Submissions to the Geelong Writers seventh Ekphrastic Challenge for 2024 closed on 25 August. The image Cars (by Michael Cains) prompted various responses – but mostly about how people relate to cars and sheds! (There were some questions raised about the make, model and age of the cars depicted in the photo, but that remains a mystery, open to the viewer’s imagination and expertise.)
We have published the submissions of the following 13 writers:
David Bridge John Heritage John Margetts Geoffrey Gaskill
Gail Griffin Steve Gray Dulara J. Adrian Brookes Ian Stewart
Adam Stone Daphne Delores Winter Allan Barden John O’Brien
Inheritance
John’s inheritance was not looking promising. The main house was a shambles and the outhouse looked very neglected. Light from occasional gaps in the corrugated roofing revealed humped shapes softened by years of dust. Amidst the expected junk, John glimpsed what seemed to be a pigeon pair of 1940’s Buicks.
He picked his way over and around sprawled machine parts until he could lever up the bonnet facing him. All seemed intact but, even if the engine ran, every tyre was flat and perished. The second vehicle was in worse shape, perhaps bought for parts. There was great potential value but also long hours of renovation to achieve it. He didn’t remember his late Uncle Paul fondly, a man embittered by a hand lost in a drunken car crash, but his love of vintage cars was something John recalled.
John doubted anyone had visited the property since a police check following Paul’s disappearance two decades ago. His Uncle liked living ‘off grid’ and wasn’t particularly sociable, except with other enthusiasts. Nevertheless, John’s father had waited a long time before having Paul declared legally dead, and now his death meant the matter was John’s problem.
He squeezed his way to a pile of tyres slumped against the second vehicle’s bonnet. If they were serviceable, the cars would be easier to retrieve. Moving the tyres was difficult as they had somehow been pinned by the slumped chassis. Crouching, John realised there was an inspection pit into which the drive shaft was hanging, its weight pulling that side down.
Having retrieved a flashlight, John probed the darkness to assess the damage and shuddered. A skeletal form was propped in the recess, pinned by the rusted shaft, a prosthetic hand dangling. Uncle Paul was lost no more.
– by David Bridge
dreams
i had
4
my return
b n
r e
o k
a future haunted
by
dilapidated
workshop
tradie ghosts
rusting hubcaps
dope and banjo music
prolong
the sadness
– by John Heritage
Cars
Night shift. Polishing acres of tiles. 2 AM, clock off, place to myself, all too much. Crack open company reps’ fridge, drink their beer.
Weaving home along South Road. Car wrapped around pole, body hanging out of the driver’s seat onto the road. Middle aged, roughly dressed, smashed up chest and face. Tatts say Islander, bald head. Cradle him in my arms, ease him onto the road, bloodied head on my lap. Eyes flutter. He speaks.
“Inna glove box, Bro,” he slurs, his body stiffens in pain. He moans “Mum!” He dies.
Passing motorist will call police from a phone box. Maybe. Something tells me to leave. Drink driving. I don’t need the grief. In his wallet, licence, scrap of notepaper, $150 he won’t need any more? Pocket the notepaper, scribbled address on it, 80 Swamp Gully Road somewhere. Sirens coming, not needed, I leave.
“You’ve been drinking again.” Rolls over.
Wake hungover. She’s gone, bags, that $150 too. Remember the accident, wash bloodstains off my work clothes, car interior. Herald. “Driver dies in South Road Tragedy – police seek mystery helper.”
Notepaper sits in my glovebox for weeks. I need a break. Up in the foothills punishing wild trout until all the kinks come out of my mind.
Rediscover notepaper. Leave the river to find that address.
80 Swamp Gully Road an abandoned quarry. A shed is leaning sideways, junk litters the ground, machines dead for decades. Inside beams of sunlight strobe down through rust holes, light, dark, light, dark. 50 years of rubbish, two old cars. First car, nothing. Second car, locked glovebox. Tyre lever opens it, bunch of papers. The roof creaks, a breeze shuffles those papers. Maybe a ghost walks around here. Soon I wish I’d never seen them.
– by John Margetts
Investment
Leon just couldn’t part with any of what he called his investments. ‘They might come in handy one day,’ he said.
‘Which?’ his sceptical wife, Leonie, asked, looking at the shambles in his shed.
Leon shrugged.
