Amanda Marshall and Brooke Connor have been crowned as joint winners of this month’s short-story competition.
Amanda and Brooke’s entries couldn’t be split by the judges. The topic was ‘A Day I’ll Never Forget’.
This month’s comp attracted 17 entries, the most to date of the two-year competition.
There are six finalists for the final writing competition, including Amanda and Brooke.
They will have until December 4 to submit their stories to the panel of judges.
The winner will receive $1000 and will be published in the Voice on December 18.
A Day I’ll Never Forget – Amanda Marshall
You take a deep breath and blow out seven candles. It’s impossible to fathom that your breath wasn’t your own for the first few months of your life. The moment we met, you were wrapped in a tiny sandwich bag; barely bigger than my hand. Hawthorn and Fremantle were slogging it out in the grand final in the background; 100,000 people screaming for their beloved team and me screaming for more time.
It was too soon – neither of us remotely ready. It was the second time I’d been rushed to the delivery room; the first thankfully a false alarm. But this time it was really happening. We were about to put every bit of faith we could muster in the medical team charged with keeping you alive.
As you rushed into the world my head rushed with the long list of all the percentage chances doctors had given us for your survival. We looked at your translucent, tiny face and our hearts exploded with love as we called desperately on every spec of hope and determination we could find within ourselves. There was no doubt in my mind we were about to step into the ring for the fight of our lives; for your life.
A glass box complete with a cacophony of alarms and a tangle of leads attaching you to life soon became your new home outside the safety of my belly. This was to be the first of 99 days perched anxiously beside this box praying for miracles and searching deep within ourselves for the strength you needed in us.
As we were met with concerned faces from the medical team and even more statistics about your fight, our insides quickly tied in knots and our initial hope waned as the reality of what was to come set in.
Too fragile to even hold yet, we were taught how to touch you without overwhelming your developing sensory system. As I slid my arms through the two holes in your humidicrib for the first time, I was overcome with the sheer joy of being near you and the terror of hurting you all at once. Your proportion was too difficult to comprehend. A hand so minute it wrapped wholly around the tip of my little finger. A nappy the size of the teabag dangling in my mug!
On the flip side to your miniature stature was the epic scale of the work going on around you to keep you alive. Machines, alarms, monitors; all beeping and flashing in constant reminder that you needed more time inside me. Experts scurried around with an air of organised panic
attending to your every beep and alarm whilst simultaneously trying to educate us to stay calm in the process. “It’s going to be a long road ahead with lots of highs and lows” they reminded us over and over.
The reality of those highs and lows came in steady waves minute by minute as we blindly rode our giant rollercoaster of emotion. But, as we hovered over your artificial womb contemplating how we would possibly make it through this, we sensed the bravery oozing out of your mere 1.5 pounds which inspired us in the moments we found ourselves feeling defeated.
It was a day that felt equally never ending and fleeting all at once. I’ll never forget the day you were born. The day you made us stronger than we ever knew we could be.
A Day I’ll Never Forget – Brooke Connor
A rap of knuckles on my bedroom window jolted me from sleep. The heat from the day lingered in the corners of the room, an oppressive presence in the dark, it had held me dreamless and slick with sweat. I struggled free and grappled with the lamp on the nightstand, grasping for a switch to illuminate the sparsely furnished room which I had barely made my own since my arrival.
“Brooke! Brooke! You ‘wake?” Voices, young and familiar. I crossed to the window and drew back the dusty, time-yellowed curtains to reveal three small faces, framed by their hands, peering in through glass tinged orange from the street light over the road.
“Ethan! It’s the middle of the night!”
“Yeah. Dark, eh? No moon. You got some food?”
“Hang on.” Shoving the pane up through the sticking sash, I jimmied it high enough for them to clamber inside. As I looked out, I could see the upturned bucket they’d used to gain entry in through the window. There were seven of them in all, bare feet on the floorboards, giggling behind their hands and bumping into each other like dodgem cars at a carnival.
“Come on, then.” I said, warming over their illuminated eyes brimming with mischief and their blatant audacity. I’d arrived in community a few weeks before to take up a teaching position in the school. The brightly coloured outlying buildings were swathed in paintings of kangaroos, emus and eagles crafted from a child’s hand. They resonated like beacons in a sea of red, a mirage, a refuge in the dry landscape. Dust motes lifted on the barren oval, teased into a frenzied dance by the heated breeze. Down the back, a section of fence was lifted like a lady’s skirt to help in absconding should the tedium of lessons become unbearable or the call of the
bush too great.
It hadn’t taken them long to adopt me as their own. Although their attendance in my class had been sketchy, they’d come to me for tinned fruit and repaid me in long, meandering walks along dusty trails. They’d given me their time and spoke of country and family, hunting and history; the thread pock marked by heated debates over who was going to win the footy. I’d come to this place on a quest for connection; to people, land and stories. And here, it was offered to me in droves.
