Rigby Taylor

They ate out on the verandah as before, the few mosquitoes not putting a serious damper on things. ‘Tomorrow I’ve an audition with some insanely wealthy potential clients. Do you think you’ll be able to amuse yourself for a couple of hours?’ ‘Can’t I come and watch? I’ll be a good boy.’ ‘You’d be bored.’ ‘I would not! Who’s the audition for?’ ‘The Church of Fumutie are planning fifteen fundraising concerts in greater Brisbane.’ ‘What’s Fumutie?’ ‘Forgiveness, Understa

Thank you. Effortless banter is what falls from my lips at the most inopportune moment, seriously discomforting whomever I'm talking to, and usually ending in them walking away or threatening to punch my lights out. It's a relief to play god and let two people enjoy the same silly nonsense without imagining the other is taking the mickey. It's exhilarating to discover a reader with similar tastes in furnishing and imaginative coupling. XX

Mmmm. But I hope Hale doesn't imagine Mort wants a serious relationship - a 15 year age difference is seldom a good idea.

It's a wise man who looks before he leaps - but self-willed teenagers seldom heed wise advice - yet they seem to survive, albeit seldom in the form they imagine. That's the human tragedy.

Relieved at having a plan, he stood, brushed leaves off the seat of his shorts and was about to set off in what he hoped was the right direction when a smart green van drove past on the other side of the narrow road. The window was down and the driver sent him broad grin. Mort returned it with interest. With a friendly wave the car disappeared around the bend, leaving behind a young man whose future suddenly seemed less miserable. To be smiled at by a stranger was such a rare and wonderful event

He enjoys most of the things he does - gardening, woodwork, self-defence, sex with Raul, stripping, being nice to people... it's just that in between, things keep cropping up that his character won't let him ignore. Without his problems he'd be bored! We often get the sort of life we want, and he wants challenges. He certainly doesn't want the sort of life that most young people think is 'fun'. He doesn't like being with a lot of people, doesn't like alcohol or smoking or not getting enough sleep or not being healthy and fit... So he's never going to find more than one or two people who share his outlook. He's a real loner, and happy to be one. Certainly doesn't think he's missing out.

You want him to become yet another boring consumer? He's 16, a deliberate loner convinced of his personal invincibility.

You're absolutely right. Impetuousness is seldom a blessing. But do you really think characters change? He is what he is but surely he will not leap into the first car that stops for him?

Curious about an email requesting his presence at “The Five of Diamonds”, one of the Clubs he’d worked at, Mort took the train to Adelaide Street, jogged up the hill to Boundary Road, found the narrow cul-de-sac at the end of which was the service door with five red diamonds painted on it, and knocked loudly. It was ten o’clock. The trip had taken just under an hour. A few seconds later the door opened a crack and Paco the barman peered out. ‘Mort!’ His voice was shocked. ‘What’re you doing

The nitrogen doesn't kill, it's the absence of oxygen [hypoxia] caused by the method - just goes to show that everything taken/done to excess is poison - including water and oxygen not to mention alcohol and other drugs .

And thanks to you, Canuk for your sensitive reading and comment. Yes - it's somewhere up there near Cairns - not too explicit and...

And Lydia got an eyeful

And Thank you Jeffrey for reading and commenting.

Stefan’s hair had mostly fallen out. His weight had stabilised at fifty-nine kilograms, ten below what used to be normal. His cheeks were gaunt, and deep furrows across his brow indicated debilitating pain. As the days passed his condition continued to deteriorate and despite the best efforts of visiting nurses it was becoming clear he would soon have to be moved to a nursing home for twenty-four hour care. He was not keen on the idea. Lydia decided she’d had enough of running a Plant Nurser

Your hopes will be granted - eventually - but first........

Thank you, Skyacer.

I'm pleased you're pleased, Wesley.