‘Face it, Leonie told him, ‘you’re a shameless hoarder.’
She couldn’t remember when he had taken to investing in old cars and their parts. ‘It’s not hoarding,’ he insisted. ‘I like to see myself like any collector. I’m a connoisseur.’
Leonie looked at the pile of junk and sighed. True love meant tolerating the idiosyncrasies of your partner.
‘Those cars are an investment.’ If he said it once, he said it a thousand times.
‘Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.’
‘You’ve got to see it as long-term.’
Leonie scoffed. ‘Then why am I still driving that?’
That was her rusty old Austin A40 banished from the shed to a permanent existence in the driveway.
Leon shrugged. ‘It’s not the sexiest of cars, I’ll admit.’
A small concession, but it wasn’t enough. ‘It doesn’t even have a garage–unlike your other investments.’
Leon couldn’t argue with that.
That’s when he had a brain wave!
At the bottom of the pile of other car bodies in the garage, he had an old Jag he knew Leonie would just love. If only he could replace the head- and taillights and make the engine work.
Maybe, he thought, rooting around among the boxes in the shed, he had …
After he’d uncovered the Jag, he saw its leather upholstery was also a bit tatty.
Hm.
He was sure that Leonie, with her talent for sewing, could fix up the interior in no time.
In his mind he could see her face when he surprised her with his present on her birthday.
– by Geoff Gaskill
Restoring a Moment in Time
An affair with cars
Once driven to impress girls
A high price for fun
Now, abandoned. Left.
Dumped amid the cluttered mess
Core goodness still there
Enthusiast comes
Espies potential future
Rescue plan devised
Working day and night
He toils, takes out, replaces
Time worn inclusions
Weeks turn into months
Seasons after seasons pass
Completion looming
Curiosity!
Visitors from far and wide
Excitement abounds
Naysayers silent
Until they see the results
Vintage classic lines
Concours. Car Event.
Coming to Melbourne Showgrounds
Entry lodged promptly
Rev heads gather round
Original vehicles
Impressed with their style
Ardent judges squint
Exteriors a-gleaming
Interiors fine
Decisions tallied
Preservation Award won
Efforts recognised
A nod to the past
Of bygone days, classic cars
And evolution
– by Gail Griffin
Rust
Rust whispers in the corners,
where shadows sigh—
two hollow beasts,
Sleeping restfully in their steel shells,
time etching lines into their weathered skins.
Cracks in the entrance door,
fingers of light,
play with dust,
caught in the stillness—
bricks murmur stories,
half-lost in the echo.
A hand, now absent,
once turned the key,
now it lingers,
in the breath of the garage,
a presence woven in the quiet air,
soft as the dust that dances unseen.
The suitcase, heavy with silence,
rests like a heart
burdened by letters
never sent—
tears woven into paper,
words now frayed, some meaning lost.
Ghosts of memories,
rust, and light,
whisper through the cracks,
in a language of loss,
half-heard,
but felt in every corner.
– by Steve Gray
fingerprints
in the thick layer
of dust
hands stained with rust
the car sits idle in the shed
a spiderweb of cracks across the lights
a splatter of dried crusted blood on the dashboard
old police tape hanging limp from the door
fragments of glass
sparkling like the crystallized tears
of those who had lost their loved ones
a lonely spider
trapping flies in its cobwebs
like the memories
of that day
weeds sprouting between
the cracks of the windshield; new life
pale green leaves
tentatively poking out their heads
to greet the world
crumpled metal and crushed glass
strewn everywhere
like the hopes and dreams of the ones long gone
yet still, life peeks through the crevices
hearts, however small
beating with determination
bugs and beetles skittering to and fro
mice darting in and out
from the wreckage emerges a home for many.
but the home it once was
for the owner of this home
is not home at all
but a
graveyard
of the nightmares that plague them
crying aloud
in the night
tears dampening the pillow
the scent of blood
still stinging their nostrils
screams
echoing hollowly in their ears
and once they calm down;
their sobs fade
and they disappear
into
a dreamless
sleep.
– by Dulara J.
Farewell, Fey Tale
How deep does the unconscious reach? What’s going on in that obscure substrate of our being—and what’s it picking up, like scents on an ethereal breeze, of things outside ourselves?
Like—the anklet.
