Seagulls

By GJ Maher

Seagulls is an eclectic collection of short, shorter and micro stories by GJ Maher which takes us from the refugee trails of Africa to Charles Dickens' country studio, from a monkey writing his first story to a jetty somewhere in coastal Australia where they sell, of all things, ideas.

From politics to travel, word games to love poems, campfire conversations to polemic - if you're a sucker for exotic locations and unexpected encounters, this is the collection for you. GJ Maher draws on a rich lifetime of travel to exotic locations, conversations with unusual people, and a strong sense of compassion and justice in these diverse tales, anecdotes and opinion pieces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GJ Maher
• Release date: Sep 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223977711

GJ Maher

GJ Maher (Geof) has been writing since his teens. First published in 1973 as a teenager, his story on a unique SCUBA Diving school which he visited in Houston Texas told of a dive tank similar to a giant silo where students immersed themselves in relative safety. A few months later Geof set an underwater world record in Sydney Harbour on the day that the Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. It was his final day of high school. The stunt was twofold…to upstage the Queen and to raise money for charity. He didn’t upstage the queen, but he raised a considerable amount of money for charity. The next three decades saw him travel on all continents except Antarctica and write for a large number of magazines as a freelance journalist in the fields of environment, sport and travel. A book on Auschwitz survivor Regina Sprada titled ‘Laugh to Survive’ and a book on the ‘Toilets of the World’ soon followed. A series of children’s books and a story on disability titled ‘Christmas with the Dolphins’ were next. His other works including several short stories are featured on his abovementioned website. SOPHIE'S VIOLIN MOON OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN BUBBLE & SQUEAK AUSTRALIA GJ Maher (Geof) has been writing since his teens. First published in 1973 as a teenager, his story on a unique SCUBA Diving school which he visited in Houston Texas told of a dive tank similar to a giant silo where students immersed themselves in relative safety. A few months later Geof set an underwater world record in Sydney Harbour on the day that the Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. It was his final day of high school. The stunt was twofold…to upstage the Queen and to raise money for charity. He didn’t upstage the queen, but he raised a considerable amount of money for charity. The next three decades saw him travel on all continents except Antarctica and write for a large number of magazines as a freelance journalist in the fields of environment, sport and travel.

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Copyright © GJ Maher 2023

Cover photo by GJ Maher

Dedication

To all the world's homeless and

lonely people

Contents

THE SEAGULLS OF NAURU

ESCAPE TO THE COUNTRY

WALTZING MATILDA

MONKEY BUSINESS

TINY HOME

ANGOLA DOCTOR

A GRANDFATHER’S ADVICE

THE LITTLE SHOP AT THE END OF THE PIER

VIRTUAL REALITY

PETROL CAP

CAPTAIN COOK IS NO LONGER A HERO

TEN PERCENT

THE MUSEUM OF CURIOSITIES

LOVE THY NEW NEIGHBOUR

PURGATORY TO PUNCHBOWL

A NIGHT OUT IN BALI

FRESH BLOOD

BUTTOCKS IN THE CHOIR

RAPA NUI (Easter Island)

LOVE IN THE TRENCHES

SILENT TRAIN WRECK

A NEW POLITICAL PARTY

THE BROWNS

SAUDADE

PLATO GOT IT RIGHT

MILLION DOLLAR BREAD

CATHARSIS IN PRISON

A NON-STEREOTYPICAL POLITICIAN

RED CRABS

THE SEAGULLS OF ESSAOUIRA

A MOST UNUSUAL CAMPFIRE

COVID DILEMMA

A NEW SUPERMAN

THE RULE OF TWELFTHS

ADRIFT

THE FRUIT STALL

HIDDEN MOTORS

WORD GAME ON THE HIGH SEAS

WHEELIE BIN

HUMANS ARE NOT THE SMARTEST

FARMERS IN ZIMBABWE

MUG SHOT

THE FINAL INJUSTICE

ROOLS BROKEN

THE END OF CONSERVATISM

THERE IS NO HELL

BLACKOUT IN DAKAR

A MILLION TREES

CHOMOLUNGMA

UNDERGROUND MUSIC

THE FINAL MOMENTS

THE WORLD AFTER COVID-19

ROLLING HILLS

WHERE IN HEAVEN IS HITLER?

––––––––

Preface

This book follows a handful of others I’ve written, my personal favourite being Moon Over The Mediterranean published by Brolga Publishing in Melbourne. Others have included Sophie’s Violin and Bubble & Squeak Australia. There have been a few children’s books, a book on chilli recipes, another titled Christmas with the Dolphins and a book on the toilets of the world plus another many years ago titled Laugh to Survive.

The one you’re about to read is a book of short stories, some of which are quite short. A few were written decades ago and others as assignments in various writing groups I’ve attended in more recent years. You will perhaps find a common theme throughout the book, one of compassion which I personally believe is sadly lacking in our world.

I hope you enjoy the selection.

