It’s your last chance to make a cool $1000 with the final monthly Bellarine Writing Competition contest up for grabs.
Topic four – CRUISING – with nine entries, was disappointing as we usually have more than 15. Perhaps it was our poor choice of topic but we had thought through the possible approaches:
cruising through life – most entries chose this approach.
cruising as a holiday – the obvious approach used by only two writers.
Perhaps this was seen as a too obvious boring approach but it could involve:
arguing about it as a holiday preference.
The cruise itself – delightful scenery and company, annoying passengers, disasters of many types.
Jen Eddy, this month’s winner, wrote this story in an engaging, well written manner with lots of touches of humour, plus a well-rounded ending.
John Farrington’s entry was highly commended.
Topic five (see the accompanying advertisement on this page) is your last chance for the many excellent writers who have contributed over the past seven years and have just missed out on the final. Go for it!
Alan Cobham
Sponge Bob by Jen Eddy
Bob Crouch adjusted his boxer shorts and sprawled back on his mother’s sofa. BRAAAAP!
He let a fart rip, baked beans for lunch will do that to you. He felt much better in the guts which made him snigger like a school boy instead of the Generation Y bloke that he really was. TV remote in one hand and can of soft drink in the other he channel-surfed to the next instalment of The Bold and The Beautiful while reflecting on his life thus far…
Bob liked to think of himself as a man with his glass half full, so when COVID-19 hit the country, he looked for the positives in his life. The dreaded lockdown ensued and working from home became normal in Melbourne. This was a godsend for Bob. He got to sleep in, no more one-hour commutes in peak hour traffic from his unit to the office and no office manager hanging over his shoulder, banging on about deadlines and productivity quotas.
Eventually rental hikes and all the takeaway food costs took their toll and he had to let the apartment go and do what most Generation Ys do at some stage and that was packing his bags and moving back in with his mother, Sharon. He still turned that into a positive though. His mum had an ongoing customer service job at the local supermarket, so he had the house to himself all day and if he tried really hard, he could almost imagine that the place was his own bachelor pad. Sharon provided all the food and did the cooking, which eliminated all the costly takeaways. She also did the cleaning and the washing and ironing, Bob only needed one fresh shirt a week to wear with his boxers on his daily zoom staff meetings. She paid all the bills. So, life for Bob was pretty good, you might even say he was…cruising.
Bob’s reminiscing was interrupted by the ding-dong of the doorbell. Not expecting any visitors, Bob got up, brushed the toast crumbs off his singlet, stepped over the dirty lunch dishes lined up beside the sofa and went to see who it was.
A man in brown overalls stood at the door. He flashed Bob a big friendly grin.
“G’day, Bob,” he said, handing him his business card. Bob read the card. In bold lettering were the words Fred Schiffler – House Clearer.
“How do you know my name?” asked Bob.
Fred grinned again. “I actually have a contract with your mother. You’ve been sponging off her for way too long Bob. I’m here to remove you and your belongings from her home.”
“You’re joking?” Bob tried to slam the door shut, but Fred had his big size 13 steel-capped boot firmly planted in the doorway.
“Terms of the contract state you’ve got 20 minutes to get some clothes on, bag up your possessions and we’ll drop you at the nearest bus station.” Fred looked at his watch.
“Make that 18 minutes. You’d better get a wriggle on.”
It was 5.30pm before Sharon got home from work that night. She’d stopped in the bottle shop attached to the supermarket and browsed the aisles, finally selecting a nice bottle of expensive Prosecco. She popped it into the fridge to cool down.
Bob had sent her a text message earlier telling her that he was temporarily staying with his dad while he looked around for his own place to rent. He even went so far as to apologise profusely for overstaying his time with her. That was the real Bob she knew and loved.
