It’s a beautiful day, and I’m parked at the Torrens Parade Ground waiting to pick up my Japanese student and her friends to take them to a party. I’m early and I’ve opened my windows to enjoy the warm breeze. Spring has sprung, the lawn is green, the trees are flush with new growth, andContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Dangerous Weapons”
Category Archives: Edie Eicas
Edie Eicas: Getting Older
I thought getting older would be a breeze. Wrong! In the fantasy of youth I believed wisdom would be the gift of ageing. Wrong! I had no idea wisdom would depend on attitude, curiosity and the ability to accept mistakes with humility. I watched my parents age but somehow refused to accept that I tooContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Getting Older”
Edie Eicas: Getting Older
I thought getting older would be a breeze. Wrong! In the fantasy of youth, I believed wisdom would be the gift of ageing. Wrong! I had no idea wisdom would depend on attitude, curiosity and the ability to accept mistakes with humility. I watched my parents age but somehow refused to accept that I would beContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Getting Older”
Edie Eicas: Spooked
Perhaps it was the fairy tales where the prince rode a horse or maybe it was my subconscious need to feel powerful through the agency of the animal that sent me in pursuit of ridinginstructions. A gentle horse that walks around an enclosure is a lovely experience and can fool an enamoured teenage girl aboutContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Spooked”
Edie Eicas: Secret
I haven’t told many people, but I was a palm reader. It started when I found a book on palmistry. I wanted an escape from my teenage anxiety, wanted to know who I was outside the dictates of my family. Then, when I got older, it became a party trick. While living in Melbourne, Tony,Continue reading “Edie Eicas: Secret”
Edie Eicas: Medea
I mull over the character of Medea. In the myth, Jason of the Argonauts goes to Colchis to retrieve the golden fleece once owned by Zeus a justification for stealing. Medea, the King of Colchis’ daughter, through her knowledge and magic, helps Jason. Her act betrays her father and her country and, as they fleeContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Medea”
Edie Eicas: Lithuania Teutonic Knights
She knew they were coming. It was gossip from Vilnius. Some listened while others ignored. Her village prayed, hoping Deivas protected them. Fear swept through Kaunas as news of the Teutonic Knights’ massacres reached them. Stories of carnage arrived with fleeing villagers, and many began to worry. These murderers were stomping through Lithuania from PrussiaContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Lithuania Teutonic Knights”
Edie Eicas: Shopping Adelaide Arcade
I like to think my humour comes from my parents, particularly my mum who had a wicked, sarcastic, confrontational sense of humour. When the kids were little, I played a lot of jokes on them, that part of me contained an element of my family’s wickedness. When the kids were in primary school, I wasContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Shopping Adelaide Arcade”
Edie Eicas: Split
I have two sides. The life I lived and the one I didn’t dare pursue. It took years to understand how the unconscious controls our lives. We think we have free will but it’s an illusion. We have no freedom until we accept we have no will, and then start questioning the programs that makeContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Split”
Edie Eicas: Ticket to Ride
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. They lied. There’ve been many times when I wished the floor would open up and I would disappear, preferably to some beach in Hawaii. When I was younger,Continue reading “Edie Eicas: Ticket to Ride”
Edie Eicas: Armchair Traveller
I’m an armchair traveller. I once did a great deal of travelling on my own, but found that without the company of another, some pleasures were denied. I’m also not good on water, I get seasick. I suffer with vertigo and tinnitus and a moving ship that rolls from side to side or up andContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Armchair Traveller”
Edie Eicas: Surprise
I’m a tabbie given to Andrew and Robbie by their mum when they were going through a hard time. They saw me when they visited a school friend and he showed them my mothrer and the litter she’d just birthed in his cupboard. I was the runt, the last one left and would be deliveredContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Surprise”
Edie Eicas: Raising the Dead
There was no pleasure in getting old. It appeared there was no respect for the elderly and what they had done for the country. Frank Martin was anxious contemplating his situation. This was the third tenant who had threatened him and with this show of aggression and, after a conversation with his stepdaughter, he decidedContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Raising the Dead”
