Lachlan Plain fishy fish fish
This is not the way I understood cold. Not the biting morning frost, glasses steamed up, fingers fumbling from numbness and sharp shocks of sensation from the heat of the coffee cup, the mist and early morning sun, seagulls scream and the gentle clunk of the boats nudging their moorings, a hallow of cigarette smoke around where we work, untangling nets, raising sails or refuelling the outboard on those days when Joe’s managed to procure some fuel on the black market.
This is not that kind of cold. It’s not that fresh early morning cold shared in silence with the boy, the boy who throughout the day looks on the world with fearful eyes, but throughout those early morning rituals, that fear leaves his eyes, and all that’s there then, in those eyes, in the cold and as the sun thaws the world, is a peacefulness, a contentedness.
But this cold is different. It’s empty. Impervious. It’s not a cold that one feels on the tip of ones’ nose. It’s everywhere at once. All throughout this senseless, subaquatic limbo, this mindlessness. These thoughts, these words, drifting by like jetsam. These things I never thought before. These thoughts nudge up against me, some latching on, others drifting by, and others sit there, alien thoughts quickly assimilated.
And the faces. Parents, school, friends, wife, son, and all the other men along the wharf, preparing their boats for the day.
And all those other faces. But I’ll ignore them. Those memories aren’t mine. My thoughts are simple. I’m just a fisherman.
In two thousand and fifteen, seventeen, I’m not sure, the boy was about three or four, a massive tanker capsized in the bay spilling oil and killing all the fish and bringing to our waters what the report called the Aristotle Beetle so that nothing would ever grow back there….
…these are my memories, I’ve got to capture them, pin them down, like when you scramble across the deck struggling against a wicked wind to pull down the sails before they’re torn off and snatched away…
…some of the boys and their wives got some city lawyers onboard and launched a class action, which of course the TNA crushed immediately, no explanation, no compensation, nothing, silence, denial, not even welfare, just garden vegetables shrivelled from the refinery next door, a sour, sullen wife and a broken, hungry boy. A boy who buried his face in his mother’s apron like a baby and never left the house.
I’m not like the others here. I’m not political. I had a family to feed.
I was sitting on the pier after a fight with the wife when I was approached by a stooped and lanky figure dressed in black. He was carrying a potato sack.
A thousand dollars to take this sack, with its contents, to a certain latitude where an unlit trawler would be waiting for me, five hundred now, five hundred on my return.
The boat is in disrepair, it hasn’t been sailed for a year, no, eighteen months now, and anyway, it wasn’t designed for that kind of depth. But I nod anyway. No questions.
He told me to tell no-one. I told my wife when I got home and she just looked at me from the bed with slitted eyes, but didn’t disagree. Me and the boy left at five the next morning. It wasn’t a refreshing cold that morning, it was heavy and suffocating.
A day out from land I opened the sack. The man said never open the sack and I wish I never had. Five pinkish shapes fell from the bag and bounced on the floor. I bent to pick one up but pulled back. I’d never seen a brain before. Five brains on the floor at my feet. I talked, I don’t know what I said, I’m not sure if I was talking to them at that stage or just to myself, but the silence had to be broken.
It was some time before I was aware of his presence. I turned and the boy was standing silently in the doorway. I pushed passed him and went up to the deck to light a cigarette. We ate our beans that night as if nothing had happened.
In the morning his bed was empty. He was down there again, just standing with them at his feet. I put my arm around him but he pulled away. I’m not sure why, but I grabbed him by the elbow, dragged him from the cabin and locked the door. That look in his eyes. He snatched at the keys but I wouldn’t give them to him. He took me by the shoulders and began pounding me against the wall, he’s a big young boy, I’m just a little old man. He let me go and I fell to my knees. He lurched above me as if to kick me but pulled away, pounding the locked door a couple of times before slumping against it, sobbing. I stood up and dusted myself off. I would have comforted him, my son, but I’m afraid of him then. I went up on to the deck and lit a cigarette.
I had lucid dreams the next few nights. Some of the boy as a baby playing with me as he played with his teddy, sometimes cuddling me and at others bashing my head against a rock. But I also dreamt that I spoke with the brains. In those dreams I greeted these people by name.
