Read Other People’s Stories

 Doll’s Leg

The day I found the leg it was overcast and chilly, typical Melbourne. Walking along the footpath, morning coffee in hand, there it suddenly was looking lonely and lost, toes pointing south.

Images of it’s detachment immediately came to mind: a growling dog, tug of war, sounds of screaming, tearing flesh, that final, irrevocable “pop”. Apart from its disembodiment, the leg looked unharmed, its foot poised for the silver slipper, ready to skip and dance and run.

I wondered about the girl it had belonged to; about the boy or girl who had detached it.

Or maybe she had removed it herself? I imagined small fingers gently caressing nylon blond hair… then fiendish yanking, leg flying, the rest bandaged and soothed with sinister tenderness, admitted to the ever growing hospital for miniature amputees…

Bending down I took a photograph and walked on.

That night I dreamt of faint plasticky footsteps, tapping on windows, trying to find a way home.

Item # 23 Found: High Street, Northcote
   

Item # 18. Found: Rental property, Reservoir                                        

Letter From the Author

I bought a novel at a second-hand bookshop a few years ago, and inside it was an original letter from the author – printed, but actually signed. It was a pretty normal letter to a real estate agent, I think, but I thought it was very weird that the author had possibly been carrying a copy of their own book and then put this letter inside it, and then sold it! Or decided to get rid of it somehow, for some reason. It made me think of this poor guy with 10,000 copies of a possibly self-published book, in an apartment full of boxes and not even able to give them away. Or did he decide to read it, and that’s why he left the letter inside, as a bookmark?

–

Losing my Mind

I was on my way to school on the tram. I had my final production coming up and I was in the midst of rehearsals. I got off the tram at Flinders Street and began to head towards school. After a moment I began to feel strange as I was feeling lighter than usual.  I am used to being weighed down by several bags of stuff.

I suddenly realised I had left my backpack with all my rehearsal scripts, creative ideas and musings, rehearsal schedules, drawings and designs on the tram. How was I ever going to come up with of all the ideas contained in this bag again?

I quickly decided the best option was to run.  I charged across an interection through traffic then down Flinders Street, through traffic, after the tram.  Cars beeped, I nearly died twice and I caused at least one crash, but all my ideas were gone.   I had to get them back.

The tram got further and further away. I jumped on the tram that was behind ‘my tram’. I spluttered to the driver who kindly picked up the radio and called the tram in front. He relayed the description of my lost backpack. After a pause it was confirmed that my bag was now with the driver in the tram up ahead.  How was I to catch up?  My lip quivered.  My driver relayed to the driver ahead that he was potentially dealing with a crying girl.  Apparently this is some kind of code red: the driver ahead stopped his tram so we could catch up.

Finally we pulled up behind ‘my tram’, I got off and was finally reunited with my backpack. I lifted the bag and felt the weight of my imagination being returned to me.

–

      Item # 15. Found: High Street, Preston        Item # 35. Found: Carpark Melbourne CBD      

                                       

–

Sunglasses 

I’d often use the 24 hour computer lab at Melbourne University in Parkville. One morning, on my way to school, I noticed a pair of sunglasses on the bench. I had been meaning to buy some sunglasses for a while. I looked around and saw that I was alone. I looked up and saw a security camera in the corner of the ceiling pointed at me. I spent about ten more minutes looking at random things on the internet, debating whether I should take them. Finally, I packed my things together and swiftly scooped up the sunglasses and shoved them in my bag on my way out. I immediately got on my bike and rode away, worried that whoever was watching the security camera footage was on their way to accost me; perhaps having laid the sunglasses there as a honey-trap. Upon arriving at school about twenty minutes later, I took them out and tried them on. Everything went blurry. They were tinted prescription reading glasses. I shook my head at myself and put them back in my bag. On the way home, I dropped in at the 24 hour computer lab and surreptitiously placed the glasses back exactly where I found them. I wonder if the owner ever got them back and whether they happened to visit the lab during the time the glasses were in my possession? How strange they would have found it that the glasses were gone – who would steal tinted prescription reading glasses? And how surprised they would have been that the glasses then miraculously reappeared exactly where they left them, beside their favourite computer?

