Month: July 2019

A new narration passage from ‘Full Moon Over Faulconbridge’, a collaboration with the highly imaginative Victor Spiegel. Welcome to the Posthumous Pub!

***

It is a sadly well-known and unfortunate fact that, even more than misery, idiocy craves company. One could say that when the deceased spirits of the colonial masters of Terra Australis passed on and found themselves bereft of their physical bodies, they realised that sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Created out of the combined memories of such luminaries of dispossession as Arthur Phillip, William Bligh and Lachlan Macquarie, the Posthumous Pub was about as horrific as one might expect. There, amongst the paintings of English lords, dart boards, semi-classy mahogany and copious amounts of rum and beer, the deceased leaders of the Commonwealth of Australia were welcomed to bask in their white male privilege, together with the governors of the former convict colonies; they caroused, argued, smoked, and occasionally burst into the kind of singing that caused the listeners to wish they were deaf (and in some extreme cases of drunkenness where clothing was removed in rituals that were shades of Oxbridge college culture, blind as well). The current raucuousness was a result of a serious disagreement between members of the Posthumous Pub Mock Parliament. Factions had formed and members had been whipped. It was now time for the decisive vote. As he was about to call the house to order, the spirit of Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies yanked Sir Henry Parkes’ ghostly coat tails. Parkes turned to face him.