Photo by AlaskaTeacher

My goodly mate Adam

Was kindly and smart.

He had a big brain and

He had a big heart.

His IQ was thrice mine

Twice doubled and then

Paired with the first number

Plus three score and ten.

His spirit was open;

His largesse a crime.

He gave ten percentiles

Though he’d not a dime.

He moved through his life with

Attention and care.

He had all the fixings

He was all but there.

Yet ever so down in

The small of his back,

An unguarded portal

Open to attack.

A target for mean things

Like toothpicks and fluff

And burrs, glass and gravel

And other shite stuff.

Instead of a bandaid

Or maybe a shirt,

He twisted and strained to

Check out all these hurts.

This thing in its doing

Brought Adam to ground.

But when he arrived there,

Not a foe was found.

Ensconced in their bolt holes

Safe in their disguise.

They mocked and they jeered him

And bested his eyes.

Meanwhile the bright sunshine

Impatient to rest

Moved over the mountains

And on to the west.

Instead of a young man

With noble head high,

A hunched figure fretting

With bulldust and flies.

The day is not over.

The sun is not set.

There’s time yet to rise up

And over things get.

So stand to, young soldier,

Thy head from the sand.

Your heart and your brain seek

To know this fine land.

Press on ye regardless

Of everyday crud.

F*ck all of the numbnuts!

And go unto God.

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The leather was dark and fragrant.

It was a slow, hot day in the shop. Bec and Feisty waited for customers. She was used to it; he was out of his mind with boredom.

Bec wandered to the street display and retrieved the belt basket, which was almost empty. Feisty looked in and spotted a dozen spare keepers. He pushed two onto his fingers.

The leather was dark and fragrant, crossed with stout twine stitches bitten, no doubt, by some impoverished piece worker.

‘Cool loops,’ enthused Feisty, who was very easily amused.

‘Yeah.’

‘Why’d they send us so many spares?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Hmmm.’

To Feisty, everything had a message – sometimes obvious, often oblique. The best were those he invented: ‘omens of the highest order’. He resolved to divine the message of the spare leather loops.

‘I’m going to divine the message of these spare loops, OK Bec?’

‘Go for it.’

The toilet was even hotter than the shop. Tripping an angry dispersal of fat blowflies, Feisty dropped his jeans and sat in the oppressive fug. Perspiration dribbled down his back. A zephyr checked itself at the window.

Why send spares? Those poor buggers only make eight cents a day. Quality control? Sabotage? The desire to create an illusion of prosperity in the minds of Westerners. Now there’s a theory!

‘Additional loops? Of course Sahib, we have many, many loops; a veritable cornucopia of leather fragments for your utility and pleasure. Here, take some! Take 12! And go with God…’

Feisty daydreamed until, too soon, it was time to return to work. He’d determined the reason for the loops’ arrival. Now, how best to employ them?

A stock cabinet stood at the top of the stairs. As he chose paperweights to replace the morning’s sales, Feisty spotted a teddy bear jammed at the very back of the lowest shelf. An old, old stock item. Reverently he withdrew the bear and took it downstairs.

Bec moved the limbs and cocked the furry head. ‘Yeah we got ‘em years ago, but they didn’t go. We had a sale.’ She sat the bear on the register. ‘They’re from India.’

Feisty regarded her narrowly. ‘India? Are you certain?’

‘Yeah; says on the tag. See?’

Feisty clutched the bear dramatically, fingers plumbing humble kapok filling. Then he took a leather loop from his pocket and examined it minutely. ‘Do you know what we’re going to do, Rebecca?’

Bec fanned herself with a greeting card and grinned past her chewy. ‘I cannot begin to imagine.’

‘We’re going to use two of our spare belt loops to create a wondrous product from this unpopular plaything. And do you know how we’re going to do it?’

‘Nuh.’

‘Watch!’

Feisty seized the bear and threaded its arm through a loop. Crooning with satisfaction, he slid it to the bear’s shoulder where it rode snugly amid the fur. With mounting enthusiasm, Feisty repeated the process with the other arm, then stood back and gestured wildly.

‘Behold, Bec! I give you… Bondage Bear!’

Bec snorted, first in disbelief, then with reluctant approval. The tawdry gewgaw had indeed changed into something novel. She picked it up and felt the… arm bands. A butch teddy with a fetish.

‘Hm. Hm. Very good.’

The weekend ground on. Feisty’s interest in Bondage Bear waned. But not before he’d explored every positional permutation. On finding the composite discarded by its creator, Bec put it in a dim corner and forgot about it.

**********

It was a slow, cool day in the shop. Bec and Feisty waited for customers. Both were used to it. A strange man entered – strange even by the shop’s standards.

He towered over the counter, bones prominent at selected chakras, jester suit tattered under diaphanous sarongs. His feet were curled and petrified.

He greeted the shop assistants with rabbit teeth and one good eye, while the other took a crazed, milky inventory. Then he made for the dim corner and retrieved Bondage Bear.

‘I’ve just got to buy this.’

Bec looked sharply at Feisty, but on seeing him stunned, held fire.

Feisty recovered quickly, to enjoy the rarest of retail triumphs. ‘Will that be cash?’

‘Yes thanks.’

Bec shook open a plastic bag.

‘Lord no! Bondage Bear must be wrapped thus!’

So saying, Feisty put the bear into a kneeling position and trussed the arms behind it with a rubber band. The customer nodded. Feisty snipped a corner off the bag and tied it firmly over the bear’s head with raffia. Bec watched, mouth agape.

The strange man placed his purchase carefully inside a knapsack and beamed. ‘I’m so pleased I found this.’ And he swept away into the dusk.

Bec and Feisty gazed after him.

‘What, in God’s name, is he going to do with that thing?’