The radar didn’t pick up the pirate ship, it appeared out of the mist a few hundred metres from starboard and they clambered up wielding rifles and machetes and hoisting their mangy dogs aboard. They chased the boy down into the hold. I chased after, but I was too late, there was a shot as I rounded the corner and the boy was lying there in a pool of blood and one of the men was using the butt of his rifle to beat down the door. I was thrown to the floor. I could hardly make out what was going on. They were playing soccer with one of them, two of them jostling as the brain bounced off their boots, then a victorious whoop and a shot at goal and the goalie blocking with his machete, I’m sure I heard the thing scream as he sliced it in two. And one bloke strutting about with the brain balanced on his head and another couple of guys chasing after him trying to trip him up and everyone laughing.
One of the men pointed to the dog who was eating the halved brain, which they sliced up smaller and fed to the hapless old man in the corner.
Then a horn and the coastguard calling for us to identify ourselves on a megaphone and suddenly I’m alone, lying amidst pieces of brain, spattered in blood, listening to the laughter, gunfire and screams up on deck. Then silence. Just footsteps. I sit up shakily. I gather the brains in my lap talking all the while.
Look at this sick bugger.
Too right, a fucking degenerate.
Then an older man pushing the younger men aside and approaching me. Looking at me closely, some contraption strapped to his head projecting data directly into his eyeballs. He had gentle yellow eys. Patting me on the head before injecting me. I’d heard of censoring before, but I’d never given it much thought.
I remember a woman’s voice speaking French, a figure in white, bright lights, an airflight, an a aquarium, a shark, an octopus, a beaker and a vile on the bench at head level, a thousand pinpricks of pain, then an infinite, senseless plateau stretching out before me.
One thing I do remember though is a visit, in a cabin painted white. He was pouring sugary water into my mouth when I sputtered into consciousness. He said something about dolphins, or else I misheard him. He placed a hand on my forehead and smiled. You know you’re just a prawn. I smiled too. But I was thinking about my wife cooking prawns. About her curled up in bed like a prawn. About the baby boy curled up like a prawn. I smiled and he smiled too.
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of pirates, brains, dolphins and prawns
Sorry about the previous draft. Was incredibly lenghty. stupidly so. Didn't have time to cut it back after it all vomited out. Have cut it back some. Should be easier to read as well..to follow.
Have tried to assimilate the sensation of the injection with Paul's.
For me this is sci fi. For me what is most interesting about science fiction is the world on the periphery of the technological elite. It is at least futurist, in as far as I envisage the future.
Would like to keep the dialogue up through rehearsals. Whatever else you find. Take what liberties you want.
Good luck.
Lachlan.
subaquatic
I really miss the part where he describes the memories that aren't his... women being raped and burning fields and the guy with snot in his beard on the bus. When I read that part in your first draft it really grabbed me and I felt that it really helped to explain (through one character), the physical and I suppose spiritual experience of the censored, what it feels like.
There's such a lot of information about this world now and I think its valuable that your character describes it through his senses and not through his analytical mind. So I guess you walk a fine line trying to keep it a reasonable length and explain all the stuff that happened, without cutting out the character's descriptions of what he physically experiences in his body and brain...
Also the ending is beautiful (the prawn) because it suddenly disregards all this crazy stuff and talks about love.
hideho, a rehearsal suggestion
Olivia and I have been playing with idea of streamlining your writing even further into something that is a little 'unfinished' which we hope will encourage the audience to fill the gaps. it was hard to do, as the back story and the roundedness of this world you've created is so detailed and intriguing that in itself as a piece stood alone and so almost 'complete'. So we've knocked it back even further and would love your comments... in relation to above, I am inclined to agree with Jane on the note on other people's memories as well that you had originally...maybe in relatin to below there might be an apropriate way to re-incorporate that?
Edit:
This is not the way I understood cold. Not the biting morning frost, glasses steamed up, fingers fumbling from numbness and sharp shocks of sensation from the heat of the coffee cup, the mist and early morning sun, seagulls scream and the gentle clunk of the boats nudging their moorings, a halo of cigarette smoke around where we work, untangling nets, raising sails or refuelling the outboard on those days when Joe’s managed to procure some fuel on the black market.
