"Mary" - insta-yarn

Mary watched the young professional couple walk past, as she pulled on her rubber bathing cap. Each looked at the take-away coffee cup in their hands. Then, Mary sat down on the sea pool's crumbling concrete edge - a giant's 5 o'clock stubble - and put her feet in. She noticed the way her turquoise toe-nails looked as the sun caught them. Then, she looked further into the water, and saw sand drifting over and hiding parts of the black marked lines. Like smudging a pencil drawing with my thumb, she thought.

"Clem" - insta-yarn

Clem knew where to find the milk and bread that the Patel Brothers stocked for the few “Aussie” customers still in the suburb, and he’d head straight there. At least, that’s what he told the boys in their high-viz vests at the Wenty pub down the street when they’d rib him for just going in. Most of them’d go all the way to Parra nowadays for the “proper” supermarket, whatever that was.  And, he didn’t tell them that he’d talk to Aasha that ran the market’s own henna parlour about how she remembered all those patterns, or that he knew her name meant "hope" in Hindi. Or, about trying the samosa, pakora and bhaji at the market’s snack counter; they just shat all over the pineapple fritter at the takeaway. Clem especially didn’t tell them about the elephant statues and incense sticks in the religious aisle, or the pink, purple and orange powders to throw at each other on Holi.

"Walter" - insta-yarn

Everyday, Walter would find things to count between the meals at the soup kitchen at Our Lady of the Sea. Broken umbrellas in rubbish bins. The number of steps from where he kept his shiny cardboard and green sleeping bag to the Public Trustee's Office. Strollers outside the cafe where the young yoga mums went. The counting kept stuff from happening. 42 - external fire alarms.

"Daryl" - insta-yarn

The ancient Maori believed that you didn't find jade in a stream - it revealed itself to you. That's why Daryl didn't turn on the metal detector on most mornings in the sand near the Newie baths. He'd just sway it from side-to-side like the metronome on Mrs Kowalczyk's piano during those after-school lessons 40 years ago. They'd always be followed by her home-baked apple strudel with cinnamon. If he just stuck with the sway, somebody'd always come along. "What you looking for?" Or, "get any today?". 

"Zhou" - insta-yarn

The ones from the mainland believed like planes that had lost their controls, Zhou thought. They soared and they dived; they flew fast and they stalled. He'd erase the Matthews, Lukes and Letters to the Corinthians from the whiteboard after they'd left the Thursday night bible study. They'd invite him for steamed red bean buns around the corner, but his own faith required a slow pedal home to Collingwood on his rusty Malvern Star.

"Alan" - insta-yarn

The library was around the corner from where Alan worked selling old vinyl LPs to kids from Malaysia working on their Melbourne hip. He'd sometimes pop in on the way to the shop, just on opening hour. Three rows back and to the right, a small brass plaque. Smudged by scholarly fingers. "Alan Geoffrey Seale AO, 1922 to 1998. Historian, biographer and man of letters." And grand-dad who loved Saturday afternoons wrapped in red and black at the Essendon Bombers.

"Louise" - insta-yarn

She'd had her routines. Louise would bring home two books per week from the library in her green reusable shopping bag. She'd sit in the garden with her rose bushes, reading and waiting for the pair of turtle doves to come eat from the cat's bowl. And, then there were calls to grandkids on their mobiles, and their tales of Ibiza clubs and ancient pyramids. But, ever since Vince retired from the pharmacy, and hung about like a shag on a rock, her routine was wrecked. She'd have to stow a sneaky book in her purple fleece jacket, and bushwalk down to where the local high school-kids brought their Cruisers and chop-chop fags.