‘It’s not a thing, Bec. It’s Bondage Bear. Don’t worry, his mystical hand-tooled Indian arm bands will protect him.’

‘Bullsh*t; our belts are made in Sydney.’

Feisty froze, a horrified expression on his face. ‘…I see.’

Bec glanced at her watch. ‘It’s five-thirty; better bring the stock in.’

Marty did not want to hand in his gun.

Marty cradled the Ruger Sportsman lovingly, Circassian walnut cool against his cheek. In the lush park below, a puff of earth appeared beside the carved fairy tree.

Deidre gathered his grimy jacket around her knees. ‘Jesus Marty, can we go now? You said “one shot” – that’s three! I’m cold, and we’re going to get caught if we stay any longer!’

Counting to ten in Latin, Marty lay his weapon with exaggerated care on its carry sheath and faced his girlfriend. She looked away as he stroked her bra strap, then put her hand over his. Marty slid his fingers around her throat, his voice quiet and measured.

‘You insisted on coming, remember? I explained to you in detail the importance of today’s exercise. You said you understood my pain and would support me during this difficult time. I’m almost finished. You can either stand by me…’

‘Or what?’ Deidre plucked at his iron grip, tears welling.

Marty stilled and his eyes clouded.

She shuddered. ‘OK baby, I’ll support you. I’ll wait. I’m sorry.’

He endorsed her capitulation with one look and returned to the business of the day. Taking a cloth from his bag, he carefully wiped his hands then pressed them to his face, exhaling slowly.

New laws would soon separate him from his beautiful machine. After agonising deliberation, he’d decided not to seal it in his bedroom wall. Though the risk was slim, discovery would mean jail and he wasn’t going back there for anything.

Settling face down into the travel rug, Marty clutched his rifle and peered past the air conditioning units. The barren roof of the office tower was deserted, as it had been since dawn. Deidre curled into a ball between his splayed legs, warming them pleasantly.

He breathed carefully: in while looking away and out with each return to the sight. Gradually his concentration returned, along with the sense of solemnity he desired.

**********

The Fitzroy Gardens are a paradise for brides: rolling meadows, mighty avenues, follies and ponds. Dozens marry there each year. Hundreds more come for photographs. As a consequence, the gardens have become Melbourne’s premier bride sniping ground.

It began during the recession. Intersections filled with menacing youths, smearing car windscreens with jagged rubber devices. Oblivious to protest, they extracted change from red-light maroons, then fled before two-minute tides.

With the traffic-light market quickly cornered, the poor had to seek alternatives. One Saturday, a dishevelled woman approached a regal bride at the end of her photo session.

‘I’ve just taken two dozen behind-the-scenes shots of your lovely party.’ The dishevelled woman produced a film from her battered Pentax.

The bride regarded her sternly. ‘Yes, I saw you. I wondered why you were creeping around in the bushes like that.’

‘They’re yours for twenty bucks.’

An excited bridesmaid scampered up. ‘What’d you get?’

‘Oh, the best man tripping over the Esky; you pinning the broken strap; the chauffeur pinching a champagne. That sort of thing.’

‘And you want twenty?’

‘Yeah.’

The bridesmaid fished a note from her purse and traded it for the roll, which she pressed into her sister’s gloved hand.

‘Present, babe; from me. Who knows? Some of them might be ace. And what’s twenty bucks on your wedding day?’

‘Too right,’ beamed Melbourne’s first bride sniper, before darting away.

The craze spread like wildfire. From Collins Place to the steps of Parliament, photo sessions were plagued. Canny snipers raided opportunity shops for frocks and morning coats. Thus camouflaged, they became the bane of professional photographers.

Police were disempowered after early arrests led to lawsuits from snap-happy relatives (whose only crime was poor dress). Composition went out the window, ruined by strangers in frayed formal clothing – leaping, grinning and holding ancient cameras aloft to capture every Special Moment.

**********

Martin Banff had been a bride sniper. An honours degree in arts had earned him only a brutal factory job. Desperate for a better life, he took a redundancy package and failed miserably in a lawn mowing franchise – flogging his recalcitrant ride-on to death in a hailstorm.

He next tried pizza delivery, only to be savaged by the wolfhound of an incautious pensioner.

Too proud for the dole, Martin decided to use his expensive Canon rather than pawn it. He targeted an early morning wedding in his best suit and was immediately arrested. He was the first victim of bridal party fight-back, in which family friends pointed out unfamiliar faces to hired guards (who checked identities before calling police).

Martin was given the option of prison or a fine. Too ashamed to contact anyone, he chose incarceration.

On his last morning, four assemblies of sweat, tattoos and missing teeth held him down while a fifth went sloppily last. Marty’s atrophied personality shattered. He returned to society with only mismatched shards. And the human immunovirus.

He secured a cleaning job and a paper round. He rented the cheapest flat. He saved. A disinterested member of his father’s shooting club for years, he started honing his skills with the weapon he’d received for his eighteenth birthday.

He grew to understand and respect it. Then he fell in love with its latent power and began polishing it behind bent venetians in a nightly ritual of obeisance.

He picked up a girl at an early opener pub and told her he was infected. She didn’t care. A fragment of his former self insisted on condoms. Each night Marty sat smoking in the shadow of his rusty balcony – watching tar-bound trees and car parts and vowing revenge on those responsible for his heinous prison experience.

But before his ideas could crystallise, Tasmania’s Port Arthur massacre triggered a revolution in gun laws.

Marty had neither the time nor the resources to identify his targets. Morose and irritable, he spent hours with his rifle, bitter that their brief affair was almost over. Like meeting the perfect girl on school holidays and knowing he’d never see her again, Marty decided to make the most of his remaining time.

The Ruger was beautiful. Sleek and compact, its oil sheen was a potent pheromone to the fluttering thing in Marty’s brain. Cool even in summer, the blued steel clove to his face whenever he sighted: at the television, the toaster, a neighbour’s silhouette or the pulsing temple of his sleeping girlfriend.