It suddenly came to mind last midsummer. Fifty-plus years it had been, and I’m sure I hadn’t thought of it since. The girl’s name, too—Lucy, wasn’t it? She’d lost an anklet and blamed me. I couldn’t see why.
Then cousin Bob got in touch: old Cyril, his dad, had finally passed on. Bob was inviting family to the old homestead at Tarrawingee to help themselves to whatever they wanted. ‘There’s heaps of junk,’ he warned, ‘but there is some decent stuff that could be salvaged.’
So I went. Amongst the junk in the garage was the carcase of an early-model Holden. It stirred a memory.
Eons ago I’d gone to help Uncle Cyril with hay baling, and I’d borrowed his car for a one-night stand with Lucy, a neighbour’s girl. On the way home we’d stopped to admire the view, embracing its appeal in the back seat.
But was this the same car? I squeezed in through a rear door. As I did, my foot roughed up the rotted matting, revealing a glint of metal underneath. An incredulous minute later I was holding a silvery chain, perfect for adorning an ankle.
Okay, so I was to blame. But what had brought this long-forgotten trinket to mind beforehand without any possible prompting? Pure coincidence? Surely not, if life had any meaning! But then, to read meaning into coincidence was the root of fiction. Was I merely creating a falsehood?
Fool if I’d lie to myself. I left the anklet under the matting and its history among the world’s lost tales.
– by Adrian Brookes
A Memory Moment
The first impression, and it’s a ‘right-in-the-eye’ hit, is the car on the left is the classic boys’-own, oft-hotted-up FJ Holden. With her back to the viewer, the other vehicle maintains her anonymity.
The whole scene – two relics, resting among an assortment of unloved junk. So sad.
Wait. There is a problem. The grille: it just doesn’t look right. In the picture, the vertical bars number five or six, widely spaced. The lovely FJ had ten, all more robustly prominent. The badge-mascot above the grille looks right – correct shape and placement. But the bonnet. A bit long, don’t you think? Or is it just the strange perspective?
Perhaps a different brand of vehicle.
With that in mind, I searched – without luck. It must be the brilliant FJ. Should I ask the photographer? Surely he’d know.
OK. Let’s throw off the mantle of detective and imagine that the car is really an FJ relic. Doesn’t it take you back? Back to 1975, to Bob Hudson and the infamous ‘Newcastle Song’? “Never let a chance go by”, especially if you’re confronted on Hunter Street on a Friday night by a nine-foot-tall Hell’s Angel whose girlfriend you’ve been trying to chat up from the front seat of your mate’s FJ (he’s driving, of course). Lucky there was that break in the traffic!
But what about the other poor vehicle? Mustn’t leave her out. Research has failed to reveal her identity. Love to know …
– by Ian Stewart
Hideaway Harry
Hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry lives in a concrete bunker in the side of a hill
He paints and draws in hieroglyphic scrawl all day long
Sometimes just sits for hours on end, quietly going around the bend
He’s a product of war is poor old Harry
Of warring parents, warring governments, warring myths
He even has warring personalities to contend with
He battles with his demons, just to get the balance right
Harry’s affection was reserved for pistons, carburettors and holier than thou engine parts
Legend has it that he rescued a pair of FJ Holdens in the floods of ‘58
Now rusted and neglected much like himself, there’s no one to rescue him
Bedraggled, mice have infested the upholstery and he with rats’ tails for hair
Frankly, he looks like he lives in the side of that hill up there
Harry’s rarely seen downtown and on those rare occasions
People keep their distance, hissing in the shadows
And the trees are sometimes heard to whisper Harry’s name
Over and over, enough to drive a man insane
Hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry never asked to be the way he was
Harry never asked for sympathy because
He had an alter-ego of biblical proportions
Carried out acts you see of biblical distortions
It all came to a head the day he saw it written
Way up in the clouds, all will be forgiven
With one fell swoop he bled a rarer atmosphere
Said I’ll come back and rise again
In around two thousand years!
Hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
Harry hideaway
– by Adam Stone
Great Aspirations
I flinched as the air erupted around me. A barn owl heading out. This place had seen no recent disturbance. Dust and damp mingled with the stench of rotted rat. Looking around, dim memories emerged: beeswax polish, leather, grease gun, petrol fumes.
