Some Class Clowns never grow old

My glasses kept shaking free of my head with each impact. This. This is what happens when Steve Grimwade, director of the Melbourne Writers Festival, denies your request to pump child-safe dosages of Valium into the air ducts during the Schools Program. The back of my chair was being gleefully kicked by tiny Clarks shoes, and the squeals of over stimulated kids gave me flashbacks to being a barrista in a café.

If you’re unsure whether you want to have children, work in a café for a month. You will give yourself a ghetto vasectomy using a butter knife and a biro after your first shift. Still, I could forgive their hubris. The source of their excitement was seeing one of their favourite authors. I can’t resent any kid loving to read. I was that kid.

So there I was, sitting at the end of a row of babbling children. Looking like a lone spike of activity in a bar graph measuring bitterness by age. I was attending a talk given by an old acquaintance from my early stand-up days in Sydney. Oliver Phommavanh, a teacher by trade, had written two kids books. The covers of both exuded the quirky Asian persona that had made him popular in the comedy rooms of Sydney. Having seen Oliver perform a bunch of times I was ready to see him start with a few self-deprecating quips designed to make a predominantly white audience feel slightly better about any underlying racist thoughts they weren’t ready to acknowledge.

Those quips were still in there, but they were buried in a tirade of chaotic rants punctuated with the word ‘woooo!’. Oliver ran about the small theatre whipping the already agitated youngsters into a state of vibrating exuberance. He didn’t just have verbal diarrhea, he had Mexican tap water verbal diarrhea. One topic frenetically slammed into the next, leaving myself and any one over the age of puberty glancing at each other in amused bewilderment. He barely even acknowledged his books, instead reveling in the howling adoration of his target audience.

Phommavanh is clearly someone who never grew out of being the class clown. Watching him pull care bears from a bag of plush toys that he’d brought along left me feeling the same way I do when I watch video clips on MTV. Old, out of touch, and with no real idea of what on earth I’m looking at.

That being said, Oliver’s insanity isn’t meant for me. It’s for the children, and they bloody loved it. Bouncing in their seats, overjoyed at the unpredictable delivery, and hopefully taking in the subtle message that your imagination is your most valuable asset. I dare say that if I was their age I would have been just as enamoured by Phommavanh’s boisterous mile-an-hour rants.

You’re not on the list

The volunteer at the box office flashed me the usual puzzled expression I receive when I tell people my surname.

“Keck? That can’t be right.”
“So it’s not on the list?”
“No, I mean it doesn’t sound right. Is it a real word?”
“No, it’s a real name.”
“Oh… Is it like your nom de plume?”
“Just the nom really”

Some people have the type of surname that is easily ticked off a list.
Smith? Check.
Jones? Check.
Not me. I have a German surname that roughly translated means cheeky or impudent, a more apt name I could not have hoped for. However, the English definition is “the noise made before vomiting” and in the north of England kecks refer to your underpants. So cheeky vomit knickers is apparently my legacy to any unfortunate children I spawn. Although with me as a parent the surname is the least of their worries.

I watched the volunteer’s pale finger run down the page, her slender nail gliding past the names of frustratingly talented writers, illustrators, and musicians. Not a huge surprise that mine wasn’t there.

There’s a wonderfully awkward moment when you realise you’re not on the guest list of an event. It’s akin to that feeling you get when no one jumps out and yells ‘happy birthday!’ at your surprise party because everyone forgot to turn up, and the only person to greet you is your cat licking his privates while maintaining an unsettling amount of eye contact.

The volunteer gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry, you’re just not on the list. Are you a writer?”. I had pondered this very question the week before. “How do you know if you’re a writer?” I asked. The volunteer fidgeted with her lanyard for a moment. “Do you write full time or do you have a job?”. I told her I had a fairly shitty rent paying job. “Ok, so when you meet people at parties do you bring up the shitty job or introduce yourself as a writer?” I stared at my sneakers. My silence was all the answer she needed. “Congratulations” she said as she took my hand in hers, “You belong here now”. She handed me a lanyard with the word ‘industry’ printed on it. My bottom lip quivered.