Each leapt large in the powerful scope, free from fetter and his to dandle without interference.

He did not want to hand in his gun.

**********

Marty took a sick day on the last Friday of the amnesty. Restless and depressed, he hired Lawrence of Arabia, again. For the seventh time he watched Peter O’Toole stagger from Turkish headquarters, beaten and raped almost to death.

Later came Marty’s favourite scene. Mounted on a white stallion, beneath the disapproving glare of Omar Sheriff, Lawrence regarded a fleeing enemy column and screamed with spittle-flecked mouth and wild eyes, ‘No prisoners! No prisoners!’ Unable to resist his passion and conviction, his entire army joined him in massacre.

Marty brooded in the gathering darkness. Lawrence’s tormentors hadn’t been part of the column. Yet his revenge had been absolute. Perhaps the death of any bride would grant Marty the catharsis he craved. One shot, one life – and goodbye to his lovely, lovely Ruger.

The following day was Saturday; the office building he cleaned nightly would be deserted. The roof overlooked the place where he’d been arrested.

**********

Marty pocketed his jeweller’s screwdriver. The scope had taken a knock during the fifteen-flight ascent. Nerves were doubtless interfering as well. After this last adjustment, however, he was confident of accuracy.

He panned to a grove of elms, far from grey suits and gay dresses. Pale leaflets trembled in a gentle breeze.

The possums lay curled together like caterpillars. Marty selected an old, grey male. With a harsh PFFFTT! the bullet rocketed from the Ruger’s silencer. Marty observed the distant impact and the insane scramble of bloodied, sunblind animals. The sight was fine.

The bride was tall with sharp cheekbones and almost horsy teeth. She was handsome rather than beautiful; features to last long after pretty faces had gone to pot. Marty watched her laugh and converse with her entourage.

The rotunda ceremony had been brief; now champagne sparkled. The solid groom stood next to his wife, arm round her waist as if to stop her growing any taller.

Licking his lips, Marty settled his crosshairs over the woman’s heart. Her décolletage rose and fell. Abruptly, she stooped to kiss an elderly man – the father-in-law, if size ran. Marty switched aim to the back of her head. Annoyingly, she then left the rotunda to embrace a knot of friends.

Marty regarded his gun and suppressed a choke of sorrow. Behind him, Deidre snored softly. Sunshine streamed onto his unruly hair, the effect mildly intoxicating. First it heightened his sense of loss. Then, as he basked, it made him feel light-headed; even reckless.

The week had been serious and depressing. Now he was safe in his hiding place. His would be the first crime of its kind in Australia. Surprise guaranteed escape. Could he not have a little fun before consigning the Sportsman to destruction?

With mounting excitement, Marty targeted the groom’s champagne glass. How tempting to take it out first, just to spice things up. He grinned, then gasped as the flute exploded into a cloud of particles. His mouth fell open.

‘What the F*CK?’

He checked the safety, which he’d applied automatically on taking out the possum. He looked at the crowd. There was consternation, but not panic; the groom was uninjured. Had he gripped the glass that tightly? Marty shook his head at the coincidence then rose to his knees and stretched – scanning the horizon to refresh his eye.

Deidre murmured a sleepy protest and pulled a corner of the rug over herself. To his right, Marty noticed a breath of steam drifting from a pipe in the neighbouring roof’s air conditioner. Eyes wide with disbelief, he crouched back into cover and levelled his binoculars at the pipe, just in time to see it withdraw.

He wrenched his gaze back to the wedding party. The bride lay among bent heads, carmine blooming rapidly on her breast.

Stunned, Marty turned to see a dark figure sprinting to the stairwell. Through blinding rage he brought his weapon to bear on the fleeing assassin who had stolen his idea and ruined his revenge. Leading slightly and allowing for the breeze, Marty fired.

And missed.

The round smashed into a louvered window, echoing loudly. The figure dropped, rolled and came up scanning for the source of attack. Marty froze, monitoring his target’s fervent search. From St Vincent’s Hospital came the wail of ambulances.

Concentrating on his opponent’s next move, Marty tried to ignore a strange flicker of light playing over the opposite roof. Then the sun dazzled him and the penny dropped. The scope! Its caps were off! Marty lowered his weapon in panic and the reflection flicked over the face of Bruno De Souza, who immediately fired at the sparkling source.

The bullet slammed into Marty’s cover, releasing a vicious jet of coolant. Deidre sprang in terror from the screaming plume. Bruno saw her vault and was surprised at her sex. Without hesitation he drilled three rounds into her body, cocked his head toward the sirens and reached for the door to safety.

Marty stared aghast at Deidre’s broken form, then took fresh aim. Bruno’s headless corpse tumbled heavily down two flights before slithering to a halt.

The police helicopter descended, wheeling angrily at Marty’s pot shots. Marty knew that Special Operations would be along shortly. He snapped in a fresh clip of ammunition and looked back at the gardens.

A brace of gleaming limousines had just arrived for a shoot.

I staged this faux memory to appease my parents. Though the baby wasn't ours, they hung the photo over their mantlepiece anyway.

Assuming you have a choice, how do you decide whether to have a child? Though lacking experience, I have some observations which may be useful.

Population

Thomas Malthus was on the money when he wrote: ‘the betterment of mankind is impossible without stern limits on reproduction’.

The earth is a finite resource which is rapidly being exhausted. More people means more damage, especially when only one in ten thousand births produces someone who gives a sh*t.

The economic goal of sustained annual growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell. Since there are already way too many consumers on the planet, we arguably have a duty not to replace ourselves.

The Chinese ‘One Child Policy’ has prevented countless births, though not always through contraception. Achievement of the common good by personal trauma is no substitute for education and choice. The West would truly be won if we could only manage to put equal emphasis on both.

