Writer In Focus: Chloe Higgins
Chloe is a third year Creative Writing student at UOW and Co-Editor of UOW’s student magazine, Tertangala. She writes a bit of everything, but currently has a soft spot for 600 word short stories. Her work has appeared in Tertangala, ZPlatt (online), Kiama Independent, Lake Times and on the South Coast Writers’ Centre website. Her first e-book, Copy Paste Guide – Get a Band 6 in HSC English Creative Writing, was published by an online education company, myEd Online, in December last year.
This is Bob.
(Try to imagine the man you see catching the 6:08 Western line into Sydney every morning. He’s wearing the brown plaid vest over the light brown dress shirt, with the dark brown pants. Notice his shoes too. They are supposed to be black. But he prefers brown.)
Bob is the ‘boss’ where he works. He has his own office, while the rest of them sit in back-to-back open cubicles; a coffee mug an employee bought him one year for Christmas with ‘Boss’ painted on the side; and a name plaque attached to his office door.
Bob likes an argument. Which is why he meets his daughter for lunch every Wednesday. He never lets a point go—he’s a little tenacious. Which is why he’s always late. Bob cleans his teeth three times a day (a girlfriend from his youth once told him his breath smelt) and eats a chickpea, grated beetroot, Greek fetta, tomato, cucumber and olive salad for lunch. Every day. Except Sundays, when he doesn’t have lunch because he and his wife do a bacon and egg brunch thing instead. Oh, and there’s one more thing about Bob: he always keeps a business shirt at his desk. Just in case. Although even Bob isn’t quite sure what the ‘just in case’ is, since the same shirt has been sitting there for 27 years now.
As you can see, Bob is a regular kind of guy, with a regular kind of job, and a regular kind of life. His wife Mary, although very nice, is just a regular type of woman too.
Except one thing.
Bob likes polar bears. Bob has never seen a polar bear in real life, but he knows exactly what they look like. A different girlfriend in his youth once showed him a picture of one and asked if he thought it was cute. Bob said yes, and she said that was good because women only like men who have a soft side. Bob wasn’t quite sure how polar bears were related to men with soft sides, but he nodded and smiled and was very pleased with himself anyway. Then he started collecting pictures of polar bears and putting them up around his house and office. And on Saturdays, when he doesn’t have to work, and he and his wife aren’t brunching, Bob scours the television for documentaries about Greenland. Bob likes Greenland too. He’d like to go there one day and see a polar bear in real life. Which is funny. Because just the other day, a friend of Bob’s called him up, all excited, talking about Greenland and how there are polar bears there.
‘So do you want to go?’ his friend had asked Bob.
Yes! Bob had wanted to shout into the phone.
But the thing was, Bob had his 6:08 to Sydney to catch, an office to oversee, and a couple of arguments he needed to tie up. Besides, he had wondered, did they even have chickpeas in Greenland?
‘Let me sleep on it,’ Bob said, looking out the window. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
yesterday
i watched a bird fall from
the sky was yellow and (a)round
the trees hung circles of
yours was yellow blood
that seeped into mine
even the blind could see
when seven thousand ribbons
were strung midway
between your ribcage and navel
yesterday
i watched
a bird fall
(This poem is a response to Lina Sagaral-Reyes’ poem, The story I would have wanted to tell you had I met you yesterday. Both poems are about a young activist, Emmanuel Gutierrez, who was killed during the Yellow Revolution in the Philippines.)
Written by SCWC
Posted on October 01, 2013