NORTHERN TERRITORY LITERARY AWARDS 2020 LITERARY TERRITORY NORTHERN Thank you to our sponsors and supporters & Finalists Winners Works by Kath Manzie Estate Works by Winners & Finalists Library & Archives NT ntl.nt.gov.au 2020 NORTHERN TERRITORY LITERARY AWARDS All inquiries should be directed to: Library & Archives NT GPO Box 42 Darwin NT 0801 Phone: 08 8999 7177 Copyright of individual works remain with the authors This collection © Library & Archives NT ISSN 1449-9886 Published by: Library & Archives NT Printed by: Zip Print, 2/418 Stuart Highway, Winnellie NT 0820 Acknowledgements Established in the early 1980s by Darwin Community College, as a predecessor of Charles Darwin University, and now administered by the Library & Archives NT, the Northern Territory Literary Awards celebrate the richness of our literary talent across the Northern Territory. Presented across seven categories: poetry, essay, short story, flash fiction, non-fiction, youth and theatre, the Awards reflect the diversity of our vibrant literary community and form part of the ongoing commitment to nurture and inspire writers of all genres and styles. Library & Archives NT is proud to administer the Awards with the assistance of annual sponsors and supporters whose contributions help make this event possible. Each year we are pleased to publish literary works that provide us with insights into the evolving nature of the Territory, its past and its future, and what it means to be a part of this place. Congratulations to the finalists and winners of this year’s Northern Territory Literary Awards and thank you to everyone who submitted works. The success of the Awards relies on your ongoing contributions and we thank you for continuing to inform, inspire and entertain us. Note: The entries printed in this book appear as they were submitted by the writers. Acknowledgements 1 Contents Brown’s Mart Theatre Award 4 Winner Sarah Rose Reuben and Jeffrey Jay Fowler When‘ The Clock Strikes Two’ Finalists Eleanor Kay ‘Faltering’ Ciella Williams ‘Ruptured’ Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award 5 Winner Susannah Ritchie ‘Mother’s Day’ Finalists James Murray ‘Motion Sickness’ Kylie Stevenson ‘Dear Bill’ Charles Darwin University Essay Award 26 Winner Nuhansi Wijesinghe ‘To what extent does architecture of the paediatric department at RDH promote a child’s mental wellbeing and healing process?’ Finalists Liam Grealy, Kirsty Howey, Tess Lea ‘States of Deferral: A Recent History of Housing at Borroloola’ Dr Tom Lewis ‘The Hero who Wasn’t – the Mythic Deeds of Pilot Robert Oestreicher in Darwin’s First Air Attack’ Flash Fiction Award 69 Winner Kaye Aldenhoven ‘Sardines’ Finalists Lee Frank ‘Letter to Nathan’ 2 2020 Northern Territory Literary Awards James Murray ‘Sally Gleeson’ Julie U’Ren ‘Fire on the horizon’ Kath Manzie Youth Award 78 Winner Jethro Pollock ‘The Dripping Tap’ Finalists Angela Keating ‘What happens to the imaginary friend when the child dies?’ Tippipon (Tippi) Morgan ‘Pudding’ Peter Susanto ‘The Visit’ NT Writers’ Centre Poetry Award 96 Winner Johanna Bell ‘If I were a bird’ Finalists Kaye Aldenhoven ‘Civilisation . is..’ Johanna Bell ‘We all adapt to survive, don’t we?’ Brian Obiri-Asare ‘in search of something beautiful, perhaps?’ Brian Obiri-Asare ‘& maybe’ Leni Shilton ‘brown goshawk’ Zip Print Short Story Award 110 Winner Miranda Tetlow ‘TAKE SHELTER’ Finalists Mhairi Duncan ‘Of Ruts and Roars’ Karen Manton ‘Bull Buster’ Contents 3 Brown’s Mart Theatre Award Winner Sarah Rose Reuben and Jeffrey Jay Fowler When The Clock Strikes Two Finalists Eleanor Kay Faltering Ciella Williams Ruptured Due to printing restrictions, screenplays and scripts cannot be included in this publication. 4 Brown’s Mart Theatre Award Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award Winner Susannah Ritchie Mother’s Day 6 Finalists James Murray Motion Sickness 11 Kylie Stevenson Dear Bill 17 Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award 5 Mother’s Day by Susannah Ritchie One to spin the thread. When I was very little I remember my mother telling me the story of the Three Fates in Greek mythology. The Moirai. The Three Sisters who appear within the first three days after birth. One sister spinning the thread of life, another to measure how long that life would be, and the third sister to cut the thread at the right time. Then the weaving and sewing and messy business of living would begin. My mother was one of three sisters and it made sense to her that three women were responsible for the unenviable job of spinning, measuring and finally cutting the very thread of life itself. On the night my eldest son emerged into the world that thread