Gone

I wake at 6am, and watch my mother get stressed.
Get my bags together, and all our boxes.
Load our car, and a friend's car.
Drive through a deary morning, past the the fields of palms.

I will not see these roads, or these palm trees, for a long time.
I am passing out of this world and into another.
And few people will even notice.
I'm just another person lining up to weigh luggage.

Hugs and waves, eyes shining with tears.
Sighs, and handshakes, and farewell notes.
More hugs and then a slow walk through gates.
I don't look forward, I look over my shoulder, at people I love.

The doors close and that life is behind me.
I'm just another passenger on a plane,
Trying to forget my home and get some sleep.
But no, sleep does not come, nor is it meant to.

An infinity of time later, I feel the wheels hit the runway.
I smell the fresh air, I here the familiar accents.
I love it, but I hate it.
But that is how it is when you are gone.

Firestorm

Caspar can’t tell if it’s the right building. It looks right. If it’s the right one, he might be able to stop the explosives. If it's not, he doesn't have time to find the correct building. He has to try. But how is he going to get down in time.

Jump. Caspar has thirty seconds to get into the building, and the only way is straight down.

        He shouts to the helicopter pilot, “Can you get me right over that large gray building building there?” Without a word, the man slows the helicopter down and hovers above the building. Caspar looks down. The fall will be a good twenty metres at least. There’s a yell from the cockpit.

       “You’ll need a parachute.”

       “I don’t have time,” replies Caspar.

       “But you can’t-” Caspar doesn’t ever hear what he can’t do, because before the pilot has finished his sentence, he’s out in the air, falling, falling, falling. For a brief moment he gets that horrible roller-coaster-ride feeling in his stomach, a fish of nausea swimming through him.

       Then his boots hit a surface. It breaks like a thin layer of ice under his weight. The roof slows him down somewhat, but not much. He crashes through the roof, bringing some of it with him. Very fortunately, he lands on a soft couch. But it’s not altogether a soft landing. Some fragments of the roof fall down on top of him and he’s suddenly surrounded by dust. He coughs a few times.

       As the dust clears he quickly takes in his surroundings. Opposite the couch, three or four metres away, there’s a white desk, and a tall woman with long, elegantly-curving, very dark-brown hair sits behind the desk. A golden name plate sits on top of the desk. On it, in black letters, is written “Miss Georgina Klinkfelder.” She stares at Caspar, both eyebrows raised high above her big brown eyes. Slowly, and in a soft and cautious voice, she says “Do you have an appointment?”

       Caspar looks at his watch. Eleven seconds.

He stands up and looks wildly around the room. Seven seconds. He runs to the desk, looks it over, looks behind the desk. Two seconds. Caspar looks up at a window at the far end of the room. Through the window he catches a split-second glimpse of the blinding light of the sun. And then the world explodes into a firestorm. In one long second, the beautiful wooden floorboards are ripped from their place, the walls are blown out as if made of a billion carefully placed dice, and Caspar is swept of his feet and into the air. For a few strange moments he floats through a roaring ocean of fire, as the world collapses around him. Then he hits the ground, and his eyes are instantly robbed of life.

An Unknown Memory

I was trekking along that old dirt path to the well. I carried an old bucket in my right hand. Around me, there was a paucity of people. Well, that was usual. It was the early morning. Judging from where the sun is, it's probably nigh on the sixth hour. My bare feet scraped on the ground, every footstep making a little sound. Chuff. Chuff. Chuff. Chuff.

My thoughts wandered, but my body automatically followed the daily route to the well. I could see it about a hundred metres away, sitting in the open, as the day began to brighten. I wondered mutely whether I would ever have a different life, whether I would have to walk this long and odiously insipid walk everyday, for the rest of my life.

