HEATH
FORSYTH
© Heath Forsyth 2009
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Field Trip: By Heath Forsyth
Ten children sat around in a semi circle as I
flicked through the pages of the story book with
nine fingers. The classroom walls were littered
with hand paintings and alphabet tables, every
time I looked up from the pages I saw new life,
new beginnings and it made me feel sick to think
I could ruin a lifetime of opportunity, taken
or untaken without one thought. I could jeopardise
their careers, their marriages, their children’s
education, I was all too aware of the cycle that
had taken my own life. My hands started shaking,
my lips became dry and I began to stutter. I had
to get out.
That morning I had woken up to the sound of an
ice cream truck, before climbing out of bed I
stared at the cream ceiling and smiled, I was
not chained to the bed. Cold coffee, black breath
and a fear of maintaining any conclusions I might
have come to the previous night. The curtains
open and close nine times and I light my cigarette
nine times too many, it was simple routine. Some
cultures exist from the odds and ends of this
moderator, this judge that people call over the
phone early in the morning to give good tax advice,
some cultures don’t carry wallets. I carry
a deluge of needle sperm and the marks of wrist
straps, I carry a kerosene lamp down the corridor
and place it down at a coffee table in the lounge
room, I am the light for these people, I am their
teacher. I’m a capacitated lecture hall
that implodes with the slightest hint of rational;
my caste subjects squabble in the realm of inaccurate
Holly Wood light, they all blame each other as
the bouncing ping -pong ball gives meaning to
the word ‘silence’. From the valves
of their drug-induced sanity they always ask what
happened to my hand and I tell them, as I always
tell them, I lost it playing table tennis. Only
God will judge the score, the men in white coats
serve first.
The ghosts of unqualified graduates scour the
walls like soldiers with forehead weapons losing
creativity with incredible efficiency. Why wake
to this I wondered? Why foreclose on a policy
designed to bankrupt the submissive? Everyday
nothing changes, patients hold the chains close
to their ankles as the car park lines with expensive
oil, hair shakes from one end of the room to the
other and outside the well behaved stare in passive
reflection at one giant oak tree. Their names
were lost when they came in just like any other
kind of object, substance or item they could possibly
think of that could potentially end it all. I
used to enjoy debating with one of the nurses;
he was a stalwart looking man who always carried
a stethoscope he never used. He never looked me
in the eyes and I knew he did it because it drove
me mad, I’m certain he had worked in security
at some point in his life, a bouncer will never
look you in the eyes. A bouncer will take one
look at you and judge wether you deserve access
into a lime infested snake pit hell, other wise
he will turn you away and expect a confrontation.
One day he left after I beat him within an inch
of his life, I was subsequently sentenced to a
straight jacket and a padded room and my personal
lease permanently extended. The new nurse though
was more lenient and after three months I was
released back into the patient population. I turn
the television on and off nine times, wash each
dish nine times before banishing them to the cupboard
and return to my room where I make my bed nine
times and prepare for our day out. Even the insane
deserve field trips.
The children all look up at me with wide eyes
and an appetite for life so great it makes me
sweat. They want me to keep reading, tell me to
keep reading, why won’t I keep reading?
I stand up and tower over these children, these
ten children. They begin to laugh as if expecting
me to dance or give them all piggie back rides;
I count them again and count ten. Again I count
ten, and again. Why ten? They want me to get back
to the story but it’s the last thing on
my mind. I count them. Ten. My supervisor stands
up and tells me to sit back down. The children
want me to keep reading and I count them again.
Ten lives Ten lives Ten lives.
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HEATH
FORSYTH
© Heath Forsyth 2009
