Part Seven

Pugdeon's Nanna owned a yellow canary named 'Sunshine', that someone had given her after Grandad died. Sunshine's old home, a rusty bird cage, had been carelessly thrown behind the old work bench in the shed.

Pugdeon spent a great deal of his childhood exploring the deep cobwebbed corners of Nanna's back yard. He was never disappointed with the bounties it yielded.

During spring, small blue moths would arrive and pause momentarily on the yellow flowers that grew there. Often Pugdeon would lay on his stomach under the Feijoa tree with its ripening fruit and watch, mesmerised by the merriment, and ponder over what the world was like for a moth.

Pugdeon knew it was law that, no one, ever, should touch the wings of a flying creature. He decided, he would not catch the moths with yabbie nets that hung from the ceiling of the shed, like he'd first imagined.

Eventually, one day in late spring, Pugdeon took the bird cage and waited on his stomach in the grass and warmth of the midday sun with his nose pressed firmly against the wire bars. Freshly picked yellow flowers and a teaspoon of honey, Pugdeon's Nanna had told him may tempt the moths, were placed on the floor of the cage. First one, who came and went, four bees, to Pugdeon's dismay and eventually two, three, and once even four blue moths fluttered inside the openings of the small wire bars, and then left again.

It felt like forever that afternoon as he watched in awe. Pugdeon fantasized keeping the cage and wondered if he could convince the moths, with the promise of endless honey, to come with it. But with the sun, went the moths and Pugdeon felt sadness as he returned the old birdcage to the shed. That night however, the momentary wonder returned as he talked excitedly, recounting with his mother what the moths had taught him. Pugdeon fell asleep warm, smiling and with wonderful imaginings.

Pugdeon realised that afternoon, the parts of life that feel truly magical, are not magic at all. Sometimes to find them, you may need to just wait, very still on your belly, with the grass and earth beneath you, and allow them to fly in and out as they please.

Time didn't change that day for Pugdeon, and it never would. It would be days like that, however that would change Pugdeon.

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Part six

There were many long nights that Pugdeon lay staring up at his bedroom ceiling. Contemplation was a place in which he found himself often. That place was where Pugdeon recounted the things that had occurred. Things, that for Pugdeon, had gone too fast and been too much to fathom at the time of their occurrence.

It was the February of the year prior when he had noted that his world had stopped spinning. It seemed to Pugdeon as though that's all he'd known. Dizzy confusion. But he liked the calm. He had warm memories of a time once before in which the world had planted itself firmly, and it was good. It meant that Pugdeon could live without the need for working out which way was up before every step. He even felt pride in knowing that life could toss and turn, but cause only mild vertigo. Not bad he'd thought to himself, not bad at all.

By mid winter in the same year Pugdeon knew his mother was ill. He didn't know how, or why, or what, and neither did the Doctors. But Pugdeon knew for certain, that his mothers face held a knowing that he had seen only once prior. It was the type of knowing that one never ever forgot.

Part five



Grandad Marsh was a tall, striking man, a trait that Pugdeon had not inherited. He had worked in a sawmill where he lost four and a half fingers to the machines he operated. On the rare occasions Pugdeon opened the box that housed his keepsakes and trinkets he lingered on how remarkable a man his late mothers father must have been.

 
It was a box befitting priceless treasures. Made from off cuts of river red gums chosen by his Grandfather. Halving joints, from Pugdeon's experience, were tricky to perfect at the best of times. With four and a half less digits than normal and worn tools that had been discarded along with off cuts, the hinged perfectly joined and latched box was no less than superb. Without a doubt, thought Pugdeon, Grandad must have been one very remarkable man.

The scent of the bush where Pugdeon had grown up was not the least of the things he kept in that box, although done so by default. His Grandfathers harmonica, one small blue lace glove that had belonged to his mother when she was a child, numerous scraps of paper with his fathers handwriting, one half used bottle of aftershave retrieved from his fathers top dressing table drawer the day he died, and a precisely folded incredible paper plane.

Part four 

Pugdeon had realised long before he was an adult that the thing about the life he knew was that the sweetest moments were easy to recognise. The memories he kept, thought Pugdeon were like the little lights he had strung around his small inner city courtyard.

At night in the place where Pugdeon lived it was dark. The neighboring buildings towered over his stout cottage and if it weren't for the sprinkling of lights one could imagine one was no where. In fact, sometimes when he wasn't feeling frightened Pugdeon did. He would stand at night and close his eyes. The city hum was muted. Subtle echos that reverberated off the high concrete walls and the tempestuous city wind that swam around Pugdeon removed him from the world. He was no~one, no~where.

When he opened his eyes however and for every time he stopped to notice, those lights, surrounded by the deep darkness were beautiful thought Pugdeon. Their glow was soothing, and they oriented him. They reminded him that he was someone, somewhere.

There were many times like that in Pugdeon's life. Moments that were comforting. Reminding him that his existence was worthwhile if only for the joy of experiencing them. When he was six Pugdeon would run through his neighbors washing hanging on the line. The feel of the cool damp on his skin and the smell of Mrs Chin's freshly washed sheets made him happy. And temporarily cool during the long summer afternoons. Those memories nourished Pugdeon's soul.

Part three

For a while at least, Pugdeon had resigned himself to the fact that it would take time before his father would vanish from his life forever. It was difficult to adjust to. Like counting down the days to the last but not knowing exactly when that would be, or how it would be. It was an idea that to Pugdeon was too crazy to be true. Nevertheless he was determined to fill as much of his father into those days as he could.

In the weeks and months that followed, every chance he had he was his fathers shadow. Done so partly in awe of how it would be that one day he would simply be gone. But mostly to learn the things his father had to teach him. Eager, wide eyed and no doubt to his fathers annoyance Pugdeon had many and varied questions that from a child of twelve would have seemed strange.

Over breakfast, "Why do you need two plants to grow kiwi fruit?". During lunch, "How many things can you build with liquid nails?". After school, "How do you pollinate a plant yourself?". "Is that why you graft things?". At tea time, "Show me how to check the oil in a car". Just before bed, "If you only grow natives how come you still siphon the bath water?".

Each day Pugdeon thought of more things he should ask his father, wonderful things that he had once watched him do but been too afraid to question at the time. Then as his father grew more tired, Pugdeon would sit and watch his face intently. Just so he would never ever forget it.

Graciously though once Pugdeon's father realised, he sat at the kitchen table ready to teach the best thing he knew how. Scrap paper in front of him they both sat silently as his father folded with precision the most incredible paper plane Pugdeon had ever seen.

Part two

Those days in that little house with Mum and Dad and Cat were responsible for the fondest of memories. Pugdeon still returned to that place in his dreams.

The days were long and warm, punctuated with winter barbecues, summer thunderstorms and raspberries plucked straight from the bush. They were electric, filled with so much energy that Pugdeon knew with all certainty that great things lay ahead.

Why then the stuff that dreams are made of should include bad news, Pugdeon never quite worked out. At the time of overheard phone conversations he felt sure he was standing still as the world whirred around him. It wasn't how it was meant to be.

The years leading up to that moment had been tumultuous to say the least, for all concerned. Aside from the year that had just passed, and even before he existed, life had taken Pugdeon's family by the nose and twisted it this way and that. "Why" was all he could think. Amidst the newly found serenity Pugdeon heard his Mother say things that shouldn't be said when life is good.

He retreated to his bunk bed and lay there, staring at the wall next to him.