Writer's Prompts Daily

My wedding vow

2010-07-09T10:43:00.000+10:00

Paul, I call upon the natural elements present, the ancestors of the traditional owners and all our friends and family with us today, to hear the raw honesty of my vow to you:

Darling, my friend, my desire; consider this a star chart that you may seek sail from at any time.

I love you stars and moons and will until I embrace the end of our immense universe.

You are my light and my darkness, my breeze and my cyclone, my ocean and my land, my storm and my rainbow: what better balance of nature could I hope for.
I give to you something that I have never given to anyone else: my true self, alone and adrift on the single, set, cell of a map, never to be investigated by anyone else.

This is the least and the most that I have to give to you. Nobody has ever discovered this place before and I have worked hard to keep it protected from the pirates of life.

I PROMISE that I will let you in to my most private quarter: the Captain's Cabin that is sacrosanct to all but the solitary salty dog seeking a palace of peace from a weather beaten existence. You are the only sailor ever allowed into my space: my fellow captain.

Even when my cabin walls are reinforced with cemented silence and cyclone bolts, I will call on the elements to tear them down and assault me with the terrifying rage of knowing there's nowhere to hide. I will see your image and allow you to remind me.

Forever more I seek my shelter in your wind of change. I will turn my face to the stinging salt spray that puffs my eyes and sniffs into my soul. I will stand up, strong, against the craggy, barren, wind swept, lonely horizon in the distance that has become so familiar to me that I have over identified with it and consciously become it: distant and solitary. Its comfort even seduces me now: show nothing, protect your inner self, beware of the rocks and go further out to sea, no one must enter. This pain of change, this song of the sea meets land, will be our rainbow.

I feel vulnerable sharing my inner thoughts. I will feel exposed when I begin to verse you of my intense fear, yet malnourished bravery, in allowing you into my most private space. I ask of you gentle reminders and acceptance of my truth as the gang plank away from the rocking ship and back toward the rain bowed horizon that encompasses people. However vulnerable I feel, you, Paul, are welcome in my space.

This is my promise to you.

Now can I have some Mungalli Cheese cake? They look bloody delicious!

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Jackanoly, rolly poley.

2010-07-03T06:23:00.000+10:00

Round the wheel went, wobbly like. Round, crocked-round, wobble, pliff-bonk! It gave way under her weight.

She looked at him through her fat slits of eyes. "Idiot," she howled, not under her breath quietly.

He looked at her. "Fat pig," he murmured under his breath so Mum wouldn't hear and fat girl wouldn't hit him from here to China.

Mum heard him. Fair dinkum, she could hear a mandarin being peeled in the bathroom - with the door closed!

"Simon! Come here. Now." Her voice had the angry tone. He was in trouble again. I agree with fat Jackie for once. He is an idiot! If he just thought the truth about Jackie, without ever saying it, he wouldn't be in trouble from Mum all the time. I guess being one year younger than my twelve years meant he hadn’t yet learnt that you just think some things and NEVER say them aloud.

Simon walked slowly and stupidly toward the verandah to get his punishment over and done with. Within minutes, he sidled back to us as if he'd had a good wallop across his skinny little behind.

"What'd Mum do this time Simple Simon? You're such an idiot. You shouldn't even push Jackie in that old pram. She's so fat that the tyres were never going to hold her."

"Shut up Melissa. You're the idiot. Take Jackie home before I bash her face in. I hate the fat pig."

Jackie jumped out of the lopsided pram and loped to the clothesline. She tried to monkey up the straight stick bit, but it buckled under her weight like it was a banana tree. I couldn't hold my laughter back. It was so funny. Mum heard me laughing. She came storming out to clip me under the ear for laughing at Jackie but when she saw the bendy clothesline, she screamed instead.

"Oh no! Which one of you little monsters broke my new clothesline?"

Simon and I pointed straight at Jackie. It was usually Simon that dobbed on her and got into trouble for tiddle tattling, but this time I was going to stick up for him. It was about time that Jackie got in trouble for her naughty ways.

For once Mum believed us. She looked us up and down, and then looked Jackie up and down. Jackie was three times the size of us and three years younger than my little brother Simon.

"Jackie An-oly!" Mum barked scarily through dog looking fangs that showed when she was savage. "Go home at once!"

Simon snickered under his breath, "Serves you right."

Lucky for Simon, the bent clothesline was cemented into the ground. If it wasn't he would have had to pooh it out because Mum would surely have rammed it down his throat.

Mum was thunder. She roared into the house and started vacuuming. Mum only did housework when she was furious. We liked it because it meant Mum was too busy to get into us for getting into Jackie.

I looked at Jackie, still sitting at the bottom of the clothesline. "You've done it this time Jack. Mum won't let you come here any more."

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Simon followed me up with.

The vacuum cleaner had stopped just one second before Simon spoke his truth. He didn't have time to shut his mouth. It was too late. Mum overheard him call fat Jack bad rubbish and she screeched for Simon.

Simon ran for his life, way down the back garden, over the fence and disappeared into the An-oly's yard.

Jackie purred and smirked; pointing toward the spot where Simon disappeared. Unable to hide her glee, she fell on the ground in fits of laughter.

"I detest you," I thought to myself. "How could one kid be so naughty but get everyone else into so much trouble." I knew better than to speak my thoughts aloud. I leant a long time ago that if I controlled my face then nobody could read my thoughts. That way I could think bad things about our neighbour and not get into trouble for it. Simon though, he was a slow learner. He thought he could whisper and get away with it. He was so keen to make sure Jackie knew we loathed her that he just had to say it loud enough for her to hear. Like I said before, Mum could hear a mandarin being peeled so Simon needed to learn my strategy of control.

By the sound of the snarling over the fence, Simon was bailed up by the An-oly's three Dobermans. He’d have to move fast to jump the side fence and get to safety – away from Mr. An-oly and his dogs. The whole An-oly family was fat and nasty, the dogs too, and nobody liked the An-olys or their vicious snarly pets. Mum said she felt sorry for little Jackie and we had to be nice to the little beast. According to Mum, Jackie’s dad was a wife-bashing loser and her Mum was a good housekeeper so that Mr. An-oly could be a loser in clean comfort. Mum swore to God that if we did anything mean to poor little Jackie that she'd feed us to the Dobermans herself.

So, we never touched her. I never said unkind words, just thought them and poor old Simon hadn't quiet worked out how to be horrible nicely.

Still rolling around cacking her fat little heart out, Jackie hadn't noticed our dog's freshly dropped dodo right near her head.

"Onya Poley," I thought to myself, "You're a good dog for doing your business right there."

It was only a moment before dear little Jackie steam rolled Poley's pile of pooh into sticky pikelet batter. It stuck to her hair, her face, but best of all it got into the laughing hole above her fat rolled chin.

The site of Jackie An-oly's head covered in doggy dodo was too much for my thoughts only strategy. Giggling uncontrollably, I hoofed it as fast and as far as I could and left Mum with only one kid to growl at: Jackanoly rolly poley.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The trauma behind magical Mary

2010-06-28T10:35:00.001+10:00

Mary Poppins, a Disney beacon of hope and magic, had a sad, sad childhood. Given her early life experiences of child abuse, Mary started life as a symbol of anti-nanny propaganda: weekly magazine stories full of sarcasm and hatred toward those who failed to protect their children from the staff.

Mary was originally created to bring the middle classes to their senses. Mary's job as protagonist was to reflect the weak ethics of the stuffy middle class who chose not to look after their own children. Further, Mary highlighted middle class inability to provide emotional stability and child protection.

The lesson of the story was that the Nanny was superseded by parental development: the middle classes awake to their children's psychological needs and forever more parented appropriately.

But, Disney recreated Mary Poppins to make her a superstar, super singing and dancing, all time fantastic carer of children, animals and handsome suitors: a woman that the middle class Banks family just could not do without.

Mary's creator was Pamela Travers, a young Australian women. A survivor of childhood neglect at the hands of her middle class parents, this is the life story that developed a now immortalized Mary Poppins:

Born Helen Goff, in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia in 1899, the celebrated author of Mary Poppins was the daughter of a bank manager who drank himself to death by the time Helen was seven. Helen's histrionic mother, Margaret, dithered on for a few more years before also giving up on life and attempting suicide in a local river.

On a thundery night, Margaret Goff announced to her three children that she was off to kill herself. Helen, the oldest (age 10) was terrified. She was left, alone, to settle her younger siblings and she coped by putting them to bed, all three together, on the lounge room floor. In an effort to divert their attention from frantic thoughts around their mother's impending violent death, Helen made up fantasy stories about magical flying horses in faraway lands that would ride them all to safety.

Although Margaret returned, unsuccessful in her suicide attempt, Helen withdrew from
the hurt caused by her family and instead found solace in the strength of a spinster aunt.

Helen's dysfunctional family predicament haunted her for the rest of her life. She was never able to rid herself of images concerning the appalling fate of children whose parents were unable to care for them.

At 21 years of age, Helen changed her name to Pamela L. Travers. At age 25, she moved to London to make a new life as a writer. She never married, wore trousers when she wanted, had an affair with an older married man and eventually entered into a long-term relationship with another woman. Ever desperate to protect children, at age 40, a single parent, she adopted and raised an Irish orphan.

It was Walt Disney who rewrote Mary Poppins as a screen play (1964) and the forever ingrained personification of Mary Poppins as the all rounded protector of
children. Disney's movie made Mary Poppins synonymous with love and magic, whereas Pamela had meant for Mary to be synonymous with neglect and rejection.

It is reported that Pamela sat through the Disney screening of her beloved Mary Poppins with tears rolling down her cheeks. Disney had made Mary into everything that she was not. Disney had failed to heed the protection of children through the symbolic development of a nasty and controlling Nanny interested only in her own needs.

Pamela L. Travers died a broken woman in 1996, aged 96.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The blackness of a new world order

2010-06-27T11:03:00.000+10:00

Disease spread across the land like a black cock on a white hen. Millions of animals died. Herds and industry wiped out.

Scavenger birds dropped, dead, midflight and the earth began to morn the loss of her friends. Streams turned acidic and wells withheld their freshness.

An international disaster was declared. Live sheep export and lamb were wiped out. Beef and dairy cattle: gone. Buffalo, camel, horse, goat, ostrich, emu, fish, crocodile, kangaroo; everything farmed and wild, died.

Poisoned water tables affected food crop irrigation and fresh produce became referred to in the past tense. Life and eating as we had become familiar with and reliant upon was over.

The only survivors of the food chain holocaust were domestic pets and the small back yard vegetable garden.

It took no more than a disease to wipe out life as we knew it. The unprepared were left hungry and turned to the backyards of their sustainably savvy neighbours.

Domestic pets became the new staple and the traumatised institution of the family began to break down.

Violence pursued and suburban life exploded into warfare.

One family, and their beloved chickens, escaped the world and sought refuge high in the dividing range. They started life anew. Their first born chick, a black roster, embodied their hope and their future and hatched them a plan of sustainability.

Tough and sturdy as a Gurkha, a black race of chickens bred a food chain that would save the world from self destruction.

Black was the new life and a farmyard pecking order had begun.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Lesbians don't have long hair

2010-06-26T13:13:00.001+10:00

My weekly art therapy group friends gathered out the front of the property to admire my most recent sculpture. I had just finished painting and was still in the tell-tale artist's overalls and had my long hair tied up in a bun.

The pretty little thing with the flawless skin and worries not much more than having a dead cat, clasped her hands behind her back, cocked her head in a quizzical way and asked, “What is it?”

“I call it; You get what you ask for.”

A few of the group looked at me, suspiciously, and with complete unawareness written over their blank faces. Yet others laughed heartedly (they were the women I really liked) until a little wee squished out. Some poor morons walked around the piece and examined it from all angels of light, linguistics and symbolism.

“What does that tell us about our lives though,” asked the pretty little thing again. She took group therapy so seriously. She was the one who always did her homework, always arrived relaxed and perfectly dressed and cringed when any of the women swore. I liked the women that swore. They were normal. Pretty little thing fell far short of the mark of normalcy.

I considered telling her she was a complete dickhead but one thing the group had taught me was tolerance: tolerance of dickheads.

“When I was a child,” I began in my story song voice, “my favourite fruit was Mango. We lived in a farming part of Queensland, a place were Mango farms sold their produce at honesty stalls. I couldn’t pass one without crying out, mango, mango.”

I shrugged my shoulders and indicated end of story. “I got what I asked for and hence I dedicate my sculpture to this lesbian community.”

“I don’t get it,” she screwed her pretty little nose up, narrowing her eyes and indeed looking anything but pretty. She looked more stupid, more like they way she acted. At least she was coordinated.

I started to walk away, but I reconsidered. That frickin’ therapist had finally gotten to me: to get different results you must do something different.

My difference today was to help pretty little thing get the link.

Patiently and with a raised intonation at the end of my sentence to indicate a question of whether she was capable of understanding, I slowly pursed, “Man-go, man go. I am a lesbian?”

“I don’t know?” came her cute response. “I don’t think you are a lesbian. You’ve got long hair.”

Sometimes difference and patience just aren’t worth it.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

My first dive on the Great Barrier Reef

2010-06-25T16:46:00.001+10:00

Jumping into the channel was like jumping down the rabbit hole. I had no idea when the shark would strike. It would though. That much was certain. I’d seen Jaws. I grew up in Papua New Guinea and had first hand experience of how big sharks and crocodiles got.

The dive master assured me that the inner reef was safe. The big sharks couldn’t get over the reef rims, he said.

What about the smaller sharks? They still bite. They still kill.

And, what about in the channel? The channel was deep, boat deep. If boats could circumnavigate the reefs, so could sharks!

I was scared of sharks and crocodiles, no, petrified, but the pull of the underwater world was greater than my fear. I was going. The opportunity to scuba dive did not present every day and I was taking my slice of heaven.

Fear is an alien. Fear is an alien, I told myself as I geared up and jumped into the channel.

No immediate hit from a shark. I wondered how long it would take. I hoped I died instantly. Suffering was not really my thing. A recovered catholic, these days I figured the suffering was best left to the pious and insane.

Wonder if the sharks could tell the difference between a catholic and a protestant? I was protestant actually, just raised as a catholic.

Dive master hand signalled. Time to slowly descend.

I loved the minutes before a dive where Dive Master and his guppies checked hand signals, weights, tanks and safety precautions. I mostly loved it because it heralded the descent into paradise beneath. Here I was now, descending, but keeping a close eye out for sharks. I’d punch a shark if it tried to eat me now I was this close to my beloved reef. There was no way I was up for dying on the verge of the most magnificent scenery on earth.

Water is boring – opaque and endless (plenty of clear space to see those big dark shadows coming!) The ocean floor on the other hand, is fascinating and ends the opaque boredom of a descent. Rills of sand and dimples of substance reminded me of the moon surface. I hadn’t been to the moon, but I had been to the ocean floor. I LOVED the ocean floor and could happily fish down there for ever. The floor began to rise, to take shape, to serve up her pallet and to teem with waving, flickering, darting and pulsating glory.

The reef….oh the reef. The colours, the movements, the Nemo families, big fish, little fish, feathers, brains and rocks: all were provided to me as a smorgasbord of artist’s material to build life anew. I didn’t really need to build life anew; I needed to build a way I could stay in the depths for ever. I loved it.

Was it possible for the underworld to be this gorgeous? Perhaps I was stoned and tripping out. I’d had a reef experience alright; more like a reefer!

I reached out to touch the soft and hard corals, the shells crawling, resting and swimming before my eyes. I groaned in ecstasy into my breathing apparatus. I was enamoured. Surely life could not get better than this. It did.

A turtle swam beside me. He was huge, slow, spotted and he cocked his head to observe me for as long as he could while he pulled away from my position of stationary disbeliever. If it was possible to stand open mouthed at the floor of the ocean that would have been me. I was his groupie, his slave and his future wife.

The Turtle’s flippers acted like underwater paddles and I imagined an enchanted rowing boat, living a magical pirate’s life under the sea, pulling slowly away from the land lubber descended.

A second turtle swam to join its mate. Instinctively, I went to follow. Frantic hand signals caught in the corner of my mask. Oops, Dive Master warned me I was swimming to the edge of the outer reef, to a very sharp drop where HUGE sharks liked to patrol in hope of an easy meal – a meal that became so blinded by the magic of the Great Barrier Reef that they forgot what lay in wait on the other side of the barrier.

Blinded I may have been but etched into my memory and place of sensual existence is my first scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

ASIO: Australia's king spy

2010-06-24T10:33:00.000+10:00

Who would suspect a technologically designed lion fish capable of exterminating human vermin? Risley’s keepers and doctor’s didn’t.

Simba had been completed, tested, adjusted, perfected and trialled. He was an effective killer of kings. The last king exterminated was Risley, paedophile king of South East Asia. When snorkeling off Port Douglas, Risley stood on Simba and was envenomed with fatal doses of Lion fish poison. It was believable and location credible.

ASIO, Australia's national security intelligence service, had worked for years on removing the political constipants from our coveted South Pacific Islands. Rich in guano, Australia wanted control of the islands. Guano was projected as an organic fertilizer highly suited to the fast growth of sugar cane and marine life. Of particular interest to the Government of Australia though was preventing the demise of their greatest natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef.

Environmental studies consistently warned of the chemical fertilizer Urea bleaching the reef and destroying ecology and tourism by the year 2025.

All along the coast of Far North Queensland, the land barrier of the Great Barrier Reef, cane fields were fertislised with Urea.

To ban fertilizing would end industry and collapse tourist infrastructure. It was in the interest of national growth and international relations to ban political coups and dictatorships and to harness guano.

ASIO was tasked with capturing the resource. They partnered internationally and carefully conspired a tropical holiday to Double Island: a tropical island where Lion fish were regularly sighted.

ASIO waited. They fished and they perfected. They watched and tracked. They baited and manipulated.

Gordia Pitcairn Fletcher, current sitting dictator of Norfolk Island, scheduled to visit the Far North Queensland area in September, 2010.

Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland and Pitcairnian descendant of William Bligh of the Bounty, was positioned to immediately take over the administration and leadership of the richest gem in the South Pacific.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Beyond the roadhouse

2010-06-23T10:32:00.003+10:00

She said I drank my coffee like I lived my life. Fast and however it came.

Dumb bitch. What would she fucking know? All she ever did was sit on her fat arse and play computer games. She played The Sims; not even a fair dinkum strategy game. She was a loser. Couldn't even get a job. Who'd put her on though?

We fought a lot. Right now, I didn’t even want to go home. I’d just go riding; scrub bashing. Just me and me bike.

Her words got all stuck in my head, all scrambled up like and loud as shit. Christ, even miles away from her, in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t get that bitch out of my head.

I stopped for a shit. There was no one around so I didn’t even have to hide. That was how I liked it. I wanted to be free, open and live life in the moment. I wanted to feel and hear the revs of life.

Fuck. No toilet paper.

The leaves around the place all looked a bit dry and crackly. What did I have? Socks? Nah, needed them to put my boots back on. The bandanna? The bright pink and lime green bandanna she bought me for my birthday, with my fucking money. She loved it and said it was sooooo me. I hated it and was happy to wipe my arse on it.

I left it for the dingoes to find. Merry fucking Christmas.

I knew it was over and that I had to end it. She wouldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt her but, fuck it, I also wanted to smash her head in.

Time to make a decision. I could either head home in time for CSI or I could head north, head to freedom. I had my wallet, my swag and my bike. All the other material stuff back at the house was just shit. Shit built up from living together and not having the guts to leave.

I had guts and I was leaving.

I patted the tank, put her into gear and swung north toward the roadhouse on the highway.

I drank my coffee like I lived my life. You fucking bet!

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Adolescence

2010-06-22T11:59:00.001+10:00

On our way to heaven (the ice cream shop), we had to pass many purgatory paddocks of farming gone bad. As though the market crashing wasn’t enough, wildlife had finished the crops off. In an act of total anarchy and inertia, the lazy wildlife was lying around the paddock, having a nice little sun bake.

“Flat out like a lizard drinking and life of a dog. Where do these euphemisms come from? I’m so old, I just want to make like a kangaroo and hop straight into bed! Not to be euthanized but to be euphemised. Get it, kiddo? Wanna make like a kangaroo?”

“Grandma,” my adorable little Pixie stated with that look on her face. “You’re weird. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Ummm. Maybe we wouldn’t be visiting heaven on that particular day. Maybe, Pixie was in one of her pre pubescent moods and was going to dumbly question every intelligent thing I said and did. She clearly didn’t appreciate that a euphemism is a polite way to restate a rude or socially offensive concept.

Young people these days, they are so egocentric and lazy. All they do is hop from shop to shop and sleep. From now on I’m going to refer to them as kangaroos.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Flood of parental emotions

2010-06-21T08:23:00.000+10:00

The flood of emotions I felt when I saw the photos of my son helping his neighbours in the Ingham flood was like a tsunami hitting me. I couldn’t breath. I wanted to cry with happiness for his neighbourly empathy and his bravery. But, I also wanted to kill him. I wanted to shake and slap him, to scream at him for being so stupid, careless and idiotic. After the way he was raised to read the signs of the land and know the habits of the wildlife I was gob smacked to see him wandering, waste deep, through flood waters on the banks of the crocodile infested Ingham River.

Two women with a disability lived next door to him. He kept an eye out of them and did handyman jobs and errands for them. He was a good boy and I was proud that he cared about people in a worse position than he was in. But right now, I could just flog him.

As soon as I saw the Facebook photos of the flood, I rang him. I was furious at him. I yelled, I berated and I pounded the table. A good boy, he silently took my punishment and waited for me to finish.

“It was a calculated risk, Mum. Those girls were scared, had no electricity and no food. I could see them cuddling each other and crying and none of the other neighbours even gave them a thought.”

“You idiot.” I screamed even louder. “You put yourself at grave risk of being taken by a crocodile, just to settle some girls! Their support worker would have reached them and bought in supplies. You could have been taken by a croc. All gone. All over. No more. Dead.”

He laughed his quiet, sarcastic laugh. That laugh was the one that always got right under my fingernails and made my slapping hand twitch. Ohhhhhh! If only I was there with him. I swear to God I would have knocked his head off his shoulder.

Very calmly and in a tone that suggested that I was the idiot, he put me right back into my place.

“You forget, mother, that I never take uncalculated risks and put my life, or anyone else’s in danger. I had seen crocs glide by the front of the house and I had heard them barking. They were there. So was every dog in the neighbourhood. My bitch was on heat so as the flood waters came in several dogs became trapped on the bike jump in my front yard. I knew where the crocs were. They were all eyes on their favourite food: dogs. There was a new take away restaurant in Ingham – take away dog. Do you really think a croc would leave the dogs to come chew on a skinny little white boy like me?”

I laughed at his feeble attempt of using humour to disarm my anger toward him. But, his feeble attempt worked. My anger dissolved and I could appreciate that he read the signs of the flood well.

“From my one action of helping those girls, Mum, all the other neighbours felt shamed into also helping. Sometimes you just need one dick-head to do something stupid to make things better for everyone; to bring people together.”