I knew the Melbourne Writers Festival volunteers were helpful. I had no idea they were crush your lump of soul until it became a diamond kind of helpful.

How to ask questions without people wishing death upon you (a guide)

The first day of the Melbourne Writers Festival is almost at a close. With the onset of the weekend and more and more crowds pouring into various events, I thought it might be helpful to post a small, yet thoughtful, guide to the art of asking questions. Towards the end of each session the audience is invited to talk directly to the speaker/s they have excitedly come to see. It sounds wonderful, and it is, but it’s not without its pitfalls. So dear reader, read on.

1. Be prepared.
Asking a question is a lot like ordering in a cafe. Don’t wait until the last second to fumble through your handbag to find your purse, you are holding everyone else up. Think of your question as loose change – add it up in your mind before handing it over. People love getting exact change, and they love exact questions even more.

2. It is the size that counts
Keep your question short. If you can’t say what you need in one sentence, then you don’t really understand what it is you’re trying to say. So if you’re not sure what you’re asking, imagine how everyone else will feel. You don’t want your mouth to be ground zero for an explosion of furrowed brows.

3. One question, that’s all folks.
Writers like writing. They love their writing in particular, and they love talking about their writing almost as much as fantasizing about giant golden idols of their likeness erected outside public libraries. So every time you’re wrestling the microphone out of the poor volunteer’s hands to ask a second follow up question, you’re greedily taking the spotlight away from a writer. Big mistake. The moment you move the focus off an author is the moment they invent a character that looks exactly like you who will be killed off horribly in their next book.

4. Don’t open with a joke.
It’s not open mic night. You’re not the best man in a wedding speech. Just ask your question. The volunteers have all been equipped with iPhone apps that play crickets chirping, and they WILL use these ruthlessly.

5. Avoid being too clever
You’ve bought tickets to see some of the great intellectuals of the world engage in heated debate and passionate analysis. You chose mental stimulation over watching television. We get it, you’re clever. You have nothing to prove at this point. Foisting a novella of a question upon a speaker usually makes you seem like a twat, unless you’re trying to stump Jonathan Franzen during his keynote address, that’s actually pretty damned funny.

6. Save it for your fan fiction.
It’s wonderful that you’re so invested in the characters the author has created. It’s just that when you ask about the likelihood of the lead character hooking up with a roving band of sexy space gypsies, you have painted yourself into a creepy, creepy corner.

7. Beware the doubt loop
The doubt loop occurs when you haven’t really planned out your question. As the words tumble out of the lower part of your head, the top part begins to doubt the relevance of those words and tries to overcome this problem by throwing more words at it. It’s like trying to put out a fire by smothering it in petrol. Take a breath, pause for a moment to reflect on what you’re trying to say, and try again. If you’re truly frozen with panic, don’t even finish your question. Just tap your finger on the side of your head with a smirk and say “Never mind, I’ve already figured it out. Jesus I’m awesome”

There you go, a few key things to remember.
Further to this list I would add: If you’re watching an all female panel discuss relationships in fiction. Do not ask why there isn’t a guy on the panel, and if that is symptomatic of the stereotype that men don’t enjoy talking endlessly about relationships. Jane Smiley will freeze you with her mystical ice powers and spit directly into your heart. Especially when the audience is 99% female and you preface your question with “As the only bobbing dot of testosterone in a sea of estrogen”. Lesson learned.

Failing Professionally

While I wait for my solid gold official MWF blogger medallion to arrive in the mail, I have been in a somewhat pensive mood. Staring through rain soaked windowpanes with Richard Marx on repeat will do that to a man. On paper I am a comedian and writer, but I have no novels under my belt to boast of, so can I really claim that latter title? I still have a Clark Kent style day job to pay my bills. You know your day job sucks when people ask, “So what are you studying?” and you can only reply “nothing”. At which point, the person asking usually looks sadder than I feel.