THE SEAGULLS OF NAURU

My name is Aluma and this is my story. It is the first story I have ever written. What follows will take you on a journey, my journey which began in Central Africa, then took me to Kenya, Malaysia and eventually the Pacific.

Back in Africa, when I was young, I had a best friend called Neema. She taught me to read and write. We used to sit in the dust beside the road to Likasi and count the tourist buses coming and going to and from the town. Together we dreamed about having a job with a tour company one day because we just wanted to learn more about the lives of these people from far-away lands. They appeared so fascinating with their irresistible white skin and strange words. They were all so different from the people we knew, different from everyone in our lives.

I was born to a poor family, but only poor in what I know now. When I was little I thought everybody lived in houses of mud and tin without electricity and went hungry every day. We weren’t desperately hungry, not like people in some parts of Africa as I’ve learned since, but we never had anything as nice as three meals a day.

My brother and sister and I would play in the dust and dirt of our village, not thinking anything of our poverty. That was how it was. That was life. We played with leftover cans and pieces of bamboo. My brother’s special toy was a broken bicycle wheel. I was so upset that he had a toy and I didn’t. As I got older and wandered off more on my own, I remember looking everywhere for a toy as good as his, but I never found one. My brother’s name was Yaya and he was a year older than me. Being a boy, he found life in a poor African village easier than my younger sister and I. Because of his age, Yaya could go exploring before I was allowed to leave the compound. I enjoyed immensely though just sitting around looking after my sister, or watching with Neema the tour buses pass by.

Neema isn’t around anymore. She was eleven, the same age as me when she died. She was raped by drunk soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army. Soldiers, we learned from an early age, were supposed to protect us. These ones burned our village and raped the young girls. I was fortunate because I was sick at the time. It was one of many occasions in my early life that I had malaria.

On the day when the soldiers came, I was with fever in bed. I woke suddenly to a lot of shouting and screaming. A strange noise started. I discovered it was gunfire. I was confused and scared. My aunty was looking after me that day because my mother was harvesting in the fields. The gunfire became louder and holes appeared in the walls of our little house. The sound of the bullets was like a cracking noise. We became very scared, but when the bullets hit the tin walls, the louder bangs shocked both my aunty and myself even more. She tried to shield me, laying across the bed to protect me. She spoke softly and reassuringly but one of the bullets hit her and she slumped, blood trickling from her neck, a glazed look taking over her face. She fell right on top of me.

Within seconds a soldier came through the door, but he didn’t see me, just the large lifeless body of my aunt straddling the bed. I kept very still, and the soldier left.

Soon I could smell burning. The screams continued, the type of horrifying screams that make you shiver with uncontrollable fear. Some of the screams I am sure were from Neema. I didn’t understand what was happening but I believed my moments of life were numbered. I dreaded the thought of another soldier coming in and finding that I was alive. My only thoughts were of death. Would I see my killer? Would I look him in the eyes? Or would I be shot by a stray bullet like my aunt? A short time later when the smoke from the fires became so bad that I couldn’t breathe, my uncle crept in. I was out of this world with relief. The screaming had stopped by then. After checking for life with my aunty, he picked me up ever so quickly but gently. Then he gingerly carried me away. I remember none of the days that followed.

I discovered later that my brother Yaya was one of several boys taken on that terrible day. Soldiers from The Lord’s Resistance Army often took young boys to fight with them. To this day I have never seen Yaya again. I have never seen any of my family because they were all killed, I believe, even my beautiful little sister Rosine, my caring mother and father, everyone. The only other person from my family to survive that day was my uncle who rescued me when the village began to burn. We were the only ones who survived apart from the children taken to work as sex slaves, porters or soldiers.

Neema had lived in the next village to us. My memories of her were strongest in the weeks after the soldiers arrived and burned our village, because I missed her so much then. I missed everybody. My entire family disappeared in the blink of an eye. Even now years later I remember them all just like they left my life yesterday. With Neema though, I will always remember her screams.

Now that I’m older and have seen the world beyond our village, I realise that our school was quite basic, but I cherish every memory I have about my time there. We didn’t have any books. We had no pens or paper. There were a few chairs but no desks. We used to draw in the dirt with a stick, and when the rains came, that became very difficult. We had a blackboard though and chalk, and the roof of the classroom was watertight until the rain became really heavy. Then it leaked, and drawing on the floor was impossible. The teacher used to let us use the chalk then. Because chalk was a luxury, we more often wrote in the dirt on the ground. Our teacher was wonderful, always smiling and full of captivating stories.

Neema became my best friend soon after we started school. She had the only doll in her village and as I’d never seen one anywhere, it may have been the only doll in all the nearby villages. She said a tourist gave it to her. I didn’t know what a tourist was before then but I think that’s the reason we both had the dream of working with tourists when we grew up. For me, to own a doll would be the best thing. I used to pretend that my little sister was a doll, but she moved around too much and objected. Neema’s doll stayed still. We made grass dresses and changed her clothes every week, just like we had to ourselves, to keep clean.