Yep. He may have been a dickhead but I was proud that he cared enough to help another human being. I had raised a good boy, an empathic and caring lad. If only I could now relate that to him rather than always acting like the angry-crazed-woman of the north.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Over and up

2010-06-20T08:07:00.002+10:00

It was a long way up. In retrospect, coming down the falls was easy. I held my breath and braced myself for a few smashes…and, waited for my final end; the end of cricket season, no more chirping, bug against a windscreen type of end.

The end came via being sprawled atop a piece of debris. It was glorious allowing it do the hard work of reaching the river side. Awash the two of us, the debris and I, we willed that shore line to us and then lay silent in prayer and grattitude. Freezing, for sure, but I was just too pooped to move. My little legs had enough for one day. I had no more kick. No more extreme sports for me. Jiminy Cricket. That was an extreme drop. I am so lucky to be alive.

Standing at the bottom of the falls, looking up, I gulped down the evidence of the daunting trek ahead of me. I wasn’t sure my legs were up to the task. I had to hop to it straight away though. My family was up there. They hadn’t seen me go over but I am certain that by now they will be missing my chirp. Worried they will be.

Okay. Let’s do it. One rock. Two rocks. Opps, slipped back down on the moss and slime. One rock. This is going to take a long time for this little cricket to get back up to my family. Why oh why weren’t crickets blessed with wings?

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Weave of life

2010-06-19T07:45:00.006+10:00

Weaving my life together was a bit like making a pom pom: the weaves got cut in half and stuck out everywhere. Unlike a pom pom though, my life was far from cute and bouncy, colourful and happy. My life was like a great-big-fat-worm-ridden-dog-shit sitting upon a beautifully manicured lawn.

I had never felt so isolated. Even when I mustered the courage to go to the shop nobody made eye contact or said hello. I know this because I didn't dare make eye contact or say hello to anyone in the shop either. The shoppers and staff were far too together and who would want to acknowledge me anyway? The only time someone spoke to me was to ask why I was wearing two pom poms on my shirt. They don't match you know, the young check out girl chastised me. What would she know.

How come everybody else had great lives and I didn't? How come everybody else had friends, lovers (gee, I believe some people had more than one at a time), hobbies and interests. How come everybody else in the world had children. All I had left was boredom, pain and pom pom making.

The occupational therapist suggested pom pom making as an activity to focus, build hand eye coordination and increase movement in my wrist. That car accident all those years ago sure had stuffed my life around.and even though every expert under the sun told me to be grateful that I had survived, I didn't want to be grateful. I wanted to be dead. Depressed and isolated I was now. I wanted to cry myself to sleep every night (or day, I still slept a lot).What would they all know what it was like to lose a husband, a mother and two kids in a car accident?

I just wish it was me that had died.

So now I spend my day making pom poms. The counsellor said I needed to start with what I had left. It was possible to rebuild and to enjoy life again. NEVER, my head screamed at her. NEVER, YOU FILTHY BITCH. NEVER!

Five years was a long time to still feel the heaviness of grief in my chest, every single time I breathed. My eyes were too heavy with homesickness for my family to lift up and greet other families. That's why pom pom making had suited me. I didn't have to lift my eyes.

The kids would have loved to make pom poms with me. They sit with me, you know, every time I pull out my little work box. They sit on the chairs and I chat with them. I tell them all about the changes that have occurred since they were savagely torn away from life. I yarn up about their school friends, the animals in the street, the latest kid's fashion, where we would visit if they were here. If only they were here still. Oh god. If only they were still here. My babies. My life. Why did I have to survive? Please God, let me die.

One of the most helpful things the counsellor has done for me was to grow my kids up with me. Their woollens would be far too small for them now so why not remake them to fit life now, she suggested. I so wanted my children to look beautiful and to wear clothes that fitted them, have the knowledge that they needed, play with their friends and have my time that maybe once I wasn't so generous with.

I unravelled their cardigans, jumpers, shawls and rugs. I lovingly wound the wool into little balls of "mummy loves you" and, everyday, I recycled my love for my children into pom poms: little hearts of bounce and colour. I placed those pom poms all over my house. Signs that my children are still with me.

Why would I want to go out to the shop and talk to people? I want to stay home and look after my babies.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The day the water ran out

2010-06-18T11:07:00.000+10:00

They’d warned us for long enough: conserve water; do not waste, have shorter showers, use grey water on gardens, install rain water tanks, replace water hungry machines with water saving devices, replace taps, etc, etc. They spoke so much about it that I stopped listening.

I guess I forgot to take them seriously.

A grave decision had to be made at the local council level and immediate water curfews were ratified to preserve what little water was left in the reservoirs.

Households could access tap water only between the hours of seven and nine pm. Businesses, between the hours of 8 and 10 am. Accommodation houses would close by the end of the month because we could not spare water for those who did not pay rates.

Families had to become super organised and think ahead of their ongoing lifestyle needs. No sprinklers or hoses, no filling of swimming pools, no more fish tank top ups, water bed fills were out and fish ponds and garden water ornaments had to be dismantled.

I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t really think they’d do it.

I had dreadful morning sickness and the first day of the curfew I found myself without flowing water to damp my brow, wash my mouth out or clean my teeth. Making a cup of ginger tea was at the cost of another person’s drinking water: my husband's or my toddler's quota.

I wanted a shower because I felt like crap. I couldn’t have one. I started to gag. The morning sickness coupled with having no water was all too much for me. I couldn’t fight the nausea.

“Don’t spew in the toilet,” my husband yelled from the kitchen where he was wiping the bench with an already thrice used cloth. “If you spew in the toilet you’ll use too much of our bucket water in the manual flushing. Spew outside in the garden so the cat will eat it.”

I held the vomit in my mouth. I tried to re-swallow but it made me sicker. I spewed down the front of my Tee Shirt. Oh God. It tasted like poison: Bile that was acidic green and capable of making great stains or eating straight through clothing if not washed off immediately. If I left it, the ants would surely eat holes in my clothes anyway. Spewing without water is such a no win situation.

“You can’t wash that until tonight, sweetie,” husband supportively said with a hint of annoyance in his voice (or was the annoyance in my ears?). “I can only thank God we’ve got a water saving machine otherwise you’d have to hand wash. All the old top loaders have been banned. We’ll do a load tonight at 7pm. All our clothes together, though.”

It was so hot. I just needed a cool shower.

Fanning myself with one hand and holding the toddler’s body heat away from me with the other, I pleaded with my husband. It was all his fault. I’m not sure how, but it WAS all his fault.

“Let’s take Clinton down to the water park so we can cool off. I can’t stand this heat.”

He looked at me. Blinked. Straight faced. Serious.

“Shelly! The water park is closed. Never again will water pass through the pipes or tip out of the bucket. Never again will children and families happily play beneath the free flowing joy of the water park. There is no more water. All run out. Nothing. Zilch. Gone.”

That was when the water shortage was made serious to me. To think of my children growing up in a world without water play was a horrific thought. No water to swim or play in was like a global injustice. How can kids have no water to play in?

If only I had taken them seriously. If only I learned about water conservation. If only I had been a responsible mother I might never have experienced a day where the water ran out for my babies.

If only I again had the opportunity to start using water wisely and with my children's future in mind!

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Paddle Pop

2010-06-17T07:33:00.003+10:00

His old paddle steamer came to live in our inlet shortly after he returned from the Vietnam war: broken and out of steam. His therapy, he said, fixing the brokenness (his own and the paddle steamer’s) and he would thrust up and down the inlet day in and day out. Sometimes the paddle steamer disappeared and we didn’t see it for a day or two, but more often than not, there it was as we walked to school in the mornings.

The town cats loved it when he was moored close to the shore. They’d gather at water’s edge and call to him as they brushed their bodies against the palm trees and legs of the bemused children eager to stay and play for a while.

The old man, Paddle Pop, rarely came ashore these days. He was reclusive and not particularly socially skilled. He had no time for children or men, women he tolerated but only for a short chat. Cats he used to talk to and invite home for dinner. He said cats were golden animals and he loved them. Weird.

My Dad used to tell stories of a much younger Paddle Pop shooting up the moon and setting fire to the mangroves along Shit Creek (aptly named because that’s where the old outdoor dunny cans were emptied). People were scared of him but the town understood that the war had damaged his mind. There was a rumour that he was up to no good, probably running drugs, and his regular disappearances supported that rumour. But, nobody did anything because he was obviously hurt psychologically and because he had carried another two local men to safety after one of Vietnam’s most notorious conflicts. Those men died, but they died on home country, all because Paddle Pop risked his own life and carried them to safety.

Although not particularly prone to melancholy, I did like to sit and ponder life: my life and the lives of others. My favourite ponder spot was, of course, the park bench closest to the palm lined shore opposite Paddle Pops mooring. I sat there heaps waiting for my kids to finish school. As I sat I would frequently reflect upon Paddle Pop and all the dreadful things he had experienced. Poor old fellow. May he only know peace from now on.

Today though, the sun was so beautiful. I didn’t really want to ponder. I just wanted to stretch, soak up the sun and chill out before the kids assaulted me with their sibling rivalry and teen anx.

As I lay stretched back in my fantasy land of bliss and peace, a cat shot between my legs. Near scared me to death because I thought its tail was a snake! The gorgeous young ranga creature ran straight to the shore line and started it’s “I’m hungry” call. It rubbed its body up against the palm tree like an expert pole dancer and its purring sounded like the hum of a dentists drill. Another two young cats appeared and copied the behaviour of the little ranga cat. Wow! Thirty years later and the town cats still all loved Paddle Pop.

Paddle Pop appeared on deck. He looked as though he was preparing crab pots. Apparently he paid his way by selling crabs to the local restaurants. Quiet a killing he made so I had heard from the local gossips. He may have been mad but his crabbiness kept him afloat. The local butcher, also a keen fisherman, wanted to know what Paddle Pop used for bait. He said that Paddle Pop never bought bones like everyone else did for their crab pots. Paddle Pop, of course, never spoke to men so the butcher was never going to find out the crab bait secret.

Jesus, another four kittens appeared from under an upturned boat on the beach. Feral and spitting, they made it clear that they smelt something they wanted. Their stocky little bodies were arched and on edge, looking out toward Paddle Pop’s steamer. Their meows were coarse, rough and had a certain grating tone; a feral tone for feral cats I guess.

What the hell was going on? He really was like the Pied Piper of Cats.

Damn but school was out and my pondering time was over. I was picking up my neighbour’s little one too. My three teens hated her but they had been raised to know that helping people was the right thing to do. Jinnie’s Mum couldn’t collect her today so we would.

Jinnie sang nursery rhymes, skipped and asked 15 million questions followed by her own responses. A regular little-miss-useless-general-knowledge parrot, Jinnie liked to ask social history questions that nobody else would possible retain the answers to. Christ, the child was like the town’s worst gossip and she was only five years old. My three lagged behind, looks of thunder on their faces. I zoned out and went to my happy place.

My mind wandered back to the picture I had just been a part of on the water shore. What was wrong with that picture? I chuckled to myself: certainly the feral cats needed to become crab pot bait.

Oh my God. I stopped and covered my mouth with both my hands. Oh my God!

“Jinnie,” I asked with a new found tone of respect for the child’s local knowledge. “What is the average age of cats in our shire?”

“That’s an interesting question, Mrs Beazley,” the precocious five year old retorted (God I wanted to slap her senseless sometimes). “It’s an interesting phenomenon of this town that cats never age out to their natural death years. All of our cats die young. They either crawl away somewhere to die, never to return, or they are sometimes found washed up into the mangroves on the other side of the inlet. Some people say poison but I say a witch has cast a spell on our cats and they just disappear.”

What was wrong with that picture I just saw? That old bastard was using our cats as crab pot bait. He lures them with some cat pungent smell, sticks them into his crab pots and disappears for his little cat-killing-crab-getting expedition.

A kitten shot in front of us and cautiously hid beneath a Hibiscus shrub.

“Grab that cat,” I yelled to my Thomas. “Grab that cat and go and tell everyone to lock up their moggies and to never eat crabs from Paddle Pop again. That old bastard is about to find himself up shits creek without a paddle!”

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

My Princess Bride

2010-06-16T10:25:00.001+10:00

Isn’t there always a fight at a wedding? Scrimped and saved for a year to supply the Princess bride with a princess wedding and how does she repay me? She tipped a load of manure into the best man’s brand new burnt orange convertible. God damn I wished she’d tipped cement instead. I would gladly have paid for it.

It all started with a kiss.

Madison, the forced upon us matron of honour, came screaming into the reception, hair all a fly, sobbing and bleating about there being no cake left. Being a porky little beast and prone to a good dose of histrionics, I paid little attention to her.

Until I kissed her and quietly suggested into her right ear that she harden the fuck up.

Through her constant babbling at me I deciphered words that made me want to kill the best man, Madison’s own darling husband.

He had cut the carriage cake in two, right through the picture of my daughter and her delightful new husband. He was in love, Madison bawled, with the pastry chef groom…my new son in law. It seemed that Madison's dumb-arsed, burnt-orange-convertible-driving husband had apparently had enough of her histrionics, and now wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted my princess, and Madison, out of his life and instead wanted my princesses new husband in it. Oh my God!

My princess, not one to suffer fools or circumstances that took the attention away from herself, was surprisingly calm. As I shot the daggers of death to all of the orange convertible family members and friends, I noticed my princess on her mobile. In her advanced CEO manner, I could tell she was delegating specific tasks with a time lined ultimatum.

Princess delicately lifted her dress, just a tad so as to make walking easy, and headed toward her husband. She was so beautiful. Her perfectly straight white teeth (they cost me a small fortune, I can tell you), her flawless skin and her eyes all a sparkle, she was truly elegant and gorgeous. With her persuasive beauty and envious cleavage she coaxed her beloved away from the madness and indicated for the band to start playing the bridal waltz. Her pointed finger to band leader so expertly spoke volumes of control and immediacy that I mentally noted that I should take lessons from her.

As they waltzed around the room, all eyes turned to them. Cheers and clapping from the one hundred guests covered the noise of Princesses’ ninja background retribution.

My angel and her handsome husband magically slid around the room, skilfully greeting and acknowledging their guests, while the horse and carriage driver carried out her angelic instructions.

As the band ceased its play and guests unembraced their dance partner, a different genre of music wafted into the room. The mechanical clanging of a tip truck tipping was off set to a waft of manure. Guests fell quiet and all eyes turned to the unknown music of my utmost delight.

We looked on, helpless and unable to do anything. A load of horse manure was unloaded into a little burnt orange convertible, open roofed for such a delightful summer evening. The orange convertible was not seen by the truck driver who had turned off his headlights so as not to disturb wedding guests as he backed in to unload into his usual spot. The reception was held at a very swish landscapers show ground and how were we to know that the landscaper used fresh horse manure as fertiliser for his magnificent gardens. How were we to know that a delivery had been arranged for the night of the wedding?

Damn that girl did good. If only she’d arranged for a cement truck though!

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Getting paid to go slow

2010-06-15T13:50:00.000+10:00

I stared out my bathroom window and watched the young Goanna head for the chook yard. No doubt it was heading for a feed. Bloody animal. As much as I loved native animals, I considered Goannas to be the garbage cleaners of them all. Our resident Goanna family always stole our eggs and the Grand baby's disposable nappies (with their contents) out of the rubbish hole in the northern corner of the house block. The eggs really weren’t such a concern. God knows we didn’t have time to collect them. If those poor chooks weren’t free range they’d probably starve to death waiting for us to have the time to feed them. Thank God we didn’t have to walk them!

God almighty. Why was I staring out of the window? I may love nature and living a rural lifestyle but really, who has time for this country style, go slow shit. I had to get a crack on, get into town to see clients, get into town to earn my money for the day.

I thought, while I brushed my hair and applied my work face. I was sick of work. I’d worked for 25 years in high stress legal positions. I’d given my life to law, and now, as I watched the docile Goanna meander for his sunny side up, I wanted to copy him and meander through life too.

What had happened to my work life balance? How come I didn’t have a life? How would society change if we got paid to go slow rather than getting paid to work, work, work?

Hey! I liked that line of morning reflection. Really, what WOULD happen if we got paid to have a work life balance, to have the time to meander to the chook yard and pick up the fresh eggs? Oh yeah. How about having the time to cook and eat those fresh eggs. Or bake cakes. Yeah. I can’t wait until retirement.

Distractedly, I drove into town in my new Jaguar, and wondered if it had made me any happier or if it was just another form of trading futures: a trade to ensure I have to keep working in the future to pay the pretty thing off!

I was just so distracted this morning. I couldn’t get that Goanna and it’s slowness out of my head. Was it happy? Does going slow indicate levels of happiness or was I just getting really confused and projecting my yearning to go slow onto the Goanna? Why is a slow old Goanna called, Go Anna, rather than go slow Anna?

Pulling the Jag into my private off street parking space and facing the stony cold wall of legal reality, I became aware that I hadn’t made my usual waves and change stops on my way to work that morning. Every other morning I would thrown change out to the guys selling The Big Issue on the corner of Redwood and Maple Streets. My hand was always ready to wave to the high school kids on their way to Saint Mary’s and to point accusingly at the man with a mental illness who used to try and throw his faeces at passing cars. I was just so distracted thinking about the Goanna and it’s slow pace. Damn it. I wanted to slow down and have a work life balance.

Walking up the stairs of our office building I reflected upon my reflection in our heavy tinted glass street front. I looked tired. I needed a break. Breaking me in two, the door opened from the inside and my husband hung out enough to prevent me entering and enough to deliver me his urgency.

“Young Harris was arrested for speeding last night. He’s been charged under the new Hooning laws. He’s up before Magistrate Green. Quick, head back to the court house will you, Anna. Go talk to Harris before the duty solicitor gets to him. Go, Anna. Go!

Yeah. Go Anna. Go. You just haven’t got time today to wonder how society may change if you got paid to go slow rather than getting paid to go Anna.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Mum, there's a shark in our classroom

2010-06-14T06:46:00.000+10:00

One too many phone calls from school to come and get my child sent me running over the edge. Not jumping, not slipping. Running and leaping, you understand. Like a mad woman. I was at my wits end. I wanted to die: to end the pain. May as well just throw myself to the sharks now.

I knew there was something wrong with him but just couldn’t work out what it was. Was it Aspergers, perhaps? Should I go for an assessment? My professional knowledge as a child therapist informed me that the worst was still to come and that I would be in BIG trouble if I hauled off and flogged this kid.

His school refusal did my head in. I would shake, cry, plead, bribe. He would stand his ground and there was no moving him. He hated school and he hated me. He locked me out of the house, hit me with a didgeridoo, lit fires and stabbed my beautiful couch with a knife. He would scream: for hours.All of that just to get out of going to school.

God, I felt like flogging him. He took every ounce of my good energy, every thought in my head and every smile I had saved up for the rest of my life. Our lives were miserable, totally miserable, and there was no one who could help us. Who the hell would want to spend a moment in our home? It was like a god damn war zone.

Our romantic times together mutated to us huddling in a corner of the kitchen, whispering to each other, shaking with raw emotion (definitely not lust!) and processing year after year of abusive incidents: from him to us. What the hell had I done wrong as a mother? It must have been me, had to be me. Maybe I was placing too much emphasis on education. Maybe the divorce had unhinged him. It was my entire fault. Pathetic I was. A failure. A FAILURE!

School said it wasn’t safe for him or the other children. Could I come and get him. Sure, I thought sarcastically. I didn’t need a career. The parents of my child clients don’t need the support. Me, damn it, ME! I needed the support. My kid was ruining my life.

He was diagnosed with Aspergers (thank God, thank God. It wasn’t my parenting after all). School supported home schooling. Bastards. They hated me too. Were they trying to completely finish me professionally?

Reality is such a bitter pill to swallow when denial is such a wonderful river to swim up. I liked work. No, correction, I LOVED work. Why do I have to be punished because my child has Aspergers? Where was the justice in this world! Home schooling is something for fundamental Christians. Why the hell would I do it? Hardly anybody in Australia did it. Home schooling was such an American thing to do.

I did it because I had to educate my child. We home schooled for a year and it was the best thing we ever did. I wrote a brilliant curriculum based on principles of unschooling and we capitalised on teachable moments. The lesson plans were based on field learning in our fantastic playground of tropical Far North Queensland.

Child only had to mention once about a particular interest and we were there, dissecting, experimenting, talking and experiencing: lapidary, Aboriginal rock painting, strategy games, hydro electricity, you name it, we facilitated it. Home schooling and listening to my child’s natural ability to learn was by far the best thing I ever did. It was in working through his latest interests and obsessions that our relationship mended, he became socialised and he developed emotional intelligence. The heat was gone from his life and the fear was gone from mine.

The fear was gone, except for my fear of sharks. I discovered he had a natural aptitude toward marine life and that he really wanted to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Typically, he didn’t want to just visit, he wanted to snorkel and dive.

I couldn’t go with him. I was scared of sharks. Husband wouldn’t because he just wasn’t into water sport beyond swimming. Shit. I was his mother so I HAD to go. The last time I snorkeled I came face to face with a reef shark. Under the water it looked eight feet long so I became Jesus and walked across that water to get back to the safety of the boat. I hope my excrement didn’t damage the reef!

My fears were unfounded, both about sharks and home schooling. We had such a great time snorkeling on the reefs around Green Island that we made it an excursion, once a term. We’d spend the day in our natural classroom and he’d educate tourists and tour guide alike. He socialised, he had fun, he relaxed. I never got eaten by sharks.

Face your fears and eat my shorts. Home schooling Aspergers on the Great Barrier Reef was the best thing I ever did for my child with Aspergers.

Note: Genre is Life Writing. Picture is of Boy and myself.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Steelers

2010-06-12T15:29:00.000+10:00

They groaned in the dead still of night and as the sun heated their hunger and sticking pads. Their groans were painful on the ear and a sign for all to flee from structures on the daily Steeler smörgåsbord. Jumping from steel to steel they would demolish anything that they stuck to; the steel they processed through digestion; glass, cement or human they vomited out. They tasted via the sticking pads on their heads and feet and ate through their anus. Able to survive against all weapons we knew, the steelers grew in strength and hunger as they devoured our cities, steel morsel by steel morsel.

Many had already lost their life. Some had been eaten and vomited out in a bulimic gorge. Others had been crossing the cities many bridges when the bridge gave way into the ocean below. Some, whole families, had been anally engulfed while trying to escape in their cars.

No one knew where the Steelers had come from. There was rumour of them being bred by the military in germ warfare labs. A lab accident, an escape, a devastation used against us that we only read of in horror stories. Yet other rumours had the super giants of the industrial world inadvertently creating life with the toxic mixes their plants and smelters disposed of. All that was known as fact was that the Steelers ate steel and grew in appetite with every bite. They did not eat ships at berth or at sail but ships in dry dock had all been eaten.

