unpublished

Once again here I am sitting at my desk attempting to write a story that does not have a clear beginning.

I have been writing for sometime and still have not achieved publication. Nobody loves me, I know it... I am an honest writer. I write about my fears, my secret desires and the strange experiences that have befallen me during the writing life. I ‘tell all’ so to speak. But the more I tell the more I am rejected by my fans. (Make no mistake; you reject my work, you reject me...) So I am now engaged in the formation of a plan. I will become impervious to rejection. My porous personality, the microscopic holes in my skin, will no longer tolerate, can no longer cope, with forever remaining unpublished. Consequently, I have discovered a way of becoming immortal; a method for remaining in print forever.

My publisher, a tall man with the physical properties of an eel, was responsible for my discovering this method. I had written a book. It had taken me fifteen years to write this book. It was a book about a man wandering in a house of mirrors. Each variation within each mirror offered the man in my book a different version of who the man might, or might not have been. I thought this was a fine proposition for a book. But when I had finished the five hundred and fifty nine page manuscript and submitted it to my publisher by registered mail, my publisher disagreed. He loved the idea that one man could view himself in multiple forms, but taking five hundred and fifty nine pages to explain this idea did not constitute a book. I wrote my publisher a letter explaining to him where I thought he had missed the point. But, as is often the case with publishers, I never heard from him again.

By once again being rejected by my publisher, (the thirty fourth of the the thirty three rejections my book had previously received), it occurred to me while sitting at my desk that I had also been rejected in other areas of my life. I had tried to be a normal student but after getting into trouble one time too many my principal expelled me. I had tried to find a normal job but each normal job I found resulted in my employer sacking me. I had tried to have a normal relationship but the girl with whom I had so much wanted to have a normal relationship, well, she ‘Dear Johned’ me. (A girl named Heidi who I often see in my mind’s eye when standing before a dressing table mirror). With this idea in mind I began writing a story about a writer who had written a book that was rejected by his publisher, and who, after standing before a dressing table mirror while thinking of a girl named Heidi, realised he was not just an unpublished writer, but also, an unpublished human being.

*

Heidi dreamed of the day her mother’s skeletal system was obliterated by osteoporosis; thereby disposing of her mother in an excruciating manner while remaining discreet enough an occurrence within the nursing home ‘Esemerelda’ for its staff to continue caring for Heidi’s mother without the need to smother her with a pillow. This gave Heidi access to her mother’s fortnightly pension and a collection of one hundred dollar bills she discovered taped to the underside of her mother’s wardrobe. One disadvantage of being a cashed up woman in a city with an illuminated skyline is that each wish becomes an inducement to pleasure that cannot be resisted. Heidi, in her first fit of pique’ post having her mother inserted behind the sterile walls of ‘Esemerelda’, attended a lingerie boutique in South Yarra. Upon her appearance framed within a doorway the proprietress fitted Heidi out in black corset, lace panties, silk stockings, translucent robe, and to complete this elegant dance with death, a black choker connected around Heidi’s pale neck by a silver ring.

Not wishing to offend the proprietress’ box faced daughter, while hoping to deflate the lips of the proprietress herself, Heidi offered first to pay by credit card then chose to pay by cash. Six one hundred dollar bills smelling only of the polymer the currency had been printed upon; causing the proprietress to blush and place one stilletoed foot across another while counting out fifty five cents in change. Heidi then hailed the Hoddle St. bus with the intention of returning to her home in Hotham St, where waiting in her boudoir was the blonde haired Adonis and closet white supremacist Otto Richter. (A highflying executive within the Trading and Catering branch of the recently privatised V/Line railway system who had a delicate penchant for nipple clamps and an object which his father Vern had decreed to Otto in his last will and testament - a leather cock ring).

At peak hour, Hoddle St. Collingwood becomes an indiscriminate charge of steel, concrete, bitumen and the entire Eastern Suburbs intent upon weaving their way home to Nunawading, Healesville and Coldstream. Presuming that carbon monoxide fumes contain a carcinogen and which once residue has lodged in the lung tissue of a jaded man standing upon the corner of Hoddle and Johnston St., that same man might dislodge from his bronchial tube a wad of green phlegm then propel this substance onto the ground beside his feet immediately prior to the Hoddle St. bus halting at its stop for the purpose of allowing a pale woman with black hair, firm breasts, and an unstated seductive allure to disembark, causing the most hardened carrier of any carcinogenic particle to wilt because of his filthy indiscretion and wish he had never opened his mouth to the hazy Melbourne sun.

I am that man.

I have been watching Heidi for several months. Yes, she appeared aware of my presence the day I caught her alighting from the Hoddle St. bus. If ever a man was about to receive a karate kick to his delicate parts it was that day... But later, when the last phase of the moon had disappeared all that remained of any consequence was myself, Heidi’s camisole dripdrying on her clothesline and the night.