My uncle Kal had grown up on the farm, and had never left. As soon as he could walk and talk, he had been set to work, tending the horses, doing the impossible to force the land to produce, waiting on the rain. In his youth, Kal knew only hard work and frugality, regardless of what the seasons brought. His father’s one indulgence was to flaunt a stylish car.
After Grandpa died, Kal measured the accumulated wealth, celebrating with tractors that put paid to all the feeding and grooming. Once the machinery sheds went up, the stables held only carts and harness. A new brick garage housed the beloved cars.
Lean, dry years followed. Wheat proved too risky on its own. No one needed as much hay now. Then sheep prices plunged. Meanness prevailed.
The cars had been his father’s pride and joy, but apart from tractor basics, Kal had never been much chop as a mechanic. He was too proud to admit defeat, and if he needed a vehicle, he bought a new one. And a new shed. The garage became a tomb for the old cars and a staging place for materials that might come in handy, some day.
Maybe Kal had hoped I would just turn up and give him a hand, but he had kept to himself and I’d not felt welcome here since Grandpa died. Now it’s all left up to me.
Mindful of the lives that had been expended in assembling the wreckage, I considered what it would take to dismantle it.
– by Daphne Delores Winter
Love and Loyalty at the Wheel
Ian’s old, beloved car, a 1974 Triumph Stag, is more than just a vehicle; it is a trusted companion. Its fading yellow paint, speckled with rust spots, tells a tale of years spent braving the elements. Despite its age, the Stag’s engine still roars to life with a familiar purr, a testament to Ian’s love and care over the years.
Every dent and scratch has a story. The small dent on the driver’s side door is from a minor mishap during a frantic move from Canberra to Melbourne. The scratch on the bumper reflects a parallel parking attempt in Melbourne city. These imperfections remain badges of honour, reminders of the Stag’s many life experiences.
The inside of the Stag hosts a treasure trove of memories. The well- worn seats, though a bit uncomfortable, are old friends. They have cradled friends during road trips, housed various sporting paraphernalia and provided a refuge for rests during long drives interstate. The dashboard, adorned with fading stickers of Hawthorn premiership success and Hash House Harrier running mementoes, represents a canvas of the Stag’s journey through time and place.
Ian’s more cherished experiences in the Stag are the long drives with the hood down, when the car feels less like a machine and more like an extension of himself. It becomes his sanctuary, a place where thoughts flow freely and stress dissipates with the kilometres.
As the years pass and newer models hit the streets, the Stag is a staunch reminder that true value isn’t in the latest gadgets or sleek designs of newer vehicles, but in the shared experiences and memories created along the way. Even with some wear and tear, Ian’s Stag remains a loved and fully functional relic, a symbol of happy times and lasting loyalty.
– by Allan Barden
Leaving it behind
The cooling motor ticked, a clock going backwards, as they stood at the shed door. Slumped cypress trees bore down on the structure.
“We used to play here. When we were kids,” he said to the owner.
The intake of air from the opened door stirred motes into the musty air where they hung languidly. Cypress nuts, and leaves like dried scales, had gathered thickly where the holes in the roof were widest.
“How long since anyone was in here?” he asked.
“Probably not since your mother sold it.”
There were two old sedans parked carelessly amongst the rubbish. Navigating tyres, boxes, bottles and other detritus, he made it to the larger of the two.
The desiccated and cracked leather driver’s seat creaked.
Cuff was pulled over palm heel to wipe dust from the instruments, steering wheel, chrome trim and bakelite knobs.
The older sibling had piloted them in this jalopy through many adventures. Police chase. Redex Trial. Searching for dad.
At last, my turn to drive, he thought.
“He left something here for me apparently. My brother.”
The owner had remained outside and either didn’t hear or care to answer.
Cobwebs and rust flakes in the glovebox. A camshaft with heavily scored lobes on the front passenger floorwell. Ancient newsprint and a broken broom in the backseat. Crumbling footy cards fluttered down from the downturn of the remaining sun visor.
There’s nothing here.
Wait.
In the ashtray, guarded by dead spiders, something wrapped in oilpaper. He unwrapped a key ring, with one car key, attached to a silver metal disc. A solitary word engraved and delicately filled with red enamel.
Brother
He re-wrapped the amulet, returned it to its hiding place.
“Anything you wanted in there?” asked the owner, closing the door behind him.
“No. Thanks.”
– by John O’Brien
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