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Message no. 1
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 15:30:42 +1100
For those that remember my Poori Poori story from a few months ago, this
site might be interresting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_911000/911408.stm
And you thought I made carnivorous kangaroos up :?)
Message no. 2
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 14:41:11 +1000
OK, here is my first ever attempt at a short story, set in the bush in far
northern Australia. Please don't crucify me too badly, I have no training or
anything, but helpful criticism is good. It's called Poori Poori, mainly
because I couldn't think of a better name. The Poori Poori is a "real"
thing, feared by a lot of the northern Aboriginals. They freak out when the
light catches a dog's eyes and make them look glowing red, and loud noise is
said to keep it away, hence very loud singing in the street at three in the
bloody morning if a northern Aboriginal has to go somewhere at night :?)
I don't think there's too much area specific language there, and I kept the
country vague because of the upcoming Target: Awakened lands. I'll shut up
now.
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Eddie Marks shuffled in his uncomfortable chair. Why was it that the richer
the establishment, the less user-friendly the furniture? The man he was here
to meet, Richard Wise, had turned out to be a very dull elven mage who spent
most of his time staring at his hands. Eddie had tried to start a
conversation a few times but at last he gave up and ate his disappointingly
small seafood platter while staring out at the ships in Morton Bay harbour.
Bugger this city life, he thought to himself, give me the bush, bities,
paranimals, mana storms and all. He finished his meal and started on the
good beer that the waiter had brought him. He didn’t know the brand, but it
was real beer, brewed from barley and hops, not chemicals or soyaproteins.
He was on his third before Wise finished his salad. “Mister Marks, I believe
your agent filled you in on why I wish to hire your services?” the elf said
at last, after dabbing his mouth daintily.
“Not really. He said you wanted me to track and kill a tree kangaroo for
you. Up on the Cape. That’s about it.”
“Oh, I gave him rather more information than that. I’m surprised.”
“Chalky’s a man of few words, Richard. I prefer to hear it all from the
horse’s mouth anyway.”
“Very well, “ said the elf, sipping some white wine, “The creature that I
want you to find is known as the Melman’s Tree Kangaroo. It is awakened. Do
you know of it?”
“Yeah. Savage bastard. Carnivorous. Fast, strong, and a man-eater, given
half a chance. Never seen one though.”
“They are very rare. The creature it... evolved from was extremely
endangered, although with Australia’s changes, it has been making something
of a comeback. I need the entire body of one for some magical experiments.
Do you think you can get one for me?”
“Sure. When?”
“Within the next two months would be preferable.”
“Mate, it’s the wet season up north, it’ll be pissing down, not to mention
cyclones. Why do you reckon I’m down here in Brisbane anyway?”
“But you are familiar with wet seasons and cyclones, yes?”
“Yeah, I grew up in Cairns, before the Yaks took it over completely that is,
but even in the 30’s and 40’s the cyclones were getting out of control.
These days, a big one hits, especially with a mana surge behind it, and you’
re stuffed if you are out in the open.”
“I’ll pay you fifty thousand nuyen, and a bonus for early delivery.”
“What kind of bonus?”
“Lets say a further fifty, minus six and a quarter thousand every week until
the bonus is gone.”
“I’m an idiot, but you throw in expenses and you’ve got yourself a man.”
“Very well, run an itemised account.”
They finalised the details, shook, and Eddie left the restaurant, feeling
dirty. Much more of this and he’ll be like one of those shadowrunners on
UCAS trid shows, anything for a buck. But fifty large, and maybe double that
if he was lucky, was hard to turn down.

Eddie watched as the drainage channels around his camp overflowed again. He
knew he’d have to get out in the mud and rain and dig them even deeper, but
he’d only just started to feel dry again. He kept chanting his mantra,
hundred thousand, hundred thousand, hundred thousand, but it just wasn’t
working. For one thing it had taken him half a week to even get here, and he
’d been here another nine days, so he was already down twelve and a half
thousand nuyen. With a curse against elves with big bank accounts and magic
and rain he found his shovel and stepped out into the downpour. Half an hour
of battling to stay upright and lift waterlogged mud out of the trench
later, he was done. He tried to wash the mud off, but it was clinging red
muck that stained whatever it touched, and he had to put up with being only
fairly clean. At least it looked like the rain was easing, just in time for
dusk. Night time was the time to look for the Melman’s. A dry off and a
meal, and then it would be time to hunt again.