As I reached the well, an image flashed into my mind. It was an image I'd never seen. I was a little stunned for a moment. It was such a strange image, and I had no memory of ever seeing it. In the image, there was a big...hole in the ground, and metal fencing around the rim of the hole. The walls of the hole were made of planks of wood, and the wooden planks went all the way down to the bottom, the hole got smaller the further down you looked. There were people leaning on the fence. Their faces looked calm, and not amazingly interested. But what they were looking at was definitely interesting. In this image, a car was driving on the walls of the hole, on the wooden planks. The man in the driver's seat had a bit more than half of his body out of the window, his hands held high in the air. But I don't know if the car was moving. Perhaps it is a model, a dummy, a fake, but perhaps he is driving the car with his feet, and the car really is moving. I can't say, I have only that single frame.

As I reached my abode many minutes later, I wondered, where that image came from? That picture was planted in my brain forever, and it still remains. I often wonder about it. About the intrepid man driving the car, the people looking on with little interest. That image was planted in my brain, and it still remains. But it will always be a mystery to me.

Unloved

I was walking upstairs to my room. My brother was coming towards me, a wide smile on his face.

I was angry. I was tired. And I didn't want to leave Brunei, but that's what ended up happening. And apart from that my brother had a village idiot smile on is face.

My brother must have noticed that I didn't look happy, because he stopped, and his expression changed from the grin to puzzlement.

“What's up with you?” he asked.

“What do you think?” I retorted, annoyed that he had asked such a stupid question.

“I haven't the foggiest. What's up?” he asked again.

“Haven't you noticed that we're leaving the country tomorrow? Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

I asked, as anger swelled up inside me.

A wide grin spread across my brother's face.

“Why are you so happy?” I asked, accusingly.

“Same reason your not,” he said in a cold voice, as his eyes bored into mine, never wavering. His face morfed into a twisted smirk as he said it.

We had lived in Brunei for 6 years now, and to me it was like home. I had lots of friends, lots to do, I loved it. But my brother was different. He had never wanted to move away from Australia to Brunei, he had never wanted to like Brunei, so he didn't try to. He stayed home almost all week every week. When he did go out his pessemistic attitude didn't bring him a good reputation. And if someone tried to get into a conversation with him he would answer questions in short one, or two word answers. Never speaking his own opinion. Always socializing as little as possible.

He had always wanted to go back to Australia, and now he had his wish.

“How can you not like this place?” I said, as anger inside me started the countdown to detonation and therefore explosion.

“Think about all the friendly people there are here, and you wasted away 6 years as a miserable teenager who sits at home all day and does nothing but read, watch TV and play on the computer. Never trying to be happy. I know there's not a whole lot of great places to see, like there are in Australia, but what about friendship?” I said all this in a rather pleading voice, trying to convince him of something.

But as I finished saying it his eyes went wide with anger and his mouth formed a thin, straight line. And I knew instantly that I had gone to far, but it was too late.

“Do you think I like not having friends?” he roared.

“You've seen me. I never go to Youth Group. I hate Church. If you're in church you're always sitting with a group of friends and talking. And you know what I'm doing? I'm sitting alone reading a book or just looking around and being bored. When you're on Facebook chatting to friends I'm watching TV or reading or playing computer because I'm bored out of my brains. Do you think I like any of that?”
 He'd finally stopped shouting and I stared at him, stunned, as his chest rose and fell rapidly in sync with his breathing.

I thought over everything he had said. And as I processed it in my head I realised the truth of it all.

I tried to imagine having no friends and having a brother who out shone you concerning friendship in every way except in the way of having no friends. My brother started at me waiting for me to say something. I suddenly knew what I had that he didn't: Love. Every where I went I had people who loved me and enjoyed being with me. He didn't have that except from our parents. And so finally I understood him, and why he was happy to leave.

“I never knew you were so unhappy,” I said, slowly. His forehead creased slightly. My remark must have confused him.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

His expression softened a bit and I stared into his eyes. They were no longer the hard eyes, cold as steel, they were soft, and gentle, but still with the slightest bit of fire in them. There was a moment of understanding that cannot be put into words. Then I walked past him and was gone.