I embarked upon a stroll down Gold St., turned a corner into Keele St. then entered a laneway behind Heidi’s home and stared through a nail hole into her backyard. Entranced by the sight of Heidi’s camisole hanging upon her clothesline I also became aware of a dim light - a candlelight - that glowed from behind a colonial framed window. The sensation that always preceded my excursions into the snowdropping night invaded my body but I suppressed a desire to leap into the backyard and embrace Heidi’s camisole. Instead, I slipped my right hand through a hole in the rear gate - one designed for easy access by any miscreant of dubious intent. A stem had been inserted into the hole that usually kept the bolt in place but it was not until I felt a cluster of petals that I realised what it was that sealed the rear gate of Heidi’s home. A white rose; the petals of which illuminated the palm of my hand; its electricity scintillating throughout my body allowing me one thought: Heidi’s white camisole soft against my flushed cheek.

When I pushed the rear gate forward its corrugated edge grated upon brick paving and perspiration swamped my armpits and forehead. I held my breath, convinced the sound of breathing would reveal my presence to Heidi, but the moment passed and I was once again free to move as I pleased. Impulsively, I placed the stem of the white rose between my teeth hoping a thorn would puncture the tip of my tongue and release into my mouth the blood that gave me life. After easing the rear gate open I stepped into the backyard and ducked behind a tree fern. Heidi and whoever else was in that house would never discover my presence for a tree fern provides the cover essential for a successful snowdropping operation. And there, on the clothesline, wafting in a midwinter breeze, Heidi’s camisole, myself a short distance away, white rose in mouth, and the early morning air terrifying on my bare thighs beneath my herringbone coat.

I hesitated between wanting to preserve the exhilarating fear I had just experienced and the anticipated transcendentalism of holding Heidi’s camisole in my hot hand. My choice of a herringbone coat as the appropriate costume for my adventure into the aether revealed more about my intentions than I had previously been aware. The herringbone pattern had turned my body inside out. But I was not a sardine and nor was time of the essence; it was suspended within a dream. Somewhere in my past the soul I had created was now being dismantled... No longer in the mood for rumination I tumbled out from behind that tree fern and somersaulted across brick paving to land on my feet alongside the steel shaft of Heidi’s clothesline positioned in the centre of her backyard.

Momentarily, I admired Heidi’s camisole; toyed with it between thumb and forefinger, then unpegged it from the clothesline and stuffed it into the breastpocket of my coat. Why, I wondered, was I forced to be so cruel toward Heidi’s undergarment ? Why could I not be allowed the pleasure of treating it with the solemn respect it deserved ? What was wrong with a world that left a snowdropper no alternative but to tarnish the purity of Heidi’s camisole by forcing him to roll it into a bundle and shove it into a breast pocket alongside his long suffering heart ? If I were a prominent public servant, or a civic leader, or even Prime Minister, snowdropping would be enshrined in an act of parliament... But enough exaggeration; once I had ensnared Heidi’s camisole I once again became aware of that dim candlelight emanating from behind that old colonial window. The white rose was still in my mouth; knowingly or otherwise a thorn had pierced the underside of my tongue and blood now collected in a pool behind my bottom teeth.

I then performed an act which surprised even myself. I sidled up alongside the clothesline and grabbed its cylindrical crank. As I rotated the mechanism and its shaft began to rise toward the midnight sky I placed my cheek against the shaft and allowed the blood from my mouth to be absorbed into the cold steel of the clothesline. By dribbling my life into metal I delivered my pathetic self up for sacrifice to an object I knew would not reject me, but instead, would embrace me within its all consuming universe until I disintegrated into the night air and my atomic structure fused with the particles of that clothesline photosynthesising in the night.

But enough was enough.

No longer would I engage in petty scientific speculation suitable only for primary school students. Needless to say, my atoms were my atoms... I brushed a branch of the tree fern to one side and was about to disappear but beside the rear gate through which I intended to exit there stood Otto Richter. He did not speak and nor did I; instead, he motioned toward an Alsatian crouched beside his left knee. Otto’s intentions were clear. If I chose to make a break for Keele St. he would command his Alsatian to attack. So I removed Heidi’s camisole from the breast pocket of my herringbone coat and placed the garment in Otto’s outstretched hand. When his blue eyes blazed I realised there were other men in this peculiar world who also found snowdropping to be an exhilarating experience.

Otto had me by the corleones. A Divisional Van would soon arrive and out would step Senior Constable Ron Iddles. (He had previously pinched me for Break and Enter upon a Brotherhood of St. Lawrence clothes bin). Once again, I would be forced to stand before the Collingwood Magistrates Court and explain to a packed public gallery that I was not really a bad person; just kinky. I considered leaping into the backyard of the house next door but Otto had released the lead of his trembling Alsatian and the dog was now smelling my feet. The tan crest of fur on its back bristled while Otto returned Heidi’s camisole to its position pegged upon the clothesline. Then Heidi herself appeared from behind a door that receded into her home toward that mysterious candlelit glow. Whether she realised I was the same individual who had been following her for the last month was unclear but she recognised my precious herringbone coat. After tracing her index finger over the coat sleeve, Heidi, her once black hair now streaked with peroxide, whispered:

“Take it off”.

I was not about to do any such thing; like a solemn friend over many years my herringbone coat had accompanied me upon numerous trips into the aether.

