Scott Pearce's Blog

I Can Do Magic

Before I became a teacher I worked as a magician and I truly believed in magic. I did children’s parties and some shopping centre shows on school holidays. I performed under the name "The Amazing Jane." I had an assistant called Eddie, he was a short middle-aged man that reeked of cigarettes and stale urine. He was surly, balding and obese, but when we were on stage we sparkled every bit as much as our tight fitting sequined gowns. In the Spring of 98 we decided to add a new trick to the show. You’ve probably seen it a thousand times, the assistant climbs into a box and the magician sticks several swords through the box and yet the assistant emerges unharmed. We didn’t have much money so we used a cardboard box we found behind Coles and the swords were nothing more than sharpened sticks. My belief in magic didn’t prevent Eddie’s on stage death, it certainly didn’t prevent the arterial spray that covered most of the children at the party. But it did ensure I felt no guilt or remorse for Eddie’s death or for leaving his battered corpse in storm water drain. The point of the story is that magic will make you smile but it will also lead you to kill, kill and kill again and again.

The Gnome and the TV

I remember when I was seven or eight my mother read me a book about a boy who crawled inside his TV and lived in different TV shows. He had a magical and enriching experience, but eventually the boy left TV and went home. He was, however, a better person because of the experiences he had. A few days after I heard this story I tried to climb inside my TV but there didn’t seem to be a way in. I saw this as a challenge. I placed the TV on one side of the room and ran towards it, my head down. When I regained consciousness my mother asked me what had happened. I told her that I had been attacked by a magical gnome. Sadly, unknown to me at the time, there was a magical gnome living across the street. Apparently he was cheerful little man, but my mother believed he had attacked me so she ripped out his heart and made a jacket out of his skin. Years later when I told her the truth we all laughed, except for the gnome because he was dead. TV can be dangerous.

Small People

Sometimes when people are small, really small, they can hide in places where other people cannot. When I was 12 I had a friend, a small friend, that I temporarily misplaced. His name was Geoffrey and he had come to my house for an after school play date. We were playing hide-and-seek inside because it was such a cold day. Anyway he decided to hide inside the peanut butter jar and it was months before I found him. His festering corpse appeared on my morning toast one day.
“Geoffrey! Are you okay? ” I asked but he did not answer. I ate around him and threw what remained outside for the birds. I sent his grieving parents a blurred Polaroid of the incident and a scratchy note that briefly described events as I saw them. The moral of the story is that small people get what they deserve and one day day we will all get what we deserve. You're not important because you are tall. There is a jar of peanut butter that waits for you.

The Bucket

On cold weekends I am haunted by memories of a plastic bucket I once lived with. His name was Eugene and he was from Canada. We were friends but we were never really close. Eugene had some unresolved trust issues from past experiences he never mentioned in enough detail for me to help him move forward. For most of the 7 months we lived together I felt more like his guidance counsellor than his room mate. It became harder and harder for him to leave the house and our conversations were mostly just me talking and waiting in awkward silence for him to respond Once my parents came over to visit and I introduced Eugene, but he ignored my Mum and glared at my Father. Before my parents left, my Father took Eugene outside and poured detergent and boiling water into his mouth. I knew it would be an issue. The next day Eugene looked pale so I took him to the doctor. It turns out he’d had a stroke and would require 24hr care. On the way home from the hospital I put him in the dumpster behind Coles. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. The lesson? If you’re a bucket, don’t tell anyone your ATM pin and then brag about your “huge divorce settlement.”

A Girl I Loved

When I was young I fell in love with the girl that lived next door to me. I would write her poems and leave them in her letterbox. I wrote her poems about the colour of her hair, her eyes and the way she looked when she was sleeping; how cramped it was in her wardrobe. She never acknowledged me and then one day she died. Maybe it was her arthritis, maybe it was the cataracts, or maybe it was because she was 112 years old. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that I was 23 years old and heartbroken. My mum made me hot chocolate and a warm bath and that kinda helped.