An unassuming chemistry student, with trendy thick green glasses, pimples and wild curly hair, emailed NASA his observation. It appeared to him that the Steelers were not consuming from steel junk yards. Why, he asked. Was their something in the chemical compound of rust that the Steelers could not tolerate? A solution may be to rust up steel to starve the Steelers out of existence.

News flashes resounded throughout the world. Every news channel, every air wave, was taken up with the declaration of the end of the steel invasion. NASA scientists had created a weapon of mass destruction against the Steelers. A think tank of the world's most brilliant minds had hypothesized that the chemical compound of salt melted the steelers and took life from their form.

Onto ships, liners, boats and junks, the people of the industrialized world moved. Combined nation's budgets pooled and sprayed our oceans over cities, countries and towns. Ocean water was dumped from above, sprayed from the shore, and pumped through fire hydrants and sprinkling systems. The world was turned to salt.

The groaning stopped. Steel structures were left intact and the Steelers were ground to rust dust. Curly haired chemistry student remoted his Plasma screen to sleep mode. He lay back in his ergonomic chair, hands grasped together behind his head, a look of consternation on his face. His cat jumped to his lap, wanting some loving. Instead of a pat, his cat flew across the room, hit the door and slid down to the tiles. In fear, the cat ran to hide from his crazy owner.

Unassuming student paced the tiles. His anger at NASA for taking the credit of his steely brilliance further fed his psychotic need to destroy what everyone took for granted. He paced and thought of another way to have his brilliance of creation and destruction recognised.

The cat. He would mutate cats to suck blood rather than lap milk. In his suburban den he would breed them up, a vampire breed, release them and hold the cure until the world was again bled to near annihilation. Only then would he send a simple email wondering if the cats were avoiding people with high blood pressure for a reason. Could it be the blood thinners they were on that perhaps the cats could not tolerate?

Unassuming student with the beautiful thick green glasses, the gorgeous curly hair and the looks of the boy next door, cracked a half smile. His left side pulled up and was swiftly followed by a belly laugh of floor rolling proportion. In joy, he kicked his socked feet repeatedly on the tiles and was mindful not to laugh so much that a little urine escaped his urethra. That would be uncool.

He was brilliant and now the world would know it.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Water Wolf Tree

2010-06-12T00:16:00.001+10:00

I whistled him when I drew my steel sword against the timber stealing enemy. It wasn’t until he sensed the fig haters that he chose to surface.

One hand firmly entwined in fast ropes, their bodies charged with theft, their steel instruments of death in their free hands, the pirates of Treeless Island were ready to board and pillage. Death, of course, and my beautiful pine ship would be part of their loot. But they had first to pass my watch dog.

I swallowed my bile. Adrenalin tastes like blood and I savagely spat my hatred of the timber pirates onto my wooden deck. Red fig seeds characterised my spit, and my fig spit was for them.

If this was to be my time I knew that my water wolf would finish the job for me and chew their stolen timbers to splinters.. He would avenge my death and sweep the pirates to their salt peter.

“Where he go?” the wooden legged fig hater challenged me. “Where that salty dog monster that eat sea fig. I dam his belly and pull plug on his life.”

The food bowl rattled and I knew my salty dog would take the bait. With a roar of hunger, up he rose from the depths. Both vessels dropped on his wake as the sea receded to bring on the dog tsunami: my salty dog water wolf.

Up, up he rose on his hind legs from his long suck of water. His shape was unmistakable; a wolf head and body salivating to the smell of fresh Treeless blood. Never had he sucked back so much of the ocean or arisen with such velocity.

As he galloped toward our ships his growl instructed me to lash my sailors in. Barking my own commands to tie them selves down I fumbled for the coil beside the life boat. My fumbling met only with a clear deck and no time for error. There was nothing to lash with.

It was then I knew my water wolf would be left to howl alone that night as I floated in the big dip waiting for the sharks to break me into fish food. My death was quick and my watery coffin sweetened by the smell of dog and sea fig.

The pirates were gone, smashed to pieces in the jaws of savage water. My ship though, remained afloat and intact but for those few souls, lost at sea, because they failed to secure their ties in time.

How my water wolf fretted when he panted back for his words of praise and a scratch behind his ear. He howled for my soul and his prolonged howling shook the ships upon the sea. Drowning in grief for his lost master my bearded wolf dog sacrificed his water life and chose to shift his guard to the land where I had lived with the woman who hated the sailor’s life.

With all the shaking force of nature at his heel, water wolf tsunamied himself high on the eastern side of Treeless Island. He surged forward trapping Treeless life inside him while he cycloned across the ocean, mounted the coast of my home land and came to heel at the feet of his dead master’s woman.

There his watery form solidified, hardened by the wooden souls of Treeless pirate families, and he took the form of a bearded wolf tree – huge, ferocious and dripping.

In my after life as a Torres Strait pigeon I visit my loyal water wolf and happily shit fig seeds on the tormented tortured souls still deep within his growling. Their pleas for mercy are silenced by the bark of wolf tree and never will they be released to rape and pillage forests again.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

In a figgy forest

2010-06-11T08:11:00.000+10:00

Under the hanging moss and between the figgy string fun, an entire colony of tiny rainforest people still live in harmony with the local fauna and flora. Thera Pea is their tiny goddess and she watches over her colony with love, respect and protection.

Every sun rise heralds the beginning of a fun new day where the colony can cavort, frolic and spread rain forest mischief. Hidden from the destructive eye and hands of the big people who destroy the real world, the rain forest folk live to reverse the damage and to rebuild the magic that once covered our land.

With the first whispery yawn of morning time, the colony adults carpet a path with the sticky red fig fruit provided them by mother tree. With careful attention to detail, worshippers float the beautiful pink petals of Eudia flowers onto the sticky red fig squash underlay. The stickiness and petal together cling like true rainforest companions and the rainforest adults beat their wings quickly together behind their backs so that they can embrace each other mid air without becoming entangled in each other’s green mode of transportation. The feeling of love and togetherness is as strong as the smell of a rainforest morning.

At the end of the freshly constructed pink rainforest canopy walk, Thera Pea’s new day gift awaits her: a precious dew drop collection in an upturned black bean pod, warmed by the thankful and multiple love breath of mother tree’s retiring nocturnal keepers.

After greeting each of the Fig Tree animals with a blown kiss of new creation and winking cheekily at her rainforest folk brothers and sisters, Thera Pea is escorted by her adoring colony up the aisle of Euodia and to the podium of the black bean bath.

As Thera Pea unfurls her delicate fairy wings from their sleeping position, the lady bugs hover around tugging at her moss green smock to allow it to gently fall and be caught by an enamoured branch that will forever more nourish and grow the moss in peace.

On Thera Pea’s smiley decree, the mother tree spider families break their curtain holder webs and the curtain tendrils fall shut. Darkness and silence envelopes the rainforest, for but a moment. Surrounded by the protective shield of the million fig tendrils, joyous sound is kept in and the splendid light of the fire flies bums is unseen by those on the outside. The rainforest world is alive and a happening place to be.

Behind the thick fig tree curtain, where the humans are scared to go, the rainforest folk bathe their days away in love, peace and quite a few little splashes of cheekiness on the side. Next time you walk beneath a tree and are splashed by the tiny by-product of above, fear not of a bird and thank the heavens that you have rainforest folk in your area, repairing the world, tree by tree. As they tell those wise enough to listen, you can’t have rainforest without a little rain. Tee hee.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

From her eye house

2010-06-10T02:11:00.003+10:00

Nobody but the wind and the pig man knew her name. Born of money but remitted to the antiquities in her late childhood, she lived a life of crazy hair and wind cracked skin. Never did she attend the town anymore because her third eye was unwelcome. Banished she was, to the eye atop the hill in the biggest unfenced asylum in Australia.

Once a week, the local priest delivered her a box of long life groceries and junk mail that she could enjoy the pictures of. Monthly, there was a cheque from England; a remittance to stay away lest she embarrass her aristocratic family. She had no need of paper with writing on it so she played a game of swap: one box of groceries for me, one piece of paper with writing on for you.

Sometimes she didn’t play. Sometimes her third eye warned her that the church was up to no good, that the church was hurting black children again, like they did in the time when she was sent out here. Sometimes she didn’t play because she was happy and wanted to talk with the pig man who lived in the old ammunition shelter down the hill. The priest took up too much time trying to find out her life story and write in down in his black journal. The pig man knew his life story. He used to tell her and she listened, fascinated at what he knew about himself.

The pig man killed black hairy pigs because black was a bad colour. Not on people but on animals and things. The eye house had no black because the eye house was safe. A lighthouse is a beacon of warning. That’s why she lived there. It was an eye that warned of danger. She had an eye like that too. That’s why she was banished. Nobody wanted to know bad stuff.

In the evening when the light of the defunct eye house was supposed to be shining out, her own eye took over. Bare foot on the gravel and through the steep scrub she trod. Descending through snakes, feral pigs and poison spiders, she would third eye the edge of the cliff and stand on its edge. Her toes used to digging in, she would take the assault of the wind and balance between reality and insanity.

In the windy black she protected the ships from running aground the coral reefs, and, she called to her family. They never answered. She just wanted to know who she was and why she was sent there so that she no longer had to pretend to be crazy.

Her third eye never saw them. Her third eye was unable to tell her anything about who they were. She reasoned that her family must have been very good for her third eye only warned of trouble. Her family must have sent her to Cooktown to protect the souls of ship and shore. She had no memory of her family so her third eye had blocked all her good history to concentrate on the important job of saving others.

If only she didn’t have to pretend to be crazy to get sent to the eye atop the hill so that she was closer to the wind who promised to carry her grief and loneliness home to her family. If only her family would answer her calls. They must have been busy too, in an eye house very far away. For they were good and so was she.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Atropa bella donna

2010-06-09T03:14:00.002+10:00

My husband was a violent drunk. Correction, my husband was violent. He was always drunk. The night I drugged him was the biggest achievement of my life but it's hardly something to put on the resume, particularly given I got away with it.

He'd been drinking with our local head master. They'd been fishing and the salty build up around their sunglasses and chin stubble confirmed that a trip straight to the pub was in order. Normally, he'd drink at home, hit me, and drink some more again. At least on fishing night he wouldn't hit me until we got home.

In the beer garden, I sat and listened, bored but dutiful. Co-dependent I think its called. If I moved he may have thrown an empty beer jug at me. Was a fairly easy choice to just sit still and listen to them. They were both so drunk that even the words that came out of their mouths had a head on them. They were foul. Embarrassing. Abusive, filthy and not far off comatose. If only they'd pass out before the new woman heard them talking about her.

I'd seen the newcomer around a bit. She stood out because she had long hair and wore bright, silky, skirts and matching scarfs. Her hair was bottled red, straight, shiny and all the way to her backside. I think I liked the look of her or maybe it was just that she was so noticeable in average town.

Out of the pub she came and through the beer garden she moved toward me, one long confident stride after another. Her brightly painted lips smiled at me. Her green eyes held mine. My dark eyes held hers, and begged her to not come anywhere near me. He would kill me or cause an almighty scene.

She didn't understand body language. She sat beside me and offered her hand straight to me.

"I'm Carole," I think she said. My mind was so busy panicking that it took away my ability to hear.

"I'm Carole. I'm just here working for a while, cataloguing all the poisonous plants in the town area. You've got some deadly ones right under your noses. Atropa belladonna is just everywhere."

Like a dart straight to bullseye I heard her words. Like a whiff of ammonia beneath my victimology, my fear was taken away and my senses heightened. I marked Carole as a must know person.

Behind my husband's back, I met with Carole many times over her stay in average town. Carole's job was to ensure that the new Government site (Child care and a hospital) was poison plant free prior to building beginning. She would catalogue and somebody else would remove. Through field work, she taught me all about the toxic plants in our area and explained how the toxins break down and what they do to the animal that may consume them. Amazingly, Atropa belladonna mixed with alcohol, produced a quick death in humans. Even more amazing, the poison could not be traced IN the body once the person died because it passed through as the bowl and bladder let go at death.

I asked for the contract to remove and destroy the poisonous plants. On Carole's recommendation I won the job.

The night he died was the happiest night of my life. Even through my swollen shut eye and half face of a boxer, with my two broken fingers and a broken rib, I could still stir the jug of beer with the sweetest stick of Belladonna that I could find. Not enough and he would experience delirium and hallucinations. That would be no different to every other night. The right amount and his heart would stop and all poison pass from his body as bladder and bowl released.

Bowl movement, no problem. He was naked, a drunk and we were country people with a half dingo as a pet. I simply had the dingo clean up his waste. No different to any other night.

Flash fiction research: "Atropa bella donna" is derived from an admonition in Italian and Greek meaning "do not betray a beautiful lady."

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Feathers came at breakfast

2010-06-08T02:58:00.003+10:00

He longed to start the day with some random bird. While busily playing the stock market (was it any wonder he was single - stock brokers are soooo yesterday) late into the night, he fantasized about the random sucking his juice dry every single morning.

Sometimes his fantasia got a little....too real. Hurrying to the bedroom, he would always pluck a feather from the gross feather flowers his Grandma gave him for the most recent Christmas past. The flowers he hated, the tickle he coveted. God, he wished he could work from home all the time.

If only he could find himself a bird whose feathers he could manipulate into performing morning delight upon his badly neglected beak. He just needed to be juiced by another human being. He'd been through the proverbial black book far too many times and he was smart enough to know that it was the same as the fridge - still the same as last time he looked. No new delights to be had.

Last Sunday, while he was enjoying his own company and right at the crucial juicing stroke, his Grandma phoned.

"Darling boy," she tinkered in her frail voice, "What can Granny get you for your birthday?"

His breathing thick and frustrated, not only with failure but also with the intrusion, he rudely told his Gran exactly as it was. "I want a bird to breakfast with. I want to beak her and ruffle her around until she lays her eggs in my hands."

His birthday card arrived in the mail. Surprised, he was, because after the way he disrespected his Grandmother he really thought their relationship was over. But, true to her nature of always giving a wanted gift, Grandma had included a voucher to Breakfast with the Birds at Rainforest Habitat. As an extra little bonus, Grandma had prepaid for two beakers of orange juice and the experience of her grandson cooking his own eggs, freshly collected from the aviary.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Feck off Mam and Da

2010-06-07T02:17:00.007+10:00

"Holy fecking Jesus Christ!" His blaspheming rattled the beads off the rosary that our Aunt, Sister Maire, was saying in front of the open plot that mother was about to be lowered into. Finally, Mother would be back with Daddy. She always said she'd make him pay for dying first. All Mother's sanctimonious and religious siblings were there to pray the happy couple a less volatile after life together than they experienced in the before life!

Affronted no doubt by such base wordage, Sister Maire, nervously clicked her beads together, and prayed silently louder. It was louder because her lips bumped together more violently. I saw she was shaking a little. I wondered whether she'd dare to nip from her holy water flask while she was in public.

Sister Maire was pretending not to be unsettled by David's outburst but I could plainly see her shaking in her boots. Apart from the withdrawals she was no doubt enduring, she'd never favoured David. When were were kids she used to tell him to be more like his lovely sister. Christ! If only she knew what I got up to! If only she knew what the Priest got up to!

David was pointing backward, toward some unknown focus of his base language. "I don't know who's buried there, but I just passed our father's grave three plots back!"

My head shot away from Sister Maire's beads like I was a marionette jerked to life. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"They've dug up the wrong fecking grave, Maive. They're about to plant our mother on top of some other poor sod. Oh Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Like any one else other than Da deserves her for all eternity."

I was furious. FURIOUS. Both parents died destitute and I had to credit card the funerals. If this mistake was going to cost me another digging fee I might just kill someone myself and bury them in the first hole. Shit. I was still paying off Daddy's funeral from years ago. I could not have another thing on my credit card. As it was, Mother had to be buried in Sister Maire's habit because it was the only half way decent free garment we could lay our hands on. I had no more capacity to pay for my Irish family's catholic drinking ways. Their religion and the results of their drinking were costing me the earth.

Despite David's fierceness of words, he doubled over with grief and twenty seven years worth of codependent living with alcoholic parents. He rocked and moaned while keeping himself just above ground level. Everybody was looking at him. My empathy levels had long run off to join the Protestants and I just wished he'd pull his shit together so we could get to the wake and get well and truly pissed. His pathetic crying sent me away in the head.

His rocking reminded me of something he used to do when we were kids. We'd rock bad situations into games. Oi! That bastard wasn't crying for his gone Mam. He was laughing. He was shaking with laughter. His tears were tears from belly laughs and lack of breath. He found this hilarious.

In retrospect, it was. Feck off, Mam and Da. Slainte.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Aka and the snake story

2010-06-06T02:14:00.003+10:00

Aka settled into the big comfy chair beside my bed. She pushed her Government issue thick black glasses high onto her thick black face. Lucky her nose was wide enough and could keep those "big glass eye up." He, he, he. Every one of us kids used to tease Aka because we were cheeky; diluted with white blood and white culture. She called us, skinny nose. We called her, Aka, grand mother.

Aka lived with her community mob but because she needed dialysis, she stayed in town with us three nights a week. We loved it when Aka stayed overnight because Aka told us stories. Aka got stolen from her mob when she was a kid and bought up in a Mission. Aka went to school and she knew how to read and write but she only did it in front of us because she said it was a shame job to her sisters and brothers who couldn't read or write.

Aka used to be an up town Murri, like our Mum, but once she got old and sick she wanted to go home all the time: to her country, to her people. Our Mum, her daughter, wanted Aka to have the Granny Flat out the back and live with us all the time. We wanted Aka to stay with us because she took the time to tell us stories.

In the big comfy arm chair on the boys side of the room, Aka adjusted her glasses, opened up some book she picked up off the floor and began, "Once upon a time, there were three," I interrupted her with my hitting hand and my sister threw a pillow at Aka.

"Aka," I growled. "We don't want book stories. We want your stories. Mum can tell us book stories. We want your stories, Aka, we want black fella dreaming."

Aka chuckled and pretended she was shame. My sister told me a girl secret though. She said that girls pretend to be shame when they are flattered by a compliment. Ah, jeez. I hated it when old people acted like little girls.

Aka picked her nose a bit. We laughed at her because we had a secret bet about whether or not all five of Aka's fingers could fit up those big nose holes.Tonight it was just one finger, but we laughed anyway.

"Aka," little Desley said, "tell us snake story."

Tucking her skinny ankles and feet up under her bony bum, Aka took the position of the long time story teller. Her eyes went all snake like and her tongue split in two and flickered out of her mouth.

"On the day that white fellas first visited my country, they came with a child. The child was a boy. White hair, white skin, white teeth. The child played alone, in the sand and nobody ever spoke to him or even looked at him. The child did not speak or cry either. His voice was frozen by bad magic.

Before the sun was even right up over them big gum trees, that white boy was covered in meat ants, biting stinging, hurting, eating. From the banish circle, far away, those meat ant smelt white boy's tender meat and they planned to eat it. They came, quickly, and they marched onto his body and sought out his scale to get beneath, to get into his inside body.

Those big white fellas did not know of our ways, our danger, our magic, our dreaming. Those white fellas did not know that the meat ant was a bad omen and they had to be stopped as soon as they crawl on you. Where the meat ant crawled, father snake, giver of life, would not. Of all creatures of the earth, the meat ant could bite father snake underneath his scale and eat through to the other side, cutting father snake in half, cut father snake's life dead.

Them white fellas went on with their business, making shelter, searching for fire wood, scooping up water, looking at rocks, but never once did them white fellas check the child who did not talk. That child was going to disappear, only his bones would remain, and nobody would know what was happening because, even before that boy came to our country, the meat ant magic had stopped that boy's tongue from crying out.

Father snake felt the rumble of thousands of meat ants devouring flesh. He came up from his sleeping place to investigate. He came up and found the white child covered with meat ants. Father snake was confused because the white child did not scream and the white fellas did not come to help the child. Father snake wanted to punish the people who would not help the children but he was scared to go through their camp, to crush them, in case the meat ant slipped under his scale.

Father snake thought quickly. He could not let that boy die in agony, eaten alive. He sucked back every bit of venom in his body and from the safe outskirts of the camp where the meat ants could not get him, he spat his poision and it landed on the boy.

That vemon ran down the boy's head and covered every part of his body. Paralysed meat ant dropped off that boy and the crow swooped in to eat them. The meat ant who had already eaten into the boy's flesh were trapped. If they ran out to help their friends, they too would become paralysed.

As the poison sloshed its way down that silently screaming boy's throat and entered his blood stream, the inner trapped meat ants died. With all the danger gone, father snake slithered to face the boy. They boy was dying and father snake told him not to fear. While the venom was deadly to enemy ants it gave all others eternal life. The white child would die of the white fella world but be born of the snake life, as the God who cleared the land of meat ant.

White child died. He died of ant bite and snake love. He entered the spirit world on father snake's back and every spirit ancestor was there to talk with that boy, to pay him some attention and to watch over him while he sat and played. If ever he was in any danger, all he had to cry out was, "Snake," and father would be there with him, to ride him away to safety, to friends and to watchfulness."

Aka blinked at us. Her eyes returned to their normal shape and colour and her tongue knitted back to one.

"You fella go sleep now," she said in her broken lingo, "or I bin gonna get them meant ant come teach you one big lesson."

Little Desley had already fallen asleep but me, Garrett and Nazie, we all nodded our respect to Aka, pulled up our sheets and did exactly what our Aka said.

As Aka got up to turn the light off and leave us alone to sleep, I felt an urge to tell her how much I loved her stories.

I sat up and reached toward her. Her fragile arm, all hurt by the big dialysis needles, reached out to meet mine. Our fingers entwined and spoke of our love for each other.

"Thank you, Aka," I said in a deep, hushed tone of respect. "Your stories are the best stories ever. Tonight I am going to make one up to tell you next time you stay here."

Aka smiled at me. Her big lips, cracked with years of story telling and singing, rose in each corner. A smile, a cackle and her red tongue poked through her teeth. Aka's way of saying, thank you.

That was the last time I ever saw Aka. Two days later, she was discovered, in her community, strangled by a 16 foot python. Had she called Father snake to her? Yes, we believed she had.

Little white boy now had the best Aka in the world to tell him stories and to listen to his in return.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Don't cry, Bambi

2010-06-05T02:45:00.000+10:00

The first time I can remember crying at a movie was when Mum took us to see Bambi in the theatre at Brisbane city. It was a big deal. Five of us, excited and ready for city theatre adventure. We were big. I was five. I was real big. Second oldest. I had responsibilities to look after those younger and less capable than me.

When Bambi's mother was shot, my faith in human kind was shattered. At that point, well, somewhere within my raking sobs and stifled chokes because people were hushing me, I decided to dedicate my life to wildlife protection. I would ensure that the Bambis of the world NEVER had to suffer those wretched feelings of murder, abandonment, fear and deprivation again.

I never really worked out why I did Vet Science. DUH! I studied at Durban, South Africa, but was keen to move into the African countries that had game parks and plenty of need for a vet woman. None of them wanted women though. The poaching and civil wars made woman game park staff fair game.

