30. Poverty Of The Fun Pier Shark
there was a special machine at marineland at
manly, where the carpet sharks drifted across
the concrete bottom swimming pool & all the
ocean life was so sleepy that it appeared
dead, the echo of people's voices rippling the
water along the tired old hides, when i shot
the grey nurse shark in the machine in the
amusements section with the harpoon, i saw
the way that it twirled on the spot & the blood
spewed out like tomato sauce, nanny urged
me on, to 'get him' 'get him', if you shot a
certain amount of sharks there was a free
game, enabling you to shoot them all over
again, without inserting more money, i shot
as hard as i could standing on tip toes,
sometimes the tension was so much that i just
shot haphazardly with my eyes closed,
gripping the trigger for dear life, my stomach
nervous with the fear of not shooting enough,
even with my eyes closed, i could hear the
death toll of the sharks in the machine, as
there was a strange liquid screaming noise
that came through the speaker as they twisted
into their own blood on the spot, not once in
all the years of returning to marineland did i
win a free game, but it was not for lack of
trying, i just couldn't seem to get to a point of
winning, i was frightened inside that there
was a possibility that i would never win at
anything, i was afraid of sharks when my nan
& i caught the manly ferry back to sydney &
in the george's river near liverpool, where
they drifted up into freshwater to eat dogs, &
along the jetty near sandy point, those long
stretches of weedy dark water beneath
riverside trees adrift with jellyfish, when my
aunty's gold ring that my uncle brought her
fell off, & i saw it disappear into the stony
green dark floating down amongst the jelly
blubbers & sting rays, i was frightened of that
too, i was frightened of facing this kind of life
without a harpoon |