I am a failure. I am such a spectacular failure one could almost say it’s my calling. I would of course love to be a greater success, but where would I find the time? I’m too busy failing to succeed. I suppose I could slot achievement somewhere into my schedule between “not realising my dreams” and “realising my dreams won’t be realised”.

I have achieved very little in this life. I’d write an autobiography but I fear it would be little more than a pamphlet. One that would most likely have one of the following titles: “What’s a Keck?” “How to boil Mi-Goreng in your lonely tears” or “My parachute is made of good intentions”. I have lofty hopes this best selling autobiography will soon be found under the bottoms, and to a lesser extent, the chairs of Ellen DeGeneres’ audience.

So while I wait for celebrity endorsements to make my cup-of-soup runneth over, I thought it might be interesting to show you some of my past rejection letters. Over the years I have steadily amassed rejection letters in the same fashion that my friends amassed things like ‘goals’ and ‘savings’.

The first rejection letter is from one of Australia’s largest publishing houses, whose name has been omitted so that they can’t sue me for the tinned baked beans I plan on bequeathing to my grandchildren some day.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Dear Mr. Keck,

Thank you for your submission. While we at ___________ are always keen to receive new manuscripts, we regret to inform you we have chosen not to publish your fantasy political vampire epic “Baritone Fist: The Mark Latham vampire punching chronicles”.

We rejected your submission for a couple of reasons. Firstly, no one in our office has even heard of Mark Latham. Secondly, we have a policy of only accepting manuscripts. Sending a poorly drawn stick figure standing on a pile of money screaming, “Suck it Dan Brown” does not fall within our submission guidelines.

Best of luck with… you.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Perhaps jumping straight into a full book was a tad ambitious. I set my sights a little lower. A lot lower really. I set my sights on writing for a newspaper, that for legal reasons, we’ll call Uncle Rupert’s Jenga of Truth.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Dear Mr. Keck,

I’m not entirely sure how you found my email address, but I’m sorry to tell you that Uncle Rupert’s Jenga of Truth have already filled the position of senior pun headline writer. However, we did enjoy your submissions, particularly “Ike Beats Tina to Death”.

Thanks also for your lovely appraisal of our paper. We pride ourselves on the quality of Uncle Rupert’s Jenga of Truth. The fact that you took the time out to tell us your thoughts really means something. I loved this part of your email – “You can always judge the journalistic integrity of a publication by the cup size of the blonde on the front cover giving away footy cards” . Could not agree with you more Mr. Keck.

Stay golden Pun Boy.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Here is my final rejection letter I’ll share with you. I have a strong love of words, so if a novel wasn’t feasible and there was no room for my elite pun skills, I had only one place to turn that would still make use of my wordsmithery. That’s a word right?

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Dear Mr. Keck,

Thank you for your correspondence. Merriam-Webster have built our entire business on the written word. However, we don’t actually pay people to make up new words.

If we did employ people to make up new words, my colleagues and I would have picked these out of the seventy-three suggestions you sent.

Parlybarge
Par•ly•barge

1      Someone who designs nightclub toilets that are so minimalist, you don’t know what the urinal looks like and end up pissing on a mirror.

SammyWoodrow
Sam•my•Wood•row

1      A man defecating in a busy intersection who refuses to break eye contact with you until he’s finished.

Shaky J Fox
Shak•y•J•Fox

1      A Shaky J Fox refers to someone so pretentious that they wear an iPhone on each finger. If they dial their knuckles whilst sexually gratifying themselves, this is known as a ‘Shaky Pony Fun Town’.

Please continue your ‘art’.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

As you can see, I still have a long way to go. I’ll let you know when I’m scheduled to appear on Ellen. In the meantime, if you’re all too familiar with the gut punch of rejection, you can sign up to be a part of one of the workshops, seminars, and master classes that are part of the Melbourne Writers Festival Professional Development Program and pick up the necessary skills to truly lay claim to the title ‘Writer’ and not just ‘part-time failure’.

