As I considered all things frightening for this month's blog hop, I realised it is not the supernatural that scares me. There is a supernatural God who is bigger than all of that. No, here in Queensland, it is the natural world which leaves me gasping and cringing: Opening the pantry to see a master cockroach scurry away; walking through a clinging spider web and not knowing EXACTLY where the spider is; watching a grass snake make its way toward my back step. These are what send chills through me. And so for this month's blog hop I thought I'd share a humorous piece about something perfectly natural and something which could be potentially horrific: an overseas holiday.
Mort blew the formaldehyde from his
nostrils and breathed deep of his new location. The consequences of a quiet
night at the morgue hit him completely now. Twenty five words or less had moved
him from the clinical, orderly and dead to this seething mass of life. The
woman leading a cow, the man on his bicycle selling coconuts, the snake charmer
playing his hypnotic tune, vibrant fabrics and the smell of parrotha bread
cooking. It all became a single jostling and colourful entity around him.
Twenty-five words or less was also
the full extent of his Hindi vocabulary. Someone pushed him; another shoved
something exotic and unexplained in his face yelling ‘Arey, Dost. Arey Dost.’
Mort shook his head, palms up,
‘No.’
‘You are English.’
‘Australian.’
The little merchant repeated the
word and became animated. He continued to repeat it as he dragged Mort into a shop. ‘Australi. Australi.’
The fellow gestured and called
people to him. They came as swarthy spectres to envelop Mort. He remembered a
nightmare that felt like this. All the bodies in the morgue had risen to
threaten him. Like swirling zombies they pulled at him, drawing him to their
side of eternity.
Someone picked his pocket. He saw
them dash away and dissolve into the dust of the market place. Mort wriggled
his way to the door gesturing and pointing. ‘Dekkho. Dekkho. That kid took my
wallet.’
His futile chase ended when the culprit,
and one by one, the surging shadows, disappeared. Alone in the marketplace, the
colours about him blurred and the smells were replaced. A new miasma filled his
nostrils as the monsoon arrived to mock him. If he ever made it home, he would
cancel his subscription to ‘That’s Life.’