Heidi responded:

“Otto...”

Otto returned from within the laundry carrying a cane basket. He struggled with the weight of the basket before placing it upon a single bluestone inserted within an area of manicured lawn beneath the clothesline. I expected Otto to rip my famed herringbone coat from my body or command his obedient Alsatian to condensate upon my groin. Instead, he politely asked me to unbutton the coat. Unable to resist his cool Germanic tone I slipped it from my shoulders and presented the coat to Heidi.

My nipples have always been inverted but along with another upstanding length of my anatomy, they found their voice on that night. I almost laughed; what would Senior Constable Ron Iddles think of this scene ? Instead of being the offender I might be considered the victim once Iddles compared my actions to those of Otto and Heidi, while Otto’s Alsatian would almost certainly be charged with canine indecency and receive a long stretch in the pound. I then realised that Senior Constable Ron Iddles and his infamous Collingwood Divisional Van would not be attending this crime.

Heidi removed a black veil that concealed her face and her azimuth eyes struck my green orbs like an asteroid entering another planet’s atmosphere. I saw what up until that point I had missed. Heidi had peeled away an octangular section of the outer layer of her black corset, revealing an image highlighted by the late night moon as it appeared from behind a cumulonimbus cloud. Shimmering within the moonlight was an image of a man wearing a herringbone coat, situated at various locations throughout the suburb of Collingwood, and this same man was always accompanied by my shadow.

*

While sitting at my desk and recording this strange experience I believe that a thorough analysis of the images Heidi presented to me may have resulted in my becoming a published human being. But on that night in the backyard of Heidi’s home my attention was diverted from the previously mentioned images toward the sound of digging in the area frequented by Otto’s Alsatian.

I turned my attention away from the screen situated between Heidi’s 34 D cups and saw the front paws of that faithful Alsatian working in the dark. Its tail was an example of unrestrained glee at having been given the opportunity to express its deepest desire in the shape of a hole in the ground. The musty scent of freshly turned soil led me to believe that Otto’s Alsatian, far from being a threat to my testicular geometry, was digging this hole for me.

Then something snapped in Heidi’s high flying flame, Otto Richter, and he pranced around the yard as if he had lost his marbles. Heidi quickly resealed the section of black lace containing the images between her cleavage then calmed Otto with a reassuring pat upon his blonde head. When the time came for Otto to dispose of a lifetime’s half forgotten memories the cleansing process would be painful. But the result would see Otto revealed as less a man who might have been and more a man who, in the right circumstance, could also become an image within the picturebook located between Heidi’s breasts. Otto appeared to accept Heidi’s proposition; albeit tentatively. He shuffled away toward the cane basket he had placed beneath the clothesline while muttering something about his “turn”.

With my herringbone coat draped over her shoulder Heidi ushered Otto’s Alsatian away from the trench. The dog sat patiently to one side, eyes alive with the smell of the wilderness. Heidi kneeled beside the trench, placed my herringbone coat into the hole, then proceeded to shift soil over the coat while intoning in Latin. I had no way of interpreting this language but it reminded me of a requiem a priest had uttered at the burial of a friend’s five year old child.

I then caught sight of the task Heidi had set for Otto. It involved pegging to the clothesline a parade of freshly washed cotton nappies that I presumed belonged to a new born baby. But Otto’s allotted task did not end there. Once he had pegged the last of the nappies to the clothesline he then began rotating its crank. I expected the nappies to rise into the sky and catch the warm air present in the atmosphere but was unprepared for the grand unfurling of the clothesline’s contents above the humble suburb of Collingwood. The white nappies were telescoped into the night sky until the clothesline resembled a fully rigged sailing ship - a scene from The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner I mused - or an enormous white rose that had suddenly blossomed in the cobalt blue sky.

*

Since that night spent in Heidi’s backyard I have fallen in love with an invisible woman. Each time I glimpse the love of my life she trails off this page and dissipates before my eyes. I try and recapture her face; the smooth contours of her shapely breasts. But the more I recover of that which has disappeared the further my new found love drifts away from me. I am no longer tormented by the knowledge that I am an unpublished human being. This has nothing to do with my writing recently having appeared in a slick anthology. More important is my quest for the invisible. Since the night Heidi buried my herringbone coat her presence has remained inscribed upon my spine. Her size and shape may transform, but I will spend the rest of my days in pursuit of her image while knowing that a complete representation of Heidi’s many selves remains a tantalising impossibility.

To presume so could be a terrible mistake but I suspect this piece of fiction may one day be published. Publishers of anthologies have strict guidelines concerning word counts; of which I have exceeded by inclination to uncover the farthest trajectory of my limited experience. Forgive me when I write of my disappointment at not uncovering that which inhabited the receding candlelight within the disappearing recess of Heidi’s Hotham St. home. I resolved not to explore it beyond its vanishing point for to do so would have placed this piece of fiction in an editor’s unpublished tray. Not, as I have previously explained, that this knowledge causes me much concern, for it has only now occurred to me that the word ‘Unpublished’ would make an appropriate title for this story.