Australian writer

New Book coming!! The Melded Child

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The new novel of the Archipelago and the Tari.

Coming out April 7

In Print on Demand from Bernarra Press through Amazon and in ebook from Clan Destine Press

 

An ancient prophecy has come to pass.

The peace negotiated by the Tari has held firm for ten years, but a new Demon Master is rising.

When Yani the Raven is kidnapped, sorceress Marigoth and her companion Ezratah are drawn into a trap set by a brutal necromancer and his insane sister.

Meanwhile Elena Starchild’s daughter Alyx, heir to the throne of the Mori, finds herself wounded and on the run in a forest full of dark magic; and in the company of her bitter enemy.

Can the insular Tari, dreaming in the secret land of Ermora, be awoken before the demon fire consumes them?

And can a Melded Child bring harmony before it is too late?

 

Keys

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It was only after the station door swung shut behind me that I realized I’d forgotten to bring either of my sets of keys out with me. Locked out! Not a good start to the day. Since it was still early I thought I’d got back to the Junction and get another set. It’s a lengthy process – ½ an hour out of a 6 hour shift – because the trains don’t meet up. Back at the Junction I couldn’t find the master keys and no one there knew where they were kept, so I looked through the key register and signed out something that was supposed to be the correct key.

Of course when I got back to my station it didn’t open the door. Damn!

I didn’t like to spend another ½ hour getting another set of keys so I thought I’d just hang around for an hour until the cleaner came and let me back in with his key. So I stood around helping people with tickets and directions for the next two trains getting more and more thirsty and in need of a pee, until… Eureka moment! It occurred to me that all trains drivers have the key to stations so that they can pop in and use the toilets if desperate. It’s not really o.k. to do anything that might delay a train, but I thought if I was quick…

The driver of the 1.04 was a kindly woman who was happy to help me re-open my station door and I rushed in and shoved both keys in my pockets before indulging in visit to the toilet, a nice drink of water and a spot of lunch. Adventure over with no one much noticing my inadequacies.

It was a rude shock therefore, when about an hour later Control rang. Apparently at the other end of the 1.04 train, an intoxicated man had been having an argument with his female companion who he’d proceeded to shove out onto the platform at my station. He’d been arrested at Flinders Street later.

That it should be that train of all trains!

The Control man had been viewing the CCTV footage and seen me rushing about. “Had I seen anything of the fight further up the train? Had I been scared by it?” he inquired sympathetically.
He laughed when I told him that I’d been locked out so I assumed I wasn’t in any trouble, but I felt very sorry that I was too involved in my own small drama to help a victim of domestic violence. I fear this may be the way it often happens. I can only hope since she wasn’t there when I’d come out of the station she hadn’t been too badly hurt.

I hear bells …

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Yesterday a young man I usually avoid caught me talking to one of my regulars.  He’s an unusual, dare I say, unwell young person.

“Did you know that the boomgates here use Westinghouse Bells?”  He broke in breathlessly.  My regular slid off with a look of alarm while he deluged me with all kinds of technical detail about boomgate bells which, to be fair, I really didn’t know and don’t mind knowing.  Apparently they are not all the same and his superior hearing can pick out the ones that sound like church bells or much bassier like a boom box which indicates apparently modern electrical bells.  Of course now I think of it this all could be his imagination but I must make a note to listen more closely to boom gates.

On the whole I thought him improved since the last time I met him.  He looked cleaner. And last time he made lots of creepy enquiries about what I sounded like when I pee. Not good.

So does this count as a Christmas Post?  Hmm!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my lovely subscribers.  May you all have someone to listen to you this Christmas.  And Thank you!

Tiger Whiskers

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“Hey do you want to see a tiger’s whisker!” cried one of the Zoo Volunteers. “One of the keepers gave it to me because it was my last day.”
The romance of it! A really truly whisker from a really truly tiger in my very own hands.
I thought it would be soft but it was remarkably hard something like the vane of a bird’s feather only sharper both on the ends and along the edge. A delicate and at the same time savage thing with just the tiniest splodge of black on the tip. It looked like it could be used a needle for sewing a delicate fabric like sea silk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_silk or a dart used for harem assassinations.
Any other suggestions?

De-training

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Edward Burne-Jones 1898 The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon

Recently I spent a Saturday shift de-training people (which is not nearly as exciting as defenestrating people or even as exciting as training people)
You walk down the train carriages making sure everyone is out before the train turns around and goes back to the city. It’s a simple job that mostly involves waking up people who are sleeping or engrossed in their ipods.
The only sleeper I had, a young man in black and a cloud of alcohol fumes, just wouldn’t wake up.
I shook him calling” Mate! Mate! Wake up!” (the magical railway incantation to awaken sleepers – I wonder if it works on Sleeping Beauty and the King under the Mountain- see above) The train driver also tried. No Joy!
We shrugged and gave up.
“I hope he’s still alive,” I said feeling guilty. He had felt warm enough.
“I once heard of a dead guy who travelled round on the London Underground for three days before anyone noticed him,” said the driver cheerfully.
This gruesome story pricked my conscience and after I’d finished checking the train I went back and tried again, this time shaking harder and yelling “Mate! Mate!” louder.
After a while the man stirred, lifted his head and regarded me with bleary eyes. I told him the train was going back to town. He put his head down and went back to sleep.
But at least I’d made sure he was alive! Job done.