Eddie decided it was time to go. He dressed in his wet weather cams, which
were hot and stifling in the tropical humidity, but necessary. He checked
his weapons and ammo, then his various tools. Then he fitted his all-purpose
goggles, plugged his rifle’s smartlink into them, turned them on and stepped
into the light drizzle that passed for clear weather at this time of year.
It took him two hours to get to the rocky gorge that he had decided would be
a good location. It had a creek running through it at the moment, but was
normally dry. Eucalypts stood forlornly in the rushing water at the bottom
of the gorge, and the banks were a mess of mud and slippery rock. Eddie
settled down beside some sheltering rocks, and tried to shake the sensation
that something was watching him. He’d be surprised if there wasn’t something
watching him out here, but he had checked and triple checked, and couldn’t
find anything, not even tracks in the thick mud.
After a while some feral pigs came down along the water. They were busily
rooting in the muddy banks for about an hour when Eddie spotted some
movement on the far side of the gorge. He adjusted the zoom on his goggles
and looked around. Nothing. He clicked over to thermal. There it was, no,
two of them. Melman’s. A grin crossed his face as he watched them creeping
down the rocky face. These things were definitely not Skippy. Even regular t
ree kangaroos look more like a small monkey or a possum than a kangaroo,
with their thick tails and long arms. They didn’t hop either, their legs
worked independently, the better to climb. The Melman’s was even less like a
kangaroo. Huge serrated teeth lined its stout, heavy jaw, and massive claws
dug into the rock. They say that there are fossils of kangaroos that ate
meat instead of grass, gigantic, frightening things they were too. Come the
Awakening, these things came back, which led some scientists to wonder if
the fossils aren’t from another age of high magic levels. Eddie didn’t care
about that, all he could see was a year’s wage in one clean shot. He didn’t
open fire straight away, though, that was an amateur’s mistake. Patient
observation was the key. The two creatures crept silently down toward the
unsuspecting pigs. One leapt an easy ten meters into a large Melaleuca, its
claws piercing deep into the paper bark. The tree’s rustling and swaying
made the pigs look up, and they obviously saw the compact nightmare leaning
out into space from the trunk. With its free arm it was making raking
motions in the air as its tail flicked from side to side. The pigs squealed
and ran. Straight into the arms of the second Melman’s. The first pig, a
massive sow, was grabbed around the head by the thing’s arms, and the legs
came up and kicked. The foot claws bit deeply into the sow’s throat, and
tore, the Melman’s keeping the head stretched forward and upward with its
arms. The sow collapsed instantly in a shower of hot blood, and the Melman’s
wasted no time in jumping onto its back and biting a chunk of shoulder off.
The other pigs vanished screaming in all directions, but the Melman’s payed
them no heed. The second jumped down from its tree perch and joined the
feast. Eddie was amazed. It had taken seconds to bring down a sow that was
easily five times their size. Bipedal hunters obviously had the advantage
over quadrupeds.
They ate silently, in fact they hadn’t made a sound during the entire hunt,
which was very unusual for predators. Oh well, Eddie was here to bring back
a Melman’s carcass, not to play the naturalist. He aimed. A little red spot
appeared over the chest of the larger Melman’s, and a tiny sign that read
‘Locked’ appeared. These Smart Goggles were one of the best buys Eddie had
made. He knew the cyberware version was even better, but he wasn’t
interested in that sort of thing. He wasn’t a killer by trade, it was just
sometimes part of the job.
He cleared his mind, focused on the creature below him, drew a long breath,
then finally when it felt right, he released his breath and fired. In the
brief instant it took for the bullet to travel, time seemed to slow down
like it always did. Eddie saw the air shimmer between him and his target,
and as the crack of the rifle faded, he saw a burst of blood from the sow’s
flank, centimetres from the Melman’s. Both creatures jerked upright, then
bounded away. Eddie fired twice more, but missed the swift creatures both
times.

