Travelling the white line.

Trippy

Hey everyone, Jinx here! I’m fairly certain I have a small fan-base and am uber glad. You guys rock. This chapter is for you! Also, so sorry it's so short; I just needed a filler chapter before the good stuff can start rolling in! 

* 

The inside of the rustic-looking shack was incredibly deceitful. While we sat down in the living room for a cool-off period before dinner, I truly recognized the simple beauty that was the Mason household.

Paintings and captured fish, stuffed and preserved, adorned the walls. The curtains were fairy floss pink, slightly tattered and faded by sunlight. Quirky knickknacks lay scattered through the home – a pair of fluffy dice, a plastic toy horse and a Mick Jagger bobble-head were a few that captured my interest – and their couch was draped in a beautiful, colourful quilt that had been woven by hand. But there was something that, above everything else, truly took my breath away.

A bookshelf, higher than their humming brown fridge, filled to the brim with biographies, atlases, picture books, historical recounts, adult fiction, horror books, murder mysteries, nursery rhymes and endless amounts of other tales. I felt myself salivating at the sight!

I stood, completely in a daze, when I heard Shirley ask me, “Do you like to read, Celeste?””

“More than words can describe!” I wanted to say, but instead responded with a curt nod.

“What are some of your favourites?” she asked. I felt my face drop.

“Moving around a lot means I can’t get a membership to a library. But I can’t buy books, because I can’t keep them anywhere.”

I bit my lip, expecting a click of the tongue in disappointment. Instead she smiled and pulled a book down from the shelf. Shirley dusted off the cover and then presented the book to me.

“Have you ever read Alice in Wonderland?” she inquired. I shook my head, clasping my hands around the leather cover and gently pulling the book towards me. “You may borrow this copy if you’d like.” Shirley said, but I barely heard her. I’d already begun flicking through the pages, my eyes bright and wide with excitement. She simply smirked contently and allowed me to revel in the newfound glory of reading.

It was more than a half hour before I was drawn from the riveting tale of Alice in Wonderland by the scent of the hot casserole wafting through the air. I felt my stomach utter a plea for food and decided to read the book later on.

“Celestial, come on and get some grub, baby.” I heard a familiar, slurred voice say from the dinner table. I spotted my father, slightly wobbly and holding a bottle of Bundaberg rum in his hand. I remembered when we had visited the city of Hobart in Tasmania, and dad had hated living in motels so much that he raided the mini fridges in spite. Needless to say, he had discovered the ‘pleasures’ of Bundaberg.

Dad wasn’t the only drunk at the table. Bill had gotten pretty tipsy himself, and kept kicking his wife under the table. Leon, who was holding a beer of his own – although he held his liquor well – kept nudging Drew in the ribs and stealing his food. Drew was responding with a battle involving forks, declaring “Let the fork be with you!” It seemed to crack everybody up. I barely noticed the exchanges though, fully concentrated on the warmth of a hot meal.

Before I knew it, mum and I were holding dad, who was stumbling and incoherent, as we said our goodbyes to the Mason’s and thanked them for a good time. They assured us that we were welcome and that they would drop around for a swim in the river.

I crawled into the back of the van and lay on my warm bed. The jolts from the bumpy path were no match for the comfort of a good meal and the wave of tiredness that overcame me. With one last glance at the fresh night sky, I was slowly lulled into a dreamless sleep.

When I awoke, the smell of a freshly lit joint and the sight of smoke greeted me. The herb was nothing new to me, as my parents had been regular smokers their whole lives. I slowly pulled myself from the bus and out into the warm air. The sound of cicadas greeted me.

“Good morning, starshine.” Mum joked, pushing a stool in my direction as she lazily held a thin joint in her left hand. I perched myself on the edge and smiled in response. She clicked her tongue. “You look tired, love.” She remarked.

“I don’t know, Miccah.” I yawned, stretching out my arms. “The trip just knocked me around.”

“It was a fairly long one, that’s for sure.” She agreed, taking a long drag of ‘buddah’, as she called it.

"Where's dad?" I asked, "And where are the windchimes?"

"Leon took a trip to the Masons. He said Bill had some bi-carbonate something rather that'd remove the rust." she smiled wryly, "You know what your father's like. He's probably having a Bromance with Bill."

I sat silent for a few moments, before remembering the conversation with Leon the night before.

“Hey, mum?”

“Yes, sunflower?”

“Who were you before you were Miccah Sunrise?” I asked, slowly and carefully. She laughed.

“I never thought you would ask.” She smirked, “Well, before I was the true enigma I am today, I was a seamstress. Your father was training to be a lawyer. We both got caught up in Rainbowland in the 70’s, when he was twenty and I was sixteen. We bought the bus, joined a band and never looked back.”

I sat silent for a moment, imagining the life I might lead if they hadn’t become hippies, traveling the white line. We might have lived like those rich city business people with their monochromatic suits and fifty different types of coffee. I might have gone out shopping instead of learning to sing and play the tambourine. I might have gone to school, had a credit card and a car and a boyfriend.

“What were your names?” I queried.

“My name was Betty Bourke.” She murmured, cringing. I snorted.

“Betty?” I asked in disbelief, “Your parents named you Betty?”

“Your fathers name was worse!” my mum cried defensively, “He was Fred Oswald!”

By now I was rolling on the floor, tears streaming down my face. I was clutching my stomach, unable to breathe properly from the amount of laughing I was doing. My mother soon joined in my laughing, and we laughed for what seemed like hours. I finally sat up, wiping my eyes, chuckling.

“So who would I be then?” I asked.

“Emily Regina Oswald.” My mother said simply, wiping her eyes. I raised my eyebrows. It sounded simple, pleasant even. I couldn’t imagine a life where I was Emily Regina Oswald. “Damn,” my mum mumbled, pulling my thoughts away from the alternate life I could have led and re-directing my attention to her, “That was my last stick of Buddah.”