Fear

Those who maintain the world is too dangerous to bring a child into are correct. Not because it is, but because parental phobias transfer to their offspring – rendering them unfit for any environment requiring tolerance and flexibility.

Selfishness

People who say they’re too selfish to raise a child are also correct. And honest.

Innate Drive

I have no right to address those who feel a biological urge to reproduce. It exists. My only advice is that you examine your motive to ensure it is truly innate, since social factors play a major role in this area.

Parents and grandparents can bring enormous pressure to bear, especially if they’re bored, lonely, mired in tradition, dissatisfied with their achievements or obsessed with immortality (see below).

Religious dictates similarly skew the stats and should be ignored at all costs.

Stress

Next door’s baby is possessed. It projectile vomits, manifests nine personalities, howls through the night and makes its father query his sanity. I see him sometimes when I’m giving the hydrangeas a sprinkle before the sun gets on them. Nerves so shot he begs one of my Styvies rather than attempt a rollie.

While I grant that human resilience may partly be due to the drop-forge nature of child rearing, the conjugal screaming matches that rattle my porcelain ducks cannot be uncommon. One in two Australian marriages fails (and that’s just by legal definition). How many breakups are due to the corrosive demands of progeny?

Couples who imagine a baby will enhance their relationship should be required by law to watch five episodes (any five) of The Bold and The Beautiful before proceeding.

Sh*t

This is a cliched but, by golly, powerful argument for the negative. I did mobile discos for ten years, drove taxis for two, worked factories for seven and have clubbed for three. Not in any of these arenas have I encountered anything so hideous as baby sh*t. It sticks like Napalm, permeates like creosote and regenerates like a hydra.

How anyone could commit to a world featuring this element is beyond me. Surely the priceless idiom: ‘it stuck like sh*t to a blanket’ must stem from infant excrement? Unless I’m moving in the wrong circles…

Speech

Some say hearing a baby’s first words is one of life’s finest moments. Indeed, the rhythm guitarist from ‘Fluffy’s Chain’ rates this over the high of our first gig. Of course, if the first words are: ‘f*ck off’, this takes the shine off things. You should therefore consider the environment in which you will raise your child.

Play

This is where kids clean up. First, because they make you feel inventive. Second, because they then leave you for dead in terms of inventiveness.

When a friend brought over her seven-year-old daughter, it was with some satisfaction that I produced a vial of ‘Slime with Maggots’ (oh, to be at the pitching meeting for that one…). The child watched me exhaust my permutations for the toy, then swiftly tripled them. Several I have been too afraid to attempt since.

When the nine-year-old son of my Age of Empires rival visits, it’s open slather in the alternate universe of Lego. How I wish I had the courage to tip my bricks nightly in front of ‘Wheel of Fortune’. It’s such fun! But you can’t unless there’s a kid around, or you’ve dropped acid. And then those little people with their crazy hook hands and superior smiles can really freak you out. The same goes for the Fuzzy Felt ‘Carnival Fun’ Edition. What a bugger those demonic merry-go-round horses are so pivotal to every tableau. Only children have the imagination to work around them.

At Christmas, the potency of the play phenomenon is increased ten fold and even my flinty heart softens at tykes going bananas in pyjamas.

Immortality

All our cells die except those which go on to create new people. By having a child we cheat death – literally ‘living through our kids’. Whether you have your mother’s lips, your father’s palms or your nanna’s sense of adventure, you are a part of them that has not expired. And on rare, unsettling occasions, you can feel their blood coursing through you as they view life through your eyes.

That’s got to be some trip.

The Fonnie Flower.

This flower is called a ‘Fonnie Flower’ because: 

It’s very hard to find.

Once you see it, you want to look at it all the time.

It’s modest, yet breathtakingly beautiful.

It doesn’t compete with other flowers.

It thrives in dark, barren conditions.

It turns an ordinary patch of clover into a tiny paradise.

It opens itself to the world, regardless of risk.

It’s the pinkest thing ever.

The closer you look at it, the more you see.

It sums up all of nature’s genius and goodness.

It rolls up tightly in cold weather.

It has a golden heart that’s full of light and empty of evil.

The beautiful Fonnie Flower!

Prithee, stop and think:

‘Shall I wash and dry the bastard,

Or chuck it in the sink?’

Imagine all your workmates

Gathered at your side;

Fondling their bread knives

As you try to decide.

Picture sixteen Staysharps,

Keen and cold and true,

Dicing you to dog food

And you’ll know what to do.

Q. 1     How does one gain access to heaven?

The route to heaven is reasonableness. Those who live reasonably are treated reasonably when they die. This is fair, since reasonableness is seldom rewarded in life.

Reasonableness does not equate to mediocrity. It is a virtue as accessible to the anarchic bohemian as to the corporate executive. It means giving things a fair go. It means travelling through life without shafting other people or the environment. It means being gracious, hard-working, honest, generous, positive and grateful – not all the time, but wherever possible and according to ability.

Few can identify with martyrs and saints. Better a world of reasonable folk than one perfect person to every thousand arseholes.

Reasonableness permits redemption, since it is reasonable to suggest that destructive behaviour can be reconciled over time by constructive behaviour. The rule of thumb is to over-compensate. And given the uncertainty of life, it’s best to atone as quickly as possible.

Cooking with gas are the reasonable, for they shall get a fair go.

Q. 2     How does one deal with bereavement in heaven?

When the dead arrive in heaven, most nurse crushing feelings of loss – for their own lives and for the people and things they have left behind. The Time Elasticity Rule offers relief. In heaven, time is malleable; decades can be compressed into moments.

Most newly dead elect to fast forward eighty years or so. As a result, they are reunited with loved ones moments after their own arrival. Surrounded again by friends and family, they can better come to terms with what has happened.