Cheating Life

Money was tight this autumn. I had been in a month long tug of war with my immune system and the cost of tissues and amphetamine based flu medication had bled my funds dry. Ordinarily I would have enough money to attempt the Titanic method of curing the flu. All you need is to drink so much alcohol you actually start to die. Once the flu germs realise the vessel they’re on is going down, they abandon ship. By morning your liver will feel slightly sore to the touch, and your urine might be a tad rosier in hue, but your spirits will be particularly buoyant.

I called up Travis, a tall black American who dressed like a jazz bassist and perpetually smelt of weed. I had met Travis at a friend’s art exhibition launch. He walked around the gallery with a small roll of red spot stickers and stuck them next to each painting he hated. When I quizzed him on whether he was buying all that art, he simply replied, “If people think they’re already sold, no one will make the mistake of buying this rubbish”.  We later bonded outside the gallery over our mutual hatred for Oprah and a Turkish cigarette that gave me my first head spin in over a decade.

Every phone conversation with Travis started with him saying “Hold up” and then a series of cavernous coughs. Each heave mined up the sludge of innumerable joints, a practice that occasionally went on for several minutes. When the bark of his lungs eased into an ebbing wheeze, Travis uttered, “Make it quick”. I explained that I was poor, sick, and in need of cheap flu medication. Travis often dealt in a small black market trade of whatever prescription drugs washed up on his dubious shore.

He had a small amount of antiretroviral AIDS medication, but one box of pills would cost more than I make in two months. Plus, it seemed a little extreme for my situation. Travis mentioned an old Milo tin full of night-time flu tablets he’d bought from a bargain bin at a Tasmanian pharmacy in the early two thousands.  He sold the lot to me for ten dollars and an old copy of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

As I left his surprisingly normal suburban house Travis said, “You know you could kill two birds with one stone. You’re broke and ill, why not just down a handful of those, and shave the end off the week? Living is expensive, but death is fairly cheap”

A tram ride later and I started to see the logic behind Travis’ suggestion. If I put myself in a thrifty little coma for a weekend, I might actually be able to afford the cost of living in Melbourne. I peeled back the lid on the Milo tin, grabbed a handful of the small neon pebbles and chewed the bitter chemical chalk of the tablets. I felt fairly smug in my plan to cheat life.

A few stops rumbled by and my phone screamed loudly from my breast pocket. The chirpy voice on the other end told me it was Juliette Kringas, the marketing manager for the Melbourne Writers Festival. She asked if I’d be keen on being an official blogger for the festival again. It was to be a paid position. The word paid made my shoulders taut in the same way the word pregnant does. I could afford brand name flu medication with that money, the kind that doesn’t come in a rusty tin.

Juliette asked if I could pop by the Wheeler Centre tomorrow to chat about ideas for the blog. I told her it would be impossible as I would be, quite literally, out for the next few days. You could hear her frown over the phone. “It’s quite urgent. Are you busy today?” My mind raced. I told her I was free right this very minute. After a few moments of hearing her muffled conversation with someone at her office, she agreed and I stumbled off the tram.

I figured I had no more than 30 minutes before I fell into a thrift coma. With a five-minute walk ahead of me and a 20 minute train ride home, I’d have roughly four minutes of conversation before I had to leave, perhaps five if I didn’t mind passing out in my stairwell, which I didn’t. I carved out the most direct route in my mind and with the determined swagger of a man trying to push back the tide of medicated slumber I willed my feet to keep moving forward.

I hadn’t walked more than fifty paces before I noticed the world had turned quite reggae. The shop windows bounced along nonchalantly to the dull gush of my pulse. I could hear my blood flowing all around my head. With every swing of my foot I could feel my leg bones sliding across the cartilage in my kneecaps. I pursed my lips to whistle an accompanying melody to the rhythm of my gait, and promptly urinated in my jeans. My vision started to flicker out just as I let gravity clutch my soft face to her asphalt bosom.

A bright light startled me, and I jerked my head back into consciousness. I squinted through sleep-slicked eyes at a small crowd of elderly Japanese men and women that seemed to be applauding my return to the land of the living. One by one they took turns posing beside me for photographs while I tried to blink some sense into the world. The flash of their cameras caused stains of colours behind my eyes, but I did my best to keep them open. There was a cold wind burning my skin and each breath formed a momentary cloud that slid neatly away from my head.

