Peaceful Headache

The sun shines through the window.  The dirt and hand prints on the glass illuminated.  It dazzles my eyes.  When I close them to take a moment, I can still see the handprints and jagged lines.  I stick a finger into the corner of my eye.  Rubbing and scratching.  A little bit of sleep stuck to the end of my finger.  Slightly black and blue, evidence from last night’s adventures not completely washed away.  A deep breath.  The thud of my heart, slow and steady.  The clock ticking.  The second hand spasming.  A click ticking with the last spurts of battery life.  Slowly dying.  The hum of a fridge.  I roll my head in circles, stretching my neck.  Imagining scenes from the Amalfi coast.  If only.  Sunglasses and red lipstick, a summer hat and time to slowly rub my neck with coconut oil as I leaf through a fashion magazine.  Not that it’s bad here.  The 30 degree days with blue sky and few clouds littered around, occasionally giving rest from the sun, they’re beautiful.  It’s not as easy to relax when you’re at home though.  It just takes some conscious effort.  The light flickers as the sun moves further across the sky, hitting the window through the gum leaves.  A peaceful vibe.  The trees dancing in a light wind.  As if basking in the sunlight.  A joy in the air.  An ease.  

A hand crawls across my face.  The nails are dirty and fingers black.  It digs into my temples and buries its way inside my skull.  Rummaging its way between my forehead and brain, occasionally pushing on little points.  The top of my skull, a shooting pain.  The temples, a dull ache.  The front of my cranium, a throbbing and dusty, mirky spiders web.  A fog.  I can’t see.  There’s something in my way.  I can’t think.  I’m wading through water.  Feet sinking into mud.  Gumboots aren't tall enough, they don’t even reach up to my knees.  I walk.  And the water rises.  I want to get to the other side.  There’s a moment, when I think I’ll make it.  Yet, just a moment and it’s gone.  A slip and gulp, splash and spit as the water gushes around me.  It pushes me back, pushes me down.  And eventually pours over the edge filling my boots to the brim.  Now walking through mud with 5 kilo boots at the bottom of the stilts one could call my legs.  Shaking.  Frustrated.  Confused.  I try to get my feet out of the boots but they seem stuck.  I look up and back.  And the river disappears.  I’m standing on a picnic rug.  Am I?  With a basket next to me.  I’m young.  I’m not quite sure.  The fog tightens and hand squeezes my brain.  Another shooting pain, this time to the right of my skull.  I wonder if there are bugs crawling.  The sky is white.  The girl just stands there.  A picnic rug, a faded hillside, and white skies.  Where are we?  She turns.  Looks at me.  No expression.  What’s she waiting for?  Her hair is red.  She’s just waiting.  Searching.  She’s searching in my eyes.  I furrow my brows.  What’s going on.  My hands reach up to rub my temples.  The breeze.  The sunlight.  The trees.  My stomach rumbles.  The clock ticking has faded, to be replaced by a whining in my ear.  More evidence of the adventures of last night.  A beat.  I feel tired.  The hand is pushing down on my brow.  I want to sleep.  Everything seems to exist through a fog.  The trees are dancing this Sunday afternoon and I can feel the peace between them, though through a fog.  Or perhaps I’m the only one in a fog.  A bird calling out.  A little crick of my neck.  A cough.  A sigh.  A question of what to make for dinner, or whether to go to bed without.  Will this peace continue?  Is this real?  Who knows what’s real.  Nothing is real, really.  What does real really mean?  Reality.  Real.  My reality, your reality.  Is it really running away if you feel you belong somewhere else?  Is it running if you find your peace?  People might not understand but in your reality it’s acceptable.  Does it matter if you’re running away? 

My neck is sore.  My body is yearning for rest.

living, sweating, breathing, dancing

A beat.  Sweat.  Laughter.  She laughs.  The beat moves her.  The lights inspire her.  Bodies dancing carry hers.  And as she spins, convulses to the vibrations, lights and sounds, she forgets.  Or does she remember?  Forgetting past, remembering presence.  Forgetting pain, remembering pleasance.  Joy.  Pure, unadulterated joy.  There’s an intensity, and a worry that flickers of… how long will this last?  Is this really who I am?  Can I be this person?  Can I let go?  Another beat.  Another body, knocking into hers.  Don’t stop.  Don’t stop moving or you’ll fall.  We move together or not at all.  Sweat drips from her forehead, past her temple, getting caught in frays of hair coming loose.  A sip of water from a crinkled bottle.  The chill shocks her system as it trickles and dances its own way down her throat.  Breath is cooler for a moment.  Lungs open a little wider, just for a moment.  And breathing becomes a miracle.  Energy in with each inhale.  A natural euphoria.  A cleansing.  A hope.  With each exhale, releasing everything held onto for so long.  The body slumps a little.  Muscles relax more and more.  Becoming one with the sounds.  Becoming one with the moment.  Not thinking.  Never thinking.  Just, existing.  Simply, existing.  A hand takes hold of hers.  A squeeze.  She looks up with a wicked grin.  Are you feeling this?  Are you with me?  Colours cut across her face as lights strike through the crowd.  Illuminating momentary details otherwise missed.  The sweat.  A smile.  A glance.  Her eyes closed, taking it in.  A hope to remember.  A reverence.  Oh, please let me remember this feeling.  Freedom.  Expression.  Movement.  Belonging.  Believing.  Loving.  Screaming.  Dancing.  It swirls and shines through her body.  An overwhelming feeling of love and pain all at once.  Her heart throbs.  Her legs wobble.  The body may tire, but this feeling is energising.  Forgetting pain.  Letting go.  Please, remember this feeling.  Please let me let go.  Life.  This is living.  And I want to live.

A Blur

The cement wall beneath my fingers is burning my skin.  I don’t know where I left my gloves.  I don’t know anything.  Standing here, my face is burning too.  Lips are probably blue.  Eyes are dry.  I keep my hands on the wall, holding on.  Holding onto what?  My feet are on solid ground.  Ground.  I look down.  It’s there.  Yep.  The cotton jersey hangs loose from my bones, I can see my chest heaving as I breathe.  I must be breathing.  Voices bounce around me.  My neck creaks and skull shudders as I turn my head.  Left.  Right.  I’m not alone.  Everyone seems to be moving at a faster pace.  Car lights blind me.  Laughter echoes.  My eyebrows furrow and a crease develops on my cheeks where my jaw holds together tightly.  

My fingers are burning again.  I look down.  I’m scratching into the concrete.  I can’t feel anything.  It looks like I’m pushing too hard.  I am pushing too hard.  There’s blood underneath my fingertips.  And yet, I can’t feel anything.  Can anyone see me?  I’m stuck.  Not stuck standing still.  I don’t know if anyone can see me.  I don’t think they can.  I’m a blur.  Moving so slowly that I cancel myself out.  No one notices anything anyway.  I wonder if they’ll stop me.  Without looking behind or to my side or the other side, I clutch onto a ledge and pull myself up onto the wall.  An ornate night lamp shines a golden light into the dark night around it.  The light doesn’t reach far.  It reveals small bugs and snow flakes floating close to my lips.  My mouth opens and snow flakes melt on my tongue.  Or bugs.  I wouldn’t know.  I can’t taste anything.  

I look down.  I’m still breathing.  My hands are a strange purple, red, bruise.  The lake out below and beneath me is fluttering.  Small tufts of wings on the surface, butterflies dancing to the wind.  Not frozen.  No.  I pause.  The wind is biting at my face again.  Trying to tell me something.  It strokes my cheek and combs fingers through my hair.  Not urgent, though not softly either.  The wind is harsh.  Always honest.  Perhaps letting me know that I’m mad.  And maybe telling me that I’m right.  That I’m not here, I’m already a blur.  I tilt my head just enough to see lights of cars flashing past on the road behind me.  Voices.  Movement.  Bodies.  No one can see me.  

I reach my hands out as far as I can throw them.  Open.  To the cold, to the wind, to life.  The snow is thicker now.  I feel it melting on my skin.  My skin is burning.  Hot.  My heart is beating.  It beats a drum in my body.  Fear.  And.  With an exhale, I jump.  Like a dolphin spinning out of water into the air, showing off.  Stretching.  My body spins.  I feel gravity take hold.  I’m not moving slowly anymore.  I fall.  I fall and feel exhilaration, adrenaline and thrill all at once.  Freedom.  Flying.  Breathing.  Screaming.  Eyes wide open.  Alive.  A car horn sounds shattering my dreamy silence as I hit the water with a crack.  A broken vase.  A piece of glass in boiling water.  The surface splits as if it were frozen and I fall beneath into the icy waters.