I got my break though when a tiny Elephant calf survived her mother being shot and butchered in front of her. Why the poachers left her I don't know, but I am grateful to them because those poachers made my dreams come true. Baby Elleph was immediately sold to a Zoo in my home town. I was heading home, baby. Heading home to chaperon a 150 kilo baby.

My contract called for the safe delivery to Australia Zoo, straight into the arms of Steve and Terri Irwin. I could then have three days off to see family and return to Durban for regular duties. Not bloody likely, mate. Crikey!

Steve Irwin offered me the care position before I had to ask. There was no way I was leaving Elleph and I was prepared to become an unemployed Vet in the Elephant House of Australia Zoo for the rest of my life. I guess Steve and Terri weren't all Hollywood focused like the accusations going around said. They saw Elelph's connection to me and the acted in her best interest. They paid me to be Bambi's mummy.

Life has been kind to Elleph. I often wonder at the effect of the early trauma on her. I have seen no signs of malfunctioning Elephant but Elleph, I am sure, has seen signs of malfunctioning Vet Woman in me. Every time a musical rendition of Disney's Bambi carries into my annex, I cry. I sob. I break my heart for those abandoned and left for dead. Unlike all those years ago thought, when I was shushed and my sorrow canned, a wet sniffy trunk seeks out my hair and tussles it around, just like I did to Ellep the day her mother was shot.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Brook Coven

2010-06-04T04:06:00.002+10:00

The tail of her velvet gown draped across the water like a magic net drawing fish from below and dragon fly from above. Her suitor held her hand, to balance her, and to steal the scent of her skin. Lavender and sunshine she smelt of. Good, wholesome,bewitchingly gorgeous.

She had just returned from abroad and yearned the freedom of home and the coven of the forest. He had no idea. Never would he be allowed to the circle. Never would he get to hold more than her balancing hand.

Her frock clung to her body and displayed her supple womanliness. He bent as though to kiss her, she bent to scoop a baby green frog. He pretended to care about the wildlife and stay stooped as though in concern for an endangered species.

Her spark caught his thoughts in the dream catcher of her long black hair. She smiled at his juvenile attempt to capture her lust. She was not interested in him. Her only desire was for the circle, for the dancing, for the naked dancing with her sisters under the liquid golden moon drops of summer.

Young though she was, her earthly travels had instructed her in the gratuitous and secular art of attention seeking; a novel way to suck the life from romance.

"It's so deliciously warm," she purred while running her creamy white hand from shoulder front to hip front, slowly over the mound of her ample breast. Her pale skin against the red of the velvet was almost enough for his manhood to be over.

He breathed, deeply, and was about to suggest a civilized game of croquet. His mere presence and his will to breath was her nemesis. He would pay now for his waste of her time.

In front of him, in the open, in public and beside the bubbling brook, she dropped her red velvet dress around her ankles. Beneath she was already undressed. Her even white skin was breath taking and his hand flew to his heart. Ever the gentleman, he diverted his eyes and turned slightly away.

Unconcerned about his second feeble attempt to protect his lustful growth, she stepped into the freezing mountain stream. The carp sang her praises and drank in the blessed water she now provided. The dragon fly rested on her head and arms. Tiny forest birds graced the space around her and allowed the ladybug and butterfly to honour her visit.

Her breasts firm and nipples peaked, her buttocks perfectly rounded and even, she was a goddess of the brook.

Her eyes met his. She held his gaze while she chanted her song of end. She was so beautiful...so, naked. Why would his eyes, his heart, ever leave her? He turned back to completely face her, his hugeness swollen and bulging.

His death was not quick and neither was he alone. Her sister witches, called by the song of end, rose from the water and embraced their returned naked water nymph. In front of his dying eyes their hands explored their sister and worshipped her body as thought they had never felt it before. Her song she continued, unbroken till the end.

His heart, not as manly as his groin, gave in. The sung magic, the song of end, stole his beats and his blood. As the blood drained from his chamber, she called for her gown. The forest birds obeyed her command and dropped her robe over the dying man.

His every drop of blood soaked into her frock. The red velvet glowed before subsiding to it's matte hue. As it toned down, her sister witches receded, their lust sated. The fish swam to cover and the creatures of the air disappeared to the trees.

She stepped out of the brook, redressed slowly and returned to her cottage, alone and no longer hungry for male company. Behind her back, a tiny green frog sniggered at the expired man and jumped back into the brook coven.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Megan's run on Norfolk

2010-06-02T03:38:00.002+10:00

I hugged into the rough stone as though I was it.
I kissed it, smelt it, whispered it.
I placed my ear along its heart and listened to its tales.

I didn’t like what I heard. Gory, bloody, base.
But, I could not tear away.

I was imprisoned by their memory and enchanted by the ruin.

I remembered a book read, years before.
A tale of first convict sluts and demons.
A tale of torture, heart break, lust and respect.
A tale written by an author who lived on the Island. Still. Colleen McCullough.
What was she running to? Morgan’s run? For me it was Bloody Bridge.

I listened for her voice. I listened for his. His was beaten down by the stone.

Her call carried across the pines planted by irons and it dipped into the bluest lagoon of sorrow and death.

Her call confirmed that this was the spot where convicts, chained and balled, were necessitated to shale the rock for building their prisons. In collecting, many failed to collect. They became shark food, or just drowned, held down by the weight of their transgressions.

Some enhanced the bluest hue ever with their Irish blue eyes as they looked out from their cemetery of scene divinity. Unmatched it was with the red of whale and coat of aggressor. Some lay beneath the bridge because they joined the aggressor.

Every where, the depression and the whispering were over bearing. It was breaking my heart. It was in my blood. I was the bridge. Bloody Bridge.

But the view. The view. No matter where I walked in Norfolk, the view tore down my ancestry smocks of sorrow. The shades of oppression and death became torn from my eyes and my heart rose like the sun itself.

The views on Norfolk Island were the most beautiful I had ever seen. The stories, the calling, the worst.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Work on island with chicks and guano

2010-06-02T03:29:00.003+10:00

The young English tourist read aloud from the Positions Vacant of a Far North Australian newspaper.

"Buddy, this is the job," he convincingly said to his lily white friend. He read the advertisement aloud, "Work on Curlew Island with chicks and guano. Day work only. Ten days on, four days off with flights back to Cairns. Island accommodation and rubber protection supplied. Locate chicks and work alongside in bagging guano."

Young London lad, on a work visa, in Australia fulfilling his cultural rite of passage, agreed with his Liverpudlian buddy. Anything that involved them working with girls on an Island paradise was their kind of job.

Buddy lay back on his bunk at the hostel and imagined what it would be like working with the Island natives: buxom, tanned, giggly and ever so pleased to have some fresh males to copulate with. The girls would be mesmerized with the English accent and the creamy white skin,undamaged and unblemished unlike the salted skin of the Aussie blokes these girls would have been used to.

Yep. These two lads would get the job with the chicks and guano because they were ready to embrace the Australian way of life and party, party, party on tropical Islands.

Buddy wondered aloud; "I don't know what the Guano gentleman must have done but I have no difficulty bagging him. I wonder if he was perhaps some local Island chap who did the totally wrong thing by the Islanders?"

Oh yeah....these boys had no idea the shit they were about to get into.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Birth of the rain child

2010-06-01T03:17:00.002+10:00

The impending birth was upon us. Heavy with the fruits of her labour, the pushing had begun. She rolled over the mountain of fear and let go with a rolling growl that came deep from within her gut.

Her water broke and the life force spread down onto the ground. It smelt...fresh and new rather than the accepted brackish smell of birthing.

I looked heaven ward, to pray, and my wait of anticipation was washed away by what seemed a bucket of raw emotion being thrown on me. Dumped on me, from the heavens, like a baby being thrown from a passing Stork.

Shock, pain, confusion, joy. From somewhere, I heard the words, "It's a girl."

"It's mother nature. The drought is broken and may it rain solid for a month."

"Yes," I though. "May mother nature never stop giving birth to new life."

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

LIke a gentle flower

2010-05-31T03:08:00.003+10:00

"Like a delicate flower, I farted. I farted so loudly, that the Hibiscus shook fair off the bush and landed, splat, in the drain running down the driveway."

"No!" she screamed. "No, Mum! This has got to be a nice story or I will get into trouble." She began to cry, like a baby. "I hate you," she screamed at me as she fled from the story telling seat upon the best garbage bin in the suburb.

"Okay, okay," I cried after her. "I promise to be normal now." She stopped, wanting to believe me but the look in her eyes suggested she was still a little edgy and angry at me. I felt sorry for her. Sorry that I was her mother. Sorry that she didn't understand, or want, a bohemian lifestyle. Sorry, that I was, well, her failure.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's start again, darling, and then I'll read your tea leaves." She shot me a look of death. Oh God. I just couldn't get it right. I was trying to be supportive!

"Okay, no tea leaf reading then. But, did you know, that you can dry Hibiscus and drink it?"

"Mum! Stop it. Why can't you be like everyone else? Just be normal for once. Please."

She cried. She was inconsolable. Well, I guess she would have been if she had let me console her. She hated me. She wanted me to be like a fairy princess but, in reality, I was the banished witch.

I thought about that damn flower; the one that fell on the kitchen window sill and prompted our English homework discussion. She had to write a piece of fiction about an ordered garden: an enchanted garden, per se. I was a writer, I could help her. I was right into experiential research to enliven the written word so I encouraged her, outside into the garden, to sit upon the garbage can so that we could watch from a different height how the gentle Hibiscus fell. Did it fall with dignity and majesty or did it fall with fear? I thought the smell of the garbage would assault her sense of social justice and move her toward embracing the irony of the gentle Hibiscus juxtaposed with a dump. How ordered/unordered was that?

"God. Where did I get it all so wrong? How come I am so....different? Why can't I be like the other Mums?" I bashed up on myself like I was OJ and his wife in one.

I sat, head in hands, shoulders dejected and spine curved. I reflected on all the years of hurt; all the years of rejection because I was so different. I didn't try to be different. I didn't try to fit in. I just did things that floated my boat. I sang in public, I swore, I laughed at things most people found obscene. I loved, I lived, I felt.

But now? I felt bruised. Bruised like the petal of the fallen pink Hibiscus. Translucent and folded to highlight a flaw; an ageing and worn down crease in life. A gentle flower, dropped because the tall poppies around me were naught but societal morons who did as every other person did.

I, on the other hand, really am a gentle flower. I am a bohemian, waxy, tough, tiny, native Hoya. I might be bruised but I flower in a way that will ensure my daughter gets the most balanced soil in which to grow strong and beautiful. - like a pink Hibiscus that even in a drain looks wonderful, smells wonderful, is wonderful.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

Expressed to Rwanda

2010-05-30T08:05:00.001+10:00

She watched me breast feeding. Fascinated she was. Tried to feed her new dolly a few times, too. Pulled up her little T Shirt and stuck the dolly onto her tiny exposed boobies.

The day she saw me expressing into a suction tube though was interesting! I could tell she wanted to keep watching the World Vision show because she had a couple of attempts at running in to the kitchen to watch, running back to the TV, fixated on both activities while they held her three year old attention.

My pump, pump, pumping in the kitchen was obviously far more exciting that the starving kids in Rwanda. She stood, watching me, interested and intrigued.

"Watcha doin, Marmy?"

"I'm expressing the milk so that Harry doesn't have to go hungry. Daddy can feed Harry tonight with my milk."

"Express," she repeated like the little parrot that she is. "Will Daddy feed them dying kids in 'wandra, too?"

"What?"

"Them kids had no mummies and daddies and no milk. Never. Can we send that milk to 'wandra?"

I choose not to correct the grammar and tense and instead laughed a hearty laugh. How cute and very thoughtful of Lilly Pilly.

"No darling. We can't send them this expressed milk because it has to be fresh milk for babies and the mail takes a long time. The milk will go off and poison the babies in Rwanda."

"But you can put it in the Express Post bag. That's special for express milk and will keep the milk good."

And that was the day that I knew my Lilly Pilly had developed empathy. That was the day that I knew I was raising a child who cared about social issues.

Expressed milk as an express mail package, lol.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The Painted Men

2010-05-29T08:18:00.000+10:00

A long time ago before the mountains had been properly grown up, the painted men and the Quinkins would fight over the women. The Quinkins wanted the women back in the spirit world but the women were the wives and sisters of the Painted Men, the Yadingi, the people, of the Nagemgingga world. The Yadingi wanted the keep the women because the women collected the rocks, ground them up and made paint for the men to record the stories in the stone libraries.

The Yadinji came up with a clever plan. They would compete with the Quinkin. They would have a painting contest. The Nagemgingga were good painters. They painted the world and what the world meant so that those after them could learn from the ways of the elders.

Messadonga, King of the Nagemgingga, met with the spirit Quinkin. They made up a rule that Messadonga could pick the rules of the competition. The Quinkin thought they were smart because they were of the spirit world. The Quinkin forgot that the Painted Men had the cave paintings of the Painted Men before them to learn what the Quinkin feared.

Messadonga spoke with the Quinkins. “You fella leave our women in our world. You fella gotta paint to win our women before they go long time your world. You fella gotta paint that ocean. You fella got to paint the ocean with all them colour of the land.”

The Quinkin accepted the duel because they too had a cunning plan. The Quinkin were terrified of the Ocean World. The crocodiles and the sharks were from Quinkin’s exiled from the spirit world and them Quinkin fish were still big time mad at Quinkin. Them crocodile and shark snapped Quinkin spirit in half like they were nothing.

The Quinkin planned to build a sand fish trap on the beach. When the tide came in and captured the fish, the Quinkin would paint the fish and send them back out to spread their paint over the entire ocean world.

The Messadonga got their canoes and went out, far out on the water. Their women, confident that their men would return, waded out into the water, up to their waists and sang and waved the men to victory. The Quinkin looked on, jealous that they couldn’t go out and rape the women in the water in front of the now far away Yadingi.

As the Yadingi reached a spot of spiritual calling, they dropped six different paint sacks into the water. The fish nibbled at the sacks and set the paint free, free to settle into the pores of the growing coral.

The coral welcomed the paint and listened to the story about the Quinkin wanting to steal away the women of Nagemgingga. The coral, who loved the sound of the women’s song, made a barrier, a barrier of protection to tell the Quinkin that all women inside that Barrier, belonged to the painted men.

As the coral grew itself, the paint blended and took on new colours, new textures and new blooms. It was a beautiful sight to behold as the paint covered the barrier and made it look like the opal rocks that dessert Yadingi traded. The paint and the coral made the most fantastic picture that went for miles and miles and could be seen from the moon and the stars. It was a great barrier, a Great Barrier Reef of protection.

Concerned about the fish and the bad magic of the Quinkin, Messadonga worked with the reef to tell all the sharks and crocodiles about the Quinkin plan. The Great Barrier Reef called every living sea creature to itself and offered them new colour if they would stay and help create a magical under water picture of beauty. The sea creatures accepted.

In the mean time, the crocodile and sharks swam to shore. They swam into the fish traps made by the Quinkin and ate the Quinkin as soon as Quinkin checked their catch.

That is how the painted men told the story of why they no longer fight over women.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The Udderly Handy Cow

2010-05-28T05:52:00.008+10:00

The poor little caramel cow had to brave the weather alone.

Flash fiction removed as it was extended and submitted to a competition.

Kitten's play

2010-05-27T04:51:00.000+10:00

A slow, pregnant, tear slid down her high cheek bone and rested on the pillow before it decided to slip inside for a final down. Her cloudy blue cataract encircled eyes looked at me, pleading for me to quiet, so that she could tell me wisdom in her last hour.

“It is not the years I am dying with, Megan, but the life I had in my years.” She nodded, as though willing me to understand her wisdom.

I didn’t.

I was 20.

How could I understand more than sex or drugs….or dodging the police when I had drugs on me?

Not that Nan would have known about that stuff.

She continued, because she knew the urgency better than I did.

“I may only be 83, Megan, but I had lived a hundred years by the time I was 21.”

Nan lapsed into a reminisce.

I lapsed into my own thought and wished for her death so that I could inherit her wealth.

I though on her claim of the life in her years against the years of her life.

Nice.

I liked it.

I might even use it some time to explain all the things I’d done.

I liked learning.

She encouraged me.

She schooled me when I was much younger.

My own parents were too busy.

With the bottle.

With other people too, sometimes.

Other people of the opposite gender.

They were such losers: my parents and also the other people.

They, my parents, died heaps before Nan.

They didn’t learn, they just partied.

Which was good.

I inherited the lot now.

A real lot.

Nan was MIGHTY wealthy.

I though, again.

On her claim of the life in her years against the years of her life.

I wanted to ask her but she wouldn’t shut up.

She kept meowing little platitudes to me.

Little meows that belonged to a kitten, not to an 83 year old.

It made me angry.

Just to begin with.

Then I got interested.

“Nan,” I said very firmly, but ultimately respectfully and lovingly as you tend to talk to a dead person, talking. “You talk too much!”

She smiled at me.
A tired smile, because, she was wanting to die.
Really wanting to die.

“I’ve always liked your bluntness, Megan. You will go far, my girl. Don’t you ever let those men try and hold you back, my dear. You tell them. You do them; do them with a big stick.”

I smiled.

I liked her sarcasm.

“Nan, what did you mean about the life you had in your years?

She winched.

In pain.

Except that I cannot imagine that Nan would ever have felt pain.

A starched, boring, normal, expensive agency nurse injected the machine beside Nan.

“Like the fuck that’s going to help,” I thought. “Why inject a mongrel machine when my Nan needs the pain relief. Dumb bitch, Nurse.”

Nan breathed loud and scratchily for a while.
I didn’t like seeing her like that and I wanted to ask for her to die.

Peacefully.

Gracefully.

But, probably, nobody would understand my request.

They would think I was bad.

But, I didn’t want my Nan to suffer.

She had lived a life in her years.

What did she mean by that?

Nan opened her eyes, half sort of. She called my name. I squeezed her hand to let her know I heard her call.

“Never have just one kitten, Megan. Always have two.”

“Yes, Nan.” I lied. I HATED cats. Like I would EVER have two of the smelly little bastards.

“One cat gets lonely and plays up. Two cats watch out for each other. They play. They have fun. They live. Like two people who love each other. But, cats play up because they get bored quickly. Even two cats together if one cat doesn’t want to play anymore. Even two people together...unless they look out for each other and understand how important it is to play, together. Nine cat lives entwined becomes eighteen lives. Eighteen lives means that you live all of life, all of life’s up and downs. Tom catting husbands, playful kitty love at other times. It’s all worth it because you grow and you grow and you grow…through play.”

“Life, Megan,” she continued, staring straight at me, “is for living. Live it like you are walking atop a fence. Like the kittens do. You will always land on your feet, girlie, because I have left you a safety net. Because you are such a kitty and kitty’s shadow, I have left you two safety nets. Enough money for the rest of your eighteen lives. But,…”

She breathed a funny sound and dumb nurse came and checked the monitor, Nan’s pulse and, then, the dumb one glared at me.

“Fuck off,” I thought; I’m interested in what Nan has to say. “Piss off before I can’t hear this shit anymore.”

Nan tolerated the conversation intrusion and waited for private nurse to be gone.
Nan was always so patient.

So understanding.

Wonder if I would grow patience?

Ever!?

Nan’s hand hold grew weaker over mine.

She softly tapped for my full attention.

“Don’t waste your life on a single thing, Megan. Always double your chances and live life to the double. Juggle your eggs. Play, but play safely. It’s the life you have in your years that makes you wise, not the….”

Her final breath.

My heart.

Crushed.

Nan died imparting her greatest wealth to me.
I never might know exactly what it was.

I bought two kittens on my way home though.
And decided to never do drugs again.

I also got a text about my private clinic results.

Yep.

I was pregnant.

Too young.

Too early.

Not ready.

But, I was filling my years with life and I was going to make sure that Nan’s wisdom lived on.

I called the baby, “Nan.”

I can’t ever remember a time where we didn’t have two kittens in our life. Such clever creatures they are. They never stop learning and helping each other. They never stop playing and having fun.

Nice one, Nan. I finally got it.

Say "no" Neeve Cope

2010-05-26T05:00:00.002+10:00

The pink chalk on the Music Teacher's desk was too much for Neeve. It was so delicious looking, so drooling with the scent of watermelon juice that Neeve just had to have it. She did. She put it into the pocket of her expensive new jacket and quickly left the classroom.

Waiting for her mum, Neeve felt guilty. She was twirling the pink chalk, still hidden in her pocket, round and round between her fingers. Her Mum, the celebrated family lawyer Eva Cope, pulled into the drop and go zone, tooted the horn on her new red BMW, and waved brightly to Neeve. Neeve left her hand in her pocket to protect the stolen treasure and feigned a smile as big as an upside down Sydney Harbour Bridge.

"Hey Mum!" she pretended as she slid onto the still leather smelling front seat. "School was great today. I won an award. It was so embarrassing getting it on assembly. All the kids crowded around me to see it."

"Fantastic sweetheart. What was this one for? You get so many we're going to have to build an extra room to hang them all in. Seat belt darling. Quickly, I'm in a rush. Clients waiting."

Not caring if she got into trouble, Neeve scrunched up the award and threw it over her shoulder. She chattered on to her mum about the music award and the leadership camp that she was asked to go on.

"Miss Carnt said that I could teach a workshop on staying motivated and how to fit in homework when you have so many extra curricula activities to do as well. I don't think I want to go. Can I go paint balling instead that weekend Mum?"

"Paint balling? That's new. Of course my sweet. You can do anything you want - you're a girl remember."

Mother and daughter laughed at their private joke. Lucky Neeve's dad wasn't there because the "Girls can do anything" sticker that Neeve had stuck on the fridge really annoyed him.

"People can do anything," he would say. "Giving girls special attention because they're female is false economy. Look at me: I had a dreadful childhood. My parents were poor, couldn't afford to send me to anything, but I still made it and I'm a boy."

Neeve and her Mum would roll their eyes and walk away. Sometimes if seriously busy Eva Cope was in a playful mood she would tease her husband a little and say, "yes, but girls grow into super women. Boys, well, they just stay boys." Eva would blow Nathan a kiss and Neeve and Eva would run giggling up the hallway into the music room. The annoying sounds they would thump out of the piano made Nathan's head hurt. The girls loved it though; anything to unsettle his controlled Barrister exterior was a game to them.

Over dinner that evening, big burly barrister Nathan Cope passed his beautiful, trendy little wife the dish of smoked salmon crepes she had requested another of. He winked at her, nodded toward the pride of their life who was silently playing with her beetroot and said, "Nice shade of watermelon Neeve's wearing on her lips. Buy that at Myer did you Neeve?"

Neeve's face burnt red. She wasn't wearing any lipstick because Dad had said 12 was too young for lipstick. Her hand flew to her pocket to check that her criminal activity was lying silent. Her mind raced, "Now is the time to tell them. Everyone is in a good mood. I won't get into trouble." Instead of getting her secret off her chest, Neeve chewed her beetroot and opened her mouth wide to shock her father with the red mash inside her mouth.

