WRITING GALLERY - OCTOBER 2025

THE BRIDGE
by Paul G

I paused at the branch in the path.

The fastest way– the worst way– led beneath the bridge. Even from fifty metres away I could feel its fetid, cold breath. I avoided Southbank’s boardwalk because of it, always choosing to walk around instead.

However, I was already late and Nicole wouldn’t wait. Anxiety, so carefully wrapped and packed back at my flat, returned as I forced myself to step across the bridge’s shade line that separated sunny and not. The rumble of overhead traffic gradually replaced the ambient noises of bustling Southbank.

Bridges connect one world with another and the world on the other side of the Yarra had spat me out five months before, undigested and disgraced. People had been hurt and friendships burnt. Nicole was my only way back in. I had to make this meeting. Sunlight beckoned from the opposite side and I tried to run towards it.

The river smell was everywhere, all marsh mud and decay, yet the river’s banks were clear, both sides stepped with concrete all the way to the waterline. Perhaps the wind had uplifted the smell from upriver and it had caught here, chilled and trapped without cause or reason by this dark eddy. The hollow sound of my footfalls bounced off the blackened steel above as I reached the middle.

Then I heard the music. Faint and discordant, it wafted in and out, as if from a too distant radio signal. I could see no one, yet the tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickled, warning me that I was not alone. I slowed, watching the deeper gloom part like velvet stage curtains to reveal an old man playing a violin. He wore scuffed ankle-length boots beneath a pair of green woollen trousers, that once might have been the bottom half of a rich man’s suit. His hair was unfashionably long, oily strands swinging about his face,  alternately revealing then hiding a single gold earring. His instrument had only three playable strings, the remnant of a broken fourth curled uselessly, jerking in time to the gypsy melody. He resembled a puppet master, blissfully unaware that part of his marionette had come away, intent only on maintaining his tune.

I froze, desperately wanting to believe that this was just another old man without money or hope, playing for his supper. He chose that moment to glance over the top of his instrument and smile, revealing a front tooth with a poorly fitted gold cap. There was a cruel coldness to it that somehow disconnected the linkage between my brain and feet. I was unable to move. As I watched the pace of the melody accelerated sharply. He swayed hypnotically to the rhythm, indicating with a pointed gaze, a once-white handkerchief spread on the ground before him.

‘Can you pay?’ he asked, raising one bushy eyebrow. ‘Will you pay now?’ Somehow, I knew, he wasn’t talking about money.

THE WORST
by Sallie H

Gin, Mother’s Ruin, Daffy, Old Tom among other names.

I was 18 and few friends and I were going camping for the weekend. Of course, as one would, we stopped at the local pub to imbibe a few sherberts on our way to the campsite, a place we had been many times before.

I wasn’t very used to alcohol and 5 gin and orange drinks later I was, well a trifle more than merry. We travelled on to the site and all tumbled out of the cars to set up the campsite. Looming ahead of me was a post and rail fence. Now this might seem very ordinary to anybody else but to me it looked like a very good place to lie on so up I clambered and proceeded to fall asleep on the top rail. How I didn’t fall off is anybody’s guess.

Somehow I must have got into the caravan and onto the assigned bunk but I don’t remember how. What I do remember is the following morning is how the smell of cooking bacon and eggs turned my stomach and I made a beeline for the bush where I stayed well away from the smell which was sending my stomach churning.

A while later it was decided that we should travel the few miles, yes it was miles in those days, back to the local hostelry for supplies. All went well for a little while but very soon I had to ask the driver, my now husband, to stop the car so I could get out.

I remember laying on the nature strip wishing for death. Of course that didn’t happen or I wouldn’t be here now telling the tale of my downfall. Some time later, I stood up, feeling slightly better and set off walking back to the camp. I was picked up by my fellow campers who, having bought supplies were now headed back to camp sit around the fire and commence a merry afternoon. Needless to say I didn’t join in.

Even to this day, over 58 years later, I still can’t stand the smell of gin let alone the taste.

DEEP TROUBLE
by Cindi B

Mum’s right, Shorty has had a bad trot and it seems to be getting worse. I didn’t tell anyone about the baby at the time ‘cause I thought it was just me, seeing things, but now I know.