It's Raining

The seat beneath me vibrates and hums with the engine.  The strange chalky fabric scratches at jeans.  I hug my bag in close to me.  Nerves.  Perhaps.  A slight gaze to the right, at the window, but I don’t look out.  A droplet of water trickles down the glass.  It’s raining.  As I watch it gathering more momentum with more weight of joined droplets, I feel a droplet land on my forehead.  Cold.  Sweat.  Salty.  Tears.  It gathers momentum also and slides down passing through the little micro hairs that act as friction or protection.  It slips along the ridge of my nose and stops on the tip.  I scrunch my nose a little and give it a scratch.  My nose is dry.  The Winter air has dried it out.  The skin on my cheeks feels rough to my touch.  The heat in the bus aggravates it and I expect my face is blotched red.  The layers and layers are too much, but do you take it all off for a few stops?  Someone gets on and goes to sit next to me.  Can I move my scarf and gloves, they ask with no words.  Nerves twist into irritation and further.  I pick up my pieces and stuff them into my bag, hugging it tighter.  Personal space.  It’s called personal space for a reason.  It feels safe until it’s broken.  A bubble or fence between you and the world.  Until a stranger slides up against you in a bus.  Overweight.  Huffing.  Grumbling.  Go away please.  Maybe I look like the strange one.  I look out the window again.  Hoping for some salvation.  The water droplets are many now.  They join each other and separate again in a dance on the window of a bus in the rain.

Copenhagen, Denmark 2018

~

Shibuya

She sits at the bar alone, sipping a glass of red.  Her head heavy, chin resting in her hand.  Soft music spills into the room from small speakers in the top corners of the ceiling.  Psychedelic and strung out notes dancing from table to table.  Her eyes show signs of deep thought, yet slowly move from person to person, observing her surroundings.  Partly occupied with rumination, partly aware of others.  The bar is crowded, though voices are kept low.  Her slender wrist shines white underneath a small lamp next to her.  A tattoo on the inside, along the line of the vein.  The words aren’t visible.  Occasional laughter rings out above the crowd, only for a ‘shush’ from somewhere else.  The music stops.  The edge of the record scratches a little.  An old sound - a sound from another era.  And yet, this is present day.  

The bartender and owner, a short Japanese man with large glasses and a nice watch slides his way over to the record player.  He moves with an ease and lack of urgency, somewhat comparable to a snake weaving its way, lazily, through long grass on a hot day.  In the same way that a snake can afford to move this way, his grace and nonchalance gives an air of superiority.  Grounded-ness.  Not that he is venomous, only that the customers are of second importance here.  Surrounding the tables and bar, on each wall the eye can see, are shelves with hundreds of records.  As the scratching sound continues, he swiftly lifts up the next vinyl, blows any dust off of it, and after a close inspection drops the album down.  Chatter quietens for a few moments, as people stop to appreciate what sound is coming next.  The music could come from any genre, any era.  

It’s a slow jazz piece.  The saxophone and a black man’s voice fade as the chatter grows.  The white wrist still laying on the bar next to the lamp.  Wine glass almost empty.  The other hand running fingers through her hair.  A massage.  Calm.  Perhaps this bar has that effect.  Her hand stops.  Her mind caught on a thought, her teeth take a nibble at a fingernail.  Only for a moment.  Pausing at her lips, slightly stained by the wine.  The bartender doesn’t make any conversation.  No one really does.  A deep breath.  Another glass, please?  The contact with the Japanese man brings her out of her own world for a moment, so she swivels on her chair to take a look at the people behind her.  At one table, a Japanese couple lean in close.  Not touching.  The Japanese girl seems to be yearning for it; connection of any sort.  Her eyes are wide and eager.  Lapping up his story as if his words are all she’s eaten in months.  The guy oblivious to any of this.  He continues on talking.  His elbow resting on the table, his hand waving all sorts of small gestures.  They sip beer.  In glasses.  

At the end of the bar sits a man on his own.  He’s not local, Westerner of sorts.  Bigger build and tattoos all down one arm.  He sits, hunched over a - beer?  Hard to see.  Could also be an Old Fashioned.  Hunched as if hiding something.  What’s he running from?  Still nibbling at her fingernail, she looks to another table.  A young Japanese man sits alone.  Phone out.  Taking a photo of his cocktail.  He looks uncomfortable.  Not venomous this one, she thinks.  He is eager as well.  Glancing around the place in search of a connection.  Sending words up to the bartender, who appreciates a local in his bar.  He smiles at her.  The young one.  She smiles, delayed and distant.  Continues on her observation.  A few couples that look Western.  They sit and mutter things to each other.  Not so interesting.  And then, as she notices the second glass of wine bringing the feeling of her heartbeat to her head and resting wrist, she realises it is time to move on.  A walk through the slightly cooler Shibuya.  Who knows.  She pays her debts, passing a few notes over the bar.  

No words exchanged between her and the Vinyl Man.  He nods, gravely.  She nods, gravely, smiling as soon as she’s turned away.  She slides her way through the low spoken crowd, just like a snake weaving through long grass on a hot day.  Her hair swishes from side to side and her hips move with it.  Cardigan slipped on, bag over shoulder, her exposed wrist gives one last flash of white before she disappears out into the busy streets of Tokyo.

The Night Sky

It was round 3am when they fell out onto the street and stumbled home.  The air was still.  Only the low rumble of the ocean and the occasional call of a bird broke the silence.  The sky was clear and the stars shone brightly.  A planet rising in the late October sky.  Everything stood still for a moment.  Watching.  The world was watching.  

Their feet shuffled and their breathing was heavy, bodies made slow by alcohol and cigarettes.  The conversation was broken as they clung to each other for support.  Helping each other walk.  She was short.  Blonde.  Small.  A loud voice that sung out with statements and laughter.  Occasionally her legs gave way and she would fall into a fit of giggles.  He chuckled.  Aware of his own inebriated state, and sat down beside her on the edge of the gutter on a hill overlooking the town below.  The air was cold, their breath visible as he rubbed his hands together to keep them warm.  'How far?'  She asked, blinded by the alcohol.  Everything was spinning for her, all she could do was look at her feet and hope they would keep walking.  Yet there they sat, on the side of the road.  He looked up at the sky and took it in.  For a moment, they were in harmony.  The man and the world.  Just a moment.  The bird and the waves and the breeze and the trees were looking down at him, and he was looking back.  His drunkenness lifted, sobered up by the sharpness of the nature around him.

She had fallen asleep in his lap.  A little smile showing on her face.  Leaning back he sighed and let it all just be.  Let it all just be as it was.  Thinking back to the party, the voices, the dancing, the people.  And to where he was going and everyone around him that seemed to always be in moving state, it was nice just to stop.  

Whisky.  He had a flask.  A sip warmed his throat and gave him energy to get up again.  "Come on, you.."  He gently helped her to her feet, and piggy backed her down the hill.  The faint roaring of the ocean never relenting, the sounds of owls hunting, the breeze stroking his cheek.  She hugged him.  She hugged him and rested her cheek against his neck.  Nestling in as a cub into a mother for warmth.  Occasionally she let out a little laugh.

At the house he started a fire.  Made a pot of tea for them both and lay a blanket over them.  Peaceful.  Calm.  The roaring of the ocean a lullaby.  It was late.  The sun would start rising soon.  Eyes started to droop.  Breathing slowed.  And they both fell asleep on the sofa.  Fire crackling.  Tea steaming until cold.  Nestled like little bears keeping warm.  The world watched.