Purposely controlling his displeasure, Mr. Cope laughed, "Oh Neeve, you're such a rebel. Where did such disgusting behaviour come from? Now go finish your music homework."

Alone in the music room Neeve sat with her violin resting on her lap. She held the bow in her hand and thought of the stolen pink chalk. Without further thought or reason, Neeve raised the bow above her head and bought it smashing down against the side of the table. It broke in two. Ruined. Her parents were in their studies, doing law work no doubt. They were always doing that in the evenings and Neeve was left to be the studious child that she was. They had sound proofed the music room and with the door closed they couldn't hear a thing. Nobody came to check on Neeve's outburst. Nobody was there to ask Neeve what was troubling her. Nobody understood that Neeve had a secret and that she badly needed to tell it.

Taking the pink chalk out of her pocket, Neeve viciously snapped it in two as well. With the larger bit she wrote swear words on the sound proofed sparkling white walls. Standing back to admire her handiwork she realised that she hadn't actually written what she most wanted to say, "I hate music. I hate Mrs. Carnt. I hate her." After scrawling it in the biggest letters she could, Neeve calmly left the room and prepared for bed.

Around midnight Neeve was woken by her father, "What the hell is going on Neeve Cope?" he roared at her. "What the hell have you done?" Neeve pretended to be asleep which was silly because with her father's booming barrister voice bouncing around the bedroom a dead person would have woken. Mrs. Cope stood stiffly by the door. Angered beyond belief by Neeve's music room outburst Eva Cope was unable to speak. With Neeve not responding to her father's demands to know what had happened, the parents walked away in frustration.

Breakfast was dreadful the morning following the outburst. Neither parent looked or spoke to Neeve. The cereal packet slammed down onto the table in front of her and the tea she had only been allowed to drink as of this, her last primary school year, was not given to her. Her father gobbled his bacon as though he was a common, uncivilized hungry person. His highly unusual table manners scared Neeve. She knew he must have been really upset this time because nothing, NOTHING, used to rile him. Neeve had grown skillful in listening to people's out of character behaviour and her father's behaviour was snapping at her.

Mrs. Cope looked drawn. Her gorgeous salon red hair was unbrushed. It hung around her shoulders like red-back spiders dropping from their web. Sitting in her black silk nightie, Mrs. Cope nibbled her toast. Unable to stand the unusualness, Neeve broke.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I don't know what happened. It was like somebody else took me over and made me do bad things."

Stonily, Mrs. Cope looked through Neeve while she stated the plan for the day. "You're father and I have cancelled our clients today Neeve. There will be no school for you, no music. There is a psychologist coming to visit us this morning. She is going to assess your pathetic outburst and talk to us all together about getting you back on the right track."

Neeve felt the weight being lifted from her. "Finally, finally. Someone is going to listen to me. I have to tell them. I WILL tell them."

The family therapy was hard. Neeve was embarrassed and her parents were shocked. Her mother cried. Her father paced with his hands behind his back. Every now and then one of them would go to Neeve, hug her, and cry into her shoulder. Neeve just sat; stunned that she had finally told the truth about her music teacher.

Nathan Cope stopped his pacing. He pulled his chair up to face the young female psychologist. His knees were touching hers and Nathan didn't care. This was serious business and the family needed help.

"Explain this to me again please," he demanded in a watered down version of Barrister cross examination, "how is it that a female, a FEMALE teacher could do what she has done to Neeve. This is something that happens to my clients, to people without financial resources to protect their children. It is men that sexually assault children; not women. They care for children. Surely?"

Patiently, the young therapist explained that sexual abuse is something that can happen to anyone, regardless of their financial status. Being wealthy or intelligent doesn't stop someone from being robbed. How could it stop someone from being assaulted? With great compassion, she also explained that women could be perpetrators too. Most importantly though, the young psychologist stressed that Neeve's recent rebellious outbursts were Neeve’s way of trying to tell people that something was wrong.

"Why didn't you just say no, Neeve? Why didn't you tell us?" Neeve's mum sobbed.

Feeling very alone, Neeve though back over all the times she'd tried to tell her parents; about how hard it was to find the words to explain what had happened, how hard it was to understand that her favourite teacher was touching her private parts. Neeve HAD said no, she had started to act out of character and did naughty things that would draw adult attention toward her. Nobody heard her behaviour. They saw it, and dismissed it as Neeve becoming a teenager. Nobody heard her scream for help, her scream that was saying "no."

"I did say no, Mum." Neeve slumped down in her chair and cried into her folded arm. "This has all gone wrong. They don't believe me. They blame me," she screamed inside her head. "Why did I ever think it would be good to tell?"

As though they could read her mind both parents went to Neeve's side. Her mother hugged her tightly, kissed Neeve's salty face and crooned words of belief and thanks. Tussling Neeve's hair, Nathan Cope quickly assessed the best way to handle reporting the abuse.

"Neeve," he began in a serious voice. "I am going to report this to the police. That woman has to be punished for what she has done to you. Either I can use the phone in here, or I can go into another room so that you don't have to hear. Just say no if you don't want to hear my conversation."

Neeve sniffed, thought for a minute and looked up into her Dad's concerned face. Catching her breath so that she could talk without stuttering, Neeve said, "No Dad. No more secrets, no more hiding. I want to hear what you say so that I can tell you if you've got anything wrong. I want to talk to the police. I want no more music from that teacher."

Just as Neeve's dad reached for the phone, Neeve's mum butted in without saying, 'no, stop'. She held her hand out toward her husband. Interrupted, he looked at her, waiting for further instruction.

"Darling," Eva said softly to her hurting child, "I now understand that you have the ability to say no inside your body and with your behaviour but that sometimes the words that come out are different. Show us darling; show us with your behaviour that you want Dad to ring the police from in here."

Struggling away from her mother's embrace, Neeve moved to the telephone. She picked it out of its cradle and placed it into her Dad's hand. Feeling safe, believed and supported at last, she threw her arms around her Dad and snuggled into his suit. "Just say no Dad. No more teachers that trick kids. No more teachers that hurt kids. Go on, ring, tell the police... just say, no more pretending, no more lies, no more secrets".

"Out of the mouths of babes," the big burly barrister said as the tears rolled down his cheeks. "Out of the mouth of my babe, the most wonderful daughter a man could ever hope to protect."

The Teddy Tour: Voices for survivors of sexual assault

Know your symbolism when public speaking

2010-05-25T08:50:00.002+10:00

"What can you talk about," guest speaker seeker requested an answer of me.

I thought quickly. Sexual assault, domestic violence or child protection hardly fitted with speaking at Australia's Biggest Morning Tea fund raiser for cancer.

"Motivation and inspirational topics," I pulled from nowhere. "I can motivate your audience to give more than they have already given in the purchase of the morning tea ticket."

It was then that the stinkin' thinkin voice of old top dog set in.

"Idiot. What did you say that for? You couldn't motivate people to donate more money if you were facing a guillotine. Off with yer 'ead, off with yer 'ead!"

Jeeze! I thought old Top Dog died off twenty years ago. Obviously not because the dodgey little rascal had climbed atop my shoulder again and was whispering his words of self doubt into my ear. Worst still, I WAS LISTENING!

Guest speaker at a Cancer Council fund raiser. ME? Jezuz! What was I doing.

"Breath Megan," my acceptable inner voice suggested. I obeyed because often I can be the obeying type. Well, not often, jut sometimes. When I need to be.

"You know a lot about the subject and you are a confident, inspirational and motivational speaker. Imagine that you are teaching about child protection and break the topic down into the smallest bite sized pieces that you can."

Bite size - yum. That would be a well decorated cup cake and I am going to a morning tea. Yum. Morning Tea means yummy things to eat.

Oh thank God. I had the key to calm and sort and think and plan. I merely associated a scary topic with a topic I am wholly comfortable with (plus cake always does it for me).

One of the tips of public speaking is to know your material. One of my tips is to break down the words and turn them on their head. Child protection turned on its head means the protection of children. Turning Australia's Biggest Morning Tea on it's head simply means, Tea in the morning for big Australians.

Umm, no, I don't think that will win me any friends with the menopausal women bracket: you know, the set that puts on weight every TIME THEY BREATH!!!!!!. The set LIKE ME! Okay, stop! What about Tea in the morning in Australia - Billy Tea on the camp fire.

Yeah, I'm liking that more. That fits with telling stories around the camp fire while sipping a pannikin of tea. Yep, I'm a story teller, I can do this. Just because Australia's Biggest Morning Tea is being held in an ultra flash resort at Palm Cove doesn't mean I can't imagine we are all around a camp fire telling stories and ribbing each other!

Once upon a time, a long time ago when cave people used to hunt and gather, Mammoths were our major enemy and had a good go at killing off as many hunters as they could.

Then we got all sophisticated and began hunting each other off in war games: guns, grenades, bombs, gas chambers, infernos....you get the picture.

Nowadays though, in our hunt for the perfect life we kill each other off by trying to be so much better and more suave than everybody else. We work long hours, eat way too many processed foods and play with chemicals like they are dolls to love and kiss.

Most people we know have a doll somewhere. In fact, one in two people across the globe have played with a doll. Dolls are fun and we keep buying them because they are mini symbols of human life as we want life to be. Sweet, innocent, healthy and beautiful. But, the real search for our perfect life is killing us. The search for our perfect life with never ending hours of stress far too frequently results in domestic germ warfare: heart disease or cancer.

Just getting back to those dolls that symbolise us: I may be wrong but I've never seen a doll mauled by a mammoth or with a limb blown off by a land mine? Come to think of it, I've never seen a doll with heart disease or cancer either. Hey, there's a confronting idea. Let's pretend that one in two dolls have cancer. Chuck those dolls into the fire now. We don't want them because they're not perfect anymore.

But, one in two is our life, this is the reality of how many people get cancer...and we don't treat people with cancer with fire, do we? We don't throw cancer into the too ugly basket. We don't hide cancer under the bed or stuffed way back in the linen closet.

I wonder why we don't have dolls with cancer. Could it be that people with cancer look just like you and I and that it is too scary to think that we may one day have to deal with cancer?

I wonder if I could get every second person to stand up please.

[People stand up and feel really awkward but relieved that they're not in my position as guest speaker. They laugh and shuffle but I'm circling, like a shark, coming in for the kill.]

One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 85. Ummmm, that's a lot of people. That's all those people standing up here. That is how many people you may have contact with that will contract cancer.

Now, before you sit down, I want you to think about who's going to treat you and how they're going to do it? There's no money in the budget you know and fund raising is getting more and more difficult. You're going to have to bear the brunt of the treatment cost yourself. Damn, but if only you gave a little bit more money when you were younger and healthier...aka....put one dollar on the table for the Cancer Council and you can sit down.

The people beside you, those ones unaffected by cancer, stand up please. You poor sods. Feel uncomfortable standing up? Good. Are you aware that you are going to have to care for all those other people. The brunt of funding is going to come from your pocket. As you get older so too does your capacity to generate more income to give, so, damn that you didn't give more money to the Cancer Council when you were younger. I suggest it may be a wholly acceptable thing to put $2.00 on the table now. A $2.00 donation to the Cancer Council.

Anyway, you can sit as soon as you've donated and we'll get on with my campfire story.

Cancer is a word, not a sentence. Although, not donating cash today may well result in a sentence of guilt and fear that the people sitting beside you know that you're a scrooge!

Cancer as a word is symbolic of so many things: a crab, an illness, a growth, fund raising (hint, hint, have you all put some coin in front of you - James can you go collect all the coins before the morning teaers take them back again.), change, home, shell.

Oh, by the way, if you want me to shut up, just place some more money on the table in front of you. On behalf on the Cancer Council, I am open to "be quiet" donations :)

The symbolism of Cancer is positive of change: cancer is a word, not a sentence. If we look at the most associated word with the symbol of cancer, crab, there's a few surprises.

According to the ancient wisdom of symbol gypsy:

when a crab finds its way into your teacup, perhaps you are feeling crabby, or find your moods changing. Your crab may indicate that family members and domestic matters are important. It can also suggest that the people around you may be clingy and demanding. Some may even give you a nasty nip. The crab represents the sign of Cancer and has a strong association with the changing moon. As crabs are also shy, you may long to hide in your own shell and let others get on with things. If you are feeling this way, remember you don't actually need anyone at the moment. You have more resources than you realise. You are strong when you need to be, but right now it's time to let go a little and believe in yourself. From, L Barker-Revell, 2007, Time for Tea. The gentle art of reading tea-leaves. p103. Allen & Unwin:Sydney

Now, because time is rolling on I don't want you to be crabby. I want you to remember that you have more resources than you realise and that it's time to let go a little. James is walking around with a donation bucket so do feel free to let go of a few coin resources into the bucket.

I am one of those ancient wisdom gypsies (not really, just ancient and love travelling like a gypsy) and I will now be making myself available to read the symbols in your tea cups. Just remember that a coin must pass my hand if you want me to read your tea leaves....a coin that will go straight to helping the world understand the symbolism of the word cancer - no sentence, just a word that can be resymbolised with little help from my friends.

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.

The power of two

2010-05-24T07:38:00.002+10:00

Even in Paradise danger lurks beyond the happiest domestic picture.

There's a Paradisial myth about togetherness, sharing, comfort and love. I'm sure you've heard it. It goes something like this:

Girl meets boy, they date, they get serious, they marry, they live happily ever after in a house with a white picket fence, a dog and a cat. They have, on average across Paradise, two children and a new car that gets traded up every two years. He works in a professional capacity , she is a fantastic stay at home mother, kids grow up unhinged by anything nasty, they go to university, parents pay for everything because there is no thought of social security. The children follow the same path, marry, etc, etc.

I used to live in Paradise. I hated it! Never did learn how to cook the perfect steak with the perfect mash. I was much more of a fruit salad, with your fingers, girl. My perfect financial advising husband, well, let's just say that his appetite went well beyond food that could be purchased at the local butcher. No, he was much more upmarket. He only purchased at the Farmer's Ocean Market. From the farmer's daughter to be precise. From the farmer's 14 year old daughter.

Dell, I called her. The farmer in the dell got all fucked up and became the financial advisor in Dell. Bastard. Dell got the financial advisor in her, alright. She got his filthy little fertile sperm and soon there would be two beautiful Dells.

He had to die. How the hell was I going to do him in and not get caught? Crime was frowned upon in Paradise. We didn't like it or like people who did it. What we liked was a happy picture of domestic bliss, a happy picture where the young daughters at the farmer's ocean markets never stayed on stall for long because the little bitches got pregnant to the good husbands of Paradise. How the Paradisial wives never worked out the peculiar customer service strategy at the Farmer's Market had me bluffed for ages. Until I sought a second wife to help me kill my perfect paradise.

Bubbling beneath Paradise was a second culture: a sub culture of matriarchy and tropical holidaying. Initiation to the sub culture was triggered by the white drawn face of a single woman who had just learned that her good husband preferred fresh sea food to the regular beef on offer. Paradisial women always moved in pairs: strength in numbers, I guess. A single woman spelled S.O.S to the other good women of Paradise.

My initiation happened almost immediately after plotting to kill the king squid. His tentacle needed to be chopped off. But how? I just couldn't think of a way I could execute a death plan alone. As I sat beneath the palm trees in Paradise a perfect plan jogged into my devastated thinking.

"Great day for a run along the water. Want to join us," a passing, very perky, jogger jogged on the spot in front of me. Her jogging buddy in very expensive matching gym clothes jogged a circle around the two of us as though creating a whirlpool of connection.

My first reaction was to tell stopped jogger to fuck off but Paradisial training was nicely ingrained so I instead smiled sweetly and said,

"I haven't got the right shoes on but thanks for the invitation."

The whirlpool creator stopped jogging and faced me square on. She was beautiful. Gorgeous skin, gorgeous facial structure and eyes as calming as Lovan. She looked expensive, as did every other woman in Paradise. How did they afford to dress so beautifully? Surely there would be no money left for their husbands to dress up and socialise if they spent money on themselves?

Beautiful whirlpool jogger hugged me and I could smell natural frangapani perfume as her warm sweat dropped onto my arm. It was very intimate. She whispered in my ear,

"We have a way of dealing with the good husbands of Paradise you know. Come walk with me".

Well, well. The power of two is way better than the awkward heart broken plotting of one. Paradise lives on thanks to the cunning power survival strategies of the good wives of Paradise. It seems that the power is not in the killing but in total embracing of surface domestic bliss - just as men have done for centuries. Such surface bliss and polish, so the good jogger instructed me, scares the good husbands senseless and they never again wander or shop where they are not supposed to - just as disempowered women have done for centuries. In Paradise, the good husbands are rendered isolated in their own facade (who would believe them if they reported that a good wife slapped them behind closed doors or spent all the money on herself), engulfed by their own perfect lie and denied freedom of choice for the rest of their miserable lives in Paradise.

Ahhhh, I love Paradise.

Boots and all

2010-05-23T07:41:00.002+10:00

Genre: Stream of Consciousness
Description: Boots picture conjured so many ideas that I was unable to choose, therefore I experimented with the thoughts running through my mind as I pondered the picture.

I wonder whose boots they are, Mary's or Sammi's? Bloody boots. Like I haven't had enough boots in my life. Army boots, walking boots, riding boots, fashion boots.
Oh, I wish I could go back to London again soon. I loved the boots I used to wear to work. It's too hot here for boots. How the hell did I do it in my early feminist days? I wore boots similar to these ones. I couldn't afford Doc Martins so I wore a brown variety of lace ups. Must have looked funny: my midi dresses with splits up the side to breakfast time, boots and a big fat pregnant belly. Jesus, how did I lace those buggers up when I was pregnant. I wonder if that's why I stopped wearing the boots? Those London boots were lace ups too. Rather feminine and Victorian looking, like something from Upstairs Downstairs. Those Boots I bought at DFO last winter, before I went to Melbourne, were crap. They walk wrong: they roll. They hurt my back. I wonder if Dad's army boots used to get hot. Those boots and his web belt seem to be an ever present part of my childhood memories. Ooops, losing stream of consciousness and moving toward Life Writing. Time to stop because these boots were made for walking. LOVE that song, love Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood's original.

Photo courtesy of Sammi at Sammi Speaks. Sometimes.

Conchology speech at opening of Michelle's Mueseum

2010-05-22T09:27:00.002+10:00

I was but six when we returned to Papua New Guinea. My memories were like the whispering of a shell held to an ear - swooshy, distant and surreal. Confused between collective memories given me by family members and my own juvenile memories of joy, I tried hard to remember the smells I liked. I think I used to like the smell of the ocean...or, did I like the sound of the ocean?

My older siblings and parents used to tell the same ocean faring stories over and over. Sharks, crocodiles, stingrays, bech de mere and lakotois. I knew those stories so well, they were so familiar, that I thought the memories were mine. The memories were fantastic, free and oh so scary (Crocodiles have really big teeth) but where were all the people memories? I had to have some people memories because I really liked people.

For my seventh birthday I got a bucket of shells. I was estatic. Shells were currency, language, and my way in to play with the village kids. The village kids never played with me. I was different. I was white and I didn't understand their talk.But, now I had shells and I would give them shells and they would play with me. A good plan and I was happy.

I waited under a coconut tree on the shelly track leading from our Colonial style house to the village. My bucket of shells beside me I was ready to offer out the Cowries and Spider shells to the first kids that approached me. I could see the kids helping the Mary's sweep the sand around their huts.One Mary looked up at me and laughed. She pointed her shaking Coconut broom at me and all the kids started laughing at me too.

I figured they were laughing because they already knew that Mum and Dad collected some very valuable trading shells for me. I figured they were laughing because they couldn't wait to come see my treasures and to beg me for the privelege of cherishing one of my shells. I figure that I was about to create some people memories because now those kids would want to be friends with me.

As was to be the relationship pattern for the rest of my life, I figured wrong. As the sun set over the oceaned horizon, Mum called me back inside. No native kids had come to play with me. No language had been exchanged. No inroads into childish international relations were sealed that day. No happy people memories were forged in my developing brain.

Instead of being crushed like the shell underfoot, that day the greatest decision of my young life was made. I decided that I would become a shell collector and a shell listener. People were awful and shells were fantastic.

And that, my dear friends, is how I got to be a conchologist and curator of the world's finest shell museum: Michelle's. As you leave the theatre now, be sure to pick up one of the shells and listen to the story told you by the whisperings of mermaids. They will tell you that the ocean is far from a scary, wild place and that it is instead a beautiful playground where all children play together and speak the universal language of Shell.

Genre: Life Writing

Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt. If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply post a short story or paragraph to your blog and leave a comment and link on this post so that all participants can come to you to read/comment/encourage.

Testing the features

2010-05-21T16:50:00.003+10:00

If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply post a short story or paragraph, focused on the feature picture, to your blog and link back to Megan's post so that all participants can come and read/comment/encourage. This is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt:

This is nought but a test page to see if I can discover how the "Read more" option works.

Imaginif's New Website: www.imaginif.com.au

2007-05-17T17:53:00.000+10:00

Imaginif…child protection became serious business.

Imaginif…there was a single place where 24 hour global conversation led to raising consciousness around child safety issues.
Imaginif… www.imaginif.com.au

Yes, we are now live and bringing a global child safety
conversation to your home computer.

Our aim: To become the largest on-line child protection conversation
in the world.

Join several writers from around the world, a host of concerned parents, professionals and agencies, in our quest to put safety of children
uppermost in people’s minds.

We cannot reach our aim without YOU.

Join us at
www.imaginif.com.au.

FREE gift on registration in the forum

Carnival Against Child Abuse: May Day Edition

2007-05-16T13:23:00.000+10:00

The Carnival Against Child Abuse: May Day. May Day. May Day. Children at Risk edition is now up at Imaginif's brand new website. In fact, the site is so new that it is not even live and optimized until Thursday Morning (Wed night in the U.S.A). I so wanted to kick our new site off with the Carnival Against Child Abuse though that I’ve bought our live date forward as much as I could.

Don't forget the participation contest in this months Carnival Against Child Abuse (read about it here: bottom of carnival). One point for every comment left on participating blogs stating that you made your way via the Carnival Against Child Abuse, and link backs. You do not have to have a blog in the Carnival to participate.

Next months edition will be the Carnival Against Child Abuse's first birthday. To be hosted at Survivors Can Thrive, get your posts in as soon as you can. Submit here.

Visit our new home:

The largest child protection conversation in the world.

www.imaginif.com.au

Blogs, fourums and protective behaviour shop,

Imaginif is helping you to keep kids safe.

(live to the world on 17th May 2007)

Mothers Wanted

2007-05-09T19:41:00.000+10:00

POSITION : Mother, Mum, Mama, Mummy, Mom, Ma, Na, Ama.

JOB DESCRIPTION:
Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an, often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT and PROMOTION:
Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION:
Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS:
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life.

Forward this on to all the Mums you know, in appreciation for everything they do on a daily basis, and let them know they are appreciated.