For others, the grieving process is too important to gloss over. They quietly sit out their time at normal speed, waiting for those dear to them to arrive, one by one.

Yet even for the purists, grief fades faster in heaven than on Earth. This is largely due to the staggering variety of exciting activities on offer.

Q. 3     How does one avoid boredom when one is immortal?

Entry to heaven necessitates deification. But immortality is no fun if there’s nothing to do. Heaven’s Edutainment System is the last word in sophistication and flexibility. Because information and novelty excite humans, few are immune to its attraction.

The System makes virtual reality look like Snakes and Ladders. It employs the universe as a setting and time as just one of an infinite number of parameters. It is the mother of all role-playing games.

Yet this description is flawed, for what occurs in the System is real. In short, it allows an immortal to assume any form, in any time, in any place, for any period of time, with any degree of self-awareness and extraneous power.

The awesome power of the System is best illustrated by example: An immortal is chatting with friends over coffee. An argument ensues over the navigational prowess of the Laysan Albatross. Rather than check the facts manually, the woman decides she’d rather experience life as a seabird first hand.

She elects to return to Earth in the 16th Century as a day-old chick on Cape Verde Island. She sets self-awareness to cut in immediately prior to her first flight, but grants herself no extraneous powers. The weeks pass. The woman is the albatross. Only when she flings herself from the nest does she realise she is a returned spirit. Now she can really enjoy learning to fly.

She wheels and dives, revelling in her power. She discovers how to make incredible journeys, drinking sea water, sleeping on the waves, and chasing the ships of Magellan. After thirty years, she is drowned in a storm. At once she is back at her coffee. She relates her marvellous adventure to her friends and wins the argument hands down.

One man is so impressed, he decides to play the role she has just vacated, with a different choice of parameters. He is gone from heaven for an instant. Later, the albatross couple adjourn and compare experiences long into the night, replaying and reliving their favourite parts on the System.

From a tsetse fly on a rhinoceros, to a child at Joan of Arc’s execution, to a crater on the third moon of Jupiter. Nothing is impossible. There is enough to do and learn to fill eternity. Which is handy.

Heaven has everything for everyone.

Q. 4     How can somewhere so crowded be any good?

Some imagine that heaven is bursting at the seams, since everyone who has ever lived a reasonable life must be there. This is a fallacy. Heaven is not crowded, because only a fraction of those who have walked the Earth were on their first time around. The rest were immortals on safari, seeing what it felt like to live as a mother, or a farmer, or a refugee, or… whatever.

The beauty of the System is that when an immortal elects to experience a whole-of-life adventure with full realism, there is no need to create a new mortal on Earth. Imbued with the essence of his or her chosen vehicle, a ‘tourist’ is indistinguishable from the real thing.

People who feel they have met each other before may well be highly sensitive yet non-self-aware immortals on separate real-time adventures. It makes more sense for an immortal to experience many lives than for a mortal to struggle through just one. It keeps the numbers down in paradise.

No one likes a crowd.

Q. 5     How does one know if one is already immortal?

One of the most attractive aspects of heaven is that any of us could already be immortal. When adventure parameters are set to full realism, there is no awareness of immortality until death. You yourself could be an immortal, touring your life.

Those questioning the attractiveness of an adventure with full mortality need only consider the futility of playing cards for matches. Playing for keeps is infinitely more exciting.

The possibility that we are here voluntarily, free to return in any form once we die, makes the prospect of death less frightening. If everything we love is already in heaven, what have we to lose? We are able to enjoy every second and fibre of our existence free from concern about the hereafter, since we may well already be there.

Even if we are not yet immortal, we become so at death, provided of course that we have lived reasonable lives. The pain and suffering of our existence become as important as the joy and ecstasy, since they make for a more holistic life experience. And any unpleasantness becomes more bearable when it is known to be of finite duration.

However you look at it, you can’t lose.

Q. 6     What if one does not value immortality?

For heaven to claim universal appeal, it needs to offer something for the nihilists.

Some people maintain that on dying, they will simply want to stay dead. Since the success of heaven does not rely on everyone ‘getting with the program’, oblivion is a viable option. If, after a cooling-off period and comprehensive System demonstrations, the dead are not impressed by deification, they can forfeit their afterlives and disappear utterly and for ever. Few do.

Would you?

Fluffy. The Farting Biting Cat.

Deep in the hold of the airliner, the Farting Biting Cat bit angrily at the slim bars of its cage. Then, it farted. Growls of protest sounded from the other pets. These multiplied and crescendoed to shrieks of outrage as noxious gas filled the chamber and hung, like swamp moss, in the dank air.

Unperturbed, the Farting Biting Cat resumed its methodical shredding of the thick newspaper lining its cage. Sharp claws ejected from fat, furry paws, noisily slitting layers of typescript.

Every now and then, the Farting Biting Cat scooped up a clutch of tapers. Eyeing them with hatred, it opened its horrible mouth and bit with piebald gums and worn teeth – teeth worn from biting. Then, closing its eyes in an ecstasy of vengeance, the Farting Biting Cat farted.

By the time the ground crew arrived, the hold reeked of methane and was littered with moist, masticated fragments of paper. When a gloved finger protruded into the cage of the Farting Biting Cat, it drove its good fang through the stout canvas.

The sudden savagery of the attack tensed its muscles, causing it to emit a loud fart. The baggage handler recoiled in pain and surprise, leaving behind the tip of his glove and a morsel of flesh. This the Farting Biting Cat devoured with relish, and with a sturdy, contented, fart.

**********

Roger eyed Stephanie with anxiety as she released the Farting Biting Cat into their new home. She cooed and murmured to her pet, as it ambled from the cage and flashed its red eyes at Roger. Then, with a force astonishing for something so revoltingly obese and orange, it sprang and fastened itself to Roger’s chest.

