The Night Fisher Elegies: Stories, Verse & Reflection

By Dean Mayes

Taking the reader on a journey through love, faith, death, grief, family and dreams, “The Night Fisher Elegies” weaves together powerful explorations of humanism, moments of reflection tinged with melancholy and short verses, which inhabit the sometimes brutal landscape of self examination. Dean wanders through a palace of memories contained within nostalgic love, experimenting with style, tone and character. He poses questions for the reader to ponder and wrestle with and offers pieces designed to evoke and provoke, while others are simply present as meditations to inspire and affirm.

Drawing inspiration from literary heroes such as Jim Harrison, Rainer Maria Rilke, Albert Camus, Charles Bukowski & Patrick White this collection brings together pieces from over 10 years of writing and creating. “The Night Fisher Elegies” showcases Dean Mayes’ literary style across short fiction, ghazal poetry, short form essays and personal reflections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dean Mayes
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463812143

Dean Mayes

Dean Mayes is an Intensive Care Nurse who is fascinated by philosophy and the paranormal, so his stories weave an element of magical realism with deep humanism. He grew up near Melbourne, Australia, and now lives in Adelaide with his wife, Emily, his children, Xavier & Lucy, and his writing partner – a 10 year old spaniel named, Sam. Dean loves outdoor cooking, anything to do with Star Wars and (insanely) long-form podcasts.

Book preview

1.

Feast.

(2013).

A recliner chair sits in the centre of a sparse living room, its moth eaten fabric dirty with age and neglect. A small, wooden block props up one corner of the chair, a makeshift repair to a long broken leg. One could be forgiven for thinking that this chair is empty — a forlorn relic, long overdue for the rubbish heap, yet it remains in use.

The living room is colourless and dark — the drab grey of a tenement flat. Long shadows cast by fading light through Venetian blinds scatter like gnarled fingers into the crevices of the musty room. The air is stale, filled with strange odours. A layer of dust coats everything.

An ageing television set sits on a rickety cabinet before the chair, casting garish light that clashes with the shadows across the water stained walls of the flat. The television is mute. The only sound at all comes from a small mantle clock that sits on a thin shelf above a gas fired heater. Its steady tick tock announces the passing of time with monotony.

In the recliner, a man of an indeterminate age is slouched over and fast asleep. A pair of glasses hang precariously at the edge of his nose. The imagery from the television screen is reflected in their lenses. His silvery hair, matted with grease is combed severely to one side. Flakes of dandruff are sprinkled across the shoulders of his tartan dressing gown. A small globule of saliva clings by a glistening filament from the edge of his mouth. It threatens to fall and soak into the collar of his pyjamas. A newspaper, held in his slackened grip lies across his chest. Several pages have fallen and lie at his feet.

The hands of the clock tick over and its mechanism whirrs to life. The clock chimes six times into the darkness of the room, loud enough to wake the man from his slumber. He flinches in the chair. Arms flail and he tosses the newspaper into the air; its pages taking flight all around him, before floating gracefully down and settling on the floor. Disoriented, he swats angrily at an errant page of newsprint that has settled on his face, bucking in the recliner until he frees himself of suffocating paper. He slumps back, weary from his exertions.

Dazed, he scans the living room, fumbling for his glasses with arthritic hands. As he seats them back in place, he cajoles his foggy mind to remember what he was doing before he'd drifted off to sleep.

Very little, evidently.

He'd woken early but hadn't bothered changing out of his pyjamas. Nor had he yesterday — or the day before.

Lifting an arm, he catches the pungent scent of his body odour and screws up his face at the smell. He realises he has barely moved from his chair. The only exception was a short journey he'd made from the chair to the kitchen several hours ago to retrieve a frozen dinner from the refrigerator, which he had set on the bench to thaw. He'd returned to the chair, sat down with his newspaper and turned on the ancient television set. It is the exact same routine that he has observed every day — for what feels like years.

There is little incentive to do anything else. He is years into a retirement that he has never really come to grips with. He knows no-one any more. His friends are long gone. His family are living too far away and are too disinterested in him to care.

He is a forgotten soul, lost in the multitude of windows of the tenement.

Myopic eyes fall across the television and through the finger print smudges of his glasses, he focuses on the grainy image there; the voluptuous figure of a celebrity cook, sashaying through an impossibly luxurious kitchen as she prepares another of her dishes.

Another of his routines.

Stacked on the floor beside the television; a small tower of DVD cases — all of them episodes of that same celebrity cook. After his uninspired dinner preparation and his vacant study of the newspaper, he sits in his chair and puts on DVD after DVD. And he watches her, day after day.

He doesn't even like her.

On the mantle piece, beside the clock sits an ornate, silver photo frame. Its surface, like everything in this living room, is tarnished from neglect. The image behind the glass is barely visible through a layer of dust. A woman, cast in sepia tones peeks out. Her pretty, porcelain face, high cheek bones and stylishly coiffed, lustrous hair complement a demure smile from full lips and large piercing eyes. A beauty from yesteryear — his wartime bride.

