TURBINE | KAPOHAU

‘Woven Mud and Twig Nests’ is a description of prose writing in Language at Play, Dianne Ackerman in ‘In Fact The Best of Creative Nonfiction’ ed. By Lee Gutkind, 2005, Creative Nonfiction Foundation

Like the Town and Conference Centre in San Diego I make no promise of toxic-free food. This work is six months old. It has not learnt to walk and talk. It can roll to the left and right, sit up. Nor has it learned to lie. It has a Chomsky grammar. It enjoys the sounds of syllables. It knows what is good and bad. It is reading proficient and abstraction fluent.

I am a leaf at the Kilbirnie crossroads. I am waiting for a galeforce wind to fling me through the air on my way to the end. I am still living greenly, soon will be dead. From the four winds derive the eight winds, then sixteen more until each wind represents one degree of the circumference. Which wind will come first? A breeze may deflect my path, flip me up away from the gusty tide. The orange ninety-one drops cargo from the airport. The gale catches each piece on descent. Hair and hats fly, coats flap, hands freeze around handles.

Flight seven-zero-three Pacific Blue is boarding from gate twenty-two B, bound for Christchurch.

The Christchurch winter is dry and cold. There is not the wind of Wellington, not the same kind of chill factor. In summer there is a heat factor. Burn time was eleven minutes in 1999.

My last swim with my father was a ten minute drive to Spencer Park, a run into the sea over the fiery sand, a cool down and swim in eastern breakers, the ruffles to the big waves, a bit of body surfing. The run out dried our skin, the heat so unbearable we trekked straight to the car and the ten minute drive home. He did not swim again in his life. In 2003 the burn time was five minutes. Swimming in Christchurch burn time is as pointless as at the rooftop pool in Dubai when the temperature is fifty degrees, centigrade.

Beneath the Norwester, its arch of rainbow humid heat, residents are nuts to be cracked easily, shells softening over time. 

Jetstar Flight two-six-two to Auckland is preparing for rows twenty to thirty that go first. Cellphones to be switched off and hot beverages may not be taken on board, thank you.

This announcement is for rows one and twenty to thirty-one. Those passengers can now come forward please and board gate twenty-one. Thank you.

Can I have your attention please? Boarding is requested if you are in rows ten to twenty, please board now.

Attention please, are you present? Would you please proceed to the service desk and make yourself known to the flight attendants?

The cabin crew will also point out lights that act as a guide to the exits. It is my job to ensure you are in the right zone. Will you please move to row nineteen?

The Masonic hall doubles as an animal charitable society. The sally shop doubles as a dress display. I collect the broccoli at Commonsense Organics.

Taciturn is the busdriver’s name. Complaints are his duty. Driver wants to reject the ten dollar note. Listens while I say my coins went on the morning fare. You cannot have a daytripper until 9.30 am.

This morning the University bus won’t take you there. The first smile on a busdriver’s face because she is terminating at the station. Just this morning and she has permission. She has a private job taking passengers to Otaki. The smile cracks her leather mouth. This is a long speech for a busdriver. Speech is free but not well paid.

My ticket must be shown to the next driver. He acts puzzled acceptance and grumpy. Up the hill wends the chill factor to the micro-climate –  Cobham Drive, Cougar Place, Prison Road, Countess Close, Mount Crawford. The desire for the salty oxygen and the walk down watching the Wellington view, to be able to breathe the air of prose. Was that a comma?

The baby is growing. Unhappy at creche she is trying to pull herself up out of the baby room. She likes the sing-song sounds. She wants stories read aloud. The story room is off-limits. She picks up story books, rips into them, chews them and spits out paper lumps. She is not a pet.

The four cats are pets. Aged Cleo is still alive at eighteen years. Corporate Grayling is sensitive, intelligent, attuned. The stray, Binny, is the fearful one. The fourth is the blind cat – brave, loving, attached, she waits up north.

The ninety-one bus sailed past the three adults waiting with bags at the bus stop. I ran with mine like an Aucklander to where the bus was held by a red traffic light. And because the lights in Wellington are slow to change the non-runners and I all caught it. As I entered the bus with a mild greeting the driver shouted at me that it was my fault that I had missed the bus, not hers that she had failed to stop. It is a long yelling but I am already sitting in the back seat well away.

Auckland prices up bus fares. The city is four adjectives – dry, warm, sunny and speechful. The ticket-seller proposes that migrants are asset stripping Aotearoa. The Wellington woman complains at taking a bus to Britomart and then Henderson. They are neither close-lipped or open-mouthed. I am quiet while I imagine how long that trip will take.

In Auckland I am as footloose as I am in Wellington. I have no home to go to but I am not homeless. I have replenished cleaning cloths in three kitchens. There are three milk frothers, Trade Aid coffee.

On the Kapiti Coast a cyclist is blown off her bicycle. She scrambles up off the wet sand and starts to run along behind the wheels which have gone into liftoff. Her bicycle has been plucked into the air and is flying above. She tries to grab a wheel but the wind dumps the bike down ahead. She walks it away over the beach holding the handlebars firmly. This is a true story.

‘Woven Mud and Twig Nests’ is a description of prose writing in Language at Play, Dianne Ackerman in ‘In Fact The Best of Creative Nonfiction’ ed. By Lee Gutkind, 2005, Creative Nonfiction Foundation