Snippets: Doing Things Differently

By Kata Kiss

This book was written in a time when we did things differently.

Everybody had a new story. We lived in fairy tales, our streets had their own stories and families learnt to understand each other better. When you can’t go to faraway places, you look around our own streets. Most of these stories seems to have the same backdrop. A city with rain, noises from the background and dark silhouettes behind the curtains. Streets with people and stories. In a dream.

The colours, the tastes, the sounds, and the views of nature got new meaning, new reflections, and new adventures started with no finishing line in view.

Kata’s processing of one language into another gives the stories a kind of stillness, it’s melancholy seems to come from a European heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922628985

Kata Kiss

Kata is originally from Budapest, but she is enjoying her life in beautiful Sydney for more than two decades. Living at the beach was her dream always. After retiring from SBS Radio in 2017 her other childhood dream came true when she published her first book in English.‘As a journalist/broadcaster for 18 years I told so many stories about real people, real lives. Now I have the pleasure to create characters and set them free in a fantasy world.’She worked as a radio and television presenter from her early childhood but choose to be a teacher. She later worked as a marketing manager, copywriter, and as a producer in her old country. She even sang in a band for a couple of years.Her first book Fingerprints – Tales from Somewhere - was released in 2019.Her second book a collection of new short stories Snippets - Doing Things Differently - is released in 2021.

Book preview

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

What have I done?

It is cold, getting dark, and a sharp wind is blowing in from Sydney Harbour. As it gets stronger, it almost sweeps me away.

I must hold on tight.

On the bridge, the traffic has stopped. A huge, staring crowd surrounds the Opera House. Police cars flash everywhere. I hear the sirens. Squadrons from the Police Rescue, dressed in black, begin to climb the sails to the roof. They mean business.

This masterpiece, this most known of the built symbols of Australia, was designed the same year I was born. We are the same age. Old, beautiful, and strong.

I am surrounded by more than one million roof tiles. The concrete and ceramic ‘shells’ are icy cold, my skin has long been numb.

I am lying here on the top of this icon, where Paul Robeson, the first person to perform here, climbed the scaffolding and sang Ol’ Man River to the construction workers as they ate their lunches, way back in 1960.

Below me is the place where Queen Elizabeth II stood in 1973 as she opened the Opera House, and where Arnold Schwarzenegger won his final Mr Olympia body building title in 1980.

While so many of us know the history of this building, and those famous people who have celebrated and been celebrated here, how many of us know the names of the 16 workers who died during construction?

More than 10.9 million people visit the Sydney Opera House every year, but not many get up here to the top. Unless you are a protester from the Whistle Blowers; a drunken guy in 2014; or the Activists and Citizens Alliance in 2017. All my respect to them: it is not easy to get up here.

The Police Rescue are halfway up as they climb and keep shouting at me, but I don’t understand them. In this moment I don’t understand a lot of things.

How did I get here?

I am a 63 year old female. And naked.

It all started in my editor’s office.

I really like Elenore; we work together very well, and have the same sense of humour – sarcastic, sometimes dark, and always sharp.

After we published my first book we kept in contact. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but we are exceptionally good acquaintances. Yesterday she wasn’t happy with my whinging.

‘What on earth do you expect from me, Kate? I don’t do marketing, it is not my responsibility to sell your books. I’ll be honest – selling books is hard! I have a target niche and even I struggle. It’s not easy, that’s for sure, but if you get your website going and if you can do a bit of promotion here and there it might help.

‘But if you are planning more books, don’t put too much effort and definitely not much money into promoting your first one. Once you have two or more books out there, it will be more worthwhile and economical because everything you do for one book will help the others.

‘The hardest part is that people don’t really buy books, they buy authors. So if they know you as an author, they’re more inclined to buy your book, love.’

I felt helpless that all my work was in vain, as if it weren’t being recognised.

‘Maybe I am a bad, very bad writer and no one is interested in my novel? I should go and work in a café somewhere in the CBD. I feel like I waited all my life for my first book to be published. The day my first printed copy arrived I was crying and laughing and jumping up and down. And now it is 10 months and I’ve only sold 200 books. Only 200 people have read me! Elenore, that is terrible.’

‘Don’t be silly, don’t be impatient. This is your first. Trust me. Your expectations are too high.’

I slammed the heavy door on her.

I couldn’t fall asleep that night. My thoughts were punching me.

‘So, I have to sell myself as an author? Seriously? I research, I write, I rewrite, edit, and publish. I am not a public figure. The protag­onists in my book are interesting, not me.’

While I was spinning in my bed, I was cold, then I was hot, my brain was flashing, my thoughts were running around like a headless chicken. I started building strategies, finding solutions for how I could be an author for sale.

I contemplated joining a reality TV show. I thought about The Bachelor, but I’m too old for that. Well, there could be a Bachelor for oldies, like: The Vintage Bachelor.

Maybe sign up for Gogglebox? Well, I am funny, I love to watch TV, but I live alone. No one sits next to me on the sofa in the evenings.

The Block? Not for me – I have problems even changing lightbulbs. In my toolbox, there is only a hammer and a screwdriver … somewhere.

Big Brother? Are you kidding me? I am a misanthrope, and claustrophobic. Not a good idea.

I watched the clock on the wall as the hands circled: 1 am; 2 am; 3 am. Towards 4 am I finally managed to fall asleep.

In my dreams a weird, very strange, scary, amazing, but ingenious solution appeared. And in the morning I knew what I needed to do to be famous, to be known. To ensure that my name would be everywhere, and that people would queue up to buy my book.

In the end, climbing up to the top of the Sydney Opera House naked wasn’t a good idea. In September the days are warm, but after the sun goes down it is chilly. I was relieved when the Police Rescue team finally approached me. The truth is, I was frozen. I couldn’t move my body. I couldn’t come down without help, not even if I’d wanted to.

Elenore comes to visit me in prison. I drag myself from my bleak cell to see her, ready for bad news. I couldn’t pay the fine. I’ve screwed up everything: my life, my career, my friendships. My family is embarrassed because of me.

Here, I am content. I move around slowly. I don’t talk much. I have uninterrupted time. A lot of time to write. I wouldn’t say it is peaceful or quiet, but the other women have learnt to give me respect.

‘Oh, the great author, who climbed the Opera House naked, see …’ I hear them whispering behind my back.

So many lives, so many stories!

There is an old woman who is waiting to be a grandmother, a young girl who hears the tribe in the wind, a man with rough hands and the sleeping beauty. I was cheated on. I also cheated and there are two sides to every story, aren’t there? I write about a killer brother, serial killers, sex traffickers, and a god who sexually assaulted a young woman.

I write about the autumn in New York. About a miracle resurrection, and the last, sad supper during a pandemic. I travel to Gretna Green, see dead bodies and the Three Musketeers. I buy magic cookies at the market and follow the cops to the crime scene.

I am never alone. Sometimes it’s a sad little boy, or an angry dog or a strong, proud man. My cell is big enough to have them together.

When I walk to the visitor’s hall, Elenore is there. She is drumming her elegant fingers on the tabletop and smiles cheerfully at me. I catch my breath. I have no idea what is waiting for me.

‘Kate, good news. You are famous. Everybody knows your name. The author who climbed the Sydney Opera House naked. Your book is number one