As he walked back to camp he replayed the scene over and over in his head.
It was a perfect shot, he didn’t even need the goggles, how did he miss? Did
the Melman’s have some magical ability? Possible. The air had seemed to
shimmer like heat haze when he fired. But then, the creatures didn’t know he
was there, surely they would have to have known to be able to do something
like that. He was perplexed. Then the feeling that he was being followed
came back again, stronger than ever. He quickly spun around, and he could
have sworn that he saw a shadow with two burning red eyes. Too big to be the
Melman’s, it looked human size. In that instant it was gone, and even
thermal didn’t show a trace of anything. He was too much of a veteran of
this changed country to dismiss it as just his eyes playing tricks, he
quickened his pace and turned on all the lights in his camp. Then he turned
on the stereo in his Land Rover as loudly as it would go, so that some
24-hour news service roared into the night. After a while the rain came
back, louder even that the stereo, so Eddie turned it off. Chanting his
mantra, he drifted into sleep inside the locked Land Rover.

When dawn showed its dull grey face, Eddie was already up and about. He
backtracked his path from last night, but found nothing. Even if whatever it
was did leave tracks, a night of heavy rain would have obliterated them, but
maybe some other evidence was left behind. Apparently not. Shaking his head,
he went back to camp and started packing up. The Melman’s wouldn’t come back
now, they weren’t big on territory, and didn’t stay where there was danger.
His camp was a heavy canvas tarpaulin supported at one side by two poles and
the other by his Land Rover. All his gear was made so that it could be
either left somewhere safe for next time he came this way or packed away in
seconds. He refilled his drainage channel on one side, double-checked that
everything was secure, and drove off into the thick mud and rain.
Six hours later he came to a high rocky outcrop that stood alone on the
fairly flat terrain. He had come about 50 kilometres in that time, and had
been bogged down to the axles three times. His mantra was wearing very thin
about now, and he wondered why he didn’t just come in by helicopter, weather
dangers or not. Eddie climbed out into the ever-present rain, now so thick
that it thudded like hailstones and reduced visibility to about 5 meters.
Water was cascading down the sides of the outcrop, and made for hard
climbing. Finally, though, Eddie found what he was looking for, a long
boulder that was propped up against a stouter one, forming a sort of small
cave that was more or less dry. Inside were a few crude white outlines drawn
by Aboriginals some time in the last 500 years, but that wasn’t what he was
looking for. The floor was compacted dirt, and in the dirt were small lumps
of quartz and basalt, seemingly scattered at random. To those who knew,
though, there was a message in the way those stones lay. It said that the
Bamadjirra were here about three weeks ago, if Eddie remembered what phase
the moon was in correctly, and they had moved west. He wondered why he
didn't think of this sooner.