interwove itself between us. Emerged is a euphemism. Cut via emergency caesarean under a full general aesthetic. The last words I remember after having to be awake for the excruciating pre surgery preparation, as two teams worked on my haemorrhaging body were, ‘his heartbeat has dropped to 80, we need to get this baby out now’. But on the night he was born, ‘untimely ripped’ almost two months before his due date, my Mama was in Perth. I was on the other side of the country. The thread of life and death, as it turned out for all of us, hanging in a precarious balance. She later described the ride to the airport as unbearable. She had heard the words that can strike fear into the heart of any mother, any woman, anyone - ‘she’s bleeding and alone’. The devout Muslim taxi driver praying with her as they drove, to get on a compassionate flight organised at the last minute. When we still had the freedom to fly when we wanted. She later told me, ‘I couldn’t bear something to happen to you. And I knew if something were to happen to the baby it would have broken you. So I knew two lives needed to be saved’. I have since wondered, what deal did she strike with The Fates that night? What bargain did she agree to? 6 2020 Northern Territory Literary Awards One to measure the length; to allot the time Two lives were indeed saved that night. Through a miracle of good luck and a good public health system, a spectacularly robust little boy moved from residing in our hearts, his tiny fish like lungs now breathing their first breaths in the world. But on the day we took him home from hospital - four and half weeks later - was the same day my Mum got the news her brain scan was clear. There are some situations when you pray for it to be a tumour. Because as I later said to a friend, ‘there are worse things than cancer’. The words: rapidly progressing, incurable, untreatable and terminal fill the space in your lungs devouring what oxygen is left, leaving you panting and shaken, as if you have been physically hit. Each word a blow. A diagnosis. Every morning I woke up and had one split second of pure love looking at the perfect face of my tiny son who was alive. Not dead. That was not my fate. That not his fate. Then the reality of another life closing, of her dying, filled the space in my heart. Crashing, consuming and sucking away the literal breath from her body and the imagined futures we never would get together from mine. Would I ever be happy again? My Mother was born on January 1st. A true January baby. The etymology of January comes from the Roman God Janus, the two-headed God of doorways. One head looking back to the past. One looking forward to the future. One in this life, one in the next. ‘Doesn’t it make it easier to let me go, when you can see I’m so sick?’ Yes. And no. How do you prepare your heart when it is already so bloody and bruised from one trauma, for the next? They said this could go on for years. It did not. We would never have another Christmas together. My son should have still been safely inside his cosy cocoon, but if he had she would never have had one Christmas as a grandmother. But dying is boring, and hard and sometimes – more often than not – takes time. Time that suddenly feels in rapidly short supply. Time that you measure in moments, in good days (and bad), time between medical appointments, and Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award 7 palliative care team meetings. You see the lengthening shadows of a day you don’t want to end. Of fleeting precious flashes of laughter, sucked away like waves on a beach. The laughter fills your lungs but leaves you hollow, breathless and empty inside. Because there are lots of things funny about dying. But when you laugh bravely to banish your fears; it doesn’t change that they are still going to a place that you can’t follow. Mum described dying as being on the outside, looking through the window into a world where people have futures. My grief compounding that she died at the end of April, which meant my first Mother’s Day as a mother, was my first without my own. When I explained this looming deadline, with the acerbic wit of one who could see the finish line, she replied ‘Mother’s Day is bullshit’. She went on to explain that when you are a mother, every day is Mother’s Day. I wish I could say to my Mum, ‘I finally get it!’ I understand the complex mix of love and fatigue that is being a mother. Recently, I raised with a colleague that no one mentions the relentless grind that is motherhood and endured the somewhat incredulous tone of, ‘what no one told you that being a mum is hard work?’ Her roll up your sleeves, get it done, no nonsense tone shamed me.