Spread-eagled on his heavy jumper, the Farting Biting Cat bit his collar bone ferociously, its corrupt breath hot on his skin. Roger leapt back, smashing into the front door, his frantic thumbs digging into the folds of fat under the Farting Biting Cat’s forelegs.

With all his strength, he flung the animal to the ground and kicked it. The Farting Biting Cat spun across the polished floorboards, farting profusely with rage.

Stephanie shot Roger an angry look and stalked down the corridor with muttered recriminations. Roger slumped to the floor, bloody and unconscious.

**********

When Roger woke, Stephanie had already left for work. A note pinned to his sleeve detailed his chores for the day. He saw with dread that Chore One was to feed the Farting Biting Cat. A cloth bag at his feet held the ingredients for the Farting Biting Cat’s breakfast.

Swearing into the warm draught of the stove, Roger stirred a vile goulash. Eggs, beans, cheese and sauerkraut vied for supremacy over bubbling lard. His stomach recoiled at the stench.

From the end of the house, Roger heard a low fart and a disturbing crunching sound. The Farting Biting Cat was awake. He glared through the door and stabbed at the goop, which plopped sullenly and slithered around the sides of the battered fondue pot.

With a final stir, Roger turned off the gas and carried the pot to the Farting Biting Cat’s terra cotta feeding bowl. Hoping to deposit the meal before its owner arrived, Roger scooped recalcitrant gobs of the heinous matter and flung them earthward.

Before he had finished, however, the Farting Biting Cat entered the lounge, and farted.

Eyeing his nemesis warily, Roger steeled himself, filled the feeding bowl and stepped back.

The Farting Biting Cat advanced, regarding Roger through hooded slits. Roger retreated to the kitchen, took down a carving knife and clutched it to his breast.

The Farting Biting Cat glanced disdainfully into its bowl. Lowering its heavy, whiskered head it began to eat. For seven minutes the Farting Biting Cat feasted, not once taking its eyes from Roger.

Every time its drool-drenched jaws closed on a chunk of unmelted cheese, The Farting Biting cat emitted a long, low growl and a hideous, breathy fart. Nauseous and dizzy, Roger began to sway in the doorway.

The Farting Biting Cat straightened, having expanded to twice its size. Unable to stretch, it farted, then bit languidly at a flea. Roger exhaled with relief. Stephanie’s pet always slept after dining. He began to think about coffee and a shower. He was jet-lagged and let his eyelids close in a long blink.

When he reopened them, the Farting Biting Cat was gone.

Roger shook his head. The lounge was tiny, the coffee table glass-topped; no place to hide for something as large and smelly as a catcher of grass from a poo-ridden nature strip. He assumed the Farting Biting Cat had returned to the front room and stepped out of the kitchen.

The Farting Biting Cat launched itself from the bookcase, thudding into Roger’s neck and piloting him through the coffee table. Roger struggled from the glass-sharded confines and lurched back into the kitchen. The Farting Biting Cat rode shotgun, seeking his eyes, farting continuously and biting murderously into his scalp.

In the ensuing struggle, Roger dropped his knife. Sensing victory, The Farting Biting Cat tightened its hold and slashed open his forehead.

Blinded with blood, Roger’s desperate fingers sought a new weapon. Glass and crockery crashed to the floor. At last his hand closed around something smooth, which dovetailed into his palm with familiarity.

It was his old Junkers oven ignition pistol.

The Farting Biting Cat continued its attack. The pain made Roger’s hands twitch spasmodically and the oven pistol crackled with sparks. In preparation for the coup de grace, the Farting Biting Cat released a cruel, voluminous fart.

Instantly the pistol kindled it, sending a jet of blue flame into the body of its author.

The explosion was deafening. Billowing acrid smoke, the Farting Biting Cat rocketed from Roger’s shoulder, slammed into the lounge room wall, plummeted to the floor and died – farting and biting uncontrollably.

Nursing his ravaged face, Roger fumbled for the telephone.

The day had been quiet and pleasant, until a diminutive humanoid stepped past the caneware. The straps of her mismatched gym wear rode like tendons over her emaciated frame, binding her together.

I was certain I’d seen her before – in a colour-coded dissecting manual. Her eyes were tar-black and crossed. Her jagged teeth jutted. Three meagre sprays of greasy hair sprouted from terry towelling scrunchies; brown, smeared with molybdenum grey.

‘Owareyedarl?’

It talked. I gripped the banister and stared from the mezzanine. Her face twisted up in salutation, her good eye boring into me.

‘Good, thanks.’ Alarm bells shrilled. Druggie! Thief! Flipper! Though the costume was unique, the demeanour was familiar. I recalled previous dealings with the dispossessed and my manager’s insistent advice: ‘You can spot them. They’re over-friendly. They don’t stop talking. They cart you all over the shop until another customer distracts you; then they strike.’

Yet this woman was tiny. And we’d hidden the Thai sword after the terrifying Christmas incident. I was free to watch her every move. So why was my heart racing?

‘Beaudifulday.’

‘Y..yes.’

‘Gunnabehottertamorra.’

‘Really?’ My wooden words tumbled like blocks. What was she after? Her hands were spiders, scampering lightly and at speed over the stock.

Then she picked out a carved box and held it towards me. ‘Where’sthismade, darl?’

Her face got me. Suddenly, the drug addict was gone. In its place, a pathetically disabled woman, with no friends, no government support and nothing to do all day but seek contact with strangers.

I saw freckles, and echoes of what she once looked like. Privileged and whole, who was I to judge? Flayed with Catholic guilt, I pompously granted her the benefit of the doubt.

