By Vita Forest
The screech of machinery stops and out of the darkness of the shed, emerges the lanky bald man. He blinks in the brightness of the afternoon sun and shifts the weight of the paint-splattered crate he carries. It’s heavy in his arms. Later he’ll use a trolley to shift it, but right now he can still manage carrying it this way.
He walks along the cracked uneven path to the clothes line at the bottom of the yard. This garden is no thing of beauty. Occasionally it bothers him and he thinks about putting in a few more plants. Dolling the place up. But so far it hasn’t happened. It’s not his area of expertise after all.
Still, it’s big and useful for testing things out.
Like these boards.
He reaches the clothesline and squats down to place the crate amongst the little flares of grass that have somehow managed to grow up through the chinks in the concrete. He stands up stretches his back, then cranks up the handle of the Hills Hoist, watching as the wires rise higher and higher.
It always reminds him of being a kid and swinging on the bars when his Mum wasn’t looking. If he was caught, he’d get a wallop across the back of his legs. But it was useful, this old relic in the yard. An old metal thing, silver in colour, probably one of the originals, not one of the new-fangled bright green contraptions with their rubber coated wires. But he did have to make sure that he kept away from the rusty spots when he was pegging up his clothes.
The handle whirrs then sticks and will move no further. The kite-shaped frame is extended to its full height. He reaches down into the crate and plunges his hands amongst the silky rectangles of wood.
Picking up a panel, he rubs a thumb over the grain of the wood, admiring the smoothed corners and enjoying the scent of the oils released from cutting and sanding the timber. He taps a couple of pieces together.
He’s still not sure about this. Nothing for it but to give it a try.
On the four sides of the clothes line, he has hung a line of metal hooks about five centimetres apart. He stands with a handful of his shards of wood and threads them through the hooks.
He waits and watches.
They don’t swivel.
He goes back to the shed and returns with a ball of rough brown string and his scissors. Sitting on the ground, he cuts lengths of the twine and threads a loop through the hole at the top of each wooden rectangle. The dog potters over and nuzzles against his shoulder. He rubs her head then returns to his work.
Soon there are a piles of paddles ready to go. He stands and hangs them over the hooks as if he’s decorating a Christmas tree. This time they swing. He fills the wires with the pieces of wood, adjusts the distance between them and stands back to wait.
The wind arrives and he holds his breath. It flickers along the edge of the wood and suddenly the air is filled with the chiming peals of the rods striking against each other.
Putting his hands on his hips, he grins as he watches the whole thing dinging and donging away.
He pulls out his phone from his back pocket, finds the number and hits the Call button.
‘Do you hear that?’ he says into it. ‘I think it’s going to work!’
Jotterizing 