A Dog Has Died

How much longer? asks Terence.

Just under two hours, says Rosamunda.

I'm going on a ferry! croons Terence.

Horsham, not Melbourne, says Rosamunda. Melbourne's three more hours after that.

Terence rearranges his position.

Stop it, says Surfing-With-Whales.

You can't stop me, says Terence.

That's what you think, says Surfing-With-Whales.

Settle down in the back! Have a look through my notebook, says Gaius, handing it over.

No, don't give him that, says Rosamunda. He'll wreck it. Arthur, give him some cake.

I would, says Arthur, but I've finished it.

He hasn't, says Terence.

Arthur swallows the last piece of cake.

Here, says Rosamunda. There's a poetry app on my smartphone. Can you read, Terence?

No, says Terence. Not yet.

Arthur, says Rosamunda. Read him something

........

Arthur flicks through a list of poems by Pablo Neruda.

Lemon.

Full Woman Fleshly Apple.

A Dog Has Died.

That one! cries Terence.

Arthur reads :

A Dog has Died.

My dog has died
I buried him in the garden
next to an old rusted machine
some day I'll join him right there

and I the materialist who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter....

Stop right there, says Terence.

Why? asks Rosamunda. It's lovely.

Because, answers Terence, BECAUSE. There's a heaven. My Grandpa lives there.

Is that Grandpa Marx? says Arthur.

And there's no dogs anywhere in it, says Terence.

It doesn't matter, says Surfing-With-Whales. It's a poem. You can say what you like in a poem.

Can you? says Terence.

Yes, says Rosamunda.

My bird has died, says Terence.
I will bury it in the garden under a bucket.
And it's not going anywhere.

Good one, Terence, says Surfing-With-Whales.

In poetic mood, they drive past scrubland and farmland, fences and trees, the outskirts of Horsham and right through Horsham without seeing the Post Office Bell.

Which is a pity. It's worth a look.

A red pole, on Firebrace Street, with the old Post Office Bell on the top, and on top of the bell, a carving of a corella. And inset in the pole is a little bell, the Little Sister.

In country towns there are committees, who like to think up these things.