new bit of my novel

Please put the Christmas tree away

We lived in a small house away from the city in Ipswich, it’s was a new area and we didn’t have neighbours on ether side of our house. Although the house is small we had a large back yard and the un-mowed grass tickled under your chin. The back yard stretched onto the Brisbane River but we were never allowed to swim in it after a cow got eaten by a shark while taking a bath in the river just down the road.
It was a great yard tho, swing sets and dad made cubby houses filled our childhood with hours in that yard playing cops and robbers, doll and space rescue with the swings as our rockets. Thorp was always one of the girls and he loved his sister just as much as we loved him, we were all an item our differences coming together and making one unusual person. We were each others shadows.
I remember it oh so clearly, one hot and sticky summer evening after a long day of playing when we were four; mum had just come home from school and fetched us from the yard while dad watched the football on TV. Back then we hated baths and as she chased us round the yard in hope of getting us inside had kinda turned into a game. This night was no different and as we darted around the long grass from our mothers grip, giggling and squealing, Sky tripped. Our came suddenly came to a halt.

As we grew the three of us found we felt each others pain, not to the same extent but when one of us tripped and got hurt we all felt some pain.

Mum ran over to Sky as she lay there in the long grass on her back holding onto her knee.
“Let me have a look” mum said slowly moving Sky’s hand from her knee to reveal a small cut surrounded by a large grass stain.
Mum lay down next to Sky and hugged her and Thorp and I made our way over to her.
We all lay there for hours watching the clouds drift by, just talking and laughing, watching day transform into night as mozzies fed at our bodies and mum shared us stories of her and our father back in the day.
This memory is truly precious to me.



My verdict has come.

Now I am not going to tell you too much about my brother, I will not tell you of how amazing he was, how he looked after his sisters on the first day of school when we got bullied for looking different to the other kids and only sticking to ourselves. I am not going to tell you how he would help mum with the dishes or how he spent his pocket money on us one time to buy Sky and I ice cream one time when the ice-cream man came round and he missed out because we had already spent our weekly $10 and wanted ice-cream. I'm not going to tell you how he and dad had an unbreakable bond and their shared love for music kept them practising together until thorp almost fell asleep on the seat of his beloved piano, nor how he would act out of kindness for anyone in any sign of trouble. I will not let you get attached to him or feel a strong emotion for him, I will not let you fall in love with his as ever old lady he helped put their grocery in the car did or as every teacher did when he would bring them sweats just for helping him with his home work even though this was their job. I will not let you know of his cheeky grin and love for life. Because if I let you know all this, then you will get attached, you will feel emotion towards him, you will fall in love with him. And when you even remotely form a relationship or feel for a person you are hurt when they die.




You turned your back and walked away

When we were born the test showed there was something wrong, we suffered from a disease and were predicted not to live to twenty years of age. We were to young to learn about it and to this day it is my personal choice not to know anything but it will be the death of me and on march the 8th 2001 when he was 10 at exactly 7.42pm it was the death of my brother Thorp after he had been admitted to hospital with strong head pains and lack of energy the week before.
Sky and I never left his side. Mum had the time off school and dad cancelled all his lesions.
Although thorp was not well he still remained more concerned about other people and would read to the older people down the hall when he had the strength. They too fell in love with him automatically, he just had that effect on people and would often comment to the staff about how much a brave boy he was when everyone else had their doubts.
Within the week thorp slowly lost movement in all of this limbs and would slip in and out of sleep. This monster that was set to steal our lives did that, slowly it shut down each muscle finally getting to your heart or lungs and you would die instantly or you would suffocate to death.

On the morning of his death Sky and I awoke in harmony to the sudden stabbing feeling that filled our heads we looked to his bed to find thorps mouth spilling with blood. I ran down the hall heart full of fear, grabbed the first doctor I could find and brought him back to Thorps room. When we got back mum who was in the room awake and attempting to get Thorp to lay on his side so he didn’t choke on his own blood. Sky was holding onto his hand, she was clearly in pain as well.
After this event and the blood stoped Thorp was put onto strong mind numbing medication and moved into his own room. All he did was sleep.
During the day the stabbing pain in both Sky and my own head worsened and soon the pain became unbearable and we were given pain killers by nurses that feared for our health to slip into the state of our brothers.
6.57pm.
The pain felt by both of us we knew was nothing compared to that felt by Thorp.
I left Sky and Dad in the canteen to finish their meals and made my way through the quite hall to Thorps new room where I knew I would find mum with him.
I stood at the doorway watching my normally strong and brave mother once full of life and adventure as she sat there holding her dyeing sons hand now a broken weak woman.
“He doesn’t want this pain.” I said softly.
As death slipped through his small frail body that night the pain of loosing our brother and the pain that he felt overwhelmed Sky and I and we accompanied our broken parents by his bed that night for long heart destroying hours as we sulked and mourned for the light of our family had just been switched off.