After every photograph the Japanese pensioners bent over and placed something by my feet. That’s when it occurred to me that I had somehow been standing erect while I was passed out. Somebody must have propped me up while I was out cold. I peered down past my paunch and noticed the dark patch where I had soiled myself was frozen solid. My lower half was encased in an icy scaffold of denim and my hat had fallen off of my head and was filled with small change. “Oh Christ” I thought, “They think I’m busking”.

I tried to move. The ice in my jeans creaked, but my legs wouldn’t budge.  I pleaded with the crowd of Japanese tourists to throw their coffees at my groin. They thought it was part of the performance and put more money into my hat. There was no way my body would thaw unless I heated my crotch up. I would have to pee my way out, but my bladder was dry. You would think it’d be difficult to get a bunch of strangers to pee on you, but when they think you’re a failed arts student who earns money as a living statue, they seem all too happy to oblige.

I never made it to the Wheeler Centre. I had been a living statue for three whole days. Still, I hadn’t spent a cent and I made some decent coin from my accidental busking. On the long cold walk back to my apartment I found the missing Milo tin. Four unconscious junkies were all in a pile on Swanston Street. Each had one hand wedged firmly in the tin. To the casual passer by it looked as though someone had bought one of those novelty can of peanuts that shoot out toy snakes, only someone had gone the extra mile and put some gaunt junkies in instead.

Buyer beware I guess.

10 Facts About Books You Won’t Read In A Book About Books

In the lead up to the Writers Festival, I think it’s time to pop on our learning bonnets and discover 10 incredible actual factual facts about books

Why I don’t high-five

The abrupt tremor of the bed springs roused me into consciousness, but it was the duvet flopping onto my face that broke the surface of my sleep. Through the blur of my eyelashes I saw my girlfriend pull herself out of bed to begin her morning ritual of assessing her bottom in the mirror. She smoothed her pants over her cheeks, gave a brief head tilt and left the room. Her speed indicated a good mood. On other mornings she would shift from the over shoulder rump appraisal to a both hands on hips pout. If her mood were especially dour she would state that she was fat, which was less of a statement and more of a trap for me to wander in to.

There is no chance of oversleeping in our house. One of the windows directly faces the bed and once the sun reaches nine o’clock your dreams take on the luminous red hue of a closed lid. I was still able to recall my dream and when I stood up the evidence jutted out ridiculously from inside my cotton pyjama pants. Penises are only erotic in the context of actual sex, at any other time they are ugly and comical, like Winston Churchill in a skivvy. My dream had been arousing and unsettling. In it I had sex with my girlfriend, no fantasy woman or unattainable celebrity, just my girlfriend. It wasn’t even good sex. It was fairly awkward and it was on our own bed. My mind had conjured up a situation that could have been real if I had rolled five centimetres to my left. I took this as a sign that I needed to inject some excitement into my life.

I put the kettle on and sat on the couch to check my emails. I ignored the usual replies of people insisting they would soon pay me for some articles and opened the one from Steve Grimwade. Steve was the director of the Melbourne Writers Festival. I had met him the year before and watched a warm and friendly guy dissolve into a panic shaped blur that ran around the festival yelling into a walkie-talkie. Steve asked if I could come in to their new offices to chat about this year’s festival and meet with himself and Stephanie. I agreed to meet in the afternoon and started laying out the tools needed to groom my tragic hipster moustache.

I arrived at the address Steve had given me and rang the doorbell. A thin girl with the well-honed smile of a publicist greeted me. She motioned for me to be quiet and pointed around at the vast columns of books precariously stacked against the walls, explaining that they couldn’t afford to hire a new receptionist after the last avalanche buried her. The door slammed behind me and the girl’s face turned a colour called ‘hint of panic’. She covered her head with her arms and remained perfectly still. A faint papery rumble emanated from the walls and a loud crashing sound could be heard in an adjacent room. The girl exhaled in relief, commenting that it sounded like the young fiction pile and that we could still make it to Steve’s office, but it might take a little longer.