It was difficult finding the Bamadjirra, it took Eddie an entire week,
another 6250 nuyen gone. The tribe was camped on a broad hill in some
scrubby terrain. They numbered about forty, and were almost completely
regressed to a comfortable Stone Age lifestyle, although there was one heavy
four-wheel drive in the middle of the camp and a few other modern touches.
Their homes were crude shelters of branches and bark, with the occasional
tarpaulin. There seemed to be children and dogs everywhere. The Bamadjirra
formed around a rural tribal group around the time of the Awakening, who had
fled the 21st century chaos of the towns and cities for a more traditional
way of life, one of the first to do so. Eddie enjoyed their company, and was
good friends with their chief, Noah McCormack. Noah was sitting inside the
ancient truck, smoking a foul smelling cigarette when Eddie found him. There
was a comet's tail of children behind Eddie, he was known to bring chocolate
bars. "“Eddie! Come in brother, too wet out there, eh?”
“You got that right, Noah.” He said stepping out of the rain, and peeling
off his sweaty Drizabone coat. “How you going, anyway?”
“Ah, good mate. The missus just had another litter last month.”
“Good on ya. How many’s that now? Fourteen?”
“Nah, just seven.“
“You orks, worse than bloody rabbits.”
Noah let out a loud, wheezing laugh. “Sit down, fragger, have a drink.”
“I thought you ran a dry camp.”
“yeah I do, but tea’s all right. So what you doing up here in this drekhole
of a wet season?”
“Some elf from Brisbane wants me to get him a Melman’s for him. Important
for his magic, he reckons.”
“Drek, yeah? Not many of them about.”
“That’s why I’m here. I found a couple, but when I shot at one, the air went
all hazy, and the bullet went off target.”
Noah let out another wheezing laugh, “You sure you aint just a drek shot?”
“Bulldrek; Come on, do they have any powers like that?”
Noah kept laughing. “What were you smoking when you tried shooting them?
They can’t do nothing like that!, I've heard some excuses before, but...”
“Well, what about these things that look like men but are all black with two
burning coals for eyes? Some spirit?”
Noah stopped laughing and went pale. “You’re drekking me, aren’t you?”
“No, why?”
“Don’t you know what the Poori Poori is?”
“I’ve heard the word, that’s the local word for those skinny Aboriginal
elves, isn’t it?”
“No. Maybe. The Poori Poori man is kind of like your bogey monster. A
shadowy man with glowing red eyes, steals your life and takes over your body
so it can get your family too. It can get into animals or people. Nobody’s
sure exactly what it is, man or spirit. It could have done what you
described, but I don’t know why it would have. Eddie, if the Poori Poori is
after you, get the frag out of here.”
“I still have to catch a Melman’s.”
“Frag the Melman’s!” The old ork shouted, “This is serious drek here Eddie!”
“Look, you don’t understand. This is my living. If I went back to the Smoke
and gave my money back because the bogeyman was after me, nobody would ever
trust me as a guide or a hunter again. I’m not even sure that I saw
anything.”
“Christ you’re an idiot. Must be your white blood, all you white men are
idiots, huddled in your cities on the edge of the coast, afraid of the land.
Then when you do come out into the bush, you ignore all the warnings. Think
you can fight the land and win all of a sudden. Wait here, Eddie, I’ll find
your bloody kangaroo for you, then you can get the hell away from my family
before you kill us all.”

With that Noah stomped out of the van. There wasn’t much Eddie could do
except sit and think about what the old man had said. He couldn’t remember
ever seeing Noah so angry, even when a bunch of city Murrys smuggled in some
bottles of rum and got some of the young people drunk, and Noah was
convinced that alcohol was the worst enemy of the Aboriginal. Maybe he
should take heed and screw the money. His reputation would suffer, but then,
deep down he knew it was really greed that kept him out here. Aboriginals
were typically a superstitious lot, but these days you never knew if what
they feared was real.
The debate went on in his head as he sipped his tea, until Noah came back,
rain water spilling from him. He had an extremely battered GPS handheld that
looked at least 50 years old. "“Here are the co-ordinates, and the lay of
the land where Jim O’Manus reckons some Melman’s will be. It isn’t far. Copy
it and go. I’m serious Eddie, you aren’t welcome back any more if you don’t
get out of here before nightfall.”
“Sorry Noah, I have to do this.”
Noah tossed him the GPS, and Eddie took the details. He said goodbye, but
Noah just stared into space with the fire of anger in his dark eyes. It was
painful to Eddie, but he was sure that given time the Poori Poori nonsense
would be forgotten.
That is, if it was nonsense.

It took Eddie a day and a night to get to the location O’Manus had
specified. O’Manus was the best hunter in the Bamadjirra, one of the best in
the country. He was what the city people called a Physical Adept, and if he
said there were Melman’s here, then Eddie wasn’t going to ask if he was
sure. There was a fast, swollen river where his map chips said there shouldn
’t be, but that wasn’t unusual at this time of year. It meant that he had to
make camp further away from the site than he would have liked, though.
The country was fairly heavily wooded, on the verge of becoming
rainforest. There were trees here that could have been thousands of years
old. The Melman’s natural habitat was the trees, and here they were spoilt
for choice. It would not be easy to spot one, and it also meant that it
would be far easier for them to get to him before he realised. The paranoid
voice in the back of his mind was telling him that maybe Noah had
deliberately sent him to his doom so that he wouldn’t come back with the
Poori Poori inside his head, but he shoved that aside as very unlikely There
were better, more certain ways to kill a man. On the up side, the rain had
stopped completely for the first time in days, and occasionally the clouds
would momentarily split to reveal a fragment of brilliant blue sky. Of
course the ground was still sodden, and the humidity was becoming ever
thicker until it felt hard to breathe. And the mosquitos had come out, in
their millions. Eddie set up mosquito nets and white noise generators set
to a frequency particularly bothersome to insects, and smeared himself with
repellent, but still a few brave ones got through it all and bit him. He’d
have to get innoculated against mosquito-borne diseases when he got back to
civilisation.