Need to start at the beginning, don’t I, if I’m going to get it off my chest like Mum told me? I think he’s going to kill himself: I would. How can you possibly fix everything that’s gone wrong? There isn’t a way out, money would help, but that’s only part of the problem.

I do a few hours in the shop in the evenings when Mrs Baird is too busy with the kids: she should get me in more often; she should spend more time with those kids. Anyway, I walked into the shop and heard Shorty ask to put chocolate biscuits on the tab for his kids. He can’t pay, but Ray is too soft to embarrass him in front of the other customers. Shorty was ok before the accident. He’s a windmill mechanic and was always heading off to fix people’s windmills, but the accident cut major tendons in his hand and now he can’t climb up or use heavy tools. Seems he let his insurance lapse too. “Story of his life” Mum says.

Gina got a lodger in to help with the finances and do odd jobs around the place, but none of the kids liked him. Gina has had yet another baby; I’ve lost count, think there’s six or so now, Shirley is the oldest. I was in the shop when they all trooped in and I saw the lodger standing next to Gina holding the baby. It was a shock moment. Shorty is not its Dad. It is just so obvious; everyone must know.

Next the news was that Gina and the lodger had pinged off! Taken the baby and left Shorty with all the other kids. Mum said “ good riddance to bad rubbish” but how is Shorty going to manage all those feral kids? The last news I got was that Shirley was pregnant. Surely, on top of everything else, that’s the worst? No, they got evicted.

Anyway, Mum says I can stop obsessing about Shorty topping himself now they have all moved away. She says Shorty won’t do anything stupid while he has the kids to think about, but look how selfish their Mum was: she just didn’t care. My Mum says time heals all wounds, but what about Northern Ireland?

 ***

It’s been five years now and I’ve left home. Quite by accident I got news of Shorty’s family and of course, Mum was right. Shorty has married a lady he met at the hospital. She is large (Mum disapproves of me saying fat) She has a walker and a heart problem and the kids love her. Honestly, can you believe it? They are happy! Mum says Shorty just needs to be needed.

Don’t we all? See, I am getting wiser.

MAKING THE BEST OF THE WORST
by Malcolm W

TO LOVE AND LOSE
by Valda R

It was 2 am when I became a mother for the first time after being wed three months earlier. My husband looked tired as he handed the sleeping child to me. Her dark skin glistened and her black curls were damp against her forehead. She arrived with a very small case containing a few clothes. ’ What is her name?’ I asked.

‘She is Elizabeth. Her Mother Doriga, was shot in the spine earlier in the night while holding a torch for her husband while shooting flying fox attacking their paw paw trees. She is in the Naval Base hospital on Los Negros Island and will be airlifted to Australia at daylight’. We were aware of an Australian teacher newly arrived at a remote small village school, married to a young Papuan girl from a village outside Port Moresby.

We obtained a cot the next morning, clothes from the Chinese trade store and friends, and were smitten with this beautiful little girl. As the months passed we loved her like one of our own. We heard nothing from the father who had accompanied his wife to Australia. Little Elizabeth became part of our lives and I falsely believed she was mine. She loved company, the water, and accompanied us to weekend outings and we laughed at her mix of english and pidgin english.

It all came crashing down some nine months later. Arriving home one afternoon I was greeted by a tearful house girl. ‘She is gone’. ‘What do you mean?’ as I raced through the house. The cot was still there, the clothes in a neat pile. ‘Where is she’?

At that moment my husband arrived home. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Her father came to collect Elizabeth on the weekly flight with a short turnaround for the flight back to Lae to connect with the Australian flight. There was no time to contact you’.

No goodbyes, no last cuddles, no thank you’s. Sweet little Elizabeth gone from our lives. I was devastated. My husband was more pragmatic. ‘We have to accept that her family would be back for her one day’.

I was naive to not consider that a Mother’s love is powerful, unwavering and unconditional. Doriga, now a paraplegic and home from hospital, wanted and needed her little girl back.

Epilogue:

The years passed and all we had were memories. The Australian newspaper a few years later, featured Doriga Crighton in Brisbane sitting in a wheelchair after being chosen to represent Papua New Guinea in the paraplegic games for archery.

