Salt.

The woman pulls herself into the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her eyes are staring, dead. An ugly, poisonous bruise is forming on the side of her face. Her mouth is swollen and split. The bottom lip has almost been torn off. There is blood everywhere. Over her face, her arms, her shirt.

There is movement and sound in the room. There are people here. The police. How did they get here? The neighbours must have called them. Again.

She doesn’t really see the people. To her they are just shadows flickering across her vision. Their voices are blurred, indistinct, as if under water. The red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles invade the kitchen, dancing maniacally around the walls, adding to the surrealism. All part of the same horrific dream. Maybe it’s a new nightmare? Impossible to tell these days, where one ends and another begins.

A policeman leans down towards her, attempting to talk to her. He reaches out to her. The woman whimpers, and tries to squeeze even further into the corner. The policeman moves away, deciding to leave it to the ambulance attendants.

Salt.

That’s what has set him off this time. She’s forgotten to put it on the table, and he has to get up and get it himself. He starts screaming at her, telling her how useless she is. Calling her names. Nasty, foul names. He pours salt into his hand and throws it in her eyes. So she "doesn’t forget again". To drive home his point he snatches her by the hair and throws her across the kitchen. He attacks her as she lies on the floor. Kicking at her body and head. Putting all his weight behind each swing. He’ll teach her! She tries to protect her face with her arms. A sickly crunch as the steel-cap smashes her wrist.

After aiming a couple more kicks at her head he bends down and grabs her by the throat. He squeezes. Hard. Then he starts to pick her up, his vicious fingers digging into her neck. She is choking. He raises his other hand and makes a fist. The wedding ring sparkles obscenely as it catches the light. He smashes his fist into her face.

The police and ambulance workers jump with fright as the woman screams and screams and screams.

After what seems like hours, the woman is led gently across the kitchen floor by a female ambulance attendant and a policewoman. There is a blanket draped over her shoulders. She is barely able to walk. She is sobbing miserably.

They guide her past the group of men standing near the table. Detectives and uniformed officers. They are talking in low voices. Every now and then one of them looks down at the body on the floor. The body of a man, his face and torso slashed. The snapped blade of a carving knife is sticking out of his chest, just where the heart would be.

"Salt" © Writing The Image 2007/Peter Stone 2003

Arrival

The woman looks nervously out the window. Oh, God! In just a few minutes ...

The pilot has announced they have begun their descent. Soon the plane will come down through the clouds, and the woman will be able to see the city. His city. Where he lives.

She shuts the book that she has brought with her to read on the plane. The book that she has stared at but hasn’t read a single word since taking off several hours before. Every time she makes the attempt, her thoughts run madly to him.

She can’t believe she is doing this. What on earth has possessed her to fly across the country to be with a man she has only spoken to on the phone, and on the computer? She thinks about the first time they "saw" each other in the chat room. How they felt immediately drawn to each other. How they started chatting and found they had so much in common. How, at the end of that fist time chatting, she felt, somehow, a little more alone than usual, and couldn’t wait until she spoke to him again.

Naturally things lead to e-mails and phone calls. Long phone calls. Conversations so deep and personal. She had felt in awe at allowing a complete stranger share so many of her secrets. Her hopes. Her desires. Her fears. They explored all there was to explore on the phone. They got to know each other so well. The next step was a foregone conclusion.

Let’s meet.

Now, after a lot of planning and soul searching, she was in a few minutes going to be in his arms. It’s what she has wanted for a long time, especially these last months. But there is still nervousness. And doubts. What if he doesn’t like the way I look? What if we don’t get on together in person like we do on the phone? What if? What if?

The plane has landed. The woman finds herself walking up the covered walkway toward the arrivals lounge. In just a few seconds reality will replace the fantasy. The door looms before her.

Is my hair okay?

Ten more steps.

Is he here?

Five more steps.

Will I recognise him?

One step.

Oh, God! Deep breath. Here goes ...

She steps into the arrivals lounge.

"Arrival" © Writing The Image 2007/Peter Stone 2003

As The Sun Fell.

This piece is a little different in that inspiration for it came in two parts. Firstly, there was the urge to draw the picture, which I followed, not really knowing where it was headed. Then, having completed the image, it was some five days before the words for it came through. Sometimes, that's just the way it happens.

It was four days since the sun had begun to die. Four days since a piece of it had fallen from the sky.

The soldiers denied that the sun was dying, of course. They said that it was the Gaijin; that they had a new weapon. A bomb. Hisao wasn't really surprised that the soldiers reacted this way. It was in the nature of their job to think such things.

Besides, they hadn't been here when it happened. Not like Hisao. They hadn't seen the birds fall flaming to the ground. They hadn't seen the brilliant flash that had seared his pupils, and which he could still see every time he closed his eyes. A flash so intense it burned his shadow onto the wall he had been standing next to. They hadn't heard the wind screaming in exhultation as it rushed past, fuelling the firestorm that engulfed the centre of the city. And, two days later, hadn't the sky wept black tears at the death? No. Despite what the soldiers said, and no matter how devilish and cunning they were, Hisao didn't believe the Gaijin responsible. He knew the sun was dying.

