, chillax?!’

‘I'll think about it,’ was all Norbert said.

Norbert didn’t want a holiday. He loved his work. It was varied and stimulating. He got out and met all kinds of people and saw all kinds of properties, each one presenting a unique challenge to his powers of description and persuasion.

He knocked off at half past five and went home. His mother had baked a steak and kidney pie for dinner. Norbert sniffed the meaty aroma and looked up at the cornice, the picture rail and the teardrop light fitting. They lent the dining room an air of classical elegance that made it eminently liveable and desirable. He beamed cherubically as he took it all in.

‘Over my dead body!’ snarled his mother.

‘What was that Mum?’

‘You'll have to wait until I’m laid out cold in my grave before you try to sell this place! Now will you pass me the dead horse—if you’ve finished playing with it?’

Norbert squirted some tomato sauce onto his pie and handed the plastic bottle over. Classical elegance. It would be good to see more of that. Maybe Steve was right. Maybe he should take a holiday and get away for a bit. He’d saved enough money for a decent trip. He could go to Europe and see all those beautiful old buildings. It would be inspirational and uplifting. London, Paris, Rome: unreal estate. Yes, he would go.

The next morning he confirmed the dates of his leave with Steve. He visited a travel agency during his lunch break and booked flights and hotels. He broke the news to his mother over a post-prandial glass of sherry. She took it more stoically than he could have hoped.

A week later he was standing before Buckingham Palace with his notebook and camera. After the Changing of the Guard, he went back to his hotel room, fired up his laptop and wrote:

PRISTINE, PRIVATE AND WHISPER QUIET

You will love the wonderfully relaxing ambience of this quiet and spacious property! Instantly liveable with opportunities to enhance and create your own personal style, there is nothing to spend and everything to enjoy. With plenty of character and light-filled rooms, you can easily lose yourself in poetic rhapsody as this is not just your typical urban home—this is ‘Buckingham Palace’!

In Paris, he watched the shadow of the Eiffel Tower creep like a giant sundial along the Quai Branly. Then he wrote:

LIVE THE DREAM!

Picture yourself waking up to spectacular views of the City of Light every morning! Located right in the pulsating heart of Paris, this unique all-steel structure features an innovative multi-level open-plan design that adds to the light airy feeling of this home. With 100+ years of charm and everything you expect from a vibrant city life!

In Athens, he climbed the Acropolis and heard the Muses sing:

RENOVATOR'S DELIGHT!

A unique challenge for a renovator with the drive and vision to restore this classic building to its former glory! Featuring an innovative design with timeless appeal, this distinctive property represents an exciting opportunity to live/invest in a most desirable location and offers breathtaking views of the Greek capital with myriad possibilities for gourmet open plan indoor/outdoor entertaining.

The last stop on his European tour was Moscow. He gazed at the Kremlin till its onion domes