A Deal

The trees were still blackened with char from fires years ago.  The sun shone through the tops of the forests, lining the road with dancing figures.  The car sped around sharp corners and winding roads.  The trees stood to attention.  A guard of honour.  Proud and welcoming.  And yet, the driver didn't notice them.  His foot didn't allow the throttle to lift from the floor.  A cigarette hanging limp out of his mouth.  His teeth a light stained yellow, though he wasn't old.  Eyes burning.  Squinting at the sunlight.  His hat only an accessory.  Black leather gloved hands on the steering wheel, and a gold chain around his neck.  Window down.  Wind cooling the sweat that was beading on his neck and chest.  Stress perhaps.  Though he didn't show it.  Speeding down the forest road.  No sign of slowing.  No sign of where they were going.  Except straight ahead.  He kept his eyes straight ahead.

"Girlie.  You need those glasses?"  His cigarette bounced as he spoke.  A few embers fell, like white feathers in the air, falling softly into his lap.  Brushing them off unaware of the white marks they made on his tight black jeans.
"Huh?"
"Your sunglasses.  You need 'em?  I need 'em."
"Oh..."  Her voice was soft.  Distant.  Her blonde hair a mess blowing in the wind.  She had her window down too and had been staring at the trees passing.  Waiting.  Waiting to get there.  If they'd get there.  Wherever that was.  At this rate, this speed, she had started to imagine an animal jumping out in front of them, perhaps a kangaroo, which would startle him so much they would end up wrapped around a tree.  She didn't want to end up wrapped around a tree.  So she continued to smoke her cigarette and sip her cola.  Her black leather jacket was a little to warm for the ride, but she held some power in it.  Even though she had none.  She took another drag and threw it out the window.

"You shouldn't 'a' done that."
"What?"
"That!  You see these trees?"
"Yeah..."
"Know why they're black?"
"Some Australian special black tree?"
"No.  Girlie.  There was a fire here a few years back.  Now pass me those glasses."  He slipped them onto his face.  Lennon glasses.  Her grandfathers.  Without them she was left uncovered.  Hair a mess.  Eyes bare.  Window down.  She squinted a little, adjusting to the light.  She took to wrapping her hair up in a scarf and wound up the window.  He wasn't saying much.  She thought they would have talked more.  On this trip.  They hadn't talked at all.  He just wanted to get there.  He wanted to find someone.  Something about someone.  She hadn't fully understood.  She just thought it sounded exciting and he needed a woman for the ride.  That was only a week ago.

She'd been staying at a hotel on Oxford St in Sydney.  He was having a cigarette out on the street, at a bar nearby one night.  She walked past and he called out to her.  She hadn't looked back.  Went to her room and got all of her things.  Left a note and they left the next morning.  Drove to Melbourne.  He kept mentioning one place where they were going, but at the time she didn't really care.  When he first asked her to come, it was freedom.  A risk.  A shot at life.  Making a life worth living.  But now, sitting in the car with him, she wasn't so sure.  They'd been driving for hours.  Hadn't even properly stopped in Melbourne.  Just stayed low.  They "had to stay low," he said.  She wasn't even allowed to walk around at night to see the lights of the city.  Or see the shops during the day.  But when he kissed her and pulled her close, everything else disappeared.  He didn't do it too often though.  He was so caught up.  Caught up in where they were going.

 The trees whipped past them.  The car sped on.  Sunlight dancing, cigarettes bouncing and silence between them.  A silent tension and suspension in the car.  A man on a mission.  A girl wanting something, anything to show her that life could be different.  Different from where she came from and what she had left behind.  Either way, there was no going back.

The Window

Windows.  A window.  A window into someone's life.  A window of opportunity.  Flown out the window.  Thrown out the window.  Windows.  Standing at this window now, my elbow rests on the windowsill.  The scent of Spring and Sunday morning toast wafting in.  I can't help but dream.  The sunlight is delicate and soft.  I notice familiar sounds that would usually slip by.  Children ringing bells on bikes, their parents hurrying them up.  The clink and chinks of locks unlocking.  The breeze rustling the leaves of the big oak tree in the centre of the yard.  How long have I been here now?  How long have I lived here?  And when did it become so normal - that which is outside my window?  Tea sends steam up to wet my nose and as I take a sip with my eyes closed, memories dance in my mind.  Windows.  The many windows I've had in the many rooms I've rented over the years.  And yet, with my many years to come I wonder what kind of window I'll sit by when I'm eighty.  

Most likely still sipping a cup of tea, dreaming of all the windows around the world.  Remembering windows or perhaps just simply enjoying the window I have.  I imagine countryside.  Trees in view, but an open landscape.  Would that be too lonely?  Perhaps living in a small apartment smack bang in the middle of the city would remind me of life.  The children going to school, the flow of peak hour traffic.  Windows.  They always seemed to offer a freedom, which seems so absolutely bizarre because one could simply walk out the front door and be a part of the view rather than sit and watch it from within.  Perhaps perching at the window has always induced dreaming.   

I can't help but daydream.  Sipping a cup of tea on this slow Sunday morning in my big teeshirt, undies and big woolly socks.  Replacing the norm - my view that I've grown used to - with a street in (I wonder for a moment...) Paris.  Cobblestoned, of course.  A bakery just in view on the opposite side of the street, so that I may spy on the French buying their baguettes and croissants on a morning such as this.  Old Frenchmen wearing berets, walking out with baguettes under arm.  Young Frenchmen collecting croissants for their lovers.  Young French women buying pastries, nibbling at one as they walk out onto the street.  Of course, there would be smog.  And endless noise from the traffic.  And shop owners would yell out at each other.  And though I imagine it to be fantastic, it too would become the norm after a while.  I wouldn't always perch at the window in awe.  My mind wanders again, this time to a window of a shack on a beach somewhere with white sand and blue water.  Wake up, hair messy and air already warm.  A loud ceiling fan chugging away though accomplishing nothing.  I'd sit up, rubbing my eyes and stretch my neck just enough to look out at the water.  Swell?  No swell? 

How many of us stand or sit by our windows dreaming of another life.  Opportunities to be had.  Ah, there we go.  "A window of opportunity," because when you look out the window and dream, the opportunities are endless.  The world truly is full of wonders.  Full of places to go and lives to live, people to meet.  You can't be everywhere.  You cannot do everything.  But I can try - says a voice in my head.  I chuckle.  Taking my cup of tea I settle into my armchair.  Legs curled up, teacup sitting within reach.  I take up my notebook and pen, pause for a moment to watch the leaves dancing outside the window.  The light picks up the pollen and small insects flying though the air.  I close my eyes for a moment, pausing to find the silence from which I write from, and there it is.

A Kaleidoscope

It's early morning.  We're still out.  I'm sitting by the water with my legs out splayed using all of my energy and concentration on the kaleidoscope I'm holding.  Someone's in the water.  Someone else has gone to get drinks from a 24 hour store or petrol station, they took all the bikes.  The rest of us are waiting, sitting by the water, playing in the light of the rising sun.  Sun.  The sun shines of the water sending glitter and crystal lights around.  Lucas is humming.  A tune of some sort.  Kind of like a chant.  It's faint at first but the others start to join in.  Singing and clapping to a nothing sound.  A few start dancing and splashing in the water.  We're celebrating something but nothing because there's not really anything special to celebrate.  The sunrise perhaps?  The gift of another day?  Lucas and another guy sing a little louder with their deep voices.  It feels tribal.  My left eye is scrunched shut as I look through the little child's toy.  I can't remember when I got it, but it's fun now to spin everyone around.  Someone laughs and grabs the kaleidoscope off of me.  Breathing in it feels like the air is cleaner than usual.  My lungs fill with this beautifully scented freshness and I notice the light changing.  The trees and bushes seem greener, the sky a stronger blue.  The laughter ringing out are chimes and a triangle.  Everything is slightly more vivid.  I play with the dirt at my hands.  Peace.  We're all at peace.  In a little pocket of our city, by the water where it really starts to feel like we're in a jungle somewhere.  The boys calm down and singing ceases.  We're all just rolling around.  Floating in water or playing with dirt or silently dancing under the trees.  Katie giggles a bit.  Which starts me off.  I laugh a little.  It feels good.  So I laugh some more.  Looking up the river bed, the others arrive on bikes bearing wine.  The water reflects in the sky and the sky in the water.  Even without the kaleidoscope I feel like I'm in one.  A little dizzy spinning around and everything splits and dances in front of me.  It feels like time has stopped for a little bit.  Just a while.  I want it to last forever.