The Men in the Trees

There were thirteen men that lived in the knotted tree that grew beside my grandmother’s house. They were ogreish men with red eyes and dirty fingernails. They would call to me from the branches whenever I passed the tree; begging for food or hoarsely demanding that I give them my shoes. I never really spoke to these men, but I liked to watch them. Sometimes I would throw them notes with positive affirmations but I knew they couldn't read. You see, they were afraid to come out of the tree, so any fear I’d had of them disappeared with this discovery. In winter when the tree had lost its leaves these obese, misshapen men would huddle together and plead for warm soup. A few years ago the tree was struck by lightning and the men, charred and bewildered, hid in the garden. They are lawyers now. Sometimes I pass them in the street. They smile nervously and sometimes their lips move as if they are going to speak, but they never do.

Cautionary Tale 5

When I was a child I had a ball. It was small and orange. I liked to play with my ball in the backyard of the house where I lived. I would throw the ball high into the air and catch it again. This simple game delighted me and the world seemed such an uncomplicated place. One day I accidentally threw the ball over my neighbour’s fence. My neighbour was an angry old woman with children that rarely ever visited her. She refused to give my ball back to me and so the game, and my delight, ceased. I begged, I cried, but she would not return the ball. Suddenly I became aware of the fleeting nature of happiness, of the unfairness and meanness in the world. Eventually I skinned my neighbour, rubbed salt into her raw flesh and then burned her house. Now, many years later, while I play with my orange ball in my backyard, the world again feels safe and happy.

Zombie for Love

When I think about a zombie invasion, the end of social institutions and coming lawlessness of the neo-frontier that will follow , I never think, "it might happen;" I only think, with conviction and certainty, "it will happen, and it will happen very soon." For this reason, I have spent many, many years preparing myself for such catastrophic events. Aside from studying zombie themed TV shows, I have stockpiled food in my bedroom and I have spent weekends surviving on only my own bodily fluids. It is not pretty, but when the zombies arrive, I will be prepared. I have even started my own survivalist website so that others can also be prepared. I describe myself as a shy, busty and thin hipped German girl of easy persuasion. I have posted some fund-raiser videos. Please like me.

Donuts

There are certain moments in a day that sum up who we are and how we approach life. Usually these moments are relatively small, such as eating a donut. Some people avoid the sprinkles or save them until the end; other people lick the icing off and suck out the jam. I like to watch the donut from a distance for a period of 6 to 8 weeks. Then I take the donut to a quiet place in the woods where I submerge it in a bucket of water. Then I eat half of the donut and bury the other half under autumn leaves. Then I go home and write gentle poems about the donut and how I miss it; sometimes I cry. I prefer chocolate donuts because the strawberry donuts don’t always play nice.

Confession Number 1

When I was 15, I abducted and killed my neighbour’s imaginary friend. My neighbour, Kenneth, was 9 and he had everything I didn’t; five toes on each foot, control of his bodily functions, the love of a strong woman and an imaginary friend called Wayne. I tried to befriend Kenneth and Wayne but Kenneth wouldn’t let me play with them. He said I was odd and that my father was a cross-dressing drunkard. These things were true but I did not see their relevance. One night I broke into Kenneth’s house and abducted Wayne. I left behind a ransom note; it told Kenneth that if he ever wanted to see Wayne again he had to leave $1000 inside a leopard-print handbag next to my letterbox. He had 24 hours. If he called the police the deal was off. Of course, Kenneth was unable to do this because he was 9 and because, as I discovered later, he was illiterate. I drowned Wayne in my bathtub and buried him under the rose bushes at my grandmother’s house. Nobody said anything about it. A few weeks later Kenneth had a new imaginary friend called Kenneth II. Kenneth II had a potty mouth and was far too smug. On a sunny day a few weeks later somebody pushed Kenneth II under a train. The moral of the story is that the people you can’t see often don’t like you.