They followed me into the kitchen and shared chairs around the table. I opened some tinned peaches and as I dished out the food, I said, “Haven’t seen you guys round today. Where you been?”
“Out at Seven Mile. We went after turkey. Grasshopper season has finished so now they be good eatin’.”
“Also, goanna. He’d been out and we chased him down. Aunty Tess cook ‘em up for us.”
I’ll never forget the day I met Tess. I’d been in community less than a week when I found myself standing at the gate to a slanted church, hunkered down in the red dust, surrounded by discarded Coke bottles and three jacks. The paint had flaked and blown away eons ago and its bones were left bare and stoic in the heat. I looked up at the orange stained-glass window cross nestled under the eaves. It’s smashed panes were held together by duct tape and solid Baptist faith.
From around the corner, a draught that had escaped the gorges of this dissected land carried the voice of a man. He was singing a vaguely familiar hymn, his tone saturated with hidden messages of loss and redemption. The chords reverberated inside my chest, wrapped my heart and drew me in. I stole around the corner to see a group of women sitting cross-legged on hand woven rugs. Their skirts created hammocks between their knees where babies slept, as the women fanned the bush flies from their faces. Older children, in various stages of undress to
cope with the heat, moved between them, followed closely behind by skinny, protective dogs.
The women sat, looking up at three men, comfortably slouched in busted up plastic chairs. The singer was flanked by the other two, both strumming guitars that had seen better days. Broken strings swayed as they strummed a rhythm of hypnotic, imperfect notes.
I caught the eye of one of the women and she waved me over, shifting on her rug to make room. As the hymn petered out, she slung the baby onto her hip and turned to me.
“You the new teacher?”
“Yeah, I’m Brooke.”
“Tess. Good to meet you. C’mon in.”
She grunted to her feet without disturbing the sleeping child and the rest of us followed her to standing. Together, as we made our way towards the open doors, her ancient hand found mine, the skin deeply lined, calloused and time worn. With the weight of it, the warmth and surety, I knew I would follow this woman anywhere. As we shifted from the glare of the day into the coolness of the church, I looked up at the stained-glass cross, its orange light dappled the floor where it streamed in around the duct tape. We looked up in silence together, her hand still in mine. Then she breathed into my ear: “The rains mean the honey ants are up high in the ground. Easy digging now. You got a car?”
Once the service was over Tess introduced me around, while yarns were swapped over tepid cups of tea from polystyrene cups. Plans were made to collect the car and before long Tess was navigating me through town, to pick up family and their mountain of gear.
Our expedition followed an old creek bed that cut its way through the rock escarpments on either side. The car was jammed full of women and kids waving from the windows, their calls and laughter intertwined with the sighing breath expelled from the chasms.
“Here. This place.” I pulled over and we spilled out into the white heat of the day.
From out of the boot crow bars, shovels and buckets, water, pannikins and a kangaroo tail materialised.
“Here’s a good spot.”
We walked over to the bloodwoods. Vibrant green leaves shimmered in the haze, while enduring white trunks plunged into the hardened earth, roots shattering solid rock on a quest to find the cool flow of underground rivers.
“Need to find the little black ant. He’s the one who collects the food for the others. He’ll show us the way.”
I hunched over with the other women and we went searching for the elusive insect. Soon, shouts and pointing. I hurried over with the others to see the tiny creature disappear down a hole.
We dragged the crowbars and shovels to the entrance of the ant nest. While some of the women hewed the stony ground, others disappeared into the spinifex, like spirits in hibiscus print skirts, in search of firewood for cooking.
After, we sat with bellies full, watching the coals die down as we took refuge in the shade. As the babies dozed, the yarning began. Stories of times long gone, worries for the now, sharing experiences and advice, offering a hand when an anchor was needed. And I was there, part of it all. Accepted and included, connected, humble and ever grateful.
Back in my kitchen, liquid eyes lit from within found my face. They grinned and white teeth glowed. Sated, they were ready to move on.
“You’d better get home. We’ve got school tomorrow.”
They silently slipped off their chairs and walked past the door, back into my bedroom to the window.
“O’right, Brooke.”
“O’right, everyone. See you tomorrow.” I watched Ethan help the other kids back through the window and they dropped onto the bucket before they vanished over the back fence.
I followed them out through the window and stood bathed by the constellations, my feet grounded in powdered dust still warm from the day. Gentle gusts reached me from the ravines, whispering secrets of times long gone. Then, the rap of knuckles on the window next door.
“Hey, you mob! Time for bed!” Tess calling out from a lit door frame across the street caused them to scamper. It was time for them to go home. As for me, I was already there.