His eyes flicker from the television screen to the portrait. Beside that, a similarly antique image of a strapping young man in military uniform, standing before a Hindu temple, holding hands with that very same woman who is dressed in a nurse’s uniform. He hardly recognises his younger self any more.

Memories flash in bursts. He sees his young wife, preparing food in an exotic kitchen. Her hands dance across ingredients, cutting and chopping and mixing with vigour — a passion for culinary creation. He sees a restaurant in a bustling cafe district. It is their establishment; their reason for remaining in India following the war. She managed its kitchen, its chefs and kitchen hands, while he managed the dining room, saw to the guests, made them feel welcome. Together, they made their sub-continental eatery renowned. Many regarded it as one of the finest in post-war Madras.

His memories shift through the years and he sees those same pair of hands, frail now, but still feminine as they dance over freshly cut salad leaves in a bowl. He sees his wife, sitting on the edge of her favourite chair, before a television set, glasses perched on the end of her nose. A notebook rests on her lap as she gazes through wizened eyes at the very program that is playing on the television now. She takes copious notes with the shrinking nub of a pencil, her tongue clenched unconsciously between her lips as the celebrity cook instructs. She transforms their kitchen into a laboratory of culinary experimentation as she creates and cooks with an octogenarian zest. The years took away none of her passion for creativity. With the cook’s guiding hand, she flourishes, adding to her repertoire.

But she became ill. So ill that she was no longer able to prepare meals. So ill that she couldn't bare the thought of food at all. He nursed her with unfailing devotion. But her situation was grave.

Then she died.

The kitchen, once a bright centre in their universe had withered and died with her. The cupboards housed her implements like prisoners banished to solitary confinement. They saw no light again. Lost in his grief, his motivation left him. The kitchen became silent.

All that remains are the hours of television, projected through a failing set, whose image now matches the environment in which he sits.

This is his his way of remembering her.

He gazes at the screen. The woman breezes her way through another concoction, smiling coquettishly at the camera. Her hands delve suggestively into a salad bowl, her fingers coated in glistening balsamic vinaigrette. Laughing, she lifts her fingers to her mouth and sucks the digits with a cheeky twinkle in her eye.

He shakes his head in guilt-laden frustration as he presses down his fading erection. Exhaustion beckons. His mind drifts on the edge of sleep once more. He considers skipping dinner and going to bed. A familiar emptiness taunts him.

Something on the screen catches his attention — a flash of colour. He blinks, then tilts his head, curious.

Through the graininess of the colourless image, a small globe of red appears near her hand; vibrant and clear. His brow furrows as she picks up the object — a small, red tomato. She lifts it to her lips and bites, her expression bursts with pleasure at having tasted such a delicious morsel.

Her delight sets off a chain reaction on the television screen. Colour bleeds through the fruits and vegetables on the counter top. The graininess of the image is swallowed up until the cook, the food and her kitchen are projected with unprecedented clarity. He sits upright, gripping the arms of his chair, his attention captive. The volume of the television set rises, manipulated by an invisible hand. He hears the woman’s silken voice, describing the beauty and freshness of the ingredients and the dish she intends to use them in.

He is unnerved but curious. The remote control sits untouched in his lap.

He looks to the portrait of his wife on the mantle piece. The glass has been wiped clean of dust. The silver of the frame polished to a high shine. The photograph — with her smiling face, her worldly eyes — is more clear now than it has ever been.

His eyes dart urgently into the corners of the room, searching for the intruder who has molested the picture frame.

He sees no one.

He scratches an unshaven cheek then rises creakily from the chair, keeping his eyes fixed on the television, as if it is the only protection he has from the unexplained events.

He shuffles through to the kitchen and regards the packaged meal on the bench top with disdain. Roast lamb, gravy and three veg. It is the third one he has had this week — an uninspired morass.

The emptiness creeps upon him again, threatening to swallow his heart. He feels himself sinking in grief and regret. The tick-tock of the mantle clock echoes in his thoughts. Too much time has slipped away. He is desiccating, even as his heart still beats. He looks through the doorway, at the photo of his wife. She would not want this for him. This is not the man he used to be.

Gritting his teeth, he brushes the tin foil packaging aside and picks up a scrap of paper and a pen. He returns to the television and sits on the arm of the chair. He begins to scribble furiously, noting down what he sees on the screen. His arthritic fingers move with purpose.

***

The lone figure trudges along glistening cobblestones. Woollen trench coat. Battered fedora. Faded scarf. Scattered gusts from brooding clouds cannot pierce this weathered armour.

As he passes underneath the orange halo of a street light, the sound of a tinkling bottle on concrete causes him to flinch. He turns and looks back, his breath quickening. He sees nothing in the shadows but does not discount a