–

Fifty Dollar Note

I was walking around Kew, near where I lived and I stumbled across a $50 note on the ground. I picked it up and looked around for the owner. I thought that it was a lot of money to lose and whoever lost it would possibly feel that strain of being fifty bucks short. I know I would have. I thought the best thing to do was to hand it into the cop shop as someone might be looking for it. The officer behind the counter looked at me very strangely when I said that I wanted to hand in $50 in case the owner came looking for it. The obligatory paperwork was filled out and the $50 note was safely stored away in the safe as an object of value. The officer explained that it would be kept for a certain number of weeks and if it was not claimed then I had the right to keep it. A few weeks later I returned to the police station curious to know if the owner had claimed their money. I presented my receipt and they confirmed that it had not been claimed and asked if I would like it. I said sure. As I walked home I could not get over the idea that someone needed the $50 more than I did.  I ended up giving it to the Salvos.

–

                                 Item # 21. Found: Doug Hull Adventure Park, Coburg

                                                                                                          

Item # 30. Origin: Paris. Additional information: “For more than 60 years, the Companie des Bateaux Mouches has told a love story to generations of passengers,     those who are curious, poets, those who are romantic or in love…” http://www.bateaux-mouches.fr/en 

                                                                  

–

Michelle Fritz

Last week I found an Eftpos card lying on the pavement, not far from my home.  “Michelle Fritz.”  I immediately looked around to check if someone had just passed by and I might be able to decipher a Michelle look-a-like. There was no one to be found. For a brief couple of moments I had an amazing sense of power: I have something that Michelle needs.  I don’t know who she is, she doesn’t know me, she probably doesn’t even know that it’s gone… she doesn’t know that I have it!  But she will soon enough start to panic when she realises she can’t access her funds.  I started to ponder my options: I could hunt her down by googling her or looking her up on whitepages.com (the web: always the answer to finding what you’ve lost) and then either graciously hand it over, or I could demand a reward to compensate me for my efforts in returning her lost item.  Should I contact the financial institution and report it missing? Or better still, contact the financial institution but let them work out how Michelle can find me.  Perhaps she doesn’t even give a toss that it’s lost and has already, in the short time that has passed, cancelled the card and ordered a replacement, at no additional cost…? Hmmm, the power one gets from finding something lost…

All this reminds me that I still need to return the card to the bank.

–

Hoody in the Dirt

I recently went for a picnic with friends in a small town in Southern Tasmania called Dover.  The population of Dover is around 1,000 people (so Wikipedia tells me).  We ate our picnic at a wooden table and benches near the beach.  Right next to the table we sat to eat our picnic was a black hoody jumper on the ground, covered in dirt and looking like it had been stomped into the ground.  Immediately my mind wanders to teenagers, drinking late at night, on the beach.  After much booze has been consumed a fight breaks out, a boy (why is it a boy?) throws a punch at another kid.  The other kid retaliates and smashes him in the face with his fists.  Kicks him in the guts.  They grapple on the ground.  Twisting.  Kicking.  The other kid rips the hoody off the first boy.  He is panting and scared now and he didn’t realise the boy he threw a punch at was so strong.  He has broken a tooth on a rock.  The first boy, now without his hoody, gets up and runs.  He wants to get away from the group that is jeering and laughing.  Some of the girls (why girls?) have been yelling at them to stop it.  His hoody now lays in the ground.  A remnant of the violence that has just gone before. 

Have I watched too many police dramas on TV?

                                

The Little Lost Socks

As I take my young son for a walk we discover another lost article of infant’s clothing.

Everyday I see a child’s sock upside down on a picket fence post, a beanie on a overhanging branch, a shoe on a fire hydrant…  One day I saw two trouser legs sticking up in the air.  They had been placed bottom first over the local park’s ‘Dogs must be kept on a leash’ sign.  My dilemma: should I leave them for the rightful owner or snap them up to clothe my own boy?  Every day there is something new.  He could have a new outfit every week!

Or is it a trail left by desperate children keen for attention?  A small army of toddlers being wheeled about, leaving clues wherever they travel, unbeknownst to their parents… subtly a little arm reaches out: a bonnet appears on the ground.

Will these clothes get a new home or will the rightful owner be out on their daily walk when they spy with glee their long lost sock?