Kill the wabbits!

Echinodermata

“Pick me up?” asked the urchin as I neared its dead form. I bent and scooped it up without missing a step, held it gently on my palm and talked with it as I walked. I couldn’t help but admire the symmetry.
“What happened?” I questioned in a quiet voice.
“It was my time I guess, a snail, big wave, er, I don’t really remember, it’s all a blur.”
“But, did it hurt?”
“Yes, no…I don’t think so…it, it doesn’t hurt now at least.”
“I’m glad. Do you mind if I take a picture?”
“Well, er, oh, sure…I guess. Sorry, it’s hard to think, ’cause, you know, I’m dead and I don’t have a brain.”
“It’s okay, I’ve no more questions for you now.”
“Oh, good…I guess.”
I lay the urchin mouth-up on my palm. With sadness I noted evidence of the half-remembered snail attack.

“Now, smile!” I said gently, to the urchin.

Soup of life

I wait for the bubble and pop that will come as the wave recedes…it is hypnotically soothing to my primitive streak. I cannot live where the ocean is not. At the beach I see the primal need on the face of others on the beach, and on those making their way into the surf.

It is more than aesthetics, it’s evolution, it’s history and most of all, it’s wet!

Baulking at shadows

I took my son outside to show him the lunar eclipse before he slept. I felt his small body shiver on this warm evening as he looked up at the half-shadowed lunar surface and said,
“I want to go inside, I don’t like it.”

And now I’m finding the red moon disturbing as I sit here in the dark, with it peering down at me. I don’t like it either, this strange new body that has been seduced into orbit by the alluring green/white/blue of Earth.

Itchy

“Mum, what is that?”
“Graffiti.”
“Oh, it looks like a willy…can I draw one too?”

Caught snapping

First time early morning walking for a while now. I had plenty of time to think as I walked. I’m not ready for such concentrated thought, so I distracted myself by taking pics.

On the bridge

Soft now

This van made me laugh, I could work for them.

Driving

Long Gully Bridge (Northbridge), is my favourite way into, and out of the city.

FeS2

For 12 months, I had my head in a ice-water bucket. Despite my lungs screaming for air, despite reason and good advice, I kept my head under. Mammalian diving reflex active, I was transfixed by a shine that was always just beyond the reach of my fingertips, at the very bottom of the bucket. As carbon dioxide levels rose and break-point approached, survival instinct threw me a life-line, and reason finally pulled my head out of the bucket.

I’m still coughing up water, but my complexion is rosy.