Night came at last, and Eddie prepared himself. He had checked the weather
report, a massive low-pressure system off the coast was drawing in all the
wet weather and making a cool breeze that shifted the thick and humid air,
which was good on the short term, but meant that a cyclone could be forming.
Another reason to get this over with as soon as possible. He followed a
trail that he had mapped out earlier on his GPS, there was a hilly area
where the new river probably cut through, that would be the best place to
try and cross. When he got there, he found that there was a tree that had
fallen across the river’s narrow gully by accident or design, and that
someone had cut handholds along it to make the bridge slightly safer. Glad
that it wasn’t raining, he shimmied across the slippery trunk and continued
into the thick forest. There was little undergrowth here, for which he was
thankful. There were gigantic herbivores that ate whatever they could reach
in areas like this, they were huge but very slow and stupid. They didn't
pose a threat. The things that fed on the peaceful megafauna did, however.

When he at last reached the area mapped out, he collapsed, exhausted against
a tree. He was scratched and muddy, and his legs ached. He did not move for
half an hour, letting the bush come back to life around him. Tiny animals
skittered through the branches above him, an echidna went past like a tiny
tank. A few night birds called from the shadows. In the far distance he
heard the deep booming call that was from either the potentially dangerous
cassowary or the deadly cockatrice. Closely related, they tended to sound
alike. And deep in the shadows, fireflies danced around some phosphorescent
fungi. Blue, green, white. The whole scene was peaceful, it was too easy to
just switch his mind off and be one with his surroundings. Even the
mosquitos had finally given up on him.

There was a scratching behind some bushes. Eddie hoped that he hadn’t
fallen asleep, but suspected that he had. He moved slowly, shifting his
rifle to a ready position. Out from the bushes shot a tiny black and red
shape. A Brush Turkey. Eddie relaxed. These small animals were comical to
watch, their bodies were a glossy black, but their heads and long necks were
bald and red, with sparse little black hairs. They were fairly tame and good
eating if you could overcome your guilt enough to kill one. It was like
killing a Disney character. With a smile, Eddie watched the bird scratching
away at the leaf litter a little way off. He was completely off guard when a
blurred yellowish shape shot from the branches above and pounced upon it in
a cloud of feathers. It was a Melman’s, all right. It had been sitting in
the tree that Eddie was leaning against. He overcame the numbness in his
fingers enough to aim his rifle. The smartlink lit up red as the target
locked, and he fired. He kept firing until he was satisfied the thing was
dead and the shock had drained from his fingers. He glanced around in the
branches in case there were more, but nothing moved except for the
fireflies, Blue, green, white, red. Red. The shadows seemed to deepen around
the two red dots in the distance. Eddie emptied the rest of his clip into
the shadows, although the smartlink would not identify any target. Then he
grabbed the Melman’s, surprisingly heavy for something smaller than a dwarf,
and ran. Sharp lawyer vine barbs tore at him, gashing his skin under the
torn cams, but he didn’t stop. Roots seemed to reach up and entangle his
feet, but he kept running every time he stumbled. He was on the verge of
dropping the carcass so that he could run faster when he came to the log
bridge. He swung the dead Melman’s by the tail like a hammer tosser, and
threw it over the gully, where it splashed into the red mud far on the other
side. He then half crawled over, much faster than the earlier crossing.
Images of his soul getting sucked into those red eyes kept coming back to
him, the unending agony while his body went on to destroy all those he held
dear. As he started running again, the mud sucked at his feet, branched
smacked his shoulders and head, thorny vines grasped at him and his load,
but finally he got back to his camp. He was exhausted completely, and sweat
was running into his many cuts and gashes. He couldn’t stop, though. He
opened the back hatch of the Land Rover, where the portable freezer waited.
He turned it on and sealed the carcass inside. He packed camp in near record
time, leaving canvass and mosquito nets in a tangled mess, and not caring
about pots and pans. Then, with relief, he closed the doors, and started the
engine, wondering where all the fear came from. He’d enountered worse in his
time.
It was there, in the headlights. The burning red eyes were far brighter
than even the spotlights, and they were staring directly at Eddie. He got
tunnel vision, which quickly closed in until the only thing in the world was
a pair of burning red eyes. Pain like needles slipping into his eyes.
Horrible suction. Sandpaper inside the skin. Detachment. Despair. Screaming.
Not screaming, a horn. The car’s horn, Eddie was slumped against the
steering wheel, his chest pushing on the horn. He must have fallen asleep at
the wheel. No, wait, the Poori Poori... There it was, evaporating like
methylated spirits on hot concrete. The car’s horn was forcing it away!
Although his arms felt heavy and useless, he forced one to reach up and turn
on the stereo, full blast. A distorted weather report joined the cacophony,
and the thing vanished. Eddie felt drained, as if he had been drugged. But
there was no way he was staying here. The stereo shouted on “...Tropical
Cyclone Edwin, category 1, at longitude...” as he turned around and drove,
one hand holding the horn down.