Courtesy: info@fathersonline.org

Protect Children from Poisons in the Home

2007-05-05T07:05:00.000+10:00

Child safety involves protecting children from all potential harms. While many parents think that home is the safest place for a child to be, home also provides a poisonous mix of hazards that impact upon our children's safety.

Most adults know and accept the risks taken with medicines, drugs, cleaning products and pesticides but children do not. Poison safety in the home requires not only keeping poisons out of reach but also education around why things are poisonous.

About: Pediatrics offers a Poison Safety checklist designed to find unsafe areas in the home. An assessment of storage, accessibility and general child safety principles, it is an excellent start point for keeping kids safe from accidental poison and age appropriate curiosity. What it does not do is help parents educate children about why products must be kept out of reach.

Look for teachable moments to educate children about poison safety. Weaving poison safety and poison rules into general conversation is an effective way to help children retain information rather than the children thinking they are receiving a Mum and Dad lecture. Lectures frequently result in children zoning out and offering platitudes to trick their parent into thinking that full attention is being given.

A teachable moment may present at any time. Are you ready for it? Now that we are home schooling, our child has been exposed to unusual activities and routines that used to happen during his school attendance hours. Oven and bathroom cleaning provided teachable moments that I had not previously considered.

While helping me, child was asked to leave the room on several occasions. The fumes and toxins from two particular products left his eyes watering and nose complaining. In the interests of child safety and environmental protection, it is time to swap to green products.

So interested was child in the powerful effect of the cleaners that we spent some time outside talking about why poisons work, why they are poisonous and what to do if someone is overcome by the poison. This discussion led into the potent effects of mixing not only chemicals but also food products, medicines and alcohol, and accidental usage of the wrong product. Although I appreciate that Pop will be embarrassed, I also shared a family based poison mishap because the teaching opportunity was too great to ignore..

Pop made a mistake recently when barbecuing steak. Eyesight failing, Pop relies on things being put away in their correct space. Reaching for the green bottle of oil spray, Pop unknowingly grabbed the green Pesticide spray - put there by a guest who was helping to tidy up. It wasn't until he sprayed the steak that the smell told him it was Mortein. If Pop had been unable to smell, he would have served the steak and inadvertently poisoned his guests.

Child helped me to do a poison safety check. Within our kitchen alone, we found three bottles of hazardous chemicals that were within arms reach of visiting children. Further, we found four potentially hazardous poisons in the food pantry. Relocating all the products to a high spot, completely separate to the pantry, child and I decided to do a future home school project on poisonous foods and plants.

Our cleaning day turned into teachable moments of poisons information that may have been otherwise overlooked. While we know the importance of poison safety, children do not. Find a teachable moment and help keep your kids safe from poisons in the home.

Photo of "Poison" compliments of Hberends at stock.xchng

For Your Eyes Only: Funding Opportunity for Young Australians

2007-05-03T13:33:00.000+10:00

Your Eyes Only

The Foundation for Young Australians' new creative grant opportunity Your Eyes Only is for young people 12 -15 years to celebrate the strengths of their community by submitting a creative entry celebrating their community through their eyes.

Successful applicants will nominate a community group working with young people in their community, for example a school, youth group, Abused Child Trust or sporting group, to receive a donation. This donation would then be used by the community group to further its work by either purchasing much needed equipment or adding funds to an existing program.

Applications are now open, and close Monday 18 June 2007. A second funding round will open in July 2007.

More details and application forms available at the Foundation for Young Australians or call 1800 252 316. Posters available. Call 03 9670 5436 for free copies.

Imaginif...Child Protection Became Serious Business

2007-05-02T12:28:00.000+10:00

Imaginif is set to launch our new protective behaviour concept: the largest on-line child protection conversation in the world. The new site (www.imaginif.com.au, not yet unveiled) will include child safety focused blogs by several writers and a forum to discuss all child safety related issues. The site knows no boundaries and will be open to people world wide: Mums, Dads, professionals, grandparents, kids over 16. Anyone can comment on blogs but forum participation requires becoming a member (free gift with sign up).

Largest on-line child protection conversation topics will include, but not be limited to:

Water, sun, farm, poison, snow and road safety (each is a separate category).
Child sexual assault prevention.
Healthy and safe food for kids. WRITERS NEEDED
Travel safety. WRITERS NEEDED
Internet Safety. WRITERS NEEDED
Gang safety. WRITER NEEDED
Bully safety. WRITER NEEDED
Teenage and dating safety. WRITERS NEEDED
Domestic violence safety. WRITER NEEDED
Business protection and safety.
Assist dogs for children with a disability. WRITER NEEDED
Covert child photography safety. WRITER NEEDED
Foster care kid safety. WRITER NEEDED

To reach our aim of being the largest child protection conversation in the world, we need more voluntary writers from around the world who are willing to commit to just one child safety focused blog per week, answer comments on their blog and participate (at least once per week) in associated discussions in the child safety forums. If child safety is a passion of yours, then we want you.

Interested? Apply today. Applicant writers will demonstrate specific knowledge in their nominated area of child safety (yes, caring parents qualify), will send a bio, three samples of their writing, two email referees and be willing to interact with Imaginif, via email or phone, if accepted.

This is a voluntary position and your weekly commitment would be for a minimum three months. You may be able to do it as part of your Corporate Social Responsibility if you are staff of a progressive and socially responsible company. Alternatively, you may be like me and consider child safety so important that you are willing to write for the passion of it. Others may choose to do it for personal reasons between themselves and their God - acting out their beliefs of helping other people.

Blogs will contain a short bio of the blogger at the end of each blog with a link to either bloggers own site or place of business. In text linking back to own business, other articles or industry specific sites is encouraged. What a great way to increase traffic to your site.

Bloggers who have English as a second language are welcome to send duplicate posts: one in English and one in their mother tongue. Publishing both ensures that people who don’t speak English can still become part of the largest on-line child protection conversation in the world.

Volunteer writers will retain copyright of their material but please respect that once posted it should not be posted word for word elsewhere.

The new global conversation on child protection will be monetized with Google AdSense and financial sponsor logos. This is required to meet hosting and site upkeep fees. Imaginif chooses to work independently without any government funding and supports the site from our other business income (sale of protective behaviour resources and consulting).

Should you be accepted as a blogger, your individual/company’s banner/logo can be included on the front page at no financial cost.

Apart from our impending start (in three weeks), there is no time frame on application for these short term and part time voluntary jobs. Writers will come and go. Please send this to people you may think will be interested.

For more information, contact me at imaginif@bigpond.com.au. I’m looking forward to entering into the largest on-line child protection conversation in the world with you.

Imaginif...child protection became serious business. Imaginif...you were part of the push.

World of Children Award

2007-05-01T11:56:00.000+10:00

The Drum Beat (a weekly electronic publication exploring initiatives, ideas and trends in communication for development) is circulating award notification for the World of Children Awards. I thought may be of interest to readers:

World of Children Awards Recognises ordinary people worldwide whose lives are dedicated to doing extraordinary work on behalf of children. There are 3 award categories: World of Children Health Award; World of Children Humanitarian Award; and the Founder's Award. The first 2 award winners will receive US$50,000; and the third, US$15,000 for the Founder's Award. All award funds go to support the proven and sustainable programmes initiated/managed by the winners. Deadline: May 4 2007.

Please pass this on to anyone who may be able to meet the nomination guidelines in the short time frame.

Bogus Email Suggesting PIN Reversal Under Robbery

2007-04-30T13:35:00.000+10:00

There is a bogus email about PIN Reversal doing the rounds (below).

PIN NUMBER REVERSAL (GOOD TO KNOW)
If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse. For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321.The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.
The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the
robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you. This information
was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because
people don't know it exists. Please pass this along to everyone possible.
Australian Federal Police. AFP Web site: http://www.afp.gov.au

Suspicious about the content suggesting people reverse their PIN when confronted by a robber (who can do this under pressure!) and no direct link to either the Australian Federal Police warning or the mentioned TV broadcast, I contacted the Australian Federal Police and asked for legitimacy.

This is their reply:

The AFP is aware of this email. The AFP does not endorse this email.
Regards,
Steph
STEPHANIE CAMILLERI
EXEC. ASSISTANT TO MANAGER,
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS CHIEF OF STAFF PORTFOLIO AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL
POLICE
Tel +61(0) 2 62757294 Ext 167294 Fax +61(0) 2 62757058 www.afp.gov.au

Christine Aguilera Abused as a Child

2007-04-30T08:43:00.000+10:00

Christine Aguilera grew up in a home where the dynamic was domestic violence rather than domestic bliss. Witnessing her mother beat up by her father, Christine stated that she received a few hits as well.

Hiding in music and singing as a way to block out emotional pain, fear and chaos, Christina Aguilera learnt to dissociate at a very young age. Today with her grueling schedule, constant reinventing of herself and amazing creativity, Christina may still be displaying the signs of dissociation.

Domestic Violence is child abuse. Child witnesses of parental violence frequently dissociate to survive. Typically, they will do one of two things when exposed to one parent beating the other:

Run to the abused parent and cry, “Leave my Mummy/Daddy alone”, or

play quietly and act as though nothing is happening.

Either of these coping strategies places the child at greater risk of harm and is child abuse in action.

Whereas Christina Aguilera has channeled her talent and the affects of child abuse into her successful career, many child witnesses of domestic violence are not as lucky. Subconsciously prepared to tolerate abuse, child witnesses often grow up with reorganized thoughts about abuse equaling love. The remorse and buy back phases of the domestic violence cycle are so strong, appealing and convincing that child witnesses unconsciously seek out relationships where they are sure to experience the “love” of meaningful relationships. These relationships are frequently laced with the tactics of power and control and the adult child relives their parent’s abusive experiences.

Witnessing domestic violence is tantamount to living in a war zone and many child witnesses present with symptoms similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We do not send our children to war. Why do we allow our children to grow up in one?

If you are experiencing any forms of domestic violence (physical, verbal, emotional and financial), help is available. It is possible to break the cycle and give your children the life they deserve. Ring a help service today. A problem shared is a problem halved.

In Australia ring: Violence Against Women, Australia Say's No 1800 200 526

In the U.S. ring: National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), 1-800-787-3224 (TDD)

In the U.K ring: 24-hour National Domestic Violence helpline, 0808 2000 247

Reach out for help. Please do not be a child abuser by attempting to keep things calm and your children safe. Domestic violence is child abuse.

Articles of interest around child witnesses of domestic violence:

Lee-Ross, A (2007), The potential impact of the amendments to the Family Law Act and consent for specialized child counseling services. See page 2 of the newsletter.

Is Domestic Violence Child Abuse?

How Children Learn the Cycle of Violence

End Child Sexual Abuse. Take a Corporate Stance.

2007-04-28T12:16:00.000+10:00

Help the corporate voice of those helping you in the fight against

child sexual abuse.

Click below graphic and vote for this site as the best Corporate Blog Site.

To vote you need to register and confirm your email address.

Thank you for putting Child Sexual Abuse prevention on the blogosphere agenda.

Invitation to Submit Now to the Carnival Against Child Abuse (May 2007 edition)

2007-04-28T08:11:00.000+10:00

Invitation to join the fight against domestic terrorists:

child abusers.

Dear Reader,

You are invited to join us for the Carnival Against Child Abuse.

When: Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Where: Child Protection: Serious Business (here)

Theme: May Day, May Day: Children at Risk.

What to contribute: Your blog posts about Child Abuse. Posts that fit the theme of “May Day, May Day: Children at Risk” will be published first on the scale of blogs about Child Abuse.

Special guest appearance: In preparation for the first birthday of the Carnival Against Child Abuse (June 19th) we bring you straight from outback Australia, Participation Contest.

For every post you submit, you get one point.
For every comment you make on a carnival entry, you get one point. You can leave a comment even if you didn’t submit a post. However, your comment must include that you found your way there through the Carnival Against Child Abuse.
For every post that you link back to the carnival, you’ll get one point (begin now by advertising the upcoming "May Day, May Day: Children at Risk" edition. Follow up by advertising the published edition.).
Winner is the first to reach 21 points, or the closest to 21 points.
Winner will be announced here at Child Protection: Serious Business with a link back to the winner's blog/s.

Prize for Participation Contest Winner: Children’s Chapter Book, Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast. Value $23.00 (RRP $15.00, international P&H $8.00). Signed book will be mailed from the author (me). Winner will also receive a “Dogsbody Army Award for Helping Kids to Stay Safe” graphic to place on their site.

RSVP: Blogs to be received by Monday 14th May by responding to this invitation here.

Message from event coordinator: In the interest of child protection and assisting kids at risk of harm (physical, emotional, sexual and neglect), this virtual event is alcohol and drug free. We particularly welcome blog posts about prevention of child abuse, focusing on what parents can do. Practical tips, ideas, stories of encouragement and strength, and praise for those corporate entities that have taken up the Child Abuse prevention flag are most welcome. Similarly, and given that May celebrates Mother’s Day, stories about Mother’s who acted protectively toward their children are highly prized catches in the fight against child abuse. All other categories are still accepted (Survivor Stories, Poetry, In The News, Healing and Therapy, Advocacy & Awareness, Aftermath). If you have something to say about Child Abuse, this is the place to say it. We look forward to receiving your positive RSVP in the way of your blog submission. Thank you for enlisting to the war on domestic terrorism.

Photos courtesy of my son's 11th birthday party.

Bibliotherapy: Using Books to Help Children Solve Problems.

2007-04-27T11:09:00.000+10:00

Writing to right the ills against children, my chosen genre is children’s fiction: bibliotherapy. The use of a story to assist a child in grappling with and integrating social issues is a method I use successfully with children in counseling, and as a Mum of four, my kids have learnt how to solve problems through my choice of books provided them. Read here what Best Children’s Books says about bibliotherapy: the use of books to help children experiencing difficult times.

Parents frequently present as scared and unsure how to educate their children about personal safety: Scared that they may spoil their children’s innocence by discussing unpalatable things. Children’s innocence is spoilt by the perpetrating predators that seek our children out and destroy their self-esteem through bullying, violence and child abuse (physical, emotional, sexual and neglect).

One of my short children’s stories, Looking for Laughter, has been picked up by Pearson Education Australia and published in Challenge Magazine. The short story is about surviving school bullying by seeking out a laughter friend, another bullied child who can help turn the isolation and abuse into deep survival, using humor rather than fight back.

"I've been looking for laughter for a long time but it sure hid from me. All the girls hated me and I still hate them. Nobody would ever play with me and the teachers did mean things, all day. I wanted to run away, until I met Larry. I wasn't even looking for laughter on that day but there it was, right under my snotty nose. This is the story of the weird day that I wasn't looking for laughter but instead met Larry."

Child survival and personal safety is best encouraged by preparing our children for situations prior to them occurring. Books are a wonderful way for parents to gently introduce coping strategies and social understanding.

Read your child a book today and help prepare them for the unknown tomorrow.

Here’s my junior fiction book about body ownership (Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast), chapter by chapter. It’s free for you to print and read rather than having to pay the $15.00 RRP.

Why Children Accommodate Secrets about Child Sexual Abuse

2007-04-27T10:00:00.000+10:00

Ronald Summit, M.D., a central writer in the area of child sexual abuse, offered a five-part way for us to understand why children keep secrets about and accommodate ongoing sexual abuse. Summit’s model of understanding the secrecy and repeat victimization is the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome.

When we accommodate something, we put up with, allow it to happen and often even make it happen. Children are no different. Kids accommodate our bad moods, our boring explanations, our rules and even our very bad behaviour toward them. Our partners accommodate bad behaviour from us that they would never accommodate from another person. Why?

We accommodate bad behaviour from people we love because we have a history with them and have knowledge about why they are acting bad, or, we don’t know what to do to make the behaviour cease.

Children accommodate sexual abuse because often they know the perpetrator (85% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody well known to the child) and because they have no idea what to do about it. The child becomes locked into a frozen syndrome of isolation. They may be in trouble if they tell and they are in trouble if they do not tell.

Here is how Ronald Summit categorized children’s behaviour, thoughts and feelings according to his Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome:

Secrecy

Helplessness

Entrapment and accommodation

Delayed, conflicted and unconvincing disclosure

Retraction

Over the next five articles, we will take a closer look at each of Summit’s accommodation categories.

In the meantime, if you are writing in the area of child protection or child abuse, consider submitting to the Carnival Against Child Abuse. The more voices that cry out against child abuse, the quicker we can keep all of our children safe. The next Carnival Against Child Abuse (May edition) will be hosted at this site. Submission information released within the next couple of days.

The Carnival of Australia: ANZAC Day Inaugural Edition

2007-04-25T06:03:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the inaugural, ANZAC Day, edition of the

Carnival of Australia.

Aussie bloggers unite on this day and salute the fallen diggers, the Anzacs: those who fought for our freedom. Without them, we may not have the opportunity to blog our diverse thoughts, interests and political persuasions: Lest we forget.

Unlike the Seeker's, The Carnival is Over, the Carnival of Australia has just begun.

Let's begin with the ANZAC Day posts:

Laurie Joyce, grandson of an Anzac, presents Bill Joyce - ANZAC posted at Laurie Joyce. Laurie's post contains diary entries written by his grandfather while he served in the First World War. A fascinating look at the life of the Australian and New Zealand Diggers, this post is educational and offers a peek into the mateship that was to become known as the Anzac Spirit.

Megan from Child Protection: Serious Business presents ANZAC DAY. A Black Day in Australian History. Asking us to also remember the Indigenous Australians who fought in the First World War, Megan includes some ANZAC Day facts for those interested in knowing more.

In ANZAC Day Poetry Reading: The Final Inspection, a home schooling family offers a poignant poem that is suitable to read to children this ANZAC Day.

Is home schooling invading Australia? What would the Anzacs make of that? In Schola, American blogger who now resides, and home schools, in the wilds of Far North Queensland, suggests that Aussies "are almost without exception delightful. Helpful, friendly, inclusive, outgoing, real. True blue, as they say. We have made some great friends." Welcome to Australia Lynne and family. I hope the spirit of ANZAC continues to please you.

What is Anzac Day without Anzac biscuits? Here's an Anzac Biscuits recipe from Janda Gooding, Senior Curator of Art at the Australian War Memorial and co-blogger to George Lambert: Gallipoli and Palestine landscapes.

The ANZAC spirit of mateship is not just a urban myth. In Get the book!, Aussie Gillian at the School of St Jude gives of her own 'mateship' to ensure the blogosphere stays aware of what is happening in Tanzania. Importantly, the Australian founder of St Jude’s is currently touring her own home country of Australia. Gemma Sisia (Australian Story) is criss-crossing the nation to meet the thousands of Aussie supporters who are assisting the fight against poverty through education of disadvantaged children in Tanzania.

Just as our Diggers cared in 1915, so too do many Aussies today. We are a nation of people who give when the chips are down. Emily Turner of World Grows Wide keeps a philanthropic blog and has recently noticed her blog has produced Unexpected benefits to the profile of her employer's website. How's that for a new spin of philanthropy! Perhaps the employer should promote Emily to Corporate Blogger.

Tokyo Girl Down Under, a pom (acronym for Passage of Means) who married a German, lived in Tokyo, moved to Australia, changed the name of her blog AND scored as a Blogger Blog of Note, reflects on only meeting true Aussie Sydneysiders when riding the bus. Australia is such a transient country. Perhaps it's cheaper for locals to live on a bus than buy a house in Sydney. Welcome to Australia Tokyo Girl. Your diversity fits in well!

In Oly and Em's Oz Adventure, an immigrating Pommie couple have gone walkabout in their bus and are keeping a diary of their trip around Australia. Travelling in their VW Kombi, Henry, Oly and Em really are showcasing all Australia has to offer. Just be careful Oly and Em, take heed from the Down Under lyrics offered by Men at Work: "Traveling in a fried-out combie, On a hippie trail, head full of zombie, I met a strange lady, she made me nervous. She took me in and gave me breakfast."

Buzzybee from stock.xchng tells a hilarious story about where Aussie portraits turn up when they are shared as free photo stock. It's a small world, especially when attempting to recover from a broken heart and your company flashes up corporate power point presentations containing photos of your ex! Check it out in it's Funny ... But True ...

Speaking of Stock.XCHNG, the leading FREE stock photo site, they have many Aussie themed photos available to use on your blog posts. Not only have I included a couple of my photographs as free stock, but, I use the site all the time when I need photographs better than I can take myself. Most of the photographs on the Carnival of Australia are courtesy of stock.xchng. I support the Aussie photographers as much as I can.

We breed’em tough down under. Move over Conan the Barbarian here comes Conan the Australian. Conan is an Aussie actor who left Down Under to live in Asia. Down under? Conan must have to bend down to get under everything. He’s 7ft tall! Even though we Aussies apparently suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome, there won't be many who can reach the head of this tall poppy to knock him down! A prolific writer and keeper of three blogs, Conan Stevens presents:

Bangkok Adrenaline Scriptwriter And Principle Actor - Read The Script Online Now from Conan Stevens Online. This movie is scheduled for release in September.

Conan also presents a good few tips for aspiring actors: Acting - So You Want To Be A Movie Star? posted at Actors And Acting Informational Blog. This post is a real life look at what happens on set.

If you'd like to be as big as Conan the Australian then have a look at Muscle Building The Basics Getting Started posted at Bodybuilding Muscle.

Debriefing, literally, for Australian hospital workers: Australian Emergency Department male nurse, Ian Miller, uses humour and loving as a way to survive the trauma of working in a fast paced, crisis driven environment. In get some loving. posted at impactED, the Aussie sense of humour (dunny humour) keeps Ian sane. WARNING - this post is not for viewing by children.

In a different Australian health vein, Spasmodic Dysphonia presents Dystonia: Identifying and Acknowledging our Limitations. A sufferer of several forms of the debilitating Dystonias, Sue comments that, "It is okay to go easy on ourselves, especially when experiencing pain or discomfort on a regular basis." If you have Dystonia, or know anyone who has, this Aussie's blog is full of information and links to Australian support for Dystonia sufferers.

Does Australia really detest homosexuality? We are such a diverse and accepting race I wouldn’t have thought so but here’s an interesting post from Jack Yoest in America: Same Sex Marriage: A Foreign Precedent? posted at Reasoned Audacity. Jack states, "there is one country that the activists and mainstream media will never mention in this debate: Australia." It was interesting to read Jack's alternative view of Australia.

While on the topic of Australian politics: Roger Hanney presents Silencing Dissent: an interview with Clive Hamilton - April 17, 2007 posted at typing is not activism...., saying, "An interview with executive director of The Australia Institute Clive Hamilton about the politics of silence and compliance in Johnny Howard's Awstrayleeya" Although the Carnival of Australia has a one post per blog policy, I couldn't resist also including Roger's entertaining, ' Under Southern Scars - Australia's new National Vanthem. by "Um" and "er" Vanstone. Roger describes his post by claiming that, "Amanda 'Sgt Schultz' Vanstone could have left us with a competent immigration department, Aboriginal health and well-being at a level superior to that in the third world, and a shred of hope for multiculturalism in Australia. Instead, she's bequeathing us a remix of Land of Hope & Glory. AAAAGH!!!"

