Anna Bennetts
Stories (6)
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Cynic
When I first went into Section Five at Wat Mahatat, I was so cynical. I had heard that meditation retreats could change your life but I had seen so few examples of transformation that I wasn’t even sure that “life change” was possible. Most people I knew lived their lives with a depressing inevitability, making the same mistakes over and over. I had been repeating the same patterns, doing whatever I wanted, since I’d moved out of home at seventeen. Despite all this apparent freedom, I wasn’t particularly happy. Sure I’d experienced happy times, but those moments of freedom were fleeting, associated with altered states or attachments to others. None of it was very solid, real or lasting.
By Anna Bennetts4 years ago in Longevity
Shiva and Uma
There once was a man called Shiva who lived as an ex-patriot in a strange and far-away land. He worked very hard at the top of a multi-storied office tower. He worked for many years with single-minded concentration. He had no time or energy for love. He had relationships but they usually meant very little to him. He had no time for anything but his work. His apartment held no food or luxuries. His robe, no casual clothes, just suits and ties, briefcase and cufflinks. He rarely saw or spoke to his family. He had few friends as he didn’t have the time or energy friendships demanded. All his energy was devoted to work. Because Shiva was so honest, so generous and good, the Goddess Lakshmi stayed near him and shared with him the wealth of the world. He had accumulated great amounts of gold and money.
By Anna Bennetts4 years ago in Fiction
Wildflowers
When I was six and sister Lyla eight we moved to an area that was then, in the eighties, a semi-rural hybrid between suburban Perth and the bush. Mum and dad’s dream home was built on five acres of land surrounded by wild untouched land. When the local council was deciding where to subdivide for housing, the area around our place was to remain untouched because of the profusion of wildflowers.
By Anna Bennetts5 years ago in Fiction
Rigor Mortis
Monday 5.15pm I am tired. My head is heavy. I walk towards the station. Nearing in the distance I hear the click clack of the electronic station gates, those blind little demons that suck our tickets into their bottomless voids or spit them out and let us pass. I admire their burning intellect, to know which ones to swallow and which to spit! The inexhaustible force that propels the tickets through the electronic gates is like the force within which I am carried towards the train station, towards the train. I walk into this vortex like a zombie, roboticised, lobotomised. The lights are on but nobody’s home—brain numb—unaware of where I’ve been or where I’m going, only vaguely aware of this force hurling me toward my destination.
By Anna Bennetts5 years ago in Fiction