This is not that kind of cold. It’s not that fresh early morning cold shared in silence with the boy, the boy who throughout the day looks on the world with fearful eyes, but throughout those early morning rituals, that fear leaves his eyes, and all that’s there then, in those eyes, in the cold and as the sun thaws the world, is a peacefulness, a contentedness.
This cold is different. It’s empty. Impervious. It’s not a cold that one feels on the tip of ones’ nose. It’s everywhere at once. All throughout this senseless, subaquatic limbo, this mindlessness. These thoughts, these words, drifting by like jetsam. These things I never thought before. These thoughts nudge up against me, some latching on, others drifting by, and others sit there, alien thoughts quickly assimilated.
And the faces. Parents, school, friends, wife, son, and all the other men along the wharf, preparing their boats for the day.
And all those other faces. But I’ll ignore them. Those memories aren’t mine. My thoughts are simple. I’m just a fisherman.
…these are my memories, I’ve got to capture them, pin them down, like when you scramble across the deck struggling against a wicked wind to pull down the sails before they’re torn off and snatched away…
…some of the boys and their wives got some city lawyers onboard and launched a class action, which of course the TNA crushed immediately, no explanation, no compensation, nothing, silence, denial, not even welfare, just garden vegetables shrivelled from the refinery next door, a sour, sullen wife and a broken boy who buried his face in his mother’s apron like a baby and never left the house.
I’m not like the others here. I’m not political. I had a family to feed.
I was sitting on the pier after a fight with the wife when I was approached by a man carrying a potato sack.
A thousand dollars to take this sack, with its contents, to a certain latitude where an unlit trawler would be waiting for me, five hundred now, five hundred on my return.
The boat is in disrepair, it hasn’t been sailed for a year, no, eighteen months now, and anyway, it wasn’t designed for that kind of depth. But I nod anyway. No questions.
He told me to tell no-one. I told my wife when I got home and she just looked at me from the bed with slitted eyes, but didn’t disagree. Me and the boy left at five the next morning. It wasn’t a refreshing cold that morning, it was heavy and suffocating.
A day out from land I opened the sack.
LONG PAUSE
Then silence. Just footsteps. I try to sit up.
Look at this sick bugger.
Too right, a fucking degenerate.
He had gentle yellow eys. Patting me on the head before injecting me. I’d heard of censoring before, but I’d never given it much thought.
I remember a woman’s voice speaking French, a figure in white, bright lights, an airflight, an a aquarium, a shark, an octopus, a beaker and a vile on the bench at head level, a thousand pinpricks of pain, then an infinite, senseless plateau stretching out before me.
One thing I do remember though is a visit, in a cabin painted white. He was pouring sugary water into my mouth when I sputtered into consciousness. He said something about dolphins, or else I misheard him. He placed a hand on my forehead and smiled. You know you’re just a prawn. I smiled too. But I was thinking about my wife cooking prawns. About her curled up in bed like a prawn. About the baby boy curled up like a prawn. I smiled and he smiled too.
Another Draft
This is not the way I understood cold. Not the biting morning frost, glasses steamed up, fingers fumbling from numbness and sharp shocks of sensation from the heat of the coffee cup, the mist and early morning sun, seagulls scream and the gentle clunk of boats nudging their moorings, a halo of cigarette smoke around where we work, untangling nets, raising sails or refuelling the outboard on those days when Joe’s managed to procure some fuel on the black market.
This is not that kind of cold. It’s not that fresh early morning cold shared in silence with the boy, the boy who throughout the day looks on the world with fearful eyes, but throughout those early morning rituals that fear leaves his eyes, and all that’s there then, in those eyes, in the cold and as the sun thaws the world, is a peacefulness, a contentedness.
This cold is different. It’s empty. Impervious. It’s not a cold that one feels on the tip of ones’ nose. It’s everywhere at once. All throughout this senseless, subaquatic limbo, this mindlessness. These thoughts, these words, drifting by like jetsam. These things I never thought before. These thoughts nudge up against me, some latching on, others drifting by, and others sit there, alien thoughts quickly assimilated.