An Ocean of Thought

She sits.  Staring at her phone.  Hair blowing.  Face warm from the setting sun.  She bites on gold painted nails.  Looking out to sea.  Nail polish chipping.  Chipping away.  It tastes like... nail polish.  Chemicals.  A deep breath.  Distracted.  She spits out bits of gold, wiping her tongue with the back of her hand.  She looks.  Stares at the chips of gold on her skin.  Little specks.  Her mind wanders.  

"What are you doing that for?"
"It looks nice."
"Who's the guy..?"
She makes a tonal sound with a shrug that translates through from Australian to English as "I dunno."  An excited scream comes from the doorway and her little brother runs in.  
"Hey you!  How you doing?  Hey?  Come here.."  She smiles and forgets her worries for a little while.  Rubbing his belly like you'd rub your dog.  Making it laugh and pant and bark.  He squeals.  "Ow my nail polish!"  Setting him to one side she continues to paint each nail.  Fixing up the marks and mistakes.

Biting her nails again, she looks up out to the guys in the water.  She thinks she sees her brother wave from the cluster of black suited men.  Maybe she'll go out one day.  Maybe.  Sitting there at the lookout the sun setting and water all around, she daydreams.  Starts to think of other places she could see.  Places where she could be.  Places she's only heard of but never travelled to.  She's never even had a passport.  

Her brother's out of the water coming up behind her dripping wet panting cold water splashes onto her face.  He gives her a huge hug and she squirms.  "Come on."  He forces a smile out of her.  He hugs her and teases her like you'd tease your dog.  Making it laugh and pant and bark.  She squeals.

"How was your party on Friday?"  She answers again with the tonal song and shrug of "I dunno."  "You don't know much do ya?"  He laughs and pushes her in the direction of the car.  Windows down cool breeze music scratching out of the old speakers.  She sits in the passenger seat hugging her knees to her chest.  Staring out of the window.  Thinking.  Let's the music calm her body but her mind still chips away at her.  Her fingers scratch at the nail polish.

The party was fun.  Nothing happened to note.  She had a few drinks and smiled and laughed when she thought she was supposed to.  Everyone danced.  She did too, but she wonders if she did it right.  Her best friend went off into another room with a few people, but she didn't want to.  The night was still.  Stars were out.  Everyone seemed to know what to do except her.  She kept looking down at her nail polish.  Sparkling.  It said "Be wild.  You're awesome!"  It didn't help much.  Before heading out she'd drawn her eyes with eyeliner.  Didn't know if she did that right either.  A guy from another school asked if she wanted to take something, but she shook her head.  Holding onto her elbow, covering her stomach.  Wishing she'd worn the black top instead.  Around midnight she took a bottle of vodka from the esky and walked off across the street to the beach.  No one noticed her go.  Sitting at the beach sipping on the metallic, harsh alcohol, the voices disappeared along with the goosebumps and she stared up into the sky.  The milky way was clear.  And so she sat there.  Lost in the stars for a while.  She went back when someone called out her name, but most people had gone home by then.

Looking at her brother driving next to her, singing to the sounds of his favourite band, she wanted to ask him.  Biting her lip, stomach tense.  Heart full but chest tight - she wanted him to say yes.  Would he think she could do it?  He noticed her looking.

"What's up?"
"I want to come out with you one day.  Would you teach me?  To surf.  Would you teach me?"


 

Where are you?

We were sitting around the fire the day that Jimmy disappeared.  Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing.  When someone brings him up, they all talk about how hot it was the day he left town.  A hot day, but we lit a fire anyway.  Under the stars.  The cool breeze always came in from the ocean to give us goosebumps.  Dave gave me his sleeping bag and huddled up beside me.  We weren’t really talking about anything.  We all had a bottle in hand, some had cigarettes.  The fire was chucking sparks up into the air in front of us, black sky with stars shining above.  Someone inhaled a roley or a joint, held their breath and mentioned him on the exhale.  Anyone know where he is? 

Everyone shrugged and mumbled.  Nup.  No one.  We weren’t worried though.  He always had this air about him that he knew what he was doing.  Plus he had a dog.  His dog was loyal too.  Can’t really remember its name.  It was a border collie I think.  Not that I’m a dog person.  It’s funny though, that the thing I think about most is Jimmy’s hair.  Not just Jimmy’s hair, but how I’ll never get to touch it again.  I ruffled it once as a joke.  I was patronising him, teasing him about something.  He shrugged me off and told me to shove it.  That’s the only time I touched his hair and I’ve never stopped thinking about it.  So soft.  Scruffy and filled with salt and sand, but soft.  Really soft.  All I wanted to do for a long time was lie down next time him under the stars, snuggle up to him and feel his soft hair tickle my face.  If he’d been there that night maybe I would’ve tried to.  Snuggle up next to him.  Jimmy.  What happened to you? 

He wasn’t the first person to disappear out of here either.  Many went walkabout, but I dunno if you can call it walkabout when it’s a white man.  Jimmy wasn’t a man though, he was just 17.  God, I’m talking about it as if it were years ago.  It was 6 months yesterday.  We had a fire going again and someone mentioned him.  Everyone went a little quiet and didn’t know what to say.  Dave raised his stubby so everyone followed.  It was so strange.  What’s the word?  Surreal.  Yeah, surreal to be saluting someone that we knew so well.  Know so well.  When do you start using past tense?  He was always around.  I still hope that one day I’ll get to school and he’ll be at the lockers, or park my car in my driveway to find him at my front porch.  Soft hair on top of the smiling face, always the dog at his heel.  What happened to you, Jimmy? 

Why would he just leave?  They put up signs everywhere.  There was a Facebook thing too.  I shared it.  I always wondered if he would secretly log on to see if everyone missed him.  I just, I just hope that he ran away himself.  That he’s ok.  I’d be hurt to know that he left me behind.  Even though we were never a thing.  I just had a thing for him and I think he had a thing for me too.  But then he left.  You might be thinking, come on.  So you liked his hair.  It was soft.  Big deal.  But it wasn’t just that.  The weekend before the night he left, we were all around at Gracie’s.  Her dad’s nice like that.  He even lets us drink and walk up the hill so we can look out over the ocean.  We all walked up that night, and I knew that Dave wanted to cuddle in because he’s just always wanted to cuddle in with me, but I was thinking about Jimmy’s hair. 

I kept going over to talk to someone else when Dave got close, which annoyed him.  He started to say mean things about me.  Slagging me off to everyone, so I hung back.  Walking up the hill behind them, slowly.  Stopping to look at the stars and just having a bit of a moment to myself, when Jimmy fell back from the group too.  We walked in silence, breathing.  The hill was steep.  And as Dave was telling everyone about ways I’d embarrassed myself and 'did everyone remember last new years...' when I passed out and whatever…  I didn't care.  And then as we were walking up the hill behind the others, in silence, Jimmy took my hand.  Lightly.  He didn’t just hold it though, he was feeling it.  Exploring my hand.  Lightly feeling my fingers and the skin and really taking in what my hands were like. 

We didn’t say a word.  I just let him hold my hand until we got to the top and someone threw an arm around him leading him off to the guys.  No one even noticed that we’d been close.  Later on I looked over at Jimmy and he looked back at me.  No talking.  No smile this time.  He was just looking back at me.  Pretending to listen to everyone talking shit around us but I knew that all he was thinking about was me.  And now he’s gone.  Why’d he go?  Someone said he was involved in drugs.  I dunno about that.  But then I could imagine him getting onto a motorbike and driving off into the distance.  I suppose I’ll just dream about where he could be until he comes back.  I won’t give up.  Whenever he comes back, I don’t care when, I’ll be waiting.  I’ll run up and scruff up his hair and laugh.  And then I’d probably yell at him before crying into his chest.  I wonder if he thinks about me.  Wherever he is.  Jimmy, where are you?  Where are you.

Train.

