First Place ZineWest 2008
DEV
Felicity Castagna
Dev would like to be one of the women in the ice-cream billboards who sits naked in a giant bar of chocolate ice-cream. You would hate it,
her friend Pedro protests, You can't stand the cold. But Dev doesn't picture it that way, in her mind she pictures herself suspended in a
giant sea of cream. The boundaries of her body would not matter in such a space, she would be weightless, formless, sweet. Men like Pedro
cannot imagine such things. He is the type of man who has always just finished eating. Unlike Dev, he does not take the time to consider
the things that are passing from his fingers into his mouth. He does not weigh up all the possibilities, does not consider that eating a slice of mud
cake today means depriving oneself of something else tomorrow.
While Dev occupies herself in her world of weights and measures, Pedro sticks his
finger into the froth of his cappuccino and licks his fingers. The day feels like nothing at all. It is one of those quiet days that drifts by with
little effort, so that at the end of it you feel as though you have taken a very satisfying nap. Pedro and Dev have already had their breakfast specials,
picked over their homemade baked beans, argued over who the waitress gave the most bacon to and let out their sighs of satisfaction
when it was all gone.
They have come to the in-between time, wedged between the space in which breakfast is eaten and pieces of the newspaper are passed
back and forth, discussed and grunted over. Neither talk too much today, they are still getting over the party from the night before.
Remnants of red wine still create a faint maroon stain on Pedro's lips as though he has just been kissed by a woman wearing too much l
ipstick. 'You seemed engaged in quite a deep and meaningful with that guy who works with Erin,' Pedro says.
Dev nods her head, 'I think he'd had too much wine.' He had spent the conversation telling Dev the details of his divorce and staring
at her with an intensity Dev found painful. She can picture his eyes even now; she didn't quite know how to pull herself away.
Pedro sips his cappuccino and prods her further for information about her love life. Dev pictures her love life as an old Greek woman
who shakes her head at her and points her finger at all the men who got away. 'There's no one really at the moment,' she says.
She wonders if she is saying this with a hint of sadness in her voice; is she really sad about the prospect of being alone or is
it just something she is compelled to feel remorse over?
Dev orders another coffee and watches the waitress prepare it behind the bar. The waitress's hair falls out of its braid and hangs around her shoulders.
She has a pashmina draped around her shoulders and earrings made of wood. Dev fingers her earlobes and wonders if she could pull off that look too.
Is it a natural thing for this woman to look so beautiful, so relaxed? Is it something she spends a lot of time thinking about? Does she plait her
hair in such a way that allows it to fall out, a kind of pre-planned accident of nature? Pedro has begun to watch her too. Dev considers asking if he
is contemplating the same thing. She opens her mouth but decides to keep the thought to herself as her own little secret.
Pedro turns his head to the newspaper and hands Dev all the sections he knows she likes to read first. The book reviews, she always starts with them before
she reads the news. Pedro will go to the sports page first and then to the news. They are a bit like a middle-aged couple in their knowledge of one
another's habits. He looks now exactly how he did the first time Dev met him. He was sitting on a bench reading the sports pages before he went into the
tutorial room.
Dev folds up the book reviews and puts them in her pocket. She does not feel like reading today. She does not feel like much at all. She watches the
patrons in the cafe talk and laugh and eat and tries to picture the place at night when it is quiet and still.
Pedro reads her the movie reviews. There is one about a serial killer and another about an unsuited couple that fall in love. They agree to see a matinee
film but they can't decide on which one. Dev would like to see the kind of film that isn't offered in the play lists. She would like to see something
about an ordinary woman with hair that falls loosely around her shoulders, who thinks about whether or not to have that serving of dessert.
The woman in the film would end up sitting naked in a bar of chocolate ice cream. Dev would go and see the film over and over again.
She would sit with a handful of strawberry liquorice and watch the woman's body melt into the cream because the camera loves absences,
flesh that isn't there, outlines of soft bodies that don't exist.
The Writing and Society Research Group, in the College of Arts at the University of
Western Sydney co-sponsored the prizes in the ZineWest 08 competition. This group led by Ivor Indyk, brings together scholars in the humanities, writers,
and members of the publishing industry, who have a common interest in exploring the social power of writing. The group has doubled the first prize
of $200 to $400 and added a subscription of HEAT Magazine worth $60, to second prize.