I lengthened my answers to her ceaseless questions. She was looking for a present. Pay day (pension day?) was Thursday; she’d come back then. She wanted to find a nice wooden box. Maybe for some tarot cards. What did I think? Did I know the tarot? Where could you buy tarot? Could you get lessons? What about runes; what were they about? Did I know? She didn’t believe in them, but you never knew, did you? Still, a nice box was always nice, wasn’t it? She could get one of those even if she didn’t get the cards, couldn’t she? How big were tarot cards anyway? Oh, so there were different sizes, were there? Should she get some cards first, to make sure they fitted the box?

And so on. I listened and responded as a community service. My good deed. Keeping up with her was draining and I willed her from the shop with all my might.

Finally, she completed her obsessive examination of everything downstairs and mounted the mezzanine. As she passed the register, she threw yet another inquiry over her bony shoulder. It was only after answering that I thought I detected a faint change in her tone.

‘Whatsyername?’

‘Paul.’ I tasted where the word had been, feeling like it had been plucked from my tongue. I shot back clumsily. ‘What’s yours?’

Again the friendly, lopsided grin. ‘Ronnie.’

Great. So that was the name I’d give to the cops if something went missing? Mistrust raised its hand from the back of my class.

‘Geez, yerdoin the right thing with this jewellery, with the glassanall. Otherwise people’d comeinere an pinch the lot.’

Surely this was proof she was testing the water. I decided to frighten her. ‘Yeah, we get a lot of thieves in here. Once we caught a woman trying to stuff a dress down her underpants. She said she was “trying it on”. Then she stood outside and begged from passers by until she had enough money to buy it.’

‘Geez, I’m surprised ya didn’t call the cops.’

Touché. Slippery bitch. That was it; she was gearing up for a hit. I resolved to stop her.

Then came the humming.

We play music from the countries in which our goods are crafted. I had on my 16th Century Indian chants. On quitting the jewellery cabinet for the clothing racks, Ronnie’s fingering became even more intricate and exaggerated.

She muttered comments, stood on tiptoe, peered intently, nodded to herself and hummed along with the sitar. The sound was awful, her tuneless drone spectacularly out of sync with music she could not possibly have known. Yet she persisted. And it grated.

At last there was nothing left to explore. She approached the counter, her wretched face wreathed in an oily smile. ‘Gottapen, darl?’

‘Why?’

‘I juswanna getta few prices down, ferwhen I come back.’

Yeah. Sure. I leaned back to witness the pantomime. It began where she had – the front of the shop. I winced. Christ, she was going to do the grand tour again! This time taking notes!

I had nothing on her. All I could do was watch, wait, and listen to her murder my music. Ten agonising minutes later, three school girls breezed in like a cool change. Ronnie looked up sharply, straight into my eyes. The kids can take what they want, Ronnie, but you shall have nothing! She crouched over a pile of rugs. Her paper bag cleavage sagged open, incongruously large on her wiry frame.

The sheer sadness of the ploy, if it were one, almost made me look away. Then the giggling girls sought my attention. I spun abruptly. Yes they could try on the f*cking sarongs. As I looked back, Ronnie’s scoop-necked leotard slapped back into place.

She stood and turned, her attitude subtly different. I spotted the faint lump between her breasts. The fruit of her labour. My pulse leapt and I swallowed. A thief in the shop! With the goods still on her! Apprehend her this instant! Go!

I stalled, terrified. I hadn’t actually seen the act itself. What if I were wrong? What if it were a… a tumour on her chest? How would I confront her? What were the rules of citizen’s arrest? Would I be able to hold her captive and call the cops? How long would they take? What if she were armed? With a blood-filled syringe? Would the neighbours help? Was her boyfriend outside? Oh Jesus! I can’t do it!’

Ronnie continued her tour of the stock, though with markedly less interest. It was time to get out. I stayed safe behind the register and plied her with a coward’s shower of questions, hoping she’d take fright. But she did not. Talking and humming, she paced herself magnificently, manoeuvring ever so slowly towards the door.

‘Thanks, I’ll seeya Thursday.’

In despair, I tried oblique guilt and answered sweetly. ‘OK Ronnie, see you then. Have a lovely day.’ Even then I stopped short of ‘God be with you.’

My harmless missiles fell at her feet and she slid outside, stopping to examine one last thing. A back scratcher. For a long time, she studiously dragged the bamboo claws across her mottled flesh; luxuriating in her triumph. Or just itchy.

I tore down the stairs. Eight hand-tooled candles stood mute on the shelf. Had there been nine? Would that I had counted them that morning. The size seemed about right for Ronnie’s lump. I mitigated my guilt with the shaky affirmation that she’d taken forty minutes to steal a mere $2.95.

Plodding back to my station, I regarded the fresh-faced school girls. For all I knew, their capacious school bags were stuffed with loot. I assumed a position of vigilance, methodically casting my gaze to every corner of the premises.

The fringed face of a young female materialised suddenly in the street window. She peered intently into the shop, her body shrouded by glancing reflections of afternoon sun. On spotting me, her small mouth dropped open and she squinted. Then she was gone.

Minutes later, she was back. Like a vixen at a bait, she crept tentatively into the shop. Her voice was hushed and secretive. ‘Where’s the… other girl… the dark one?’

‘She’s working tomorrow.’ Immediately I scolded myself for revealing information without reason.

The girl approached my counter and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘She… yelled at me.’ Her blue saucer eyes stared at length past her flaxen fringe. Then she drew back with a solemn nod, as if having imparted a critical truth.

‘Really?’ The warning bells sounded again. But this time my visitor had identified herself. The “other girl” was Rachel, who only ever lost it with thieves and threatening customers. After the debacle with Ronnie, I was in no mood to suffer either. ‘What happened?’

‘She… yelled at me.’

‘So you said. Why was that, do you think?’

The girl shook her head, hands splayed out in patent bewilderment. ‘I don’t know. She just…’

‘Yelled at you.’