It was daylight, the Land Rover rested against a tree. Eddie panicked for a
moment, but he realised that he must have gotten away, but at some stage he
had passed out, the autopilot taking over until the freezer, horn and stereo
had drained the battery. The last thing he could remember was daylight over
the treeline. He was still exhausted, his entire body ached terribly, and
his eyes were blurry and painful. But he was alive! He slowly hooked up the
spare battery, barely noticing the slightly bent in bull bar where it lay
against the tree or the rocketing clouds in the brilliant blue sky that
turned purple-grey on the horizon. Battery connected, he turned off the
stereo and called on the two-way “VKG 777604 to Cooktown Police, over.”
A moment of static, then a crackly voice “Go ahead VKG, over.”
“This is Eddie Marks, could you forward this call for me to LTG number
074098 4533. I’m stuck up on the Cape, and I need to call for a helicopter
pickup. Over”
“Bloody hell, you know Cyclone Edwin is up to Cat 4 and coming your way?
Must have named it after you. Over”
“Yeah. Ironic. Means the sky’s clear enough here for the chopper to come in
though, even though the wind’ll be a bitch.”

He had left the Land Rover where it was, with a call in to a couple of
outposts for the Bamadjirra to pick it up when they were next in the area,
if the cyclone didn’t pick it up and throw it in the ocean. Or if Noah didn’
t just tell them to burn it. Eddie wasn’t too concerned, he just added it to
the expenses tally at the end, it was worth it to see the look on Wise’s
face when he saw the bill. The elf seemed more than happy when he got the
Melman’s, and even threw in a small extra bonus on top. Eddie didn’t know
what Wise was going to do with it, and he didn’t care. He spent some of the
money on a visit to the hospital. His aura was as scratched and torn as his
body, apparently, but both would recover with rest. The worrying thing was
that the mage that was hired to look at him found a strange blurring deep in
his essence, a kind of shadow that was tiny, but definitely there. The mage
had never heard of that sort of effect, and neither had any journals. There
was nothing that the mage or doctors tried that could shift it, but it
looked completely benign, and was not growing. The mage asked Eddie to come
back in a few months so that he could do more tests and see if there was any
change, and Eddie lied that he would. If it was something bad then he didn’t
want to know about it, if it was nothing to worry about, then he wasn’t
anyway. He bought himself a new Land Rover, and headed out of the city.
South.
Message no. 3
From: Ratinac, Rand (NSW) RRatinac@*****.redcross.org.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:22:07 +1000
> OK, here is my first ever attempt at a short story, set in the bush in far
northern Australia. Please don't crucify me too badly, I have no training or
anything, but helpful criticism is good. It's called Poori Poori, mainly
because I couldn't think of a better name.

Nice, Simon, very nice. You've got a great writing style.

I'd give you more to work with, but I don't have the time for a full
critique, I'm afraid. Sorry 'bout that.

