#dan hogan

from The Line it is Drawn #296 – Sequels to Classic Comic Book Storylines!

I’m feeling kinda grumpy today….  Everything I post will be less than traditionally beautiful.  And I’m not tired of this rig yet, so here’s another

I still don’t think there is anything like the sound of windchimes stirred by dad’s head. He’d be in the kitchen, where the windchimes were hanging, I mean are still hanging, you know what I mean, they’re still there even now, mum’d found all types with bent spoons, shiny metal cylinders, ceramic fish and these miniature teapots I swear only Snugglepot or Cuddlepie could use if they wanted tea, she loved that stuff when she was alive and I reckon she probably loves it wherever’s she’s gone, and he’d be knocking around in the cutlery drawer looking for a bottle opener at five ay em or whatever ‘cause the bloke can’t sleep for all the alcohol he needs so he’s always drinking. When I was fifteen or sixteen or wait I think I was actually twenty one because I remember asking him to leave some dosh for a bit of petty if he had any. I walked into the kitchen for some water and the bloke’s in there out cold on the lino with the mongrel snuggled up beside him. Castle was our dog then and I reckon Castle is a pretty good name for a blue cattle. I named her naturally because I love castles. And really that’s something there’s not enough of in Australia. Castles hey. I mean I don’t really know any except for the fella who tried to build one for his missus over in Budge because he loved her heaps and that. She died doing child birth and so did their daughter. Heaps sad hey. He stopped building the castle and went out on the lake in his dinghy one night. They reckon hypothermia got him but I don’t reckon it was the freezing cold. What’s made of the castle is still there but. We used to always be down there as kids having rock wars. I thought I was being smart once and wore goggles, bloody hell man, copped a fair rock to the right goggle and my eye actually went instantly black. But it was all good fun then because I was heaps into castles. I still really dig them but there’s just none around. If this government built more castles and that there would be more tourism. They could actually make so much money. The money’s in the moat, as they say. You only have to look at England to see how castles make heaps of dosh. Castle was a beautiful mongrel. True blue through and through as they say. I don’t get what true blue really means but she was blue cattle plus she loved dad heaps and I reckon he let her sleep inside when nobody was home. I was working in this big dumb warehouse place one day, dumbest job it was, you know where Chittaway is, out there near the roundabout, dad walks in one day with Castle on a lead. It was the weirdest thing hey, he never walked that dog or came to my work or like even parent teacher interviews or anything. The bloke walks straight up to me and goes “Castle’s come to say Hello,” we both stood there for ages not even saying a single word, Castle was loving it, wagging her tail and tongue hanging out and all that. Next thing the bloke pipe’s up with “Castle’s got cancer.” I never heard of a dog getting cancer before hey. Things were way different after Castle was gone. At least five times a day dad would say “It’s just you, me and the dead dog.” The bloke would be talking to me but sometimes he’d say it under his breath when flicking through the TV guide. That’s about the time dad started spending all his time in the back shed. Little thing it was with no electricity. The bloke was really down. For a while it felt like I was living on me own. Dad’d started saying “As good as a dead dog in Spring” whenever something was a bit shit. Like when he’d bash his head on the windchimes in the kitchen or burn his toast or realise there was no milk in the morning he’d go “Good as a dead dog in Spring” and then do like a sigh and a grunt. I think it was Spring the following year actually, dad comes inside from the back shed one afternoon with this deadset shit-eating grin on his face and goes straight for the fridge. Besides the dumb look on the bloke’s face I didn’t really pay much attention to him and figured he was going in for a fresh tinnie.

[View the story "______________" on Storify]

every shop is closed on new years day except the video shop. they’re open everyday of the year so you don’t get late fees apparently. of course barely any humans know this fact. the video shop is connected to the woolworths building because people like getting breadrolls and a barbeque chicken and a copy of fun with dick and jane. i love jim carrey. my favourite jim carrey film is the cable guy because he dives into a giant satellite dish. i feel like watching the cable guy now. i had to return a fun with dick and jane on the first day of the year. it was about three in the afternoon walking across the hot wet carpark. the place was completely deserted. this was in 2006. i trod in an oily puddle wearing thongs. bloody oil probably leaked from a souped up ballsed up commodore. those things are a disease here. i left the thongs right there floating in the puddle. don’t know why. made sense at the time i think. regret it now but because they were half decent thongs. walking across that empty egg carpark there was a trolley laying sideways in a disabled space. it looked very sad and sick for the first day of the year. i always think what emotions a trolley would feel when it's left somewhere it shouldn't be. when i got right up to it i straight away chucked up my guts. no joke. and in that moment i couldn’t see her as a thylacine or a tasmanian tiger. she was something else. i’m not sure what but i know she was very far from the names we've given her. she was in the trolley like somebody put her there on purpose. can't imagine a tasmanian tiger crawling inside a woolworths trolley to die. damn she's not even a tiger. the worst part was the football fully stuffed down her throat. you could see half the bloody word sherrin poking out her mouth. i chucked up twice and you know when your hands can't stop shaking. couldn’t possibly leave her there at the front of woolies. i wheeled her to a proper dignified place. i won’t mention where but i waited ages for it to be night so nobody could see the smoke when i cremated her. i also burned the fun with dick and jane and returned the trolley. imagine my late fees now.