Gender fluidity at the local station.

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I’ve got a new regular.  J- a small neat slightly balding elderly man, who always wears a grey pullover over a series of attractive floral summer dresses. He’s friendly and we’ve swapped names, but he doesn’t have much conversation.  He just stands outside the station barelegged in the freezing wind, smoking strong smelling black market tobacco.  I felt relieved yesterday when he showed up wearing stockings under his usual ensemble, but the effect was undermined by the fact that they were held up with obviously uncomfortable garters and he kept lifting his skirt to adjust them.  He has fabulous legs – dancer’s legs – and nice little flat shoes. I see him walking along the bike path sometimes, trailing behind someone who I suspect may be his social worker.  “Look out for the bikes, dear,” she calls back to him.

J is not my only regular cross dresser.  There’s also a wheelchair man from further up the line who goes past the station in the train.  Sometimes he’s in women’s clothes, sometimes in men’s, sometimes in a mix.  But always he wears these dreadful unbrushed bird’s nest wigs that look like they’ve just been taken out of a drawer and plonked on his head.  But he has a lovely smile and we always wave as he goes past.

Back in the wild west?

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Last night a Station Master friend of mine was telling me about his new placement at a station in a less advantaged suburb.
“So I lifted the blind and there it was in the window. A bullet hole! Right smack level with were my head would be if I was sitting at the desk!”

If you enjoy Station Stories and want to support me writing more and maybe one day publishing a book, please subscribe to my blog at www.janeroutley.com.au.  It would be a great help.

In the cutting

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With permission from http://www.joshshalek.com/discarded-couches-of-portland/

Feeling rather small and ashamed today.  A member of the track cleaning crew dropped by and told me that while the trains were stopped for maintenance last night they’d taken the opportunity to clear up the couches in the cutting.  Ever since I saw those young men carrying couches up the cutting back in May I’ve been agitating to have them cleared away.  That’s because I was assuming this was a cubby house for young thugs or what we in the railways call a “shag garden”.  So I was horrified to discover that when the track crew went down there at 1.00 in the morning they found instead people sleeping in a homeless camp.  Now I hate myself for being just another authority figure persecuting the homeless who have enough problems as it is.

The Track Man told me that the homeless would probably come back.  It’s a really good place to camp if you want to be out of the wind and away from casual intruders.  I promised him I would never report those couches again at which he looked very relieved. They hate doing that kind of job and seem to have as much pity for the homeless as I do.  They’ve obviously seen way too much of it as has everyone in this time of rocketing rents.

If you enjoy Station Stories and want to support me writing more and maybe one day publishing a book, please subscribe to my blog at www.janeroutley.com  It would be a great help.

Complex

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People are perplexing.  One of my regulars drives a motorized wheelchair.  He’s a pleasant looking young chap perhaps in his early thirties, neatly dress.  He probably has cerebral palsy because he stammers badly and when he gets off his chair, he walks crookedly and with difficulty.

We’ve had some nice chats since he moved into the area.  I thought he was down here in respite care while his parents were away on a cruise, but he seemed to be here for ages and ages – always longing to get home to his own place.  Then one day he was very excited because he was off to his hearing.  That was when he revealed that he was actually living in the area on a court order.  An AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) had been issued against him because he’d been stalking a local girl.  Maybe he only told me because he was certain the AVO would be lifted.  But it wasn’t and still hasn’t been after 6 months.

I realized that I had assumed that a guy in a wheelchair was harmless.  So I’m confronted with my own “ableism”.  Just because someone is disabled, doesn’t mean they can’t be dangerous or criminal as the next person.

Also as a good paid up member of the feminist sisterhood, should I be chatting pleasantly to someone who has stalked another woman?  Isn’t that just normalizing such behaviour?  And yet this is a situation that I know nothing about. Who am I to judge without knowing all the facts? Is it indulging in mob behavior to suddenly start snubbing him?

He has told me he’s sorry for the whole situation and that he just wants to go home.  I don’t know.  I guess in the end you just treat people as you would like them to treat you. I have a very strong belief in hating the sin, not the sinner.  Or maybe I just don’t like confrontation.

Heffalumps

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Pooh and Piglet
Creative Commons image

The International AFL Cup is being played in the park nearby and footballers from countries such as PNG, Fiji and Croatia as catching trains at my station.
While the French team wait, one of the players pulls a Winnie the Pooh book out of my children’s book box and starts reading it to the others who “oooh” and”‘ahh” at all the sentimental bits about the importance of friendship.
Outside freezing rain is streaming down, but inside I am being treated to the sound a Frenchman saying the word “Heffalump” Ooh la la! So cosy!
****
When people come into the station, I try to greet them with a “Hello, your city train will be here in … minutes”. This usually takes the worried look of their faces and they mostly say thank you.
The other day when I said “Hello your train will be here in 6 minutes” to the man frowning at the ticket machine, he didn’t react at all so I figured he hadn’t heard me.
He was still frowning when he came out onto the platform so thinking he was worried, I repeated my greeting.
To which he replied, “I heard you before. I just didn’t want to talk to you.”
This startling piece of rudeness put me in my place and no doubt relieved whatever tension he was feeling.
But be aware, any rudeness I experience from customers, I assume is directed at my uniform. So I don’t take it personally. Instead I store it up to giggle over with my work mates later., Which is what we did that day.