I havent posted anything for a while because ive been doing a creative writing course at university, and have been saving everything for that.. Here's one that didnt make the grade.

Comments appreciated.

My mobile buzzed from the front room. I grasped it from its frantic dance and flipped it open. “Mum, I missed the bus! You have to come pick me up.”

Slamming shut the phone I paused, aware of my sudden dislocation. My daughter, in her wisdom, had driven our only car across the property this morning and left it near the bus stop. I was stranded. Pulling on joggers I stormed from the farm house, resolving to let my anger bake in the sun. The bush land between the car and my present location was filled treacherously with booby-traps; every step I took was met with cobwebs, prickly bush or bull ants. I cursed each stubbed toe and scratched ankle as I made my path. The scrub hummed with cicadas and screeching birds, returning my vitriolic sentiments.

In taking the most direct walking route I entered an unexplored part of the farm. I had so far avoided seeing much of my property, instead preferring the air conditioned comfort staying indoors offered. The scrub thinned out, giving way to trees. A thick layer of leaf matter carpeted the floor and the terrain became less even. The branches of a large Iron Bark were heavy with currawongs, who crowed warily at my approach.  Their bright yellow eyes gleamed like fat topazes in the sun. Somewhere a Eucalypt discarded one of its branches, the clatter of the falling branch echoed ominously.

I descended into a cool, dark gully. The damp ground was springy beneath my feet and somehow sound and light barely reached this place. I had unwittingly found myself in a quiet chapel of natural design. A tall canopy of gum trees twisted and arched overhead, casting a mosaic of dappled sun light across the forest floor.

I remembered back to when I was young. It was always my Papa’s belief that a good dose of Catholicism could cure me of my sins, that it could transform me from a wretch into a good woman – soft spoken and dutiful. My skin prickled with embarrassment, whenever I was forced to give confessions. What could a ten year old possibly need to confess? I pleaded, but my father was unrelenting. Ten Hail Mary’s and self-reflection was always the Priest’s grave prescription, regardless of my ‘crime’. When I was old enough I ran. I ran so far away from my Father and his religion and the ‘Old Ways’. To a foreign country with no history and no Faith, just people.

A fervent procession of ants marched through the centre of the chapel, bringing with them offerings they had scavenged. I leant against a stump and watched them. I had filled my life with gadgetry and material possessions. I refused to inherit the gnarled old hands of my Aunts, and so rejected any thought of gardening or house work. The memory of my father’s skin, like one of his leather bound books, kept me from the sun. My daughter was never taught Italian and she knew nothing of Latin, or the Latin Masses which scared me as a child. Gloria in excelsis Deo – Glory to God in the highest. My Blackberry, laptop and car had become the only Holy Trinity I worshipped.

Frenzied scriptures were scrawled, for all to see, across the bark of a Scribbly Gum. Otherwise, this blessed gully was free of the usual adornments that marked a place of worship.  It bore no choking incense censors, or icons cast of bronze and marble; and no Bleeding Nazarene suspended from a wall, his death immortalized. This place did not worship death like that, instead it celebrated it in the very soil I was standing on, death and rebirth found in the leaves of every plant around me. I couldn’t help but feel the absence of any such place in my day-to-day life, the life I had chosen for myself. Even the lives of my parents were filled with places and experiences like this. Everyday my Papa would cycle 6 km from his home to tend a plot of land he owned. He would return after dark, often sun burnt and filthy, but content that his hard days’ toil would please the Lord. I was always less convinced.

Had my emancipation from that way of life been too complete? My Father’s treatment of me as a child had been harsh, but it was hard to deny that, as an adult, my treatment of him had not been any better. Our correspondences were deliberately infrequent, and I had not returned to Italy since I left. He had seen my daughter grow up only in a handful of photos and had never had a real conversation with her. My scope of the world exploded with my immigration to Australia. I arrived in the early 70’s during the sexual revolution and fell in love with a culture so defiant of the rural upbringing my Father gave me. My Papa’s world was still restricted to his village, to cobble stoned roads and peasant food and a beaten-up old bicycle. He was just an old man set in his ways; it wasn’t fair to begrudge him that, not after so many years.

What of the cultural heritage I was denying my daughter? She didn’t know any of the old customs or stories, and had grown up believing bolognaise was something that came from a jar. More importantly, she knew little more about any of her relatives than their names. In my desire to escape my Papa’s world I had not only cut my own ties to the family, but hers as well. I could feel the rough bark of the stump through my t-shirt, rousing me from my thoughts.

Many of the rocks and trees were laced with moss and thick ropes of snake vine hung over branches like swings. A chill breeze penetrated the still air just enough to reach me, causing my skin to dimple with goose bumps. I was suddenly acutely aware of my own intrusion, in my sweat-shop made sneakers and synthetic clothing, I felt blatantly out of place. My phone buzzed again, this time in my pocket.

“Mum! What’s taking you so long? I want to go home.” My darling daughter whined. “Well maybe you should have caught the bus then.”

“Whatever, just hurry up. Plus I want McDonalds, I’m starving!”