She kicked her shoes off and flopped onto the sofa. Eight hours solid on her feet and her varicose veins were screaming like banshees. Sharon wriggled into the comfy indentations left by Bob, picked up the TV remote and fired up the television. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually got to relax like this. The pizza she’d stopped and ordered on the way home should be arriving any minute. She stretched back and sighed contentedly. She’d been dreaming about this moment for ages and couldn’t wait to dig out
her old flannelette pyjamas for the cruisy weekend she had planned. There’d be plenty of opportunity to catch up on all those The Bold and the Beautiful episodes she was behind on and imagine herself in the dreamboat Ridge’s arms. Another big sigh.
Apparently, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Highly commended
Cruising by John Farrington
Jack’s head was spinning, and his legs had turned to jelly. He felt like he’d just got off the world’s fastest merry-go-round. He fell to his knees and the letters on the eye test chart in the corner of the room danced into a circle.
He’d always been a very relaxed person. Some people envied his placid, unflappable nature, while others were infuriated by his lack of get up and go.
His wife of over 30 years, Debra, belonged to the latter group. She was often heard to say that life was not a dress rehearsal and that Jack needed to stop cruising through life or one day it might just pass him by. She had frequently suggested that they should travel, but he couldn’t be coaxed from his cocoon.
When she announced that she wanted to go on a cruise in the coming September he had declined on the basis that he’d miss the football finals. Debra replied, “Your team isn’t even going to be in the finals. You’re just making an excuse for your laziness.”
He’d recognised that she was angry so he’d said, “Why don’t you go with your sister? She’s always nagging you to do one.”
She surprised him by replying. “I assumed that you wouldn’t want to go so I asked some of the girls from the golf club, and there is quite a group of us planning to go.”
“I thought you said that crowd was too wild for you.”
“Well, quite frankly I need a bit more excitement in my life, because our life is not exactly riveting, is it?”
Jack just smiled his usual grin, signalling acceptance of her admonishment, as he always did. This seemed to make Debra even madder.
As Debra’s trip approached, Jack noted a lightness about her that he hadn’t seen for years.
A pang of guilt that he hadn’t contributed to this joy flashed through his mind but quickly dissolved.
Her time away passed quickly but when she returned, he noticed that she looked refreshed and happier than usual. Within minutes of coming through the front door with her case in tow, she said, “Jack, we need to have a good talk.”
“Of course. I assume you’ll want to tell me about your trip.”
“No, I mean we need to have a serious talk.”
For a change, Jack’s heart started to beat a little faster and some tension kicked in. “Okay, so what’s on your mind?”
“There’s no nice way to say it, so I’ll get straight to the point. I’m sick of wasting my life with you. You are just going to cruise through life until you die. You never want to do anything, so I’m leaving you.”
Jack was gobsmacked. “But where will you go?”
“I’ve met someone on the cruise, and he wants me to live with him in Queensland. We’ll work out the financial stuff later, but I’m catching a flight tomorrow.”
And with that she went into their bedroom and started packing a second suitcase, leaving Jack in a state of disbelief.
In the three months since Debra had left, Jack had been in something of a haze. He’d hardly heard from her, and he’d barely left the house until last week when he’d done a blood test for his annual health checkup and was waiting to see his doctor.
This was the same one he’d been going to since he was a first married, partly because he liked his laid-back manner, but primarily because he couldn’t be bothered looking for another one. He knew he wasn’t the world’s best doctor, as evidenced by the fact that he was rarely booked out, but Jack didn’t care. He’d always had good health, and his blood pressure was always good, if a little on the low side, so he didn’t think it was worth the effort to find a better one.
As he was called into the doctor’s room, he was greeted by a solemn face and shuffling feet and he guessed his blood test was not great. But when the doctor started apologising for not picking up the terminal blood disease earlier and that Jack had only three to six months to live, he’d fallen to his knees and started sobbing.
And Karen’s words were echoing through his mind in a continuous loop. Life is not a dress rehearsal. And he cursed the cruise that had taken his wife and life away from him.
