The Pure Life of Dreams

September 14, 2025September 15, 2025

A Party for High School Girls and Boys, a Bath and a Boat

The party for high school girls and boys was up some stairs in a hall on the island but when we arrived there we were already late; somebody had hung a wooden sign from the lintel ‘No Boys’ with an ‘X’ underneath. Presumably girls were still allowed and they were trying to stick to a quota.

August 29, 2025August 29, 2025

Driftwood People on Vacation in Indonesia

Elaine and I are on vacation in Indonesia and we are looking for a place on the beach but it is quite crowded. We find a place amongst some rocks where we can put our beach towels. The rocks are a pink hue and have been smoothed down by the ages so that they are fine for lying on. Their curves conform, closely enough with our bodies.

Elaine and I step out towards the waters edge. I walk on into the ocean. The sky is bright with the sun, and I find a low tide area where I can sit. In front of me are some black volcanic rocks, boulders piled up, that jut out of the water.

‘Are you ok swimming near the rocks,’ says a boy from the beach.

But I am okay. I know that the boulders may surround me where I am sitting but the biggest pile is further out to sea, maybe twenty meters away. They are not threatening despite their dark craggy look. I feel the rocks against my thighs where I sit.

Then I go back to shore.

‘It’s too crowded where we are,’ I say to Elaine. ‘Let’s go over there,’ and I point to another less rocky area where the beach does not have sunbathers.

I walk on ahead while Elaine goes to get us coffee. When I get to the area I realize that the old cove is under a huge barn which has wooden beams that are rotten with age. The sun projects through the holes of the barn onto the sand.

Then the sun disappears behind some clouds so the sand is no longer brightly lit. I step through the rocky path up into the main area of the barn further along the cove.

The barn I has an extremely high ceiling, perhaps three storeys high. Wooden trestle tables are scattered on the sand, along the cove. I find a table to sit at.

The sun comes through the holes of the ceiling’s rickety old beams. The beams remind me of driftwood. It is an ideal spot I think. And just I just beginning to wonder whether Elaine will find me when she arrives, balancing two coffees in shallow glass bowls. Each bowl has two or three coffee beans floating in it.

I take one of the coffees and as we sit a local man comes up with a large glass bowl of coffee ice cream.

‘Oh, I forgot I ordered that.’ Elaine nods at the man. Elaine and Dad settle next to the old wooden table in reclining chairs and face each other while we eat our ice cream and drink our coffee.

The sun shifts through the beams at us and I look up to make sure it will not go away.

I feel something clawing, or pawing my left shin. It’s Elaine’s ex-husband, Aaron. He sits next to Elaine but he’s playing footsy with me under the table.

‘Stop it you twat,’ I tell him.

Main photo of driftwood on an Indonesian beach via PickPik.
Photo of boys larking about on another beach in Indonesia also via PickPik.

July 30, 2025July 30, 2025

Pirates at the Limits of Our Imagination

It was a corporate wide event. And I had arrived by smuggling myself on board one of the pirate boats. My old department was small, so there were few people on the boat and how I got off, I don’t recall, but I remember that we were attacked before we docked. A pile of children came at us with bows and arrows because the island was occupied mostly by children with only a few adults to tame them.

August 15, 2024August 15, 2024

Brutal Editor Provides Review in Chinese Restaurant

I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant located at the end of the main street of the village. It was late at night and the rain beat down hard outside.

I sat in the corner, furthest from the door.

The restaurant had plain green wallpapered walls that had not been changed in decades. Two large paper menus side by side were tacked up next to the entrance and they still reflected the older prices.

Two other men were there as well, though the restaurant was closing up for the night. They sat at separate tables closer to the large window in the front and they appeared to be listening in on my conversation. They both had their anoraks on, whilst they sat huddled over their meals.

I was on a call on my flip phone and it was one of the editors. He’d gone through the sample I’d given him and I had my leather bound notebook open on the table in front of me. I was taking notes while he talked.

The editor had ripped apart my story. It had been upsetting but I was willing to take his points on board. He didn’t talk loudly but his voice came out through the phone and projected through the restaurant because it was quiet in there.

I was sure the others could hear even though I didn’t want them to.

Behind me on a shelf in the wall was an old time radio with faded white plastic casing. Someone had pulled up its antenna. It felt as if the editor’s voice was projecting through the radio even though I held the phone close up to my hear to muffle the sound from the other restaurant goers.

The owner came out from some swing doors to my right.

“We’re closing,” he barked and this time we made as if to leave. It was the second time he’d come out to tell us.

I stepped out into the rainy night and held the notebook above my head with one hand while holding the phone up to my ear with the other.

“Look, I’ll have to call you back again. The rain is beating down,” I said to the editor as I followed the curve of the road away from the restaurant and past the closed up stores.

The yellow light of the storefronts projected dimly onto the sidewalk as I walked by. And the rain flecked in my eyes as I snapped the phone shut.

Photo of restaurant from my childhood referenced in Seeking Sanook.

May 23, 2024May 24, 2024

A Unique Storage Unit

It’s Christmas Day and we are all together Mum, Elaine, Me and Dad in the Coring Road house, in the living room with its opulent fake gold embossed wallpaper.

It’s already the afternoon and Elaine and I are bored enough to look through some old stuff that had been put away in storage.

The sun is coming in from the French doors and Mum and Dad are talking while I am pulling things out of old cardboard boxes. I look at each item before handing it to Elaine to look at too.

The room is reversed. The couch, where mum and dad are sitting, is on the other side from the radiator where Elaine and I are looking at the boxes. From one box I’m pulling out her old soft toys, one after another.

The next soft toy I pull out is the purple teddy that replaced Big Ted after Big Ted got burnt in the fire.

“He doesn’t look like Big Ted,” I tell her as I push the teddy bear in Elaine’s face.

It’s purple and triangular, the wide base at its bottom is white. I guess it wasn’t supposed to be an exact replica.

And then I notice Uncle Vartan has shown up. I go over to him and give him a big hug. He feels warm and full in my embrace.

“You’ll have to take the baby for a walk,” Elaine says. Uncle Vartan has brought with him a baby that sits in a pram at the end of the couch.

“I don’t want to take the baby,” I tell her. Then again it wouldn’t be terrible if I took the baby for a walk, out in the fresh air.

We are bored and need to get out of the house.

I clamber up onto the truck behind me, to see what other boxes I can find. It’s a huge army pickup with a metal frame which I use to lever myself onto the back of the flatbed. Then I turn to Dad.

“Why don’t you put all your stuff in a storage unit rather than in this old pickup truck?”

He looks up at me.

“It’s slow,” he answers.

“What! Slower than a storage unit?”

I laughed at the absurdity of it, full belly laughs. And I couldn’t stop laughing, in fact my belly was rippling with laughter until I awoke…