The Dreamers

I was standing bent down in a stationary store when it began. It was fall and tumbling, colourful leaves outside made me think back to an idyllic childhood of long ago. Turning the aisle in front of me was a beautiful boy who looked like my brother of six back home. A man called out in the manner of the famous "troll in the dungeon" cry from Harry Potter, but there was nothing humorous to his voice. As the siren began wailing the deep voice echoed through the room "Start hurting the children!" and I lined up behind the six-year-old. There was a feeling in the air of violence and destruction, and although our instructions were hardly evident, we all knew it was north against south. As he and I ran down the blocked, concrete stairs I caught a glimpse of a woman standing on the sidewalk below. She looked terrified and was shaking in the rain as if she knew was was going on and could not stop it. I understood in my own mind that she was one of those lucky ones who would shortly be picked up by a black and un-identified Mercedes to watch the ensuing spectacle of horrible, implemented anarchy from afar. The main exit out of the complex was closed by blood thirst and dead bodies, reminding me of images from the Sierra Leonean civil war of the 1990's. I still didn't know the boy's name, but a kind voice inside me yelled out the responsibility I now had for him. As we crossed the parking lot, two reporters passed us, wearing colourful clothing, calm smiles and accompanied by quiet bird chatter in spring. In their hands was a red recording device and as we passed them I could overhear their documentation of the boy's footwear: "In spite of popular opinion about the extinction of Allstar Converse shoes in Canada, I just passed a first-grader wearing a green pair." As I though about the bizarre statement, I could see the odd pair turning a corner that seemed closed to the rest of us, before they were gone. The boy and I were standing beneath a concrete ceiling, few metres from an open, clear exit when I heard a hysteric voice behind us and turned to face a gun. "North side, right?" said the panicked man with an absurd smile, while pointing the gun steadily at me. As it began moving towards the boy, I grabbed hold of it and waited for what I knew would come. There was only silence. Mere seconds later I could see half of my index finger's longitudinal side blown off and as I felt nothing but fear, a woman behind me released three fatal shots into the man's head.

When I woke up, rain was pouring down on my metal roof and my heart was beating at an uncomfortably high speed. Through the wet sheets of the night, black men were moving at a quick pace and I felt like collecting markers in a stationary store once again.

Late night grooves

It's always around twelve o'clock the rush starts up again. After the smooth, gorgeous main act has long ago packed up and the musos from waapa have started their set-up for the late night groove sessions. It kicks off at the Ellington jazz club around midnight and the till by which I'm sitting starts chiming and clinging again. I've been working in late night hospitality for nearly six months now; some nights have been rougher than the next, others fantastic. What keeps us all going though, inevitably, is the continuous flow of Perth customers, dressed up in their swag and high heeled shoes, determined for yet another night on the town. And in the wee hours of a Saturday or Sunday morning, doing woodwork in some obscure corner or carrying wine and glasses to the bar, I haven't been able to help but wonder: what keeps 'em coming back? I can understand the rare I-got-absolutely-smashed-and-can't-remember-a-thing-phenomenon or even the odd hangover that drags your body through a blue Sunday. Even a regular meet with good friends for a few pints and a laugh can appeal to me. But what strikes me as an absolute myth is the desire for a non-stop, repetitive and never-ending high-heeled, short dress, heavy make-up, unlimited tequila shots, uncountable pick-up lines extravaganza that doesn't just happen once every so often or even every month. It strikes me as insane when it happens all the time. Like EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. I cannot for the life of me begin to comprehend the absolute madness that so many in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and even sixties feel ticking into their biological party clock come Friday that drives them to once again go through the fun times followed by the excruciating ones. But I suppose I should be happy; these are the insane ones that keep my paycheck coming on the regular.

(untitled)

So it is, the loner sits
at bottoms of empty stairs
waiting for someone to run
up or down
or have bottles broken to bits

Or maybe a gorgeous girl to come by
to pay for entry
at the loner's frown

while the bartender mixes and shakes his drinks
all to a tango red twirl

The magic box on level four

I recently handed in the last assignment of my first semester at Curtin University. It was quite a thrilling moment; walking up the stairs (the flight after the elevator that only goes to level three), stapling the cover sheet and pages together, and finally dropping it all into the little opening labelled ASSIGNMENT DROPBOX in the Media, Culture and Creative Arts offices. I felt accomplished, complete and fully deserving of a Twix. Which was when the sensation hit me; even though I could physically see the pile of papers inside the mail box that I know are collected at 4 pm every day, I still couldn't help but imagine what a magical thing that drop box might be. There is the obvious fact of it only being reached by means of stairs that follow an elevator only going to level three. So that's exhibit A. Very Isla de Muerta from Pirates of the Caribbean, if you ask me ("It's an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is" - cue eerie, dark music). And then there's that feeling that once you drop your pages and allow them to hit the other pile below, they are somehow teleported to a different place. Like you let go of your words - the ones you were in control of just a moment ago - and send them flying out into the universe at rocket speed to some great abyss of the unknown. Images of offices filled with coffee-drinking, glass-wearing, somewhat insane professors all marking papers in a haste flashed across my mind. And that's when I began to realise that the only really magical thing about that drop box is that it gets filled by us crazy students in the first place.