And finally...can Aussie bloggers surf the crest of the blogosphere? Problogger, Darren Rowse, is continually asked for a list of 100 Aussie best blogs. With the help of Aussie blogging friends, Craig Harper and Meg from Dipping into the Blogpond, Darren has suggested links to Top Australian Blogs.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Australia. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Australia (hosted at Home Schooling Aspergers on May 9, 2007) using our carnival submission form. If you'd like to be a true blue mate, give hosting the carnival on your site a go. Just let me know and I'll book your hosting date. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Help spread the word about the fortnightly Carnival of Australia. Write a post and provide a link back directing other Aussie bloggers to the carnival. Here's an example of how I link back to various Carnivals: A to Z: Ways to Celebrate Family Life.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

ANZAC : The origin of the acronym ‘ANZAC’

The Dawn Service

ANZAC Day Commemoration

Outline Commemoration Service for ANZAC Day

The Australian National Flag

Australia’s War Dead

Australian War Memorials

Bugle Calls

The Catafalque Party

Colours Tell the Story

Medals

The Poppy is for Sacrifice

The Rising Sun Badge

Rosemary is for Remembrance

The Military Salute

The Slouch Hat and Emu Plumes

The Victoria Cross

Words of Remembrance

Technorati tags:
carnival of australia, blog carnival.

ANZAC DAY. A Black Day in Australian History.

2007-04-24T09:01:00.000+10:00

Every year on April 25, ANZAC DAY, Australia honours its war dead.

ANZAC is an acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, the word ANZAC meant someone who fought at Gallipoli. Referring to tough attributes and team skills of Australian and New Zealand soldiers, the word ANZAC eventually came to represent any Australian or New Zealander who fought or served in the First World War.

Allied to Britain, France and Russia, black, white, yellow and brindle Australians volunteered to join the fight against the German, Austria-Hungry and Turkish invasion. Australia, with its meagre population of fewer than five million, attracted 20,000 men within just three months of the outbreak of WWI. All those Australians who enlisted to defend our country and the motherland (England) were volunteers.

In a war lasting just four years, 300,000 Australian men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.

During the Second World War, ANZAC Day became a day on which the lives of all Australians lost in war time were remembered. The spirit of ANZAC recognises the qualities of courage, mateship and sacrifice which were demonstrated at the Gallipoli landing.

Each ANZAC Day, hundreds of thousands of Australians attend parades and memorials across the nation to honour the servicemen and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our lasting freedom. That first black day of the Gallopoli landing is now immortalised as a public holiday.

The National Indigenous Times, in The Big Read: Unknown Soldiers , reflects that "every year, these same grateful Australians somehow manage to overlook the contribution of Indigenous people - the black men and women who fought and died for a country that didn't even recognise them as citizens."

On our day of remembrance, lest we forget and as you lay a wreath at the foot of the unknown soldier, please spare a thought for our Indigenous brothers and sisters: the original Aussie battlers who also fought for their country and the right for all of us to live a life free of harm.

Photo borrowed from the National Indigenous Times.

A to Z: Ways to Celebrate Family Life

2007-04-24T08:14:00.000+10:00

The 51st edition of the Carnival of Family Life is up at DigitalRichDaily. The Carnival is full of family-related posts from all over the world: an A to Z of difference.

To see how others live family life or to keep your finger on the pulse of all family related posts, be sure to join the weekly Carnival of Family Life.

Consider joining us. I try to submit weekly: an article from this site and one from Home Schooling Aspergers. This week the Carnival of Family Life has included my posts on Gem Sifting and Words to Explain Feelings Following Virginia Tech Shootings.

Submit your family related blog entry to the Carnival and watch your hit statistics grow.

And...if you are an Aussie blogger or are blogging about anything Australian, do not miss the fortnightly Carnival of Australia.

Children Blamed for Child Sexual Abuse

2007-04-24T07:12:00.000+10:00

Two children made a complaint against a man that everyone in the town loved. More children came forward and made complaints of sexual abuse. Throughout the investigation, Police also contacted other children, allegedly sexually abused by this beloved townsman. Many of the contacted children admitted that the man had sexually abused them for years.

In the face of overwhelming evidence, the man confessed. Over a long period, he had sexually abused almost every female child he had contact with. Banished from his town by the judicial system and sent to jail in a place far from home, rural anger turned toward the children.

“If you knew he was like that why did you go near him?”
“It’s common sense, you just stay away from danger.”
“Because he was teased by big girls who should know better, we have lost our best worker.”
"The children got together and lied. Look, they're all sad now that he's gone."

The statements resounded in my head; louder, stronger and more convincing that my single voice of; “He was responsible for the abuse, not the kids.”

I left the town exhausted and sad that children are still blamed for sexual assault.

Do you recognise your reactions to child sexual abuse as parallel to what townsfolk were saying?

Child sexual abuse is NEVER the fault of the child.

Tomorrow I will write about the Child Accommodation Syndrome and explain why sometimes children make themselves available for the abuse and why they often do not tell anyone.

Photo of models only. Taken from SXC Photo Exchange

Wedded to a Culture of Child Safety

2007-04-21T15:17:00.000+10:00

Our wedding in the rainforest photos were delivered last night. We discussed how much the photographer had enjoyed the differences in the wedding style: the kids, the activities, the total inclusion and participation of guests.

Photographer referred to it as “a true social justice Megan and Paul style wedding.’ It was. We did what suited us and not what preconceived and traditional ideas of weddings commanded. Of major interest to me though was the photographers questions around what motivated us to include so many fantastic activities for children.

Including and caring for children is a culture: a mind set that ensures children’s needs, rights and safety stay uppermost on adult agendas. Many people struggle with this. Often, children are viewed as unimportant, silly or painful.

Pondering this, I can only imagine this thinking as based in models of individual and consumer driven power. Children do not earn money so therefore cannot spend it. Children do not have the vote so therefore cannot influence public and social policy. Children do not have the cognitive or emotional capacity to have a strong voice so therefore cannot use their words to change things. Children will do as they are told and will understand that what we do is best for them.

What happened to my four children? Strong, opinionated, intelligent and passionate, my children have grown into a culture that recognises the worth, the power and the voice of children. If children are not consulted and listened to, then something is amiss.

My children are leaders because I have empowered them and kept them safe every step of the way. Our culture of child safety was not fear based, it grew from an inherent belief that children are human beings with unique views, needs and requirements. I was never scared that bad things would happen to my children and therefore had to lock them up, keep them away from life’s evils. Instead, I understood that safety was a child’s right and that the rest of the adult world needed to change.

Children at the centre of our wedding was a natural progression for us. Our motivation was not forced, but rather, based on our strong belief that children matter. This is the culture that I hope is contagious.

Photo 1 is of my husband singing a wedding speech (Lady Bug's Picnic) with one of our guests.

Below photo is my wedding party: my children.

Magnets are Attracting Danger (CPSC Media Release)

2007-04-21T12:20:00.000+10:00

NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs Washington, DC 20207

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2007
Release #07-163

CPSC Hotline: (800) 638-2772, CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908

Small Magnets Are Injuring Children

CPSC Releases Stronger Warning to Parents

WASHINGTON, D.C. As the number of toys with magnets increases, so is the number of serious injuries to children. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is aware of hundreds of complaints that magnets have fallen out of various toys and at least 33 cases where children swallowed loose magnets and required emergency surgery. In addition, a 20-month-old boy from Seattle, Wash. died.

Of the 33 cases, the children ranged in age from 10 months to 11 years, the majority were older than three, and the majority were boys. All of the injuries led to hospital stays, which ranged from three to 19 days. In nearly all cases reviewed by CPSC, children had suffered intestinal perforations.

In addition to the intestinal injuries from swallowing loose magnets, the CPSC is aware of one case of intestinal perforation after a child swallowed magnetic jewelry that was being worn on the child’s tongue, two cases of intestinal perforations after children swallowed complete components of building sets containing magnets, one aspiration of a loose magnet, and one perforation of the nasal wall from nose jewelry.

Within the past year, the CPSC has conducted five recalls with more than eight million products containing magnets that could come loose and fall out of the product. In the fall of 2006, the CPSC alerted parents to the emerging hazard of magnets. Even so, children continue to be treated in emergency rooms across the country for complications due to ingesting magnets or toy components with magnets.

If two or more magnets, two or more magnet components, or a magnet and another metal object are swallowed separately, they can attract to one another through intestinal walls. When this happens, parents and physicians may think that the materials will pass through the child. But with magnets this is often not the case. The magnets become trapped in the body and can twist or pinch the intestine, causing holes, blockage and infection in the intestine or blood poisoning. All of which can lead to death.

The CPSC is working with manufacturers, the toy industry and other stakeholders to protect children from the dangers of magnets. New voluntary standards requirements were approved on March 15th. In addition, the voluntary standards group will continue to consider additional requirements during the next year.

In the meantime, the CPSC is working to help those in the medical community better understand the hazard and how to properly diagnose it.

To help prevent serious magnet ingestion injuries the CPSC recommends:

Seek prompt medical attention if you suspect your child may have swallowed a magnet
Look for non-specific abdominal symptoms: abdominal pains, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
Note that objects in x-rays may appear as a single object that could actually be multiple magnetic pieces separated by trapped intestinal walls
Keep small magnets and small pieces containing magnets away from young children who might mistakenly or intentionally swallow them
Look out for loose magnetic pieces – regularly inspect toys and children’s play areas for missing or dislodged magnets

CPSC has also prepared a safety alert on the hazard posed by small magnets.

Send the link for this page to a friend! The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $700 billion annually. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals - contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, call CPSC's hotline at (800) 638-2772 or CPSC's teletypewriter at (800) 638-8270, or visit CPSC's web site at www.cpsc.gov/talk.html. To join a CPSC email subscription list, please go to www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.asp. Consumers can obtain this release and recall information at CPSC's Web site at www.cpsc.gov.

Words to Explain Feelings Following Virginia Tech Shootings.

2007-04-20T07:22:00.000+10:00

Words cannot explain how I feel. This sentence found much overuse in the last two days in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting spree. Further, last night as I watched The Biggest Loser (yes, confessions of a social worker here), I heard a contestant say; “Words cannot explain how I feel.”

We have words to assist us explain how we feel. What we are deficit in is the uses of those words to adequately capture our feelings. Emotional descriptions are neither prized nor welcomed in many situations so as a group we have trained ourselves not to use emotional words in fear we are neurotic, girlie or silly: outcasts in a world that values non-emotional language.

The English language has over two thousand words to describe feelings. Typically, any of us will use only six words in our entire repertoire of descriptive feeling words. Of those six words, they fall into three sets of opposites, for example happy/sad, upset/calm, scared/peaceful.

Emotional intelligence includes being able to clearly articulate how we are feeling. Emotional intelligence, in part, is the ability to express our deep grief, fear, sickness, disillusionment and bewilderment over the Virginia Tech shootings. Emotional intelligence involves pinpointing how we feel when voted off the Biggest Looser and giving those feelings a voice.

Without a voice, the feelings grow and take us over. The feelings prevent us from doing certain things because we may be scared, confused and emotionally impoverished. Without a voice to say how they are feeling prior to bad things happening, our children may be at grave risk of harm.

Do not allow your children to develop a monotone, “words cannot explain how I feel,” dialogue. Give children the tools to identify and articulate the feelings inside of them. Teach them the subtle differences between feeling layers. Teach them a multitude of words so that they can adequately explain to you how they feel about the unusual behaviours of that fringe dwelling, female stalking, and odd person at college. The more emotional language children have, the more their messages of concern have positive action impact prior to bad things happening.

To manage personal risk, we require knowledge of how others are feeling. We can only definitely know how others are feeling if they can clearly communicate what is going on in the space that nobody else can see: their emotional self.

The formula for clear communication is:

I feel (insert a feeling word, not a thought)

when you/I (state the behaviour of the other person)

because (your thoughts on the way you see the situation).

I feel desolate when I hear that others have inadequate words to describe their feelings because emotional intelligence can help to keep people (particularly our children) safe.

Emotional intelligence is a tool we can gift our children to offer them control from emotional perpetrators in an out of control world. To learn more about how to do this, practice the suggestions in Teaching Emotional Intelligence for Personal Safety and Clear Communication.

When bad things happen to good people, clearly state how you are feeling about it. Using the formula for clear communication (I feel/felt…when you/I…because…), leave a message here for all those affected by the killing of innocent young people at Virginia Tech.

Squeaky Books May Help Keep Kids Safe

2007-04-19T13:29:00.000+10:00

This is a protective behaviour, bibliotherapy story to read to children to help them learn how to say, "NO." There are no guarantees that a squeaky book will keep your kids safe, but it is an example of how innovative you can be in beginning to teach protective behaviours in a non threatening way.

The storybook duck that quacked me safe.

(taken from my writings at Helium)

Quiet like a queen walking, Granddad snuck into my room. He woke me up when he sat on my bed and stroked my hair. Because it was dark, he said he couldn't see where my head was and he accidentally stroked my bosom too. Silly Granddad.

Mummy told me if he EVER did anything like that, I had to get my storybook duck onto him. Mummy bought me a special squeaky book, full of quacking duckies. She showed me how to hide it under my pillow and how to keep pressing the mother duck so that it would make big quacks to wake up Grandma and scare silly Granddad away. Mummy said that the storybook and Grandma would help keep me safe. It was like a safety alarm.

I love Granddad and I like it when he tells me I'm his special princess. He told me his princess love kisses were our special secret. Mummy also told me it's not good to have secrets. Secrets can make kids sad. It is better to have surprises. They're like a good secret that ends on an extra special day: like a birthday or Christmas. On those days, you can blab to everyone about what's inside the pretty wrapped present - even if the present is a big tarantula. I like surprises because there's always cake and soft drink. Like at birthday parties. They're cool.

Mummy said when she was a kid she had secrets. The secrets got like scrambled eggs in her head and heart and made her cry all the time. Mummy didn't have nice people near her, not even Granddad and Grandma. Nobody helped her give her secrets a bath to clean them up. My Mum had to walk around with scrambled eggs in her head for 20 years. Yuk. Because the secret scrambles smelt so much Mummy went to a doctor to help fix them. She went to a talk doctor. I don't know how the talk doctor washed out her mind. Maybe he talked to her while he stuck a cleaner in her ear and hosed out her mind.

The talk doctor talked to Grandma too and finally Grandma believed about the stuck egg in Mum's head. I don't know why Granddad had to go away to clean his scrambled eggs but it took almost a whole year to get him cleaned up. Mummy was still a bit dirty inside her head and she said that she didn't trust anyone anymore, 'specially Granddad.

When it was time for the new little baby to come out of Mummy's tummy she had to ring Grandma to come and look after me. Grandma wouldn't come without Granddad. Grandma told Mummy that Granddad had promised not to cook me scrambled eggs. Mummy said Grandma was sort of safe and that Grandma would bonk Granddad over the head if he tried to play secret games with me. Grandma hates ducks and if she hears one quacking, she'd grab her broom and come to chase it away. So, Mummy bought me a squeaky duck storybook as our surprise noise to wake up Grandma. Because it was a surprise, I could not quack it just any old time. No sir!

Yesterday, when Granddad snuck into my room like a Queen walking, I kept pressing my squeaky book. In the middle of the night mother duck's quacks were very loud. When Grandma came running in she must have forgotten the broom. She sure bought her voice though! She yelled at Granddad. She told him she was going to divorce him. I know what that is because that's what happened to my Dad too! That's scary.

Grandma must have really hated ducks because she called the Policemen. The Policemen took Granddad to sleep somewhere else and Grandma slept in my bed with me. The Policemen said it was time for me to be safe and that Grandma had done a good thing. They said that Granddad did a very bad thing because he touched my private bosom.

When Mummy bought the baby back to live with us, we all called him Duckie. His real name was Duke and he was ugly, a bit yellow and all wrinkled up: an ugly duckie! Mummy said that Duke would never meet Granddad and that we wouldn't have to teach Duke about surprise duck sounds to keep him safe. I don't think Duke would need a squeaky duck book because he scares people away with his crying!

The end. No more to tell because Duke is making too much noise.

International Job Opportunities: Social Workers, Teachers, Medical Professionals

2007-04-19T08:22:00.000+10:00

Want to work in the United Kingdom? Thinking about working around Australia?

Take the Leap with RSG Social Care… the Recruitment Specialist Group!

RSG are an Australian owned and run company providing assistance to Australian and New Zealand Social Workers seeking work abroad. RSG work with over 20 International offices to ensure that you receive maximum coverage and support whilst working overseas and of course we assist upon your return home!

Benefits of working through RSG Australia:

Multiple International offices specializing in Social Care
Excellent locum rates and permanent salaries/ relocation packages
Professional CV service
Interview preparation and coaching
Assistance with professional registration / GSCC
UK Bank accounts
Limited Company options
CRB Checks (UK police checks in accordance with Blue Care UK)
VIP Loyalty Reward system
Assistance with Visas and Work permits
Travel / Insurance packages
Professional & Public liability insurance packages

For further information on the services provided by RSG for employment in the United Kingdom or Australia please forward your enquiry or CV to kati@rsgaustralia.com.au or view our website.

RSG also provide services to the following professions for employment in the United Kingdom: Social Care, Teachers, Radiographers, Speech Pathologists, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Pharmacists, Bio-medical scientists, Cardiac Technicians/ Sonographers, Audiologists, and Nuclear Medicine Techs.

Kati Utzinger
Manager
Tollfree (within Australia) 1800 220 999
Tel. 07 4041 2399
Fax. 07 4041 1180
Mob. 0404082175
Email. kati@rsgaustralia.com.au

Risk Factors and Indicators of Child Abuse.

2007-04-18T15:01:00.000+10:00

Although every family's circumstances are different, there are a few risk factors and indicators that may suggest a higher probability of child abuse. However, just because the risk factors are present, it does not mean that children will be harmed. Risk factors and indicators are used as a measure of assessing substantial risk, not actual abuse.

These are some of the risk factors associated with possible child abuse:

social or geographic isolation of the child, young person or family, including lack of access to extended family,

previous abuse or neglect of a brother or sister,

family history of violence including domestic violence,

physical or mental health issues for the parent or caregiver affecting their ability to care for the child or young person

the parent or caregivers' abuse of alcohol or other drugs affecting their ability to care for the child or young person,

Single parent families where the parent has multiple friends come to stay.

When first learning about child abuse, most people immediately ask for the indicators of child sexual abuse. It is important to remember that there are four different types of abuse: Neglect, Emotional, Physical and Sexual, and that sometimes, the indicators of the different types of abuse look the same.

While there are common physical and behavioral signs that may indicate any of these types of abuse, the presence of one of these signs does not necessarily mean abuse or neglect. When I am assessing for likelihood of abuse, I look for clusters of the signs. If I see many of the signs together, I begin to suspect abuse and I report to a Government body (Police or Welfare) who can investigate and protect the child. It is neither my, or your job, to investigate. Child protection is a community concern and as a community member it is our responsibility to report: not to prove or punish.

The signs below are POSSIBLE signs of abuse. Remember that the presence of these signs does not necessarily mean abuse has been, or is, occurring. If you have concerns then you should report them to the Welfare Agency in your State, or to the Police.

Neglect:

Signs in children

Low weight for age and/or failure to thrive and develop,

untreated physical problems e.g: sores, serious nappy rash and urine scalds,

extreme anxiety about being abandoned, which is not age-appropriate,

child not adequately supervised for their age,

scavenging or stealing food and focus on basic survival,

poor standards of hygiene, i.e., child consistently unwashed,

extended stays at school, public places, other homes,

extreme longing for adult affection,

poor or pale complexion and poor hair texture.

Signs in parents or caregivers

Unable or unwilling to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical attention, safe home conditions,

leaving the child without appropriate supervision,

abandonment of child,

withholding physical contact or stimulation for prolonged periods,

unable or unwilling to provide psychological nurturing.

Sexual Abuse:

Signs in children

Child or child's friend telling you about it, directly or indirectly,

describing sexual acts,

going to bed fully clothed,

sexual knowledge or behaviour inappropriate for the child's age,

regressive behaviour e.g: sudden return to bed-wetting or soiling,

bruising or bleeding in the genital area,

sexually transmitted viruses,

bruising to breasts, buttocks, lower abdomen or thighs,

self-destructive behaviour e.g: drug dependency, suicide attempts, self-mutilation,

child being in contact with a known or suspected perpetrator of a sexual assault,

anorexia or over-eating,

adolescent pregnancy,

unexplained accumulation of money and gifts,

persistent running away from home.

Signs in parents or caregivers

Exposing a child to prostitution or pornography or using a child for pornographic purposes,

intentional exposure of a child to sexual behaviour of others,

previous conviction or suspicion of child sexual abuse,

coercing a child to engage in sexual behavior with other children,

verbal threats of sexual abuse,

denial of adolescent's pregnancy by family.

Physical abuse:

Signs in children

Bruising to face, head or neck, other bruising and marks which may show the shape of the object that caused it e.g: belt buckle, hand print,

lacerations and welts,

explanation of injury offered by the child is not consistent with the injury,

adult bite marks and scratches,

abdominal pain caused by ruptured internal organs, without a history of major trauma,

fractures of bones, especially in children under three years old,

burns and scalds (including cigarette burns),

drowsiness, vomiting, fits or retinal hemorrhages, which may suggest head injury,

multiple injuries or bruises,

swallowing of poisonous substances, alcohol or other harmful drugs,

dislocations, sprains, twisting,

general indicators of female genital mutilation which could include: having a special operation, difficulties in toileting and reluctance to be involved in sport or other physical activities where the child was previously interested.

Signs in parents and caregivers

Explanation of injury offered by the parent is not consistent with the injury,

a parent or caregiver says that they fear injuring their child,

family history of violence,

history of their own maltreatment as a child,

frequent visits with their child or children to health or other services with unexplained or suspicious injuries,

swallowing of non-food substances or with inner complaints.

Emotional abuse: All types of abuse and neglect harm children psychologically, but the term 'emotional abuse' applies to behavior which destroys a child's confidence.

Signs in children

Constant feelings of worthlessness about life and themselves,

persistent running away from home,

inability to value others,

lack of trust in people,

lack of people skills necessary for daily functioning,

extreme attention-seeking behaviour,

other behavioural disorders e.g: bullying, disruptiveness, aggressiveness,

exposure to domestic violence,

suicide threats or attempts.

Signs in parents or caregivers

Constant criticism, belittling, teasing of a child, or ignoring or withholding praise and attention,

excessive or unreasonable demands,

persistent hostility and severe verbal abuse, rejection and scapegoating,

belief that a particular child is bad or 'evil',

using inappropriate physical or social isolation as punishment,

domestic violence.

Remember, the above are only possible signs of abuse. The presence of these signs does not necessarily mean abuse and neglect has been, or is, occurring. If you have concerns you should report them, now, and allow trained investigators to work out the difference between your fear and the truth.

If you live in Queensland Australia, all forms of child abuse should be reported to either the Department of Child Safety or to your local Police.