The train creaks and hums as it moves away from the station, gaining speed city fading into the distance.  The sky is grey, though the sun seems to shine from elsewhere and light up the fields now passing.  Her eyes droop.  She struggles to stay awake.  Flying past flat landscape of broken suburbs and rubbish piles.  A kind of meditative lull, nothing to take her attention and so the rumble of the engine moving slight vibrations through her body sends her into a disturbed sleep.  Memories dance in front of her eyes.  She’s sitting at the bridge.  A glass of red wine in her right hand, the bottle in her basket.  Just sitting, looking at the lights.  Enjoying some peace and quiet in a place where no one finds her and everyone just rides past.  The stone is cold beneath her bottom, it feels like her jeans are getting wet.  The wine colours her lips and cheeks.  Throwing her leg over the other side of the wall, she sits now facing the water.  Back to the road, eyes on the horizon where sunlight is threatening but not breaking through.  The moment of peace allows for thoughts to rise that had previously been drowned out by work and rushing and packing.  A knot pulls at the inside of her throat, as if tying her oesophagus together.  A weight in her stomach, a heaviness in her chest.  She looks down at the wine and sighs.  Another sip.  Drink.  Drinking will help.  The warmth of the alcohol soothes her heart, to no avail.  A tear escapes her right eyes and sits for a moment on the top of her cheek bone.  The neon lights reflect in the little world of water, before it dissipates into a small patch of wetness beneath her eye.  And then, a voice. 
“Hey…”

She jumps out of her skin.  Her head falls from her hand and hits the glass, startling her.  She blinks for a few moments before surrendering a little to the memory.  The feeling.  The sadness.  Outside the grey suburbia has been replaced by green fields filled with many sheep.  Some mountains grow on the horizon and everything seems so luscious.  There has been a lot of rain recently.  Too much.  Australia:  The Land of Extremes, she thinks.  Floods one day, fires the next.  Forgetting the feelings that had risen just a moment ago, she lifts a hand up to the window and takes in the bright green hills and fields before she clicks her fingers and closes her eyes.  A mental photo.  Soon enough it’ll all be yellow.  Or brown.  Dry.  Nothing left.  A piercing heat that exhausts.  The train slows a little and she becomes aware of the others in the carriage.  Soft low voices, a faint tinny beat of someone’s headphones, and the little screen displaying the next station - Lara.  Her attention drifts to outside again, where theres a continuous puddle where the ditch next to the opposite tracks has filled with a red water.  Red from the soil.  The Australian Earth.  Again a little twinge of something.  A longing?  A few people move around when the train stops.  Three young people take the seat of four opposite.  Two girls and a guy.  The girls both have thick makeup on, the boy looks like he doesn’t shower.  Their voices are drowned out by the ever humming, creaking train and her eyes close again.

She brushes the tear away as she turns to say hello.  She indicates to the bottle in the basket of her bike.  He climbs up onto the bridge next to her and pulls to cork out of the bottle.  Taking a swig with his left hand, he puts an arm around her.  Silence ensues.  He looks at her looking down at her wine glass.  Rubbing her arm and hugging her tighter as if it’ll help.  His gaze wanders out to the sun threatening to break over the horizon.  The clouds wisp in the sky drawing patterns in the water beneath.  They sit in silence.  He smiles, sadly.  She doesn’t smile.  They sit there for a while.  A cyclist rides past blasting music with a boom box, that gets louder and louder and sounds like a train passing over tracks rattling.  Her head falls to her chest and she slips away again into the dream.  He’s standing down on the side of the bridge, down on the step. 
“Be careful,” she says with a laugh.  He looks ridiculous.  Holding the wine bottle in one hand and pissing into the lake with the other.  He starts to sing a song.  The words are too far away to get to, but the tone comes through.  He wobbles a bit but doesn’t fall.  She dangles her legs swinging them a little, enjoying the moment.  Holding onto the moment.  Trying to.  His song becomes a hum and he’s humming as he climbs back up.  Pulling his belt and juggling the wine bottle but he fades away and it all falls back to where it came from.  

“Arriving at Geelong.  Geelong next stop.”  Yep.  She’s back.  Again the twinge inside.  As if someone were pinching at her lungs, heart and sternum.  Prodding at her body inducing emotion that didn’t seem to match her conscious thought.  A deep breath, jacket on and onto the next part of the journey.  Wetsuit dangling out of her bag.

Swimming in the Sky

She brings her hand to her forehead.  Her mind is swimming.  The earth is spinning.  She closes her eyes for a moment, no - she screws her face up attempting to straighten everything out.  Her breath is noticeably heavy, a slight layer of sweat settling on her bare skin.  There's a faint sound of bass, rumbling through the ground from far away.  It slithers up through her feet into her body, but she cannot work out which direction it's coming from.  She stands still, holding her head.  Voices whisper and laugh around her.  They tell her she's pathetic and weak.  They tell her she's done for.  Out here, all alone.

Still, she cannot see.  Attempting to open her eyes, hands pressed into her temples.  Nothing is clear.  The sun blares down around her.  The earth dry and grass sharp beneath her feet.  "Hello?"  She's all alone.  No memory of how she got there, no memory of how to get back.  Where are they?  A cicada starts to croak and sing close by.  Her senses work to piece together more of a story.  She notices the cracking of her dry tongue moving inside her rusty, corrugated mouth.  The skin around her eyes screams as she squints against the light.  Cheeks flushed, prickling and stinging.  Sunburnt.  Hands shield from the light but the rest of her body starts to sear.  Burn.  Ache.  How did she get here?

Anxiety kicks in.  Her breath is a wheeze and cough.  The sound of music nearby is carried around the hills.  Never quite in any direction.  She closes her eyes again, sun splitting nails in her head.  Her forehead cracking into pieces of broken ceramic.  A heaviness in her head distracting her from any sense of direction.  A thud and thumping throb that pushes her around.  Too tired to think.  Too exhausted to cry.  She sits.  Lies back.  Lying on heated ground, grass tickling her skin.  Front warmed by the sunlight blanketing the scene.  She surrenders to the moment, surrenders to the situation.  No clue where she is.  No clue how long she'll be there for.  No water.  Not a soul in sight or sound.  

Again, she tries to open her eyes.  This time she's able to make out shades of colour and as her eyes adjust the clouds jump out at her.  From where she's lying, she feels like she's under water.  Looking at clouds from below an ocean.  Below the surface.  They hover and dance in the sky, changing colours and meaning.  Sometimes they're light, sometimes they're heavy.  She lies there, observing.  Enjoying.  Lost in the mysteries of life, completely forgetting how lost or desperate she was a moment ago.  The clouds are calming, and make her want to fly.  She closes her eyes, and wishes for a pair of wings.  To have wings and fly through the sky so free like a fish in the sea.  Fish can swim, birds fly, and we walk.  Walking seems so hindered though.  We're slow and inhibited by distance and forces.  Belief.

She lies there, swimming in the sky.  Skin slowly turning to a crisp, burnt red.  And then, smiling she starts to laugh.  Laughing, rolling around in the dirt.  Laughing and laughing.  Alone.  Footsteps sound nearby, coming down the hill.  She holds her breath with a gasp.  Shocked at the entrance of the outside world into her dreamland.  Her little moment of imagination.  The steps become a running and they're running down the hill towards her.  
"Hey!  Hey!  Thank god!  We've been looking for you everywhere..  Shit, are you okay?!"

Looking up at them, they seem so tall.  Looming over her.  The world starts to spin again and she covers her eyes and face with her hands.  
"I'm so dizzy!"

They help her up and give her water.  It trickles into the cracks in her mouth, soothing her body and mind.  Water calms her and the anxiety dissipates into something that never was.  Still not quite able to look straight or catch eye contact, she looks to the sky.  
"I couldn't find my way back, so I went for a swim."  There is no water anywhere to be seen. 

All together again, they head up the hill back towards the beating drums and music echoing around the valley.  She continues to look to the sky as they help her walk, her feet carrying her towards safer ground - her mind carrying her to the stars.