Many more years passed and we learned the Crighton family had featured on an SBS program, and were now living in Brisbane, with Tony a teacher at an exclusive boys school. We tracked the family down in Brisbane and telephoned Dorigo who expressed her utmost thanks and had always wondered about us. We sent photos of the time Elizabeth spent with us, remembering this sweet little girl we had the pleasure of for a short time in our lives.

WORST
by Robyn B

I had a great story in mind. I had even put pen to paper and written the first line. Some great words, skillfully arranged, I’d like to think, that encapsulated the concept, the very essence of what I thought the worst might mean.

A guttural cry came from her mouth, but it was every part of her body that screamed. What a line.

The day, the week, progressed and I went through various stages of enthusiasm, apathy, relaxation, sadness and frustration, all involved to varying degrees, in the process of living. I watched and listened to the people and the world around me. Stories from a world radiating, expanding beyond me and reflected back in what I could see and hear. I was surrounded by news that shifted with indifference between stories of lucky winners, untimely deaths, war torn lives, ‘natural’ disasters, celebrity mayhem and tomorrow’s weather.

I contemplated what the worst really was.

I had tapped into one moment, a long time ago, when I thought my son had either drowned or been abducted. I can remember, almost still feel, the rising panic, hysteria, as the life guards cruised the shoreline and I frantically ran up and down the beach.

Almost feel. My story of worst disappeared.

This word, I realise, is bottomless, unmeasurable, and to me unknowable. Human life can never be measured on a scale, where the worst is that most removed from the best. Increments of fortune or luck. And I know that the story of the worst that I was to write, only lived on that piece of paper, and could only do a huge disservice to the worse that another person might still be living.

THE WORST
by Trevor S

I will never forget that Friday night, February 2015, when the wind howled in house shaking gusts, when horizontal rain sought every leak hole around our windows, when our property, in Biloela, was inundated by three floods, and when we experienced the worst weather event, in our lives.

Cyclone Marcia had hovered off the Capricorn Coast, approaching Yeppoon and preparing to unleash havoc on everything Mother Nature had chosen, as a target. Drought breaking rains, in the months leading up to this event, had filled both the Callide and Kroombit Dams, and had flooded the creeks and channels in the Callide Valley. The recipe for disaster had been carefully designed. All the scenes to be performed, in the ensuing drama, had their “I’s

dotted; their T’s crossed”.

We were renovating our house, building an ensuite beside our master bedroom. Consequently, we had moved to the guest bedroom … a fortunate move, as it turned out to be.

Four o’clock, Saturday morning, Lucy, our neighbours’ border collie, was barking. Lucy hardly ever barks, so I stepped outside to see what was agitating her.

Water!

In the dark, all that could be seen were reflections. All that could be heard were sounds that water makes, when it is advancing across a flood plain. Our low level, solid rock block home, was about to be inundated. The power was cut off, so a couple of weak torches were used, to illuminate the doorways, against which we stuffed towels … turned out to be an exercise in futility, but, at least we tried.

Furniture was lifted, as the water started oozing in. Bare footed, trying to gain a foothold on the slippery, muddied tiled floor, led to exhaustion. Jessie, our cat, supervised from the kitchen bench.

Dawn enabled shock to set in. We were on an island. The tide had come in and we did not know how high it would rise. Not a skerrick of land could be seen across the whole plain. The currents were so strong, the SES boat could not rescue us. Fifteen centimetres of water was creeping up our walls.

We were about to abandon ship, climb ladders to the back of the ute, and up to the roof, when my wife shouted, “The water is starting to run out of the house.” Music to my ears.

Family and friends carted everything out to the aprons, once the flood receded and they could come to our rescue. It took all day, but enough cleaning, mopping, restoration etc was done to allow us to sleep on a mattress, on the floor, and for the cat to sleep in his

favourite bowl. By Sunday night, our house was livable.

We were insured so, once our beautiful ponds were emptied of flotsam and debris, and relined; power tools and lawn mowers replaced; written off vehicles removed; fences repaired, we counted our blessings, balming in the knowledge that they far outnumbered

our losses.

More could be written about the fox that found refuge in our new ensuite AND the neighbour’s labrador that chased it there; AND being muscle-bound as a result of negotiating slippery, silt covered tiled floors; AND slipping off a contour bank and drowning

a mobile phone … ad infinitum.

It really was the WORST weather event, we ever experienced.

ROSAK
by Melinda G