Cricket and Other Short Stories

By Mary Brooks

Mary Brooks is an Australian author (of Mary Lives) whose passion for life is well-illustrated in these observations of daily living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499006919

Book preview

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Copyright © 2014 by Mary Brooks.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014909980

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4990-0689-6

                   Softcover            978-1-4990-0688-9

                   eBook                978-1-4990-0691-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/29/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

[e-mail]

625916

Contents

Flying

13/11/2013    Welcome

02/04/2014    Holidaying in Vietnam

27/06/2013    Circle of Friends

01/11/2013    Shoes

02/04/2014    Jesus and Tony

03/11/2013    Disaster

29/09/2013    The Burglar

31/03/2014    Plane Ride

10/09/2013    Cricket

24/06/2013    The Semis

31/03/2014    Pregnant Pain

02/07/2013    Giggles

22/09/2013    Nightmare

01/11/2013    The Visitors

19/10/2013    What a Pity

27/06/2013    Nemo

28/09/2013    The Last Laugh

15/10/2013    Machete Guy

02/04/2014    The Sausage Roll

Flying

Flying in and out of the electricity pylons was probably the most exhilarating experience. Others would watch in wonder and envy. I could see their faces staring up into the sky and following my loops and dives. It was the one time I could acknowledge that people were jealous and at the same time feel proud and satisfied with my own achievement; it was the one time I could show off.

Normally, I felt guilty and reticent about own my achievements, but when flying, I felt I could flaunt my ability ostentatiously. No one else has ever been able to do it, at least no one I had come across.

I wonder if you know what I mean by flying. Not flying in an aeroplane or glider. I would literally leap up into the air and fly, not flapping my wings like a bird but just flying with outstretched arms. Sometimes to go just that bit higher, I would give one or two flaps downwards with my arms to launch myself up past where I usually flew.

I started to fly when I was about four years old or possibly earlier. It was in the house where I grew up in Wilson Street. I wouldn’t fly into the lounge room in case my parents were watching, so starting in the bedroom, I would fly close to the decorations on the ceiling, duck under the bedroom doorjamb, and out into the corridor leading from the front door to the lounge room. Not only were there decorated panels on the ceiling, but there were columns and graceful curls of fluted plaster. I would run my fingers over them, marvelling at the patterns.

In the later years, flying was so easy and so thrilling- just jump up and away. Sometimes, I would fly around the high ceilings of a gymnasium, with people gawking, eyes wide open in amazement. They followed my every move as I soared and dived and soared up again, around and around the rafters. However, it was the electric wires that intrigued me most. I would fly up and down, in and out, beside the stanchions, up and over the wires again, weaving and looping, like a stunt plane. Sometimes, I would fly so far that people could no longer see me until I turned and came back into view.

One of the places where I would fly repeatedly was the Sydney Town Hall, with its front wall taken up by huge organ pipes. I would especially love to fly up to the vaulted ceiling when the hallelujah chorus was being sung. This was when mischievous boys were earthy no longer and became ethereal and angelic. I too felt as though I was in heaven.

Somewhere in my thirties, I stopped flying. I guess it really was, as I suspected, a tale similar to Peter Pan and. I was too grown-up to fly any more.

I can no longer imagine being light enough to take off into the air, and this was the first requisite. However, about the same time as I could fly, my car could also fly, I think. I can’t remember anyone watching and can’t remember the rush of cool air around me, but I do remember looking down on the terrain beneath me and skirting around mountains and cliffs where roads were impossible to build. I would be at one curve and approach another cliff face and sail around to the next curve. This way, I would find myself over and over at the same cliffs or following the same roads out along the freeway and into the countryside.

At one place, there was a caravan park where I would definitely walk about on the solid ground. I would stay in one of the cabins. Unfortunately, the cabins would morph into locked bedrooms of school dormitories, and of course, I would be the one who always lost my key. Inside the bedrooms, some people had doors which opened onto lovely balconies but mine did not. Nor did I join the study groups of other pupils working hard for their exams. In fact, I would wander on foot towards an underground railway station and down onto another level where I could catch my train. It would travel ever so quickly to a big building, where the inside was like one of Escher’s drawings, with impossible floors becoming the same floor, and I would forever be hurrying around the corridors, trying to get out. I would climb up ladders along walls lined with books and out along a staircase over the middle of nothing. I would be trapped here, going round, up ladders, along the staircase, and getting nowhere. Occasionally, I would manage to find a door into a gymnasium, where there was a swimming pool. I entered the water reluctantly and the coach forced me to swim up and down and around under walls under water, and I had so much trouble coordinating my breathing. After the swim ended, eventually, I was exhausted and would stagger outside the pool to where there was a fish-and-chip shop. I would eat some chips, which always tasted of saltwater and oil, and I was so hungry that I would guzzle them down and burn my throat and make myself so sick that I would throw up.

Then I would start walking home and then to school, back where I had lost the keys to my locker and could not find the English or Latin books. The long walk was along the coast, past a big round swimming area in the sea. It was fenced-off from the sea, and we were forced to swim out to the far side, in the rolling waves, fighting against my failing strength. Again, I ended up swallowing lots of salty water because I couldn’t