Sometimes

Sometimes I go to a place.  My place.  Somewhere serene.  The sole purpose just to 'be alone'.  I don't think when I'm there.  It's not a time where I sit with my head resting on one hand, considering all of the things happening in my life.  The pressures of decisions of direction.  You know, we all ask the same question.  "What do you do?"  Conditioning everyone else to believe that it is of importance.  Adding to everyone's anxieties.  I don't believe it is.  Not really.  I mean, isn't it more important who we are?  Here I am, asking questions when I wasn't going to think.  I have a few spots that I go to, to clear my head.  Generally they're up high somewhere.  There's usually a consistent wind or breeze that flows through.  A cold one.  One that bites at my cheeks and makes me hug my coat in closer.  It wakes me up, as if I've dived into a cold pool of water.  Sometimes I'll smoke.  I don't know why I do that.  Why I go to higher places or why I smoke.  The cold wind tells me that I'm not alone.  That these negative energies and pressures are just a part of the life we flow through.  It tells me that everything is as it should be, and that I should stop complaining.  It carries stories from afar, energies from nearby and around.  It flows through the trees around me that whisper stories they have heard, passed along from faraway forests.  Whispers and stories.  Wisdom.  Comfort.  I hug myself.  To keep out the cold but also just to hug myself.  On the drive there I'm usually tense, sad, anxious.  Or numb.  The busy life we live in cluttering my mind.  Replaying episodes in my mind that stress me.  Sometimes it feels like everyone else has a plan.  Everyone else knows where they're headed and what they're doing.  They all love their jobs, studies, and have it all sorted.  Why else would they ask me what my plan is?  I drove to the beach the other day.  Early in the morning.  It was a beautiful morning, but I couldn't let go of this feeling that something bad was going to happen.  I almost wanted it to.  Driving there I thought that it would actually be nice for something to happen out of my control.  I wouldn't have to think about the things in my control.  Like the decisions of direction.  My "plan".  Instead I flicked through radio stations, trying to distract myself from the boring drive on the M1.  Voices making me tense, songs making me anxious.  Hoping that it would help to be somewhere serene and silent.  I pulled into the empty gravel carpark.  Climbed over the fence and pushed through the shrubs ignoring the warning sign.  A little man falling off a cliff along with chunks of earth, and a hazard symbol.  The one that always makes me think of Harry Potter's lightening bolt scar.  Eroding cliffs or something.  I just figured that they wouldn't erode where I was.  I mean, what was the chance of that?  The word erode even sounds like something that happens over thousands of years.  Reminds me of year ten geography class.  Mr what-was-his-name-again??'s dull voice saying "erosion" too many times in a sentence.  I sat down a few feet away from the edge.  Heart race increasing a little, instinct telling me I was too close.  I pushed it out of my mind though, along with everything else that was back where I came from.  The water was magnificent.  So immense.  Never ending.  Powerful.  The effect of it was silence.  Cleansing silence.  Surrendering to the beauty took a weight of my heart and shoulders.  The wind told me that everything was as it should be.  That I was strong enough and would make it out alive.  The birds nearby tweeted and twittered, singing happy little songs completely ignoring me.  There were a few surfers out further down the coast.  Tiny dots in such a large ocean.  Playing around on little waves sent in from out there.  Wherever that was.  I lay back on the ground, still cool and damp from the night.  Closing my eyes I let it all go.  All the little things, the little worries and pressure and expectations.  We're all as small as those surfers.  The busy lives just help to conceal how meaningless it all is.  We're little black dots on a huge planet that we don't even understand.  Lying there with my eyes closed, I surrendered to it.  Whatever it was.  To being.  In this messy world we've created.  And as I lay there, I heard a cracking noise of sorts.  I could feel it underneath me.  I stayed put, I didn't move.  My heart raced and mind froze, waiting.  Soft low thuds told me earth was hitting the beach far below.  When it stopped, I realised I wasn't breathing and gasped filling my lungs with air that I somehow felt I'd never taste again.  Air so sweet.  Fresh with life.  Did that happen?  Adrenaline opened my eyes and slowly I lifted my head to assess the damage.  A tree that had been a few metres to the left of me was gone.  I rolled over onto my stomach and half crawled, dragged myself away from the cliff edge.  On the way back to town, I realised that my cheeks were drenched with tears.  I was crying.  For the first time in as long as I could remember.  All I could think about were the little happy birds chirping.  And I couldn't stop crying.

Street

The first time I set eyes on her, I didn’t notice her at all.  She was preoccupied with work, moving around the restaurant dealing with various customers.  They all had their requests and questions, and she managed them with a look of disinterest on her face and a blasé nature in her body.  Very casual.  Relaxed, but in the way that could be taken as an insult.  It didn’t look like she was thinking about anything else, it wasn’t that.  She could have been day dreaming of what she would do when she got off.  Again, it wasn’t that.  It was simply that she didn’t care about the people coming in.  Perhaps she had worked there for too long, or had dealt with too many people in her time.  She wasn’t there for the customers, she was there to earn money.  Well, I was one of the customers.  I’d gone in on a date.  A coffee date.  We hadn’t called it a date, but I knew his real intentions.  Yeah yeah, he said he was inspired to help me with my project.  Yeah yeah, sure.  I call bullshit.  So I was sitting across from him, listening to an endless stream of stories of which I zoned out for most of them.  I truly believe he only invited me to coffee to sit there and listen to himself talk the whole time.  To sit there and feel good about his own achievements and that time he fought of a shark in the ocean and saved a little girl that was swimming out deeper than she should have been and her parents met him on the beach and everyone was crying and he got onto the front page of the - whatever.  Shut the fuck up.  I wish I had told him to shut the fuck up.  A black ball was growing inside my middle.  Not my stomach, but that part just below the ribcage.  It probably would have burst at some stage, only I got distracted.  He was talking, telling another story, words pouring out of is stupid mouth.  Sitting up straight with his chest puffed up like a parrot.  His head cocked to one side and eyes looking at his hands that were wrapped around his coffee.  I could almost see the yellow crest stretching out from the top of his head.  A cockatoo.  The irony.  I can’t really remember how I was sitting.  I know that I wasn’t sitting up straight, on the edge of my chair, eyes only for his pretty face.  I’d long since finished my short black - no sugar - and was fiddling with the edge of my books.  Feeling each spiral on my notebook, as if counting them.  I wasn’t counting.  I looked around us.  Now when I write about it, I wonder why I stayed seated.  Why did I feel I had to be polite?  He had offered to help me with my thesis.  Why not just call him out?  Perhaps it was more enjoyable to sit and watch someone like that, than awkwardly call the whole thing to a close.  My back was against the chair, bum slid forward.  Shoulders slumped.  My hair was out, messy.  My hand crawled into my jacket pocket, searching for cigarettes.  A subconscious idea for escape.  I flicked open the lid, slid out one cigarette, tapped it a few times on each end - why do we do that? - put it between my lips and spoke through them saying I’d be back.  I wrapped my scarf three times around my neck and walked outside.  It was only 3 o’clock, but it was pretty much dark.  There were a few people sitting outside, drinking mulled wine and smoking.  Funny that somehow drinking is acceptable anywhere and anytime in this city.  How summer and sunshine is an excuse to drink beer at any time of the day and night, and winter chill and darkness is an excuse to drink mulled wine or anything really at any time of day and night.  A city of alcoholics.  Happiest Country in the World.  Yes.  That’s for another day though.  I stood outside, enjoying my cigarette.  It was then that I noticed her.  She had darted outside to clear a few things off tables.  It would have been 5 degrees.  I watched as the chill rose the skin and hair of her pale arms.  She didn’t change though.  Didn’t change expression.  Her lips were perhaps a little more pursed.  A woman in fur asked for another mulled wine, slightly slurring her words, holding her cigarette out as if it were the 20’s.  Blondie didn’t react at all.  Didn’t nod, didn’t shake her head, didn’t say a word.  However, a few minutes later she returned with another mulled wine for the woman in fur.  Communication at its best.  I drew in the last of my cigarette, accentuated as if drawing in courage to return to my table.  Though as I smothered the embers into the ground, her image floated in my mind and a curiosity tickled at the back of my head.  For the next hour, I sat with another cup of something warm, allowing Mr Story to continue to talk stories at me while I dreamily observed this character wander around the restaurant in the most laid back way I’d ever seen.  I wouldn't even have been surprised if she had put her feet up herself, with a drink in her hand.  That’s the day it started, I suppose.  It was the day I first set eyes on her.

Moments

Do you keep secrets?  Have you ever done something crazy, and not told anyone?  

I'm sitting here asking, because something whack happened on the way home the other night.  I'm asking myself why I have the urge to tell someone.  What happened to being satisfied just knowing it yourself?  We share everything.  What we eat, where we are, what we achieve, who we're with.  I feel like we've all got our fingers in our ears, eyes closed and we're yelling at the top of our lungs "look at me!  Look at me!"  No one listening to each other.

