He would take his admirers out in the mornings on his surfboard, paddle them out past the breakers then float with them in the calm of the rising sun, which made the ocean the colour of deserts. He would dive to the depths of the ocean, holding massive breaths in his magical Bucket Bong lungs, and pluck little treasures from the ocean floor for his companions: shells, mother of pearl, little talismans of affection that they took away to remember him by. Bill remembered none of them. His short term memory wasn't so hot.
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Total Cardboard Publishing
Total Cardboard is a small and furtive press that has been in operation since about 2003.
The first issues of the journal, Total Cardboard, consisted mostly of book reviews. Gradually, fiction and other creative pieces infiltrated the journal, so that all issues since no. 5 have effectively been collections of new writing, by mostly unknown, ingenious and inspired writers.
In 2004, TC published Waking Up with Strangers, the debut novel by Australian author Daniel Gloag. While mostly slipping under the radar of the mainstream, those reviewers who did have the fortune to read this striking little book, such as Cameron Woodhead in The Age, praised it generously. Copies are now available through this website.
TC's latest single-author publication is My Reality, the memoirs of the Italian-Australian literary terrorist, Fosco Antonio. The latest issue of the journal is no. 8, available January 2007.
> Who are the authors?
> Submission guidelines
> Unconfirmed Reports, a somewhat-related blog
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When stoned, he was blessed with an uncanny eloquence, the weed a laxative on his soul which came pouring out of his mouth and into the hearts and minds of those around him. They came, by way of pilgrimage to his little shack by the beach, the myriad of people to whom the legend of Bucket Bong Bill had reached, to seek his wisdom and offer him gifts. Sometimes people would come just to pay homage to the legend, which drifted on the winds of human nature, reaching the lowest dungeons and the highest towers.
They came with problems, that they would tell in the half dark of his living room while Bill would contemplate them. Then he would breathe out his smoke, and with it a piece of wisdom so concise and profound that the supplicant's problems were solved instantly. Beautiful women from all over the coast came to seek his advice. More than one fell in love with the legend of Bucket Bong Bill, with his handsome features and barrel chest, within which beat the strongest heart and the greatest lungs of all time. He would take his admirers out in the mornings on his surfboard, paddle them out past the breakers then float with them in the calm of the rising sun, which made the ocean the colour of deserts. He would dive to the depths of the ocean, holding massive breaths in his magical Bucket Bong lungs, and pluck little treasures from the ocean floor for his companions: shells, mother of pearl, little talismans of affection that they took away to remember him by. Bill remembered none of them. His short term memory wasn't so hot.
Except for one woman, the prettiest of them all. Tall, tanned; one of the daughters of aristocracy, the loveliest of trust-fund babies. She was beautiful. Kate. She summered in a big house on the other side of the bay. She didn't care about Bill. Watching someone grappling with existentialism like soap in the bath wasn't her idea of a good time. No matter how many times he caught a glimpse of the meaning of life through a haze of bong smoke she was unimpressed. She ignored him, which only amplified the hopeless puppyish crush he had on her.
He was always passing her on the beach, as he trudged with surfboard to the shore. She was the colour of sun-tan oil, she smelt like Hawaii. She wore gold and silver like men wore experience. She made him crazy. Every day that he waved to her and she looked pointedly away his heart sank a little further and so he paddled further out into the cold ocean to try and swim it off. It got so bad that he left the land far behind, and got out to where the waves were strange and sullen. He liked to dive out here where the waters were still and deep. The further out he went the uglier the fish got, and more beautiful the blues. With his legendary lungs, the ones which had punched a hundred thousand cones, the ones that changed him from a mundane Bill into Bucket Bong, he could dive in waters nobody else could. He enjoyed the fact that there were places he could get to that no-one else could reach, things that would be seen by him alone.
He found a gold bracelet once, far out to sea, rolling with the silt on the ocean floor. It had been there a long time, old, tarnished, covered in weeds, it was a memory of a maritime disaster. Something that had slipped treacherously off the bony arm of a woman who wouldn't give it up, who refused to believe that she had drowned, too vain to admit that the fish had made off with her skin, and her hair had gone to seaweed.
The bracelet polished up nicely, and had the desired effect on Kate, whose eyes widened so that they were white all the way around, and her breath came out sharply; ‘Where did you get that?'
And so this was how Bucket Bong Bill and Kate started trawling the ocean floor, her in her mother's boat with a compass and map, and tongue stuck thoughtfully in the corner of her mouth, and him diving to the bottom to find baubles to bring back to her. This was how they found the shipwreck, and the gold.
It was huge and wooden, a galleon, a treasure ship from the time when such things existed outside of the dreams of children, in the dreams of kings and queens and merchants. It had scuttled with all hands aboard rather than give itself up to piracy, and was guarded still by the bones and the greedy souls of the men who valued money over life.
Kate sent Bill down to get the treasure. It was deep, far deeper than he had ever dived before. Drowned skulls glared at him sulkily as he reached the ship and opened its hatches. Inside; the gold and silver of dead civilisations, coin and chalices, diamonds, rubies, pearls. He swam through the cargo holds, lungs burning, searching desperately for the trinket that would be perfect enough to hold Kate's affections. He found it, at last, in one of the deepest darkest treasure holds, lit only by the cartoon glow of a thousand gold coins. He started to swim out through the rooms full of treasure, and met with a mermaid, for mermaids, Bill realised, remember where lost and drowned treasures are kept, and adore them. For mermaids are the most graceful and beautiful of creatures, tip to tail, that can exist, perfection that drove sailors alone at sea mad long ago, and that dry land has long forgotten, so as to preserve its sanity.
Just now, Bucket Bong Bill realised why he had been blessed with his special lungs, and his ability to grasp beauty that no-one else could see, for it is impossible to look upon something with the grace and beauty of a mermaid and return to dry land. As his giant lungs filled with brine, Bill felt a great sense of pity towards those doomed to walk on two legs, and for those who are content to live with them.