Now, each day, it rose and sank in a pool of blood, dark and clotted.

As the sun sank below the horizon, Hisao sat on the hillside, looking down at his home. The city where he had been born, which had nurtured him for all his fourteen years. The city which had died along with his parents and his two brothers. His beloved Hiroshima.

A coughing fit siezed him. He lay on the ground, writhing until it passed. He sat up, gulping for air, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He stared at the blood there. It was the same colour as the sky.

Image"Sun Lies Bleeding" © Writing The Image/Peter Stone 2007

"As The Sun Fell" © Writing The Image/Peter Stone 2007

Nana.

Nana always had a piano in her living room and, like pianos the world over, it had photos of family members on top. However, I don't remember ever having heard her play it. I'm sure she did - there was always a music score sitting above the keyboard - I was just never around at the time. Our family wasn't one to stand around the piano at Christmas time enjoying a sing-along. To be honest, now that I'm older and wiser (?), I realise our family wasn't much for getting together at all.

Nana lived by herself - my grandfather had died long before I was born - and in those days it was expected that you accepted widowhood as a consequence of marriage, and didn't attempt to seek out another's comapany. She lived in Auckland, one-hundred and eight miles south of us, so visits to her were sporadic at best. And I only ever remember her coming to visit us just the once.

I think I was about twelve-years-old when I last saw her. It was Summer, in the middle of school holidays, and we had travelled to Auckland to spend a week there, visiting the zoo, etc. We all had lunch at her house, outside on the back lawn, and I remember the smell of freshly baked bread mingling with that of the cold meat and salad, and the aroma of freshly mowed grass. Being a kid, of course, my only true focus was on filling my stomach, and adult conversation held no appeal for me. At some time, during our week in Auckland, my mother organised for herself to be ostracised from the rest of the family, and we were bundled in with her by association. But I remember that day as being a good one, and always will.

We had other holidays in Auckland, but we never saw Nana again. Every now and then some news would filter through to us about how the rest of the family was doing, and that's how we learned that Nana had been placed in a care facility after being diagnosed with dementia. She died about ten years ago, aged eighty-something, her mind scoured by Alzheimers, some twenty-five years since I last saw her.

I never got to hear her play the piano.

You know, I reckon with all the devices available for restraining a person's freedom, nothing could be as cruel, nor as binding, as the shackles placed on us by our own family.

Photo © Herman Krieger (Featured in the M.I.L.K. Collection)

"Nana" © Writing The Image/Peter Stone 2007

Birthday Treat.

Amshula and her younger sister, Paravi, were more than familiar with the wildlife that lived in and around their village; the silent crocodile that lurked in the river; the egrets that nested on the river banks; the elegant sambhar deer and its speckled smaller cousin, the chital; the big, oafish water buffalo; the chattering, mischievous band of monkeys that lived in the forest, and which sometimes ran through the village at nighttime; the fearless mongoose. Once, their father had had to chase a cobra, which had been attracted by the warmth of the cooking fire, from their hut. They hadn't seen the elusive tiger, yet, although their father had told them about how he had once seen one lurking on the edge of the meadow where he was tending the cattle. And the village owed much of its existence to the working herd of elephants owned by the village headman, so those great lumbering creatures were as common a sight as the scavenging mynah.

But they had never seen an elephant that was drunk before.

Ganesh Chaturthi, the festival celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesh, was only two days away, and their mother had sent the pair to the grove of mango trees to pick some of the fruit in preparation for the feast. The girls chattered away merrily on the way to the grove; both were excited about the coming festival. Their father had made the most remarkable idol of Ganesh, and they were certain it would be chosen as the idol of the year. And there would be lots of music and dancing, and Amshula was going to be one of the dancers. As they got closer to the mango grove, they heard a lot of snorting and blowing, accompanied by the sound of breaking wood and the occasional elephant trumpet.

They soon discovered the source of the commotion. A herd of wild elephants had invaded the grove and were gorging themselves on the overripe fruit which had fallen to the ground. They were having a great time, drunkenly bumping against the trees, grasping the brances with their trunks and shaking them vigourously, breaking some off in the process. Judging by the damage caused to the surrounding foliage, the party had been in full swing for some time. The girls stood and watched with bemusement, and they couldn't help but laugh as they watched the beasts staggering about on unsteady limbs.

Eventually, Amshula turned to her sister. "Come, Paravi," she said. "It seems Lord Ganesh has decided to celebrate his birthday early. We will come back tomorrow and see if he has left us any mangoes to pick." They turned back toward the village.

"Perhaps Mother will make something for his aching head."

Photo © Dilip Padhi (Featured in the M.I.L.K. Collection)

"Birthday Treat" © Writing The Image/Peter Stone 2007