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Babble

It’s Christmas day, and it’s silent. It’s Christmas day, and your car swerves off theroad. It’s Christmas day and you’re lonely, Christmas day and you’re getting back withyour old flame, Christmas day and you’re lost in a strange land, Christmas day and you’restaring into the eyes of the woman who’s holding a gun to your head.Christ was born on Christmas day, and was killed brutally on Easter. I was born onEaster. This can’t be a good sign.“It’s OK,” she says. Her body pulsates, jittering, nervous. Her face glistens with a thinslick of sweat, pupils bulging. She swallows, and gives a forced, demented grin.“It’s OK that it’s ended up like this. Really. Sometimes things just go too far, and wecan’t let them go. Isn’t that right? Sometimes odd things just happen to ordinary people,and everything goes strange. It’s OK. Things just have a way of getting out of hand likethis. They just have to run their course.”I shake my head violently.

This isn’t right

, I try to show. I tap my temple.

Think about it

.Spinning my finger around my ear.

This is crazy

.Communication is easier, when you have a tongue.She aims the gun.Two weeks ago, and I’m standing outside my mother’s house, watching it burn to theground. The cloak of fire is tearing apart the building, a huge angry explosion of reds andoranges and yellows, all crushing the house apart, licking it over with their acid tongues.Like a dying silhouette, the house stands, black and defeated, as its victor covers it with aroyal cloak of flame, dancing a victory on its charred corpse. From the centre of theflickering mass, a heatwave pulsates out, slicking all nearby skin with a layer of sweat,pouring fumes down my neck, heating my body, until I feel like an abused hot waterbottle, ready to pull off my head and pour my bubbling remains into a bucket of ice.Tiny yellow men run around, with long black hoses, squirting water almost pointlesslyat the angry red storm. Tiny yellow men don’t stand a chance against this sort of monster.It’s Christmas day, and you receive the gift you’ve always wanted.It’s six years later, and your favourite present is on fire.My mother turns to me, and puts her arm around my side.“It’s not so bad,” she says. Tears are dripping out her eyes, pouring down her foundationslick cheeks. She’s putting on her act, her famous martyrdom act. Jesus had nothing onher. Nailed to a cross? Try nailed to a cactus. Try nailed to a flaming stake. Any way youcould suffer, she could always suffer more.

She sniffs.“It could have been a lot worse, you know. There could have been people in there. I couldhave lost Jack. I don’t know what I’d do, then. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I lost him.And I can’t think what I’d have to say if Tahnee ever got hurt. I couldn’t live with myself,I really couldn’t.”She pauses long enough for me to soak in just how selfless she really is. The she gives agreat sigh. Then another. Bursts into tears, and lies sobbing on my shoulder. I pat her armgently. Staring at the flames, like orange water, dribbling over the edge of the house,leaving a smoking black stain over everything they touch.This is the house that Jack bought.I pat my mothers shoulder, and slowly pull away, prying her suckered fingers off my arm.I take out my red book, and a pen and write.

Where is Tahnee?

My mother points over to where a large broken down Kombi sits, suspended on bricks,peeling white paint flickering with the glorious reflection of our house.“She practically lives in that thing these days,” says Mum. “She found it at a junkyardand Jack dragged it home for her. Couldn’t move it now. It’d fall apart… oh God… ohthis can’t all be happening…”I look at mum’s collapsing emotional state. I rub the stub of my tongue against thebottom of my mouth. I cast a glance towards the house, where a beam collapses in a burstof sparks.Everything falls apart, eventually.Mum’s about to latch onto me again with her little barnacle hands, but I duck under herradar, tapping my chest and pointing towards the Kombi. She nods, a resentful look onher face.I walk up to it and bang on the door.“Who is it?” yells out Tahnee. Her voice is indignant with an edge of sullen bitterness.I knock again.“Who is it?” she yells again. This has become tiresome very quickly. I try a patternedknock.BUM bum ba BUM bum!“Piss off!” she yells. I pound the door. She unlocks it, heaving it part way open, ready toannihilate whoever dares disturb her peace with an angry squirt of venom. Her faceappears in the crack, a tiny strand of her blue hair drifting in front of her eyes. She staresinto me.

“Who the fuck are you?”Here’s one I prepared earlier. I open my notebook to the third page.

I am Hugo Dell, 22 years old.Son of Jack and Judith Dell.Brother of Sarah Dell.Friend of Ashton Moray.I have no tongue, and find it difficult to speak.Please do not let that discourage you from speaking to me.I will probably reply to you in writing.I hope we can be friends

The page is covered in tiny stars, chopped out from a doodle my sister drew when shewas younger. It’s strange like that. Back when we were growing up, we were so close.Now, what? I’m the skeleton in her closet and she’s the scribble on my welcome note.Tahnee reads it, twice, brow furrowing. I look at her carefully. A tiny blue gem is stuck in her nose stud. There is a short scar on her chin.This is the girl, who set fire to the house, that Jack bought.“Come in,” she says, opening the door. I enter, observing the interior. Posters on the wall,of naked women, torn from magazines. One is of a naked anorexic girl, felating asausage. I recognise it immediately –

Idolization

, by a guy called Ray Mann. The guy’s afucking hack. I raise an eyebrow.“It’s not his best, but it can be hard to find his prints,” says Tahnee. “He’s exhibited atyour gallery, I think. Have you met him?”I shake my head.

The Gallery has signed a deal for his next show to be shown here first.

I show here the message. I considered doing it in slanty writing to insinuate that I’mspeaking in a dismayed or unenthused tone of voice, but I’ve come to realise that peopledon’t pick up on these kinds of obscurities.She holds out a packet of cigarettes, looking at me with eyes that could be eitherquestioning or challenging me.“You smoke?”I shake my head. She shrugs and chucks the packet aside.“Me neither,” she says. “Or, maybe. I dunno, I haven’t decided yet.”I give her a quizzical look, but her face is a blank sheet of paper, that refuses to giveher away. She is an enigma. She leans over to an esky, and opens the lid, pulling out a

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Babble

When we meet Hugo Dell he is on the floor with a gun to his head, unable to communicate because he has no tongue. We discover the origin of this event, a story that winds around... (More)

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Category:	Books - Fiction > Thrillers
Rating:
Upload Date:	03/18/2011
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	Thriller Fiction brenton clutterbuck the survival hugo dell ashon moray Thriller Fiction brenton clutterbuck the survival hugo dell ashon moray (fewer)