Brawl’s dire prediction about the future awaiting humans was not news to Mort; what was new was his reaction. Until then climate change had been something for ‘those in charge’ to ‘do something about’. He knew there was nothing he as an individual could do, because the day of individual influence, if there ever had been one, was over. Although all governments were denying it, the planet was not in fact ruled by them, but by giant banks and multinational corporations that controlled all mass medi

As a general rule, Australians are no different from all other humans. Thanks to mass media that parrot nothing except the propaganda of the UK and USA, we are ignorant of the rest of the world and think we are a noble and perfect race, deserving of the high standard of living we enjoy. We also believe that our assistance to bomb and destroy other civilisations is done for humanitarian reasons - not commercial, and therefore refugees from those countries are nasty people who deserve to be locked in prison camps on remote islands, never to be released. We also believe that it is natural for our indigenous people to live in poverty, to be incarcerated at 25 times the rate of whites for the same offences, that it is in their interests to remove their children from them instead of providing decent housing, jobs and security so they can look after them well. These beliefs are genuine, so Queenslanders holding those beliefs cannot be considered to be evil, merely ignorant and too busy trying to maintain their wasteful consumerism to take a genuine interest in the rest of society. In other words, they are perfectly normal. Yes, this is fiction and I have deliberately tweaked some things - especially the behaviour of the few women who appear, in order to create tension. It is easy for the uninvolved observer to see the imbalance, but for someone like Mort, deeply involved, the world can seem a very, very threatening place and my exaggerations are one way for me to involve the readers' emotions in a similar way.

It depends on the situation. In my experience many women make it hard to like women. But this is fiction, Wesley. I'm exaggerating to wring tears from my readers eyes. It'd be a different story completely if everyone was lovely to each other. Having said that, I do believe that men make better parents for boys than women, are more genuinely sensitive and empathetic, are more stoic in everything, more inventive, greater risk takers, and that women should leave the instruction of their sons to the fathers after the age of about 5, and that fathers should be very involved with their sons, and that schools should be sexually segregated and boys should be taught by men and girls by women and............

We are a metric country, but we use the civilized spelling of metre and kilometre - however we pronounce kilometre like the uncivilised world - kill-OM-ita, instead of keelometre [no stress].

It seems to be a world-wide trend, Skyacer. As population pressures and unequal wealth distribution push us ever further back into the age of dog eat dog if you want to survive. The brief period of social conscious government was an aberration while the world changed from a basically agrarian mode to industrial, and now with the change to digital with all the possibilities of constant surveillance, we are re-entering the 'Dark Ages' of village life, every move and thought controlled by the "Lord" of the manor, which became the 'natural' human state once we left the forests.

I am delighted, Canuk, all comments are very welcome. Unfortunately, the 'social revolution' that started in 1968, died at the end of the 1990s as we moved ever closer to the type of society espoused by the USA. There's an ever widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and government encouragement and fiscal support of religious schools in preference to secular state schools is reaping the reward of societal divisions along the fracture lines of both race and wealth, and the expense of tertiary education is putting it beyond the reach of all but those with wealthy parents The treatment of indigenous people has reached a new nadir in the rates of incarceration, the lack of social services, removal of children, wealth, and general contempt in which they continue to be held by what seems the majority of Queenslanders. Every Budget sees a reduction in spending on social services. People are genuinely friendly and I like just about everyone I meet, but there's an alarming ignorance due to the self-censoring of all mainstream media to show only the point of view of the UK and the USA. Some of the nicest people I have ever met were poor Spaniards in Franco's Spain. This tale is fiction, and I have deliberately weighted events to stress a particular line of thinking that is held by many men who have been maltreated by family courts in domestic violence, divorce and custody cases. A balanced approach to fiction will confirm prejudices, a confronting approach might set people disagreeing and therefore thinking.

I have liked many women, but not in my personal space - as colleagues, fine, but every time I let one get close they start to tell me how to live what is wrong with my kitchen arrangements, that I should be more sociable - ... and then I discover the hairdresser and the grocer and the butcher down the road knows more about me than they ought.

Your wish is about to be granted. I sure agree about being 15 - at that age I sincerely wished I was already retired - the road ahead seemed far too complicated.