As we quietly walked through the office she introduced herself as Juliette, the new marketing manager for the festival. We engaged in small talk and I explained that I was looking forward to meeting Steve and Stephanie. She coughed nervously and changed topic, asking me where I bought my moustache. I was about to explain that I had grown it myself when she got on to her hands and knees and climbed through a small hole in a stack of non-fiction paperbacks. I crouched down and followed her through the tunnel.

After about ten minutes I came out of the bookish hole into a clearing. I stood up and wiped the dust from the shins of my trousers. Juliette pointed to a wooden door. Then she kissed me on the cheek before wiping away the beginnings of a tear. She dived back into the hole and I stood there looking at the door. I knocked and a small voice from inside invited me in. I walked inside to find a surprisingly neat office. Steve was sitting behind a large wooden desk. He smiled warmly at me. I walked over to shake his hand and when he stood up I noticed his shirt was pulled up to his nipples. Protruding from the side of his abdomen was a bulbous fleshy growth about the size of a Samoan bouncer’s head. Someone had scribbled big red lips and some eyes on the bloated bubble of skin that was sticking out of Steve’s torso.

Steve shook my hand and then gestured to the growth and told me that this was Stephanie, his stomach ulcer. They met at last year’s festival. Stephanie was helping with the preparations for this year, but purely in a consultary capacity. His eyes indicated that I should say hello to her. I offered my hand. Steve shook his head and made a kissing motion with his lips. I slowly bent across the desk and tried to commit as little of my lip to Stephanie’s cheek as possible. Steve seemed pleased, explaining that Stephanie had really grown into the role in her time there.

Steve looked at Stephanie and asked her whether they should tell me the news. I think she must have said yes, because he explained that they were keen to get me to come back again this year and be an official blogger for the festival. I thought back to the less than erotic dream I had earlier and decided that the Melbourne Writers Festival could be just the thing to give my life some much needed excitement. I told them I would be delighted to be a part of the team once more. Steve smiled brightly and Stephanie gave a wobble of approval. He raised his hand and eagerly high-fived me, welcoming me back to the team. I smiled at Stephanie and slapped her loudly in the best approximation of a high-five I could give her. Steve recoiled, screaming in horror. He asked why I hit Stephanie in the face and whether I thought it was OK to hit a woman. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Steve told me I had better go.

I got up and walked to the door, looking behind me to see Steve holding some tissues up to Stephanie’s face and gently patting her. I wanted to apologise, but I wasn’t quite sure how to address a stomach ulcer. I shut the door behind me and I could hear him consoling Stephanie from within. I haven’t heard from Steve yet, so I’m not sure if I still have the job or not, but I keep getting these late night calls. I don’t hear a voice on the other line, just the faintest wobbling sound.

Paradise Found

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to break character for my final post. No absurd whimsical short story, for today is the last day of the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival. It should be a sad occasion, but there are still so many events to get through, that one doesn’t have the time to mourn the passing of yet another amazing festival.

One of the most notable elements of the MWF has nothing to do with the events and everything to do with the people attending them. They are all so different. Cast your eyes across the rows of an MWF event and you’ll see silver foxes and their balding gents, scruffy authors conversing with suited sharks, heads weighed down with warm woollen hats and minds inflated with new ideas, Mohawks and faux-hawks in deep talks, hands slapping thighs in mirth – when they’re not brushing tears of empathy aside, tiny hands proudly clutching at their first book with no pictures. All of them gathered for a shared purpose – the written word.

Despite this being a festival of the word, not one can come close to describing the mutual elation that erupts from the audience when a writer shares an idea that changes their thinking. I’ve witnessed these moments on an almost hourly basis in my time here. There is something wonderful about being seated with hundreds of other minds all glutting themselves on concepts and themes. Knowing that anyone seated in that theatre could be an instant friend. I can say that I have made many; I hope you can make the same boast.