I'm just wondering what has happened to the relationship with the self.  There's so much clutter.  Everyone wants to look busy, and perhaps everyone is keeping themselves busy so they don't ever have to stop and see what there is underneath it all.  I can't speak for anyone else of course.  That's true.  All I can speak from is my own experience.  I just feel like we're always trying to 'one up' each other.  The stories, achievements and experiences.  Look at me!  Look at me!  And if we don't post the amazing things we're doing, then we feel small compared to everyone else that's bombarding us with their great lives and successes.

There's a certain satisfaction, a nice buzzing in the stomach and a fulfilling wholeness, when you do something and keep it to yourself.  A little secret.  Or a moment enjoyed.  Just like this sunrise.  I was riding home and got completely taken by the beauty of it.  I found myself standing at the edge just looking.  Breathing.  Existing completely in that moment.

Then there's the other side of it.  That sharing experiences is even better.  Connected.  I'm not talking about those moments though.  I'm not saying we should lock ourselves away.  The experiences I'm talking about are the ones that happen when you are alone.  It could even be something as simple as sitting reading the newest bestseller with your morning coffee, when a kookaburra swoops down and sits a metre away from you laughing.  Is the natural response just to look up and enjoy the moment, or is it to grab the phone and take a photo or status "OMG..." on Facebook.

It's all this that makes me want to move to a little house in a beach town and spend the rest of my days living a simple life.  If I disappear off the radar one day, I'm probably sitting on a verandah with a coffee, reading a book and enjoying the connection with random birds that swoop down to peck at the crumbs left over on the plate from lunch at my feet.  I saw a poster recently that said "I MISS MY PRE INTERNET BRAIN."  Ha.

And here I am having jotted down thoughts without telling you what happened the other night.  So I'll walk away with that little adventure kept to myself and the satisfaction of knowing that I've got a secret.

Her fingers sifted through the little signs of Spring

They were little suns on thin branches.  A disarray of little blossoms leaving a thick scent in the air.  Her nose tickled and eyes began to water as she mindlessly continued to play with the things.  Her fingers sifted through the little signs of Spring, fingertips noting the ever slight prickle and tiny spikes.  The sun was shining down on the little scene, though not yet blaring heat over her body.  It wasn't time for that yet.  No sweat beaded down her neck and no skin burned.  She took her hand out of the spiders web of gold, wiping her dripping nose on the back of it.  Her hand glistening in the light.  Nose blocked, her lips parted and she proceeded to breathe lightly with a little noise to it.  The dirt and stones under her feet crunched as she looked down the footpath.  A few bull ants scuttled around her shoes.  A bird sang out nearby.  A magpie or currawong.  Smiling, she snapped a bit of the Wattle off and continued down the path.  Unable to spot the bird singing its song for her.  Her feet were sore with blisters and her bag weighed a tonne.  It didn't matter though.  The soft breeze brushed her wild hair, carrying the wafts of light curls to tickle her pink freckled cheeks.  The walk was peaceful.  Sky blue, not many clouds.  Wattles lined the path the entire stretch, and a flock of Black Cockatoos squawked as they flew off into the distance.  Probably scared by everyone ahead.  She stuck the Wattle branch into her hair and fastened her pace.  When she came around the next bend, she found everyone lying down in a clearing.  They'd fallen onto their backs, lying splayed out on their heavy packs, all grinning from ear to ear.  
"We thought you'd gotten lost."
"Stuck in a daydream..?"
"Knew you wouldn't be far behind..."
"Nice Wattle you got there..."
They cooed little endearments at her, teasing her dreamy ways.  Walking closer she half squatted and let herself fall back onto her own pack, lying out on the ground like a turtle on its back.  Arms and legs wiggling and writhing.  They all laughed.  The light sun and yellow flowers, thick perfumed air and soft breeze had washed all worries away.  Out here, nothing else existed.  They were friends on this day.  Calm.  Present.  Together.  Sharing food and water and tales of past and future.  Sharing dreams and desires, frets and fears.  Nothing else mattered.  Nothing else existed.

~

Mt Macedon

The voices got fainter and fainter the deeper I walked into the forest.  Occasional laughter would ring out and bounce between the trees.  They hadn't noticed.  Or maybe they had and were letting me float off like I usually did.  Only this time we were out in bush.  I wanted to be able to find my way back, albeit also wanting to get lost.  What a strange desire.  To get lost.  What did that mean?  Why did I want to get lost?  So they'd have to find me?  A plea for attention?  No.  I think, I think I wanted to see what would happen.  Testing the universe in some way.  I sometimes have this feeling that there is a world out there we don't experience, precisely because we don't wander or let ourselves just - well - get lost.  I mean, who just gets up and wanders?  Wanders into the wild?  No compass.  No GPS.  Who just - walks?  I was probably Alice inspired, wondering if there was another world out there.  Just the same way I would sit for hours and hours on end in the chicken coop.  I'd shut the door behind me, and sit there as still as can be, waiting for the mice to come out.  And they would.  When they did, there was a whole city of them running to and fro.  Picking up pieces of this, moving some of that.  Greeting and meeting each other.  Slipping into little holes and reemerging.  A whole world.  I liked to observe.  Here I was, about the same time, wandering in a forest.  I wanted to get lost.  Surely there was something out here.  Maybe not another world, but I just wanted to see what would happen.  What would happen if I didn't follow the rules.  Didn't do what was expected.  Wandering off into the trees.
              I'd walked quite a bit further now.  I couldn't hear their voices anymore.  Only the trickle of water nearby and the soft rustle of leaves in the trees above.  It was colder here.  Damp too.  My breath even condensed in the air.  Goosebumps rose and travelled from my hands up my arms, sending a shiver down my neck.  Still, I walked.  The ground was soft.  Wet.  Muddy.  A mixture of moss and grass and mud.  I came to a clearing and stood looking up around me.  The trees were tall.  "Cooee!"  My voice echoed around.  Some birds screeched and flew off out of their branches.  A little voice in the back of my head started to pull.  Asking me what I was doing - what I was planning to do.  The little voice that said I wasn't prepared for a whole night out here.  I looked around.  Searching for anything.  Waiting for something.  I don't know how long I stood there for, but at some point there came a great crashing noise nearby.  A wombat, I supposed.  Or a kangaroo.  To my astonishment and shock, a hunched old man came bashing through the shrubbery with a stick.  His skin was weathered and hung off his cheek bones like melted cheese.  He was wearing a hat, but it had long since lost its functionality.  It drooped on each side, hiding his ears.  Similarly, his clothes were falling to pieces.  His eyes were distant.  Coming into the same clearing, he stopped when he saw me.  We stood there, staring at each other for a few minutes.  He waddled closer and peering down at me with suspicion before demanding "who're you?!"
              I told him my name and asked if he knew how to get back.  He was still unsure of who I was wandering in his forest, but he nodded and walked forward with his stick propping him up.  We hadn't walked 20 metres, when he turned around and prodded me with his stick.  He then indicated down at a large beetle crossing the path in front of us.  He looked up at me, and back to the beetle.  Up at me, and back to the beetle.  Pointing at it with his skeletal fingers.  I didn't do anything, so he sighed, bent over and picked it up, holding it between his fingers.  Its legs were moving wildly as it tried to escape its demise.  The old man then let it walk onto his tongue, before I heard a loud crunching from inside his mouth.  "Mmhmm."  We continued on.  Though, at some point the old man left me just as abruptly as he had appeared.  I think he forgot I was there.  I roughly knew the direction I was going in.  A few metres in front of me, he whacked a bush with his stick and dived into the shrubbery.  I heard the bush whacking and crashing until it kind of became the same sounds as the trees above and my boots squishing on moss and through mud.  A laugh rang out through the trees, bouncing about and landing in my ears.  Mum.  About a hundred metres away I estimated.  The air wasn't as cold, and the sun was breaking through.  It shined down onto the forest floor in front of my feet.  Which is when I saw it.  A beetle.  Quite large.  And black.  Scuttling over the forest floor, unaware of my presence.  I squatted down, sitting just above the ground.  I cupped my hand over it, to capture it first.  And then carefully took it between my fingers.  Thumb on its belly, index finger on its back.  It was worried now.  Head and body wiggling, legs frantically searching for solid ground.  Bringing it closer to my nose, I sniffed it.  Nothing.  To my ears, I thought I could hear it quietly screaming.  Were there more around?  Did it have friends?  Was it going somewhere, or was it just wandering?  I sat there, staring at this beetle for a while.  Another cackle made its way through the trees, tickling my ears.  They were close by.  I'd go back, in a moment.  Sternly, looking into the eyes of this little creature.  I apologised, opened my mouth, and let it walk onto my tongue.  It scuttled around.  Walking over teeth, the roof of my mouth and started down the back of my throat.  Without even meaning to, my mouth was sent into reflex action.  The tongue pushed it back into my mouth between my teeth and my teeth chomped down.  It didn't taste great.  I wondered if it was poisonous.  But the old man seemed alright, so I assumed I would be.  Swallowing, I searched for water.  Something to take the taste out of my mouth.  I walked back to the party instead.  No one had noticed I was gone.  Everyone was laughing, talking.  I picked up a stray glass of champagne off a table, sat down next to our car a little further away and sipped it.  No one noticed me drinking either.  It was thick in some way.  Not like lemonade.  And the bubbles were smaller.  They were perfect for removing beetle guts.  Huh, beetle guts.  I climbed into the car, curled up on the back seat and fell asleep.  Only to wake up in the dark, with mum pushing me gently to say "we're home, honey.  Come on.  Did you have a good time?"  They helped me down the stairs and tucked me into bed.  I didn't tell them about the man.  Nor the beetle and champagne.  I knew then though, I knew that Alice was right.  If you wandered off, things happened.  Adventures happened.  I smiled and slipped off into a dream.