Edie Eicas: The Coils of the Serpent
It was just after Christmas twenty years ago and one of my friends was extolling the benefits of a small handheld electrical device that denuded the body of hair. Listening to her praise the virtues of the machine, and caught by her enthusiasm, I decided an investment might prove an advantage. Excited with my purchase,Continue reading “Edie Eicas: The Coils of the Serpent”
Edie Eicas: Shared Memories
The 11th of February is my mother’s birth-day, and I realise there are memories that only she and I shared, and while I can still tell stories of our lives together, her input is no-longer available to me. In 1987 I was pregnant, and my eldest was crawling. Busy getting dinner ready for a party,Continue reading “Edie Eicas: Shared Memories”
Edie Eicas: AI, Artificial Intelligence
I wasn’t sure why they asked me to do a psychology test before I bought that new fangled high-end, super-dooper fridge with voice activation, and the ability to predict what I needed. But, I was impressed by the salesman who sold the thing to me. Well, more than impressed. He was good. He worked meContinue reading “Edie Eicas: AI, Artificial Intelligence”
Edie Eicas: Through The Wire
The flush of excitement about the army had long lost its appeal and been replaced with familiarity and security. The group had seen parts of Australia none would have experienced had they not joined, and now they had friends. Mates they believed were solid, with whom they hoped they would step through life, who wouldContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Through The Wire”
Edie Eicas: Chelsea Troubadours
Black boys walk the sunny streets sub-culture’s clothes black and white t-shirts and tight jogging pants, sneakers on trend, a motza’s worth, stylish hair: boy braids, cornrows, top knots creativity announces identity. A mob loud, demands space, leaves white walkers paranoid; distance divides as wary white faces look over shoulders, stop. A gang, it’s London’sContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Chelsea Troubadours”
Edie Eicas: Aurora
Aurora, basket in hand and smelling of Brasso, had just finished her weekly clean of the golden plate that announced the house name, Hendun. It was a meditative job, the polishing, the day’s early ritual before summer’s heat overpowered. The weather prediction for the coming school holidays was storms, a release from the building humidity.Continue reading “Edie Eicas: Aurora”
Edie Eicas: Long-Range Weather Forecast
A Short Story Lennox Walker’s long-range weather forecast held no joy. The Miller family looked despondently at one another recognising the reality they prayed for would not materialize. No rescue for the farm in the grip of drought, Walker’s predictions promised more of the same: the El Nino weather pattern had set in and thingsContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Long-Range Weather Forecast”
Edie Eicas: Temptation
I know I shouldn’t have, but it was too much temptation. Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was my personality that looked for excitement and a laugh. I put the need for a laugh down to my parents known for telling jokes sourced from everyone who came into the shops. My mother and fatherContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Temptation”
Edie Eicas: Free Range
Free range kids not tethered by the fear of a parent explored the back blocks. School holidays found the group of seven to ten year old boys roving the hills of Glen Osmond. In a pack, it was safety in numbers. Anyone who thought they could abduct one of them was dreaming. They were loudContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Free Range”
Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Part 5
I have a philosophy when it comes to trees and global warming. My position is that if you drive a car, you plant trees to offset your carbon miles. As a result, I proselytize; annoying a number of people but feel I have a responsibility, no matter what. My friends will tell you I’m tangential;Continue reading “Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Part 5”
Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Parts 3 and 4
Murder Another year and I still hadn’t learnt about scraps composting through the garden. The pumpkin seeds had generated again, and another group of vines spread through the front. At first it was water conservation and I ignored them but, with finding the first Butternut, a new plan emerged. I began watering in earnest. TheContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Parts 3 and 4”
Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Parts 1 and 2
The Garden I like to think of myself as a perma-culturist, a euphemism for a haphazard gardener. I’m the kind of person that if I eat something with seeds inside, I save the seeds. I’ve had peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers the list goes on. But, like any fertilized seed, what you get isContinue reading “Edie Eicas: Gardening Tales – Parts 1 and 2”
Burnside Writers Group 