The myriads of individuals that come together, to not only create this festival, but also to be a part of it is immensely comforting. It dispels all the nonsense talk of the death of books. For me, books are incredibly important, but it’s ultimately the ideas within them that are the key. I’ll confess to stroking the pages against my face and delighting in the familiar fetish of paper on skin. Though in the end, books are the method of obtaining the content. The book is just a means of engaging with concepts, and more importantly, with people.

The Melbourne Writers Festival is much like the covers on all of those books being verbally dissected each day. Take a solitary dot of ink and it means nothing. But when you combine it with thousands of similar specks, a larger image is realised by the millions of points pooling together.

It’s one book you can judge by its cover. You’ve just got to look a little deeper.

by Simon Keck
Festival Blogger

Dead Under Fluorescent Lights

To Kill a Bird Mocking

Hey there,

I wear pants. I hope you do too. There, our mutual pant-wearingness should be enough to create a rapport between us. If not, I sometimes don a cardigan. Its green.

Apparently I am a writer. I discovered this as I wandered along Swanston Street a couple of days ago. The Melbourne weather was seasonably unseasonable and I had been fortunate enough to be wearing pants. As I walked, I became acutely aware that a pigeon had been following me for several blocks. I kept my stroll set firmly to nonchalant, doing my best to pretend it wasn’t there, but every time I glanced over my shoulder a ridiculing coo emanated from my avian stalker. I telephoned my friend Lily. She owns a budgerigar and I was hoping she could use it as an intermediary between myself and the following bird. She insisted it was probably a number of pigeons and not the same one following me every where I went. I suggested that perhaps it was just the one pigeon who was amazingly adept at using mirrors. The dull beep of the dial tone was her only response.

I heard a fluttering of wings approaching from behind me and I quickly ducked into the doorway of a cafe. The bird pigeoned into the doorway, blocking my escape. Peck-mate. My throat began to clog with anxiety. A waitress pushed past me carrying a plate with two poached eggs on it. I grabbed one off the toast, and thrust it at arms length towards the pigeon. I warned the bird that I would crush my hostage if it didn’t move away from the door. The people in the cafe all burst into applause and I overheard an elderly woman commenting that the drama department of the VCA was putting out some marvelous modern pieces of late. When I looked at the doorway, the pigeon had vanished. I pocketed the egg and made my escape.

I upgraded my jog to a sprint as I crossed the street into Federation Dodecahedron. The pigeon was already there. He had brought friends, or more mirrors, I couldn’t tell. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the viscous remnants of avian ovum to ward off my winged torturer. As I marched towards the bird, a girl who was all teeth and no smile blocked my path and pushed a newspaper into the hand covered in bird mucous. I gripped the broadsheet she offered.

It was the program guide for the Melbourne Writers Festival. I grinned, thanked the girl, and sat down next to a man with a dog that I hoped had an appetite for poultry. I ripped the staples from the spine and started to lay out the sheets of paper in front of me. A shadow loomed over the pages and I looked up to see a rosy cheeked woman smiling down at me. She asked if I liked the program. I replied that it was exactly what I had been looking for. I tried to explain that the program was perfect for my plan of creating a large pigeon suit from the tattered shreds, so that I could successfully infiltrate pigeon society, thus bringing it down from the inside. She cut off my explanation and complemented my enthusiasm. She then inquired as to whether I had any experience as a writer.

My eyeballs searched my forehead for an answer. My only involvement with the literary world to date was my work as a freelance bookmark on the train. This involved placing my whole hand in a commuter’s book whilst prostrating myself  on the unintentionally adhesive floor of the train. The money wasn’t great, but I was told the prestige made up for it. I simply said to the woman that I worked very closely with books. This seemed to please her enormously. She introduced herself as Rosemary, the Director of the festival, and asked if I would like to write in the official festival blog. I asked her if I would need a special pen for that. She laughed and gave me her business card.

So far I have been into eight different stationery stores and not one of them stocks markers that write on blogs. I had better find some soon, as the Melbourne Writers Festival is but a few days away. My pants are already fizzing in anticipation.

My cardigan however, seems totally nonplussed.

by Frenchelbow