Saturday Night Fever

Wake up, says the teacher
as the classroom is dismissed
by a new flow of insta-lows
to a life that don't exist

with the dreams and hookers and those strips
of cocaine gist
dies another failing year
that wouldn't seem to bare
the absolute rejection of the after-midnight list.


Wake up, says the doorman
as the final beats die out
to a freshly ground, street-like sound
pumping all about

in cities of dreams that crash down at dawn
and whither in the hands of those with clout -
waits the restless, spiked-as-fuck souls
all made up of doubt

Cause when a heart breaks, it don't break even.

The in between truly seems endless. When everything is too slow or too fast; too bitter or too sweet, and you're moving at a pace completely detached from what you thought was your life. You ask yourself the scary questions. Will I ever write again? Will it ever feel the same? Was that my shot? And you tear yourself apart, bleed the broken heart out and try to feel the emptiness at it slowly creeps up on you. The Script had it right; we don't break even. But the same goes for the mending. It comes in waves, like the beach you're too afraid to face because the last time you were on it, it was in that past life before everything broke and had to be picked up by your absolute and complete self. There are inbetweens in the in between, and sometimes your feelings will trick you and make you believe that it was over when it isn't. But eventually you realise that all you need is not love, but time. Time to let the pieces find each other again and become a brand new whole that now consists of one more experience you kinda wish you hadn't had, but kinda feel like you needed. And when your mind and heart begin to wrap themselves around that fact, things pick up. You opt for three jobs, two brand new and one old, but still new because you're approaching it from an entirely different perspective. You start smiling again, and laughing at the things that used to make you cry; you go to see sappy romantic movies such as Water For Elephants, and enjoy them on your own. The in between is still there, but it is not as strong or fierce as it used to be, and you start to see the end of what used to be a grave, horrid, long tunnel. It has become linear, instead of the repetitive cycle you pessimistically had begun to believe would never end, and it makes you feel good to know that even though the experience can never be forgotten, it can be left behind. So you start reading again, and cleaning the dishes after a meal, rather than leaving them for days. You delete the pictures you had hidden, but still saved, in the hope that you could one day take them out and see happiness, and it makes you feel good to do it. You begin to wake up feeling happy, and not incomplete at the empty other side of the bed. In fact, you place the pillow in the middle, so the whole thing is yours. And eventually, one day, you turn around while tending the bar to face a lovely young man who is smiling at you, without expectation or discontent or fear. Just a smile and piercing blue eyes, which lift you up for that one moment, while the amazing jazz music plays in the background and becomes the soundtrack to your own and finally deserved restoration.

Overweight

“Remember in the good old days, when you could take 30 kgs?” my friend Lindi says to me in an irritated voice after hearing the explanation for my pre-flight paranoia. I am 10 kgs overweight, and have very carefully packed my stuff together so that I will not get caught and have to go through another draining ninja move with my extensive excess luggage. Coming from Perth to Africa it had been a near-death experience. It seems, however, that human beings are always in the business of wanting more. Taking luggage, for example, my friend Lindi was right in her reminiscing about the insane amount of weight you could bring onto a plane ten or fifteen years back. But there was a weight limit back then, too. Which I’m sure was exceeded, like now. And eventually, like I tend to think I can always get away with a trivial six kilos, I’m sure the airlines stopped to think about how much they could get out of that exact craving in their passengers of wanting more. I can picture the board room meeting, where a brilliant apprentice says quietly to himself “I’d just make ‘em pay for it,” followed by the evolution of such an idea in the greedy CEO’s mind. And where does this leave me some years back? “You’re looking at about 200 dollars,” from an Irish woman who I have to explain the principle of electronic encoded visas in my passport to. That’s what I’m looking at. And still, it gets me thinking; do we always want more? And, much more to the point and so much more interesting; do we assume we can get away with it? These thoughts brought to me further philosophies about our relationship with good old Mother Earth. To me, the parallel is simple; like I tend to assume I can easily get away with an extra 10 kgs, I similarly tend to assume that the global exploitation of increasingly degrading natural resources will not affect my life. I can get away with my massive ecological footprint. I will always be able to throw my trash out into bins for someone to collect, and there will always be healthy salmon for me to purchase at the local Coles. But still, it gets me thinking. What if Mother Earth decides one day that she’ll make me pay for my overweight? I think I can say with fair certainty that the price won’t be in the form of an uncomfortable credit card bill in my mail box.