Some other articles to help you:

Understanding protective behaviors in keeping children safe

Family Talk - A Way to Prevent Child Abuse

What Can I Do if My Child Tells Me Someone Has Done Bad “Sex” Things to Them?

How Do I know if a Child is Being Abused?

How to Show Support of Being Against Sexual Violence.

2007-04-18T10:59:00.000+10:00

Supporting the end of sexual violence need not cost you anything. From the comfort and safety of your own home you can join the global call for an end to rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Learn what others have to say about sexual violence. Submit you own voice, thoughts, research or ideas. Participate in the Carnival Against Sexual Violence. The twenty first edition contains twenty nine separate posts from writers, survivors and people who give a damn.

I do not accept that only 29 people in the blogosphere care about ending sexual violence. I receive daily emails from people wanting to know what they can do, how they can do it, and whether their thoughts are representative of the wider community.

If those emails were turned into submissions for the Carnival of Sexual Violence then the collective voice of those concerned with the rising statistics of sexual violence would indeed resound strongly throughout the blogosphere.

Sexual Violence must end. Are you willing to help end it by making a public statement in support of those who fight against domestic terrorists? Male and Female domestic terrorists come well furnished with their accepted arsenals of penises, fingers, looks, mouths and words? Non domestic terrorists carry the same weaponry, we just choose to use our weapons differently: for good rather than bad.

The Carnival Against Sexual Violence Edition 22, looks forward to receiving your blog, your support and your power to bring about change.

The Carnival of Australia Call for ANZAC Day Submissions

2007-04-13T08:00:00.000+10:00

Submit yours, or another Aussie bloggers post to the Carnival of Australia by April 23, 2007: The Carnival of Australia Begins.

Celebrating the diversity of the land, people and views of down under, the Carnival of Australia has Kangaroo hopped onto the virtual carnival stage of Aussie bloggers and those who blog about Australia. The inaugural carnival will partially focus on ANZAC Day and we welcome blogs informing others about ANZAC celebrations in other countries.

Submission form here for those fair dinkum about showing the Aussie character of mateship and helping out. If you are an Aussie blogger or a blogger who has written about anything Australian then, c'mom Aussie, c'mon, c'mon.

Parents Responsible for Child Abuse and Neglect

2007-04-11T12:44:00.000+10:00

Media Release

from

Minister for Child Safety

The Honourable Desley Boyle

11/04/2007

Dads and Mums responsible for child abuse and neglect.

The Department of Child Safety's third annual performance report shows that women, just as much as men, are responsible for child abuse and neglect in Queensland, though the patterns of abuse between the sexes is different.

Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle has tabled the Child Protection Queensland 2005-06 Performance Report in State Parliament.

Ms Boyle said the report, which measures the performance of Queensland's child protection system, showed that Child Safety Officers were generally doing a good job.

"In the vast majority of cases, even with incomplete and conflicting information, our Child Safety Officers are making the right decisions".

"The Children Services Tribunal received 182 requests to review decisions made by the Department of Child Safety in 2005-06. It finalised 150 cases and only eight were set aside or varied. "

The report shows there were 13,184 substantiated cases of harm or risk of harm to children in 2005-06, down from 17,307 in 2004-05. In 2005, there were 973,475 children (aged 0-17) in Queensland.

"People may be surprised to hear that women, just as much as men, are responsible for child abuse," Ms Boyle said.

"We have an idealised image of mothers - that they feed their kids before themselves - but I'm sorry to say, it's not always true.

"Some mothers choose to spend their (albeit meagre) money on cigarettes and alcohol and give healthy food for their children a lower priority."

Of the 13,184 substantiated cases of harm or risk of harm, women account for more than half - or 7319 cases. Women are more likely than men to be responsible for child neglect.

"Women and men are roughly equal in responsibility for physical and emotional abuse however men are more likely to be responsible for sexual abuse (663 cases) than women (63 cases)."

Ms Boyle said it was important that children who had been abused got help quickly so they could start to heal.

"For too many years sexual abuse has been swept under the carpet. Children who did speak up were too often not believed or even ridiculed. "

So children not only had to deal with the actual abuse, but also with the fact that one or the other parent knew and failed to protect them.

"Today, more than ever, sexual abuse is being brought into the open. Communities all over Queensland are making it plain that sexual abuse is not okay, that perpetrators should be punished and that children should be given protection and support."

The report shows of the 13,184 cases of harm or risk of harm in 2005-06, there were:

• Physical - 1412 cases perpetrated by men and 1358 by women;

• Sexual - 663 cases perpetrated by men and 63 by women;

• Emotional - 2972 cases perpetrated by men and 2615 by women and;

• Neglect - 799 cases perpetrated by men and 3283 by women.

• The perpetrator was unknown in 19 cases.

"Too many children are being hurt and too many parents are not doing the right thing," Ms Boyle said.

She said substantial changes had been made to Queensland's child protection system, which steps in to protect children who have been harmed or are at risk and whose parents are unable or unwilling to protect them.

"The Department of Child Safety, with the help of its government and community partners, has now implemented all 110 Crime and Misconduct Commission recommendations.

"Each recommendation represents significant changes to systems, procedures, staffing and services," she said.

"However no matter how good the child protection system is, the responsibility to love and care for and protect children falls primarily to parents and families.

"Only when they realise that nothing matters more than their children can we be sure that children will be safe," she said.

End of Media Release 11 April 2007

What's your view on the differences between men and women abusing children? I am interested to hear your thoughts.

Wedding in the Rainforest

2007-04-11T06:06:00.000+10:00

Paul and I got married on March 31, 2007, Paul's 40th birthday. It was a truly beautiful and inclusive day.

Returning from our honeymoon on the absolutely fabulous Norfolk Island was difficult. We had such a fantastically relaxing time that neither of us wanted it to end.

Paul started work again yesterday and I start today. I will begin child protection blogging again tomorrow (yes, I'm trying to extend my wonderful holiday. We had to delay the start by a day because of the tsunami alert so I think it's fair to stick in an extra day off).

Thanks to all who forwarded good wishes to us for our married life together. They worked; the day, and ceremony, were just perfect.

Here's a few different blogs (done by guests) about our wedding in the rainforest:

The Wedding in Rainforest and Waterfall Mist

Day 62: Cairns - Mungalli Falls

Just Married

Wedding in the Rainforest

Megan is Away for Two Weeks

2007-03-28T06:12:00.000+10:00

As the ticker above shows, I'm getting married in three days time. The house is chaotic and manic. I am running around like a mad woman in an attempt to finish all the fiddly things that make wedding ceremonies memorable for guests.

For the next two weeks I may not be on-line at all. I will be back from my honeymoon on Easter Monday and I look forward to seeing you all then.

Take care and stay safe. Remember to try and post your support of ending sexual violence on April 5, Blog Against Sexual Violence Day.

Do You Know the BITSS to Keep Kids Safe?

2007-03-28T05:27:00.000+10:00

Do you know what to teach your children to help keep them safe?

Can you name any protective behaviour programs?

If you were sitting an exam could you write a paragraph on what to include in lessons on Protective Behaviours?

These questions motivated me to design an easy to remember model of what to teach about protective behaviours: all the BITSS you need to know to help keep kids safe.

The BITSS model of Protective Behaviours (copyright Megan Bayliss) examined a number of existing protective behaviour programs and took the major elements from each program. The elements were lumped into an easy acronym to help people remember what to do - what BITSS they need to cover.

These are the BITSS to help keep your kids safe (links to games and ideas on how to protectively play with each BITSS element):

Body Ownership:

Body Ownership Games and Activities for Protective Behaviours;

Private Parts: What to call them?;

Protective Behaviour Decorations for Christmas;

My Space – A Protective Barrier;

Protect Kids from Sexual Predators. Use Correct Names for Private Parts.

Intuition (aka as early warning signs and feelings):

Intuition and Early Warning Sign Activities;

Game to Develop Emotional Intelligence;

A Mime of Early Warning Information;

Touch:

Good Touch Bad Touch;

Game Rules of Touch;

Chatterbox Play: A Touching Experience.

Say No:

Sexual abuse: Secret Business Must End;

BITSS of Say No.

Support Network:

Walkie Talkies: Support Networks;

Give your Child a Hand this Christmas Holiday

Try these articles for some additional protective behaviour knowledge:

Risk Factors and Indicators of Child Abuse.

Family Talk - A Way to Prevent Child Abuse

What Can I Do if My Child Tells Me Someone Has Done Bad “Sex” Things to Them?

Parents Responsible for Child Abuse and Neglect

Wedding Reading from Children's Picture Book: Guess How Much I Love you.

2007-03-26T06:30:00.000+10:00

Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney is one of our family favorites. I gave a copy to my oldest daughter on her 16th birthday (she's now 24) and we consistently say to each other, "I love you stars and moons." This phrase is a direct link to how much we have all appreciated the potency of love expressions in Guess How Much I Love You.

It is fitting then, that this story becomes a reading at our rainforest waterfall wedding this Saturday. Here it is for you all to enjoy too:

Little Nutbrown Hare, who was going to bed, held on tight to Big Nutbrown Hare's very long ears. He wanted to be sure that Big Nutbrown Hare was listening.

"Guess how much I love you," he said.

"Oh, I don't think I could guess that," said Big Nutbrown Hare.

"This much," said Little Nutbrown Hare, stretching out his arms as wide as they could go.
Big Nutbrown Hare had even longer arms. "But I love YOU this much," he said.

Hmm, that is a lot, thought Little Nutbrown Hare.

"I love you as high as I can reach." said Little Nutbrown Hare.
"I love you as high as I can reach," said Big Nutbrown Hare.

That is quite high, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I had arms like that.
Then Little Nutbrown Hare had a good idea. He tumbled upside down and reached up the tree trunk with his feet.

"I love you all the way up to my toes!" he said.
"And I love you all the way up to your toes," said Big Nutbrown Hare, swinging him up over his head.

"I love you as high as I can HOP!" laughed Little Nutbrown Hare, bouncing up and down.
"But I love you as high as I can hop," smiled Big Nutbrown Hare - and he hopped so high that his ears touched the branches above.

That's good hopping, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I could hop like that.

"I love you all the way down the lane as far as the river," cried Little Nutbrown Hare.
"I love you across the river and over the hills," said Big Nutbrown Hare.

That's very far, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. He was almost too sleepy to think any more. Then he looked beyond the thorn bushes, out into the big dark night. Nothing could be further than the sky.

"I love you right up to the MOON," he said, and closed his eyes.
"Oh, that's far," said Big Nutbrown Hare. "That is very, very far."

Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him good night.

Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, "I love you right up to the moon - AND BACK."

The Carnival of Australia Begins

2007-03-25T09:22:00.000+10:00

Unlike the Seekers famous song, The Carnival is Over, the Carnival of Australia is beginning. After positive discussions with several Aussie bloggers, we are now seeking submissions from Aussie bloggers (and bloggers who have visited and blogged on their Australian experience) for our fortnightly Carnival of Australia.

Come on Aussie, come on. If you are an Aussie blogger, or you have blogged about something Australian, then Aunty Jack (not really, just me, Carnival organiser Megan Bayliss) wants YOU! Over shadowed by a sea of fair dinkum bloggers from America and England, Aussie bloggers sometimes splash about in the virtual surf trying to keep their blogs alive long enough for the snags to cook on the barbie.

Let's really make a lasting splash and snag some new readers. Australia is such a diverse country, we can share our diversity in thought and interest by showcasing the best of our Aussie blogs, and blogs about Australia, to the rest of the world. Let's celebrate what we think/talk about, what we do, how we live, our humour, culture, politics, music, technology, sport and how great it is to visit Australia, etc.

What is a Blog Carnival? A carnival is a collection of posts all in one place: a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic (in our case: Australia). A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title ( in our case, Carnival of Australia), a topic (Australia, Australian bloggers and their diversity), editors (whoever hosts the carnival each fortnight), contributors (you), and an audience (the wider blogosphere). Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every second Monday). Each Carnival edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors (hosts) opinions, remarks or themed musings.

To see a sample Carnival edition, click here or here.

The amount of information in the blog-o-sphere makes finding interesting stuff time consuming. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in (like Australia), following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic, and often about you. If you are blogging on a specific topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers and readers. Our carnival will be blogs about Australia with a huge focus on the diversity of thought and blogs by Aussie bloggers.

Want to submit one of your blogs to the Carnival of Australia? Here's what to do:

Choose a post you already have on your blog (you can also submit another person's worthy Aussie blog too), or write a new one and post it to your blog as usual. Use this submission form to nominate yours or someone else's Aussie blog musings or blog about Australia. Fill in all required fields. Make sure to use the permalink to your blog post (e.g. http://homeschoolingaspergers.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-make-australian-wedding-quilt.html). Decide which carnival category it fits best into (note, the categories are there as a guide only, if you don't fit a category, still submit under 'walkabout') from the drop-down menu. Leave a brief description of your blog and why it should be included into the Carnival of Australia (i.e., you an Australian blogger living in Australia or overseas, or, you blogged about Australia and would like to share it).
Deadline for submissions is every second Monday by 5pm Australian time (begins April 23, 2007). Publication will be every second Wednesday (begins April 25, 2007).
Think twice about submitting articles that are adult in nature, abusive or racist. If you go ahead and submit them do not expect to see them posted to the Carnival. Our convict past, is past. This Carnival will operate according to the strictest values of not harming other people. Further, any suggestive or suspicious activity involving children will be immediately reported.
When you receive notice of Carnival of Australia publication, visit to check your post and to read the other submissions. Post a notice of the Carnival on your site so that your readers can all come celebrate the best of Australia as well.
If you'd like to host the Carnival of Australia on your site, contact carnival organiser, Megan Bayliss, and we'll arrange it. Hosting the carnival will bring many new readers to your site.

Come on Aussie, come on: get those posts submitted (inaugural Carnival of Australia to be held on ANZAC Day, April 25, 2007). Help a mate, be a cobber and email this post to every other Aussie blogger or Australian travel writer you know.

Photo of Luna Park clown courtesy of horizonaus at stock.xchng

Courage to be Celebrated at Carnival

2007-03-25T05:50:00.000+10:00

If you are feeling brave and looking for a new Carnival to submit your blogs to, why not consider the Carnival of Courage. This fortnightly Carnival features courage related posts: whether your own act of bravery, big or small or that of someone who has inspired you. Share your tales from the trenches as you wrestle with those things that are stretching and challenging you.

The most recent Carnival can be savoured over at The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life. The Dragon Slayer has a strict one post policy but I submitted two because I just couldn't make my mind up about which one displayed the ultimate in strength conquering fear. Blow me down with a breath of dragon fire: the Dragon Slayer included both of them because she couldn't make up her mind either.

A bonus for me was that this particular Carnival lead me to Scott Davis at Finding Your Marbles. His Carnival submission, “How Winnie the Pooh Taught Me Courage” , is charming, entertaining and inspirational. His site is even better. Dedicated, real and helpful, I'm going to become a Finding Your Marbles regular.

So, be brave and shave or be brave and slay the metaphorical dragons by submitting your courage related posts to the next Carnival of Courage by April 1, 2007.

For those brave souls amongst us who are dedicated to slaying sexual violence, don't forget that it is Blog Against Sexual Violence Day on April 5, 2007. All you have to do is, on April 5, post a blog about your commitment to having communities free of sexual violence. The more brave people around who dare to speak their views about sexual predators being responsible for their violent actions, the quicker the perpetrators get the message that sexual violence will not be tolerated within our blogging community or the wider communities in which we all live. Get your Blog Against Sexual Violence Day banner from Abyss2Hope.

How do You Display your Bottom Line on Protecting Children?

2007-03-24T07:08:00.000+10:00

Only seven sleeps to go until our wedding in the rainforest underneath the spectacular Mungalli Falls. Both ceremony and reception are focused on children and we have several adventure based activities organised for the children. Last night, partner and I were going through music choices. Many songs were discarded because of the foul language and suggestive sexual adult content.

Discarding obscenities amused me. I swear like a trooper (it's an Aussie thing I think) but here I was tossing aside tracks that contain any inappropriate language or overt sexual references. What was going on? Am I really getting old and conservative like my kids have suggested?

It's about boundaries: physical and psychological. I have a fence around language I use when I'm with the gaggle and language I use when I'm around children. I do this because I accept that there are inherent differences between children and adults. I accept that I am the adult and it is my job to care for kids, not harm them.

Sexual predators and physical abusers of children do not have this boundary fence. Unable to delay their own gratification of breaking through the fence, they manipulate, lie, use and abuse. They desensitize and invest heavily in lead up behaviours: words or touches that may appear innocent but still leave the recipient feeling yucky. They will use language from popular culture - music, T.V, movies, and fashion - to further trick our children into thinking that the slimy predatory behaviours are normal, based in what everybody does, watches, wears and listens to.

There is no way that we will entertain inappropriate lyrics that children at our wedding may fall innocent victim to. There is no way that we would entertain anything that may potentially harm children at our wedding - including keeping kids safe around the waterfall. All we are doing is drawing the line in the sand and sticking with what we believe in as a family: child protection is serious business no matter where we are or what we may be doing.

Everybody has different lines in the sand but those lines generally have a great deal of thought put into them. Lines though, mean different things to different people and sometimes talking about those lines and why they are drawn where they are is the best way for others to know where your boundary is. Even bloggers talk about clear boundaries around what they will say/not say on their posts. Comments that require moderation prior to going live displays that the host has a psychological boundary and will probably not tolerate some comments. I particularly like the disclaimer found on Finding Your Marbles A Mental Health Survival Guide: "...Please do not force me to have to edit or remove your comments. No Spam please. Your mature and responsible replies are greatly appreciated by all. Thank you."

What's your boundary line around child protection and how do others know where it is?

Can We Stop Child Sexual Abuse?

2007-03-23T09:58:00.000+10:00

Child sexual abuse is still not a topic discussed enough in family homes. Just as the dynamics of sexual abuse are shrouded in secrecy and manipulation, so too are many family conversations: particularly conversations around sexual abuse prevention. Parents often state they are scared of spoiling their children's innocence, scarring their kids or they don't see why they should talk about it because their kids are safe.

Child sexual abusers will take away your child's innocence. Children who know nothing of protective behaviours and the manipulating tactics of predators often are unaware that they are allowed to talk to their protective parents when and if something abusive happens. Scared and confused once something has happened, children who grow up in homes where sexual abuse prevention is not talked about may wrongly assume that abuse is a taboo subject. Perpetrators love this. Not talking about protection and prevention may make our kids fair game for perverts and manipulators. No child is safe from the threat of terrorism - including domestic terrorism.

Eighty five percent of reported child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody well known to the child: somebody that access our children on a regular basis and is welcomed into our safe homes and daily lives. Child protection is serious business and serious, good parents talk about serious and scary stuff because they know their children may be a risk from people they trust and love.

A new site has caught my attention: Teacher Smackdown. On the site, abusive teachers are named: those very people charged with protecting and encouraging our vulnerable children. To quote from the site: Anne-Marie Nichols is a 40-something award winning blogger, freelance copywriter, and WAHM to two young school age children. As a founding board member of a Colorado public charter school, she knows that most teachers are dedicated, hardworking professionals. Yet bad teachers exist, betraying the public trust one kid at a time. These are their stories.

Thank you Anne-Marie. You are providing a Protective Behaviour communication service that I hope parents will appreciate and learn from. Your post, Teaching Children About Sexual Abuse, is excellent and based in best practice. I encourage parents, everywhere, to read it.

Can we stop child sexual abuse? We can't because we are not responsible for the perpetrations: the sexual predators are. We can though, educate and protect our children by ensuring they know that sex is not a taboo subject and that some people use sex and touching in very bad ways. If a child is sexually abused it is NEVER their fault. Children need to know this prior to anything ever happening to them. Knowing you are not responsible makes it easier to go and tell someone about the bad stuff that has just happened.

Together we can impact upon the lower risk of our children being sexually abused. We can talk, we can educate, we can place the blame firmly where it belongs: on the shoulders of the sexual predators that trick us and our children into thinking that bad behaviours are acceptable.

If you have been sexually abused, it is not your fault. Please, go and talk to someone. Help us to break the vicious cycle of secrecy and in doing so, help protect all children.

For those interested in joining the call of safe communities with a zero tolerance to sexual crimes consider raising a blog about your thoughts, ideas, aspirations, experiences or even messages to predators. Held on April 5, 2007, Blog Against Sexual Violence day will be a force to be reckoned with. Proudly wear the available banner on your site. Together we will impact upon keeping our kids safe from sexual predators: no matter who or where they are.

Teaching Emotional Intelligence for Personal Safety and Clear Communication

2007-03-22T09:35:00.000+10:00

Emotional Intelligence includes teaching about and providing a range of feeling words to match to emotions and learning how to use them at the appropriate time. Our English language has over 2000 words to describe our feelings. Typically though, any of us will only ever use six words (three sets of opposites, i.e., hot/cold, happy/sad) in our feeling description repertoire.

Knowing what you are feeling is an important safety factor. Being able to identify those butterflies in your stomach as anxiety or the coldness sweeping over you as fear is similar to being able to identify that the bank account needs topping up: immediate action takes place.

Too many people are assaulted because they fail to read their feelings (intuition) around dubious people; those feelings are early warning signs to avoid, run or speak out. Similarly, many people don’t report assault because they become confused with their range of feelings and feel silly talking about what happened.

Emotional intelligence and particularly learning emotional language provides our children with tools for clear personal communication. The simple ABC formula for clear communication is made up of three statements surrounding:

Affect (feelings) – I feel…,

Behaviour (doing) – when you…

Cognitions (thinking) – because…

Example: I feel confused when you try to touch my private parts because Mummy said nobody is allowed to touch me there.

Without a range of feeling words to use, children cannot clearly communicate what is happening inside them. The classic example is of a child who says they have a headache in their tummy. The child knows something feels yucky in their stomach but they don’t yet have the right word to match the feeling with.

In Game to Develop Emotional Intelligence and A Mime of Early Warning Information I provide a couple of games designed to stimulate easy teachable moments around learning new feelings words. I will feel estatic when you teach them to your children because it will provide another layer of protection for the world’s children.

Have you seen the beaut posters depicting feeling faces? Very handy as emotional prompts for learning and remembering, we have them plastered all over our walls at home. I feel proud that my children have an excellent grasp on emotional language and the kids are my evidence that teaching emotional intelligence leads to well adjusted children.

What do you do to instill emotional language and clear communication into your child’s vocabulary? I'd love to know because then I can teach your ideas to other parents I come into contact with. Why not consider entering your ideas into the book competition: WIN a Children’s Chapter Book (Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast) for Yourself and Your Local Library.

Here's some other helpful articles I've written on emotional intelligence and feelings:

Emotional Intelligence and Clear Communication
Make a difference in another child's life: Actively listen to them.
Do You Get Angry with Your Child? I Do, Because Anger is a Natural Feeling.

Here's the link to a free sheet of Feeling Faces from Adoption Crossroads.