And the faces. Parents, school, friends, wife, son, the other fisherman, weathered, beaten, but also as young men, in school uniform, in nappies, and the faces of their mothers and the nipples they suckled on. And others, one man I only ever saw once on a bus on the way to visit my dying mother, snot through his beard and sucking on a tinny. And faces with no memory attached, alien faces, foreign faces, races of people I never knew existed, gung-ho young soldiers and bearded guerrillas, charred corpses, men and buffalo in rice paddies, women at looms, fat men and fat cigars, screens with numbers scrolling across them, graphs, pie charts, babies disfigured by fist and machete, by scalpel, by nuclear fission and tidal wave, brothels and women raped against a backdrop of burning villages…
…these aren’t my memories, these aren’t my thoughts, I remember my thoughts, they were gentle, like rain, I want my thoughts, I want my body, I want to die like people always have, like the boy did when they put a bullet through his head. I’ve got to capture these memories, pin them down, like when you scramble across the deck struggling against a wicked wind to pull down the sails before they’re torn off and snatched away…
…after the spill, some of the boys and their wives got some city lawyers onboard and launched a class action, which the TNA crushed immediately, of course, no explanation, no compensation, nothing, silence, denial, just garden vegetables shrivelled from the refinery next door, a sour, sullen wife and a broken boy who buried his face in his mother’s apron like a baby…
...I’m not like the others here…I had a family to feed…
…sitting on the pier after a fight with the wife. Approached by a man carrying a potato sack. A thousand dollars to take this sack to a certain latitude. An unlit trawler waiting for me. Five hundred now, five hundred on my return. The boat’s in disrepair, and it wasn’t designed for that kind of depth anyway. But I nod. No questions.
Tell no-one. I told my wife and she just looked at me from the bed with slitted eyes, but didn’t disagree…
…it’s not a refreshing cold. It’s five am, me and the boy are preparing the boat. It’s a heavy, suffocating cold…
…Five days out from land and I open the sack. Five pink objects fall to the floor. And the boys there over my shoulder. A silent hulk. Starring at the brains too…
…Nine days out from land. Three fitful nights. The hull locked. The key fingered sweatily in my pocket. And those things lying on their own in the dark…
…silence. Just footsteps. I try to sit up…
Look at this sick bugger.
Too right, a fucking degenerate.
He had gentle yellow eyes. He patted me on the head before injecting me. I’d heard of censoring before.
…a woman speaking French, a figure in white, bright lights, an airflight, an a aquarium, a shark, an octopus, a beaker and a vile on the bench at head level, a thousand pinpricks of pain, then an infinite, senseless plateau.
…a visit in a cabin painted white. He was pouring sugary water into my mouth when I sputtered into consciousness. He said something about dolphins, or else I misheard him. He placed a hand on my forehead and smiled. You know you’re just a prawn. I smiled too. But I was thinking about my wife cooking prawns. About her curled up in bed like a prawn. About the baby boy curled up like a prawn. I smiled and he smiled too.
Forums and Threads
Sorry. Put that in the wrong thread. Meant to put it in this one.
Hey, Alex, now that all the writer's forums are now on the one thing, can you merge both mine? Lachlan Plain Drafts adn Lachlan Plain Fishy Fish Fish. If you get the time. Think it would make it easier.
merging threads
The forum structure as it is cannot merge threads effectively. I could copy and paste the text from this thread and post it in the other and then delete this thread, but this would ruin all the formatting, links etc.
A merging thread function would be great, but that may take some time ot organise. In the mean time I suggest we create and plan our threads carefully to ensure we don't double-up... and post stuff in the correct threads. ;)
That's fine.
That's fine.
Draft Postscript
When Olivia said that you'd made a lot of changes, Rochelle, I was a bit concerned. But that was fine. I have made some more. I think the story becomes the memories he's talking about in the first half. I've also put the bit about the forieng faces back in. Hope it's not too long now.
Cheers.
Lachlan.
new draft great
hey lauchlan, great I think its structured in a very interesting way, and I'm glad of your response to our own play with the text. I'm much more satified with this than I was with our attempt at editing. Thanks, see you at the show.
I have found a lot of useful
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