The Story so Far

By Grant White

A collection of short stories written over the last 20 years exploring growing up and away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant White
• Release date: Dec 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310280252

Book preview

The Story So Far

Grant White

Fools Spoil

I've been writing a lot

But it is still no clearer why

Fear rises to drown happiness

Beneath a wave of torment

Undulating

Seeing compliments as meals

Of broken glass

Trusting only in the inevitable pain

Neglecting the joy of the moment

To pace, obsessed.

In writing, the world of realities

Is self empowered.

Will and desire are

Under control, literally beneath

The quivering thumb, my genesis.

In there you can live boldly

knowing that only fools or madmen spoil

Their own dreams and you are neither

Though, I have been writing a lot.

Summer I

Everything swells in the rain. Window frames stick and hold tight against the wind. No rattles when the southerly gusts hard up the coast. Unseasonal, this weather, some say. Their memories only stretching back as far as they will allow, to the times when summer was always hot, sunburn stinging on younger shoulders, before the skin dried and the liverspots appear. Saggy. Chooky .

​Thems were the days of real coastal summer, when the slow tick of a cooling cast iron engine block was the sound of checking the surf at a remote point, when thongs were cheap and long days stretched out before you, their interest or boredom dependent entirely upon the fickle weather bringing swell or the unpredictable smile of a girl.

​White teeth shining with the reflected sun, yellow gold hair, salt hardened. A freckle or two, three framing blue green eyes. To love that again, feel and crave the beauty of youth, that which only fades. Keep it alive and supple under the tender touch of nostalgia,kind memories, the soft awareness forgetting days of rain in the summer of your youth. The listless swell, the blown out afternoon, crisp and abrasive, stinging hot sand lifting, your face burnished, rasping tired eyelids. Naked, burning soles on hot mix if you're quick, the pain does not last! But stop to admire, pause to wonder whatever happened to her?, she with the freckles and the eyes so far away, the curve of her mouth most likely pursed in rejection, and it burns and burns and you, yelping, skip away to your own regrets. A wave not ridden.

​You curse the stuck window, this damn wet weather, and long for a summer that was not yours to take.

Summer II

We’re writing now, not in the sense of spelling it out but writing it in our cold hard core by the light of a candle - recording our stories and memories and fantasies . Reviling; prancing forsooth! You big lug. You freak. You fuck. You scary bastard. Candle stubs, beer cans, stained and sooty sleeping bag, shaggy-headed hippy you. Overlooking the point. Gone troppo, to the islands and never coming back, denizen of a cave to call one's own. A point break to watch, to sense the rhythm and feel the pitch. Snorkel the rocks at low tide, mapping irregularities (and stealing oysters) in your mind and on paper later. Posterity beckoning as an aid to memory, addled now after one too many pulls on a cone. You will be ready when it matters, when that perfect day dawns and the swell swings and sings around the point, angling just so on the perfect tide, wind blowing quiffs and rainbows from the face before landing with purest joy behind. Days in the water, such as that, do not even have a name they are so good, so alive. So, then, be ready for them, as they arrive unbidden and are gone before you know. Missed. Live there, on the lip of your cave, on the edge of the cliff with a stub of a candle, a pad, a pen and only your own conversation for company.

Summer III

Sticky stick stick stick stick. A terrible night, a week of rain, then heat enough to lift the humidity, then rain again. Then the pause between the two, the wait for more rain. Dizzying humidity. Walk a few meters and the sweat begins to drip off your brow, literally oozing with tropical intensity. Exotic fruits are hardened against mold, but I am less exotic, more temperate and the damp fug grows like botrytis around me. Cloying pits and furrows. Moist folds of cloth hang off limp bodies. Everyone, every me is bad tempered and tired. It's worst at night. Damn this stickiness, how to sleep here like this, in a soggy inferno, unseasonal and insect ridden. The mozzies love it, plagued in it for chrissakes, adding to the misery. If I had wanted this, I would have stayed in the north, enjoying the benefits and accepting the bad as the price of admission. But here in the south I've already suffered the cost, optimistic of brighter days only to be confronted with this madness of moisture and buzzing critters driving me spare beyond knowing. Surely it must break soon. Now, not a breath of air to caress the skin, only