Neema’s doll was called Madeleine, and I remember how much we cried when a dog took the doll away from us and ran so far we couldn’t catch up and we cried as we ran, our tiny legs no match for a cunning dog. We yelled as we chased, but we never caught up, never found Madeleine. From that moment on, we both decided to work hard at school because our teacher told us that if we did, the whole world would open up to us. We didn’t know what he meant, but we thought if it meant we could meet tourists, and maybe get another doll, it would be worth the effort.

I found it hard to learn to read, but writing was easier as long as I could copy. Neema made it much more fun. After school, we’d sit beside the road and read the signs on the buses and trucks that passed. She was better at it and showed me how. Just like at school, we’d write in the dirt copying as best we could what we saw on the sides of the buses. Slowly I became quite good at it. Neema told me once when we saw a strange sign that was hard to read, that in other countries, people spoke different words and wrote them differently too. I didn’t understand that because I didn’t know what a country was.

I wished in those days that Neema had lived in my village. I was always sad when she left to go home, wandering off into the distance like she did, turning to wave one more time, and then turning again, and again until she was out of sight. I got this feeling that I didn’t like in my throat, like there was a lump there or something. I wanted to cry, but I knew that was silly, so I held the tears back, but that made it worse. I’ll see her tomorrow I always told myself.

One day when she came to school, she was very sad. Her father had died during the night. He’d been sick for a while. That always happened to people, children too, but not everyone died if they got sick. Some people got better. Neema’s father didn’t though. Our teacher told us that he’d gone to heaven. We cried that day too, sat on the side of the road and cried all afternoon. My mother cooked me a special meal of potatoes that night. I couldn’t eat. I tried but that lump was bigger than ever and I couldn’t swallow, even though I tried my best. To see the sadness in my best friend’s eyes and to share the pain in her heart was the saddest thing I had ever known, until the soldiers came.

The years that followed saw us living in a refugee camp in Kenya. There was a school in the camp where I learned to properly read and write, as well as other things like arithmetic. Those few years gave me a good basis so that when I reached my next home, I was prepared to buckle down and study as hard as I could. It wasn’t long before we had the chance of leaving Africa and going to Malaysia with the hope that another country like Australia might want us. I was in my early teens by the time we landed in Kuala Lumpur, but it ended up being no better than our life in Kenya. The only good thing in both countries was my schooling. We had teachers from England and Australia as well as local ones. I could learn so much from these teachers who came from all corners of the globe. I often wished Neema had been with me. I missed having a close friend.

I am now living on a remote island and trying to get to Australia as a refugee. We came here by boat, a very roughly built boat with a smoky engine. The island is Nauru, a tiny island in the Pacific, east of Papua New Guinea. This was not our planned destination. We were sent here by a big menacing ship. We have been here for nearly three years. I am almost eighteen. My uncle tells me that the Australian Government is trying hard to find us a place to live, but my feeling is that nobody wants us. I’m here with over a hundred other children, from many different countries. Some have been here much longer than my uncle and I have. People are not well, some are self-harming. Others are contemplating suicide. A few have succeeded. It’s all very sad and confusing. Recently even many of the doctors left. I don’t understand why.

Australia was going to be such a wonderful country, a nation that openly welcomes people from many countries and has done so for generations, but not anymore it seems. It’s such a long way from The Democratic Republic of Congo where we used to live, not just in distance but in every conceivable way. When we got the opportunity to leave the refugee camp in Kenya, we thought this is it, our luck has finally changed. But no, it hasn’t. Although we had a long and arduous journey which landed us in Malaysia for some years, we thought when we left there that Australia would offer us a great lifestyle, good education, medical assistance when needed, even a job for my uncle. Instead we are here confined to a depressing existence with little or no hope. We live in cramped conditions, restricted in our movements and in fear of our lives. We expected much more. Our dreams were limitless. We have already suffered so much. Some of the detainees here have experienced more than my uncle and me. In Africa and The Middle-East and other countries too, methods of torture are beyond the comprehension of most people. We are just existing, nothing more. Our entire lives are on hold.

Back home, what kept my country going was the illegal mining of cassiterite for mobile phones, the killing of elephants for their ivory and government corruption. I was excited to discover what keeps Australia going. I heard it was education, sport and nature, but I know none of this yet and perhaps I never will.

The only small positive things in this place so far from anywhere are that my uncle is here with me and I have discovered the soothing smell of the ocean, a smell I never knew until I arrived here. We love to sit together without words and listen to the music of the seagulls and other birds and to the waves as they break upon the sand, but I think we deserve more than these small pleasures.

That lump in my throat stays for days sometimes. People who make decisions about our future just don’t know what we’ve been through. No-one who understood would hold a fellow human being here indefinitely.

While living in this camp though I’ve had