Article taken from the Balendup Tributary, dated February the 19th 1996
New Creek Crossing a ‘Bridge to Balendup’s Future’
‘The sky was never really a limit,’ Geffrey Markson announced to the collected media pit today, its mass of mottled journalists clipping irregularly over ardent note taking and a gaze that was yet to unsettle the experienced parliamentarian, ‘vison is so many things to us: It shows us the way forward, allows itself to be obscured when something gets too hard. Vision is the absolute core structure of your local government and while we are in power, we choose to never look away from it!’
Mr Markson has often been described by his constituents as an amicable man with the face of someone who just has opened an oven wrong. As the local minister for community affairs, Mr Markson’s rambling speeches have frequently been utilised in order to elongate official functions, or to excuse other party members when they wanted to beat the crowd out of the carpark. The honourable Geffrey’s statements were often cyclical, repeating themselves over and over until tautology itself had lost the original point, a wayward gesticulation of orartal ouroboros that would boarder on the obscene.
‘The people of Balendup have spoken.’ Geffrey continued, knocking a passing fly into its composite molecules as he punctuated the word spoken with his fist, ‘no longer are we to wade slovenly through Balendup creek while on our way to the shops. No longer are our boots to be filled by this water, thus dampening our socks in sodden ambulation. We are a town of walkers, guided by single direction. The farmers of our town for example, they are outlandishly fastidious walkers, they walk to pull the billy off the boil, they will walk to fetch a shovel or spade, such a myriad of different migrations that the farmers of Balendup have potential to undertake should never be undersold. This is why we have elected to build this bridge; this is why the people of this town rose to the call. This bridge is not just for you, it is for the farmers, it is for those who are sick and tired of forging the creek, wading through because the next crossing is ten minutes upstream.’
With sensible reason abandoned Mr. Markson’s ensuing speech was to continue for twelve more minutes before the attendant cut the unveiling ribbon to officially mark the ceremony closed, a bottle of stout was used to christen the bridge and was to become one more of the several dozen bottles collected underneath.
‘It’s a tax write off, I’ve heard,’ Local busy-body, Mrs Hazlet, spoke the Tributary as she mingled her way through the crowd as if a cat stalking over-fluffed pigeons, ‘There’s so many little bends and crooks to this creek that are so delectably riddled with hidden rumours. Did you know that Mr Garnfield was seen sleeping by the rushes last week? I’m not one to insinuate anything to the paper, but I tell you that I won’t be surprised if there was a little trip to the tavern before his, shall we say, stupor.’
Going on to slander several more attendees, Mrs Hazlet eventually was corralled into the awaiting gaggle of fellow CWA members and the crowd was able to relax.
Built from reclaimed iron, the new Balendup bridge is intended to save people the struggle of finding the historic wooden footbridge of Balendup main, which is usually obscured by leaf litter in Autumn and occasionally shifted by the creek’s tide.
This new bridge, while more conveniently placed for people intending to make their way across the water, has been ‘doomed to fail,’ by its detractors—or contrarian dunder-dolts as the Tributary prefers to refer to them by—believing that despite the inconvenience and the potential danger of drowning, the Loyal people of Balendup will continue to walk calmly through the creek with their head held nobly above the frigid waters.
While the Tributary is not a liberty to speculate on the future—we present the news, not the reality—it is unlikely that our socks will be getting wet as we head to the shops.
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 