Australia

View fullsize

Bells Beach, Victoria Australia

We sat in the car for a little while.  Could have been checking out the swell for all anyone would have known.  We’d driven the whole way without stopping, sunrise in front of us most of the way.  Sky going from dark to dawn.  That hazy blue that takes over everything.  As if it’s a thicker colour to any other time of the day.  Driving down coastal roads, speeding along the gravel.  Headlights caught a kangaroo on the side of the road a little way back.  He was just perched there.  Looking straight at us.  A small one.  I’m always surprised at how calm they are when faced with cars.  I would imagine we look like these big, powerful animals that kill on impact, but the animals never seem to care.  They just stay perched, little paws might give a scratch behind the ear before leaning forward into a small hop and another hop off into the bushes.  I’ve never hit a kangaroo.  

The heater was blowing dry air around us.  I bit the nails on my right hand and tapped my left knee with the other.  Triple R's monotone voices tried to soothe us.  He let out a heavy sigh.  I didn't ask why.  I just stared, looking out over the cliffs.  There were a few people out.  A small swell.  Beautiful conditions with a light that shone silver across the water.  I looked at him.  He didn't say anything.  He continued to stare straight out the windscreen.  I looked down at my tapping hand and stopped biting my nails.  My jaw clenched instead.  I looked out the window away from him, not knowing what to do or say.  The tension was unchanging.  It just hung in the air.  Sitting there wouldn't do anything, we weren't talking anyway.  All that was happening was pretending to look at the swell, pretending to listen to Triple R, and pretending to have a conversation.  Pretending pretending pretending.  We weren't conversing.  Plenty to discuss and talk about, but all he could do was sigh.  I can't really blame him for that though, I couldn't get anything out - either.  At least he was able to take a deep breath in occasionally and let out some form of noise.  All I did was chip away at my broken nails and tap my left leg as if I had a nervous twitch or paranoia.

    I got out.  Opened the boot.  Dragged out my board.  He didn't say anything.  Just kept staring straight ahead.  Wax.  Wetty on.  Zip.  Still nothing.  The boot slammed shut.  He could have said something, perhaps let out another sigh, but I wouldn't have known.  He was inside now, and I was out.  The cold already nipping at my toes.  Asphalt digging into my uncalloused Winter feet.  Opening the front door again to grab a few hair ties, I paused to look at him.  He tilted his head to one side and looked down at my hands as they scurried through my bag.  Showing no expression, he said nothing.  Didn't even look at me when I asked "you coming?"  On the way down the path, the gravel scratched at my feet and drizzle chilled me.  A couple of guys nodded as they passed me walking back up from the beach.  Then it was my turn to sigh.  I let out a bit of noise with it too.  Tried it out.  Why not.  When my board hit the water and I started to paddle, the silence between us didn’t seem so scarring.  Each wave I pushed under was a shock to my body; my hands were aching and eyes were filled with salt water.  I couldn't really work out what was ocean and what were tears.  Each stroke gave me power for the next.  Once past the break everything was a little more peaceful.  Like I said, only a couple of guys out.  Spread out far enough, waiting.  The silver water and light wind.  A beautiful morning.  

    Without warning, I started to shake my fists splashing in the water - they must’ve thought I was mad.  I was shaking my body and yelling out.  Letting it out.  The tension from the hot car and ice cold silence.  I yelled and screamed and took it out on the silky water around me until I felt like an idiot.  No one batted an eyelid, not that I looked at their eyelids.  Stopping up for a moment, I was panting.  Mouth open.  Chest moving up and down with each breath.  Exhausted.  Emotionally exhausted.  I slipped off my board, held my breath and let myself sink below the surface.  Ice cold water hugged my body and enveloped my head, which throbbed and ached.  Opening my eyes I searched through the dark clouded water for something, anything.  Seaweed drifted around me and below me the water was just dark.  I couldn’t see the bottom.  My lungs started to whine, searching for air.  Survival instinct kicking in.  How do people manage to drown themselves?  It was hard enough just to stay under for a little peace and quiet.  I burst out of the water, gasping.  The sun had broken through a small crack in the clouds.  The cliffs shone a warm orange for a moment and the silver water reflected the sparkling light.  Between the water splashing, the wind and my own thoughts I heard someone yell "out back!”  so I crawled back onto my board and let it all go.  I let it go and got ready for the set that was about to come in.

Lost.

Photo: Mount Macedon, Victoria Australia.

Everything was still.  The trees, the air, the fog.  It hung like a sheet.  Suffocating.  No sounds of cars approaching, no sounds of anything.  She stood there, swaying a little.  Looking around in each direction, wondering if someone would come along.  She hugged herself, clasping at her body, clinging to her own clothes for warmth.  Hair damp, stuck to her cheeks.  A tear, rolling.  Lips blue.  Purple.  Open.  And her breath.  Gasping.  Choking on her own saliva, she coughed and swallowed whilst looking back again.  A little sob, exasperation and despair.  Sharp breath in.  With each exhale, a nervous hum and whirring from inside her tightening chest.  Breathing becoming difficult.  She turned again, and started to walk.  Stumble.  Her bare feet hit the wet asphalt, grazing her skin with each step.  Feet numb.  Fingers numb.  One step fell into another; soon she began to run.  A bird called out, flying overhead.  Crying.  Screaming.  Calling out to her, a warning.  She fell.  On her knees, she cradled her hands.  Red raw from impact.  Another sob shook through her shrinking body.  Wiping tears from her face and pushing hair out of her eyes, she looked up ahead.  A new determination burning in her eyes.  Hope.  A possibility.  A way out.  Getting up, curiosity and caution slowing her movements, she continued on.  Listening out.  Wondering.  Concentrating.  Ignoring the cold eating at her skin, or the now wet clothes that tried to bring her down.  Looking up at the sky, she screamed at another bird cutting through the grey.  A sharp noise that came from a strength within.  Another scream.  A yell.  As if demanding an answer from the bird.  It gave her energy.  Woke her up.  Still stumbling, struggling to walk through the fog with numb feet on a cold road, she had made a choice.  The choice not to give up.  No noise escaped her lungs when she exhaled.  No sobs shook through her body.  And, then, a noise.  She snapped up immediately.  Ears pricked, standing straight.  Frozen.  A car.  Not too far away.  Coming up the mountain, somewhere in the fog.  Scrambling off the road she fell through bushes and ferns, and landed on her back.  The cold wasn't nipping at her anymore.  She couldn't feel it.  Adrenaline had taken over.  A warmth, an energy.  Survival.  She lay there for a moment, panting.  Watching her breath condense in the sharp air before getting up.  Climbing back onto the road.  And walking on.  One foot in front of the other.  She'd get there.  She'd get there.

~