‘Yes. That’s right. It was awful.’

The voice belonged to Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps the girl was insane? This thought angered me, because it clouded the issue. Could Rachel have misinterpreted her behaviour? I was gripped by uncertainly, bane of the reasonable. ‘Well, the other girl rarely loses her temper, it must have been…’

‘Oh please don’t talk about her! Look at me, I’m… I’m trembling.’

She fled to the clothing racks, patting her chest and hyperventilating. I began to think that eleven bucks an hour was a little lean for this sort of shit. Of course it was a stunt. But what if she were truly deranged? I shut up and watched. She calmed down and began sorting through the designer section.

‘Can I try these on?’

She held three garments aloft. I counted the hangars. Twice. There was no way she was going to make off with one of these.

‘Sure, use the left cubicle.’ The closest to the counter.

She took a long, long time. Customers came and went, receiving indifferent service as I kept my eyes on the girl’s ankles, moving mysteriously below the tattered curtain.

Finally she emerged, wearing the most expensive dress in the shop. It was a stunning, aquamarine creation with a lace up bodice. The sort of thing Tinkerbell would wear to the Hilton. Sequins sparkled from the hem, which cascaded in petals to the floor.

Gaily the girl pirouetted and studied herself in the mirror. ‘I love this dress.’

She looked fantastic. I tried to close the sale. ‘Many have tried, but no one has ever managed to make it fit.’

She slid her hands slowly over her breasts. ‘It’s a pity I’m a bit too big up top, don’t you think?’

I looked at her eyes, immune to her seductive pose. Though light years away from Ronnie in terms of technique, she too was seeking to beguile me, perhaps even turn me to stone. Well, I’d fix her.

‘My girlfriend has the same figure as you. She wears Elle MacPherson Intimates. The effect is stunning in dresses like that.’

A shadow crossed her face and she flattened her lilting voice. ‘Really?’ Abruptly she re-entered the cubicle. And lingered long.

To my astonishment, she returned two dresses to the rack and handed me the third.

‘Do you have Eftpos?’

‘Absolutely.’ I took the card. Sylvia Jeffries. A sale instead of a loss. I’d won. No matter that she’d yielded solely to quell my suspicion until her next attempt. She would find me just as vigilant next time.

The Eftpos machine said ‘damaged card’. I swiped until it took, extracted money from Sylvia Jeffries and wished her the most pleasant of evenings. She took her defeat like a pro.

Now I was humming to Indian music – in the correct key. It was time to close up. I tidied the clothes racks and checked the cubicles.

The empty hangar mocked me with great mirth.

It spoke of an exquisite $215 slip dress, concealed between the twice-counted garments Sylvia Jeffries had carried carefully into her cubicle.

Filigreed plastic speared into my palm as I destroyed the evidence of my second failure. It could have been the schoolgirls, but I think not.

Crazy, Drug-F*cked Thieves:                                     2.

Degree-Qualified Former Personnel Manager:   0.

Any minor twelve bar blues progression will do, as long as it's fast.

I’ve got a story, just for you,

about a girl that I once knew,

A girl born under a harvest moon,

in the house of Mars on the cusp of June.

The whole town got a nasty fright,

when Slasher’s birth scream split the night.

She grew up fast on the family farm,

long of leg and strong of arm,

And when her father’s tractor broke,

he harnessed Slasher to the yoke,

And downing raw meat, eggs and beers,

she ploughed those fields for eleven years.

When she turned twelve, as a special treat,

her dad let Slasher cut the meat

Of a cow he’d killed for her birthday,

to celebrate at a party gay,

But as Slasher slowly took the knife,

something snapped, and changed her life.

Deep within an evil streak,

bitter bile began to leak.

Sick of slaving all her life,

she killed her dad, and then his wife.

At the age of twelve, she stood and swore,

unholy faith to blood and gore.

Chorus 1  (fortissimo)

 Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher,

She cut off their heads and shoved them down her neck.

She’d chopped her parents into bits,

because they’d given her the shits.

When she was done, she gave a roar: 

‘I like meat, and I want more!’

So gulping the last pieces down,

she, and her knife, set off for town.

On the way, her pet dog, Stan,

bounded up and licked her hand.

She felled him with a fatal blow

and disemboweled him, top to toe,

While Frank, the postman at the gate,

met with the same grisly fate.

Just out of town there was a shack,

where lived a pensioner named Jack.

He was a gentle, kindly bloke,

who died at Slasher’s second stroke.

And with her hunger barely spent,

into town Slasher went.

She feasted hard, she feasted long,

on limb and brain, heart and schlong.

Then up into the hills she fled,

and in a dark cave made her bed

And once a month, for nine long years,

she fed on grown-ups, kids and beer.

Chorus 1

One night, Mars eclipsed the moon,

and all the good townspeople knew

That with the dawning of the sun,

Slasher would turn twenty-one

And though it caused and awful rift,

they chose among themselves a gift.

A boy with hair as black as night,

complexion fair and body tight

Was stripped and scrubbed with sacred soap,

and tightly bound with golden rope.

Then, creeping with the stealth of mice,

the people left their sacrifice.

On her birthday, Slasher stirred,

and took the boy without a word.

As she prepared herself to feed,

she caught his eye, and felt a need

That hitherto she had not known,

the seeds of love had just been sown.

‘Young boy, will you marry me? 

We’ll live in filth, beside the sea.

I’ll catch people, you’ll catch fish,

and I’ll fulfill your every wish.

And look!  To show you how I’m fond,

I’ve loosened all your golden bonds.’

When he was free the boy stood tall

and grabbed her knife from off the wall.

He plunged it in her beating heart,

and then the blood began to start.

It flowed ’til half past six that night,

when, at the climax of their fight:

Chorus 2  (fortissimo)

Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher, Slasher,

He cut off her head and shoved it down her neck.