Doc'
Message no. 4
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:52:18 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Ratinac, Rand (NSW) <RRatinac@*****.redcross.org.au>
To: 'srfanfic@*********.com' <srfanfic@*********.com>
Date: Thursday, June 29, 2000 5:28 PM
Subject: RE: Poori Poori


>> OK, here is my first ever attempt at a short story, set in the bush in
far
>northern Australia. Please don't crucify me too badly, I have no training
or
>anything, but helpful criticism is good. It's called Poori Poori, mainly
>because I couldn't think of a better name.
>
>Nice, Simon, very nice. You've got a great writing style.
>
>I'd give you more to work with, but I don't have the time for a full
>critique, I'm afraid. Sorry 'bout that.
>
>Doc'


That's cool, it's just gratifying that people are actually reading the thing
:?)
Message no. 5
From: Dvixen dvixen@****.com
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 02:40:42 -0700
At Simon and Fiona, 02:41 PM 29/06/00 wrote:
>OK, here is my first ever attempt at a short story, set in the bush in far
>northern Australia. Please don't crucify me too badly, I have no training or
>anything, but helpful criticism is good. It's called Poori Poori, mainly
>because I couldn't think of a better name. The Poori Poori is a "real"
>thing, feared by a lot of the northern Aboriginals. They freak out when the
>light catches a dog's eyes and make them look glowing red, and loud noise is
>said to keep it away, hence very loud singing in the street at three in the
>bloody morning if a northern Aboriginal has to go somewhere at night :?)
>I don't think there's too much area specific language there, and I kept the
>country vague because of the upcoming Target: Awakened lands. I'll shut up
>now.

More!

*grin*

I was expecting a bit more when I realised that the story ended. :( Not
sure *what* exactly, but.... ;)

More Eddie the outback hunter adventures!!
--
Dvixen - dvixen@****.com - Vrianna
Gallery - http://members.home.com/dvixen
Herkimer's Lair - http://shadowrun.html.com/hlair
"What's your sign?" - "Trespassers will be shot."
Comments/Questions accepted, flames dropped into the abyss.
Message no. 6
From: Ratinac, Rand (NSW) RRatinac@*****.redcross.org.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 09:22:02 +1000
> >Nice, Simon, very nice. You've got a great writing style.
> >
> >I'd give you more to work with, but I don't have the time for a full
> >critique, I'm afraid. Sorry 'bout that.
> >
> >Doc'
>
>
> That's cool, it's just gratifying that people are actually
> reading the thing :?)

Heh...reason 1 why I stopped posting "Sacrifices" to the list. ;)

Doc'
Message no. 7
From: Ratinac, Rand (NSW) RRatinac@*****.redcross.org.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 09:33:58 +1000
> More!
>
> *grin*
>
> I was expecting a bit more when I realised that the story ended. :( Not
sure *what* exactly, but.... ;)
>
> More Eddie the outback hunter adventures!!
> Dvixen - dvixen@****.com - Vrianna

Don't you mean more Eddie the Poori Poori adventures?

(Muahahahahahahhhh!!!)

Doc'
Message no. 8
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Poori Poori
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 09:58:29 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Ratinac, Rand (NSW) <RRatinac@*****.redcross.org.au>
To: 'srfanfic@*********.com' <srfanfic@*********.com>
Date: Friday, June 30, 2000 9:40 AM
Subject: RE: Poori Poori


>> More!
>>
>> *grin*
>>
>> I was expecting a bit more when I realised that the story ended. :( Not
>sure *what* exactly, but.... ;)
>>
>> More Eddie the outback hunter adventures!!
>> Dvixen - dvixen@****.com - Vrianna
>
>Don't you mean more Eddie the Poori Poori adventures?
>
>(Muahahahahahahhhh!!!)
>
>Doc'
>


I hadn't considered making a serial out of it, but now my mind is working
overtime. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I don't want to
write all this stuff about Australia only to have the official rules later
on contradict everything. I know it doesn't really matter, but... Anyway,
I'll definitely have to think about another Eddie story or two, maybe after
Target: Awakened Lands comes out, whatever he is now :?)

Disclaimer

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Thwap!