how to be pretentious.

I look upon the winter’s night, my ice tipped nose is contrasted to the infinity of the night-sky, my breath is wisping across the crisp air like viscous spider-webs. In that moment I felt as if I was waiting for death, tightly holding onto the infinity of an instant. My heart was pulsating, my lungs were falling with each swirl of air…. and then the darkness swelled over a drowned me under its nothingness..

The precise details of my life have diffused away and now only relics of memories remain. The fragments of discordant memories whimsically dance through my mind. I cannot recount the money I earned nor even my career, rather it is reflections of belonging, love, loss and friendship that remain in the reflections between light and sleep…

1927…

The red-tinted circus lights filled me with excitement. Upon arrival my mother and I stood in awe at the elephants, their height reached beyond anything my ten year old self could conceive. The whim of candy coloured popcorn, the sparkle of costumes, the elegant moustache that sat humbly upon the ringmasters lip, fused together in a spectacular show which I greeted with wide, wide eyes. I met Frank on that night, I remember him telling me fabricated stories of how the elephants were fed with popcorn, how acrobats took pills to render them weightless to carry out their motions with elegant grace. I knew he was lying, yet I remember remaining silent as we drew ourselves into our own reality… I remember attempting to suppress our trills of squelching laughter as we watched the show.. thereafter becoming my first best friend.

1932..

Drunesdale was the secluded town enveloped with shrubbery. It was where my grandparents had lived. When I was a fifteen, I remember spending hours gazing at the clouds, playing in reflections of sunlight and shadows dancing upon the waves. I remember by grandpa would play unperturbed tunes on his acoustic guitar.. the notes would bend and whimsically reach up upon the trees. It was here me and my grandparents would walk, we would dream, we would pretend the world did not exist… it was our momentary sanctuary of solace secluded away within the natural realm. 

It was here my grandma had taught me to paint, I remember I would hold the brush awkwardly, unsuccessfully attempting to scrawl out the reflections of light across the sheets of candy coloured paper. And she told me this would be easy? The paintbrush’s path would loop and curl, yet it unveiled no more than messy discordant blotches of ink. My grandma then after taking the brush would gracious and effortlessly, inscribe an exact mimic of the rifts of the beaches and the infinity of the sea. Drunesdale possessed an unattaible beauty.. the concotion of its overarching trees and the memories of my grandmother’s tender smile render it has a place that will perpetually resonate with me.

1946..

I steadied myself stoically as I attempted to restrain the tears that accompanied the letter. I had married Frank in 1940, together we had owned a porcelain factory before being deployed on the Western Front in 1943. Until today, I hadn’t heard from him, instead being lost within the cavernous blood of war. The words revealed “McMillan, Frank.” The letter read “Born in London, 23 December 1915, died, July 1943. Paris. Businessman” twenty nine years of life summarised in those 13 words. Fear, sadness, uncertainty, a swirl of emotions seeped over me. I remembered then how my grandma had told me she would loose herself in painting.. for the next year, day in, day out, I would paint, I could incubate the landscape, object, person.. and slowly fall away from all notions of reality.

1955..

Under the fog of an early morning August, the car crept along the T4 highway. The deep sea swelled and the seagulls cried as we reached the house that sat humbly upon Redgrain Rd. Drunesdale. My children, Madeline, Dean, Sally as the “Captains of the HMAS Blue” embarked upon a “mission” to explore the vastness of the surroundings. They ran through the trees that now glowed gold within the shadows of the sunrise, and wet their shoes as they played within the grass dripping with dew. I had lived in London for several years and I was never suited to the tedious monotony and homogeneity of the city. I looked upon the endless sky.. Here, I felt I could regain the youthful spirit my 15 year old self once embodied. Here, I was emancipated from irksome obligations. Here, I was able to procure spiritual enrichment.. and I knew that my children would too have the eternal affinity this place I had once held..

….

Then all light is extinguished…. I flicker into silence, blackness, nothing.