The colour of perception – by Tony Barrett
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLYFROM THE UTAS ‘LOVED STORIES’ PROJECT
2025’s UTAS third-year creative writing students were challenged not to ‘write what you know’ but to ‘write what you love’. What they produced were stories that range from horror to rom com, lyrical writing to memoir, comedy to absurdism, social commentary to fantasy. We’ve featured excerpts from seven stories on Island Online: read all the excerpts here.
Robbie was a volunteer driver. His first pick-up was in Warrane, a largely public housing suburb on Hobart’s eastern shore. Reno, a cancer patient, was in his mid-seventies, though the disease made him look older. He had far more reason than Robbie to think his day had begun badly, but he didn’t. He’d been a concreter for over fifty years, so he knew about structural weakness and had recognised it in himself long before the specialist delivered his dismal sentence.
‘Let’s face it Reno, at your age…’
Reno joined the dots matter-of-factly, without self-pity. He’d agreed to the treatment, but now he regretted the decision. He’d become a grudging witness to his own demise. His face was heavily lined from a lifetime of working outside – eyes bloodshot, hair thin, grey, lustreless – but occasionally it still lit up with energy and defiance.
As Reno manoeuvred himself into the car seat with painstaking care, Robbie noticed the large angry lump protruding from his neck that made it difficult for him to move his jaw. Robbie quickly averted his eyes and started the car.
Their chat was desultory, the usual pleasantries, searching for something in common. Robbie was in no mood for it, but he was polite: ‘You going in every day?’
Reno, reciprocated, friendly rather than polite: ‘You been doing this driving long?’
Just occasionally a question sparked an outbreak of genuine interest: ‘Nah, I’m from Ballarat…’
‘You’re kidding? I lived there for twenty years…’
‘Yeah, where?’
‘Just off Drummond, near Mair.’
‘Near the footy ground?’
‘Yeah…’
‘I used to play there…for Redan.’
‘Strike me dead…so did I. When did you play?’
‘Eighty-six, -seven...’
‘Ahh, I was there in the sixties.’
‘Not much footy there now.’
‘Nup. Real sad.’
They were caught in bridge traffic now; there was an accident up ahead and they were barely moving. Reno was quiet and when Robbie stole a sideways glance, he saw there were tears on his ravaged cheek. Robbie coughed lightly and swallowed. He wasn’t good at this. He remembered a time – at an airport farewell – when he’d cried in front of his father. That had been fifty or so years ago, but he still recalled the disappointment on his dad’s face, and the lingering awkwardness between them.
‘You right, Reno?’
‘Not really, I’m pretty stuffed. Don’t know why I’m bothering with this bloody treatment. Makes you feel like shit.’
‘Anyone at home?’
‘Nah, the wife left me ten years ago. Got a daughter in Howrah. Grandkids.’
‘See much of them?’
‘Every coupla weeks she brings food over. Stew and stuff. She’s okay. But she’s got enough on her plate to worry about me. Her boy hates school. I should help him, but I can’t.’
The bridge, choked with grumbling, impatient traffic, arched like a beached whale. The mountain behind brooded. Hobart looked unreachable, a toy town on the water’s edge, dwarfed by a cruise ship of remarkable ugliness. Robbie switched off the engine. Reno snuffled in his hanky.
‘Shall we listen to the news? It’s ten.’
‘Yeah, might cheer me up.’
The Mount Wellington Cableway Company has decided to appeal the Council decision not to allow it to proceed with its cable car project…
‘How pathetic! Who’s funding them anyway? I won’t live to see it, but it’d turn you to crime. The world’s stuffed…they destroy anything that’s beautiful.’
Robbie agreed meekly, but he was shocked by Reno’s vehemence, and by the sudden desperation within himself. Reno, having vented his exasperation, settled into heavy silence. The exhaustion of his treatment hung on him. Robbie, still anxious, felt he should make amends.
‘Do you know the mountain? You know, walk there?’
‘Yeah, me and the old man walked all over it when I was a kid, way before the ‘67 fires. Used to camp up there. When you’re tucked in out of the wind, it’s the quietest, most peaceful place in the world. We were looking for birds.’
‘Birds?’ Robbie’s face tightened. ‘Why?’
‘Me old man liked them, wanted to show me how brilliant they were, the kind of spirit of the place. Wonder if they’re still there. Haven’t been there for ages.’
On impulse Robbie blurted, ‘Do you want to go up after the treatment, you know, for a quick see?’
He wasn’t meant to do this; he’d signed the code of conduct that said, no personal relationships with patients. But shit, this was pretty harmless, and it wouldn’t take long.
Reno nodded. ‘Yeah, why not?’
Robbie had been volunteering for five years. He found it oddly satisfying though he’d never fully explored his motivation. He told himself – and others, if they asked – that he wanted to help people or, be useful. It was true enough. He was sure that he was helpful and useful. There must be more to it than that, but he was uneasy probing further. Perhaps, he thought guiltily, he wanted people to see him as … well, noble? Perhaps the work was a way of not being a lot more helpful and useful; he only drove one day a week. Maybe it was his father’s death – from cancer – and his own intimation that, if not for this weekly commitment, in the not-too-distant future he too would share the same fate. Or were his efforts expiation for a lifetime of wrong turns? Robbie was not a deeply reflective thinker; had he become one, he would probably have looked at himself and said he was evasive, only too ready to reach for easy explanations, forgiving himself with the observation that all human motivation was an impossibly complex mix of self-interest and altruism. ▼
Image: Harlan Ashworth - Unsplash
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