Pure

Yours

2011-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

"I love the way she grabs my head and pulls me to her during sex."

"Yeah, me too."

"Your girlfriend does that too?"

"Nope."

Pause while he works it out in his head.

cont'd:

The girlfriend walks in. "Hi honey," she says.

"Hi honey," they both say automatically.

Pause while they take stock of the situation.

how short a story is short enough

2011-11-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

The pillow smells like you.

Airport: ten minutes

2011-10-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

A girl is sitting at an airport cafe. She is waiting for someone. She is thinking about what she is going to say, what she should say, what she wants so say.

She should say, why isn't that girl you're hanging around with here to see you off?

She wants to say, i want you.

She is going to say, err hi.

She is watching him put his bags on the belt, make conversation with the other travellers, tuck the ticket into his pocket.

What am i going to say, she thinks.

He is coming over. He is popular, he is chatty, he is funny, he is going away.

This could be any airport, any cafe, any girl, any boy. But it isn't.

He is sitting down. Hey thanks for coming see me off, he says.

Err hi, she says.

They talk. She makes small talk, the kind of talk you have when you are on the cusp of something huge but you can't say so because you don't know or are not sure. How heavy are your bags, what do you think you'll do when you arrive, what is the exchange rate.

She wants so say something cool maybe. But it can't be cool. This could be the last time she sees him.

There's time before the flight leaves. She could say what she wants to before it leaves. It only takes a second. But it could be awkward silence after that. It would take hours. But if she doesn't say anything, it could be never before she'll get to try again.

She starts to talk. He answers a phone call. Other people are telling him to take care.

I should tell him to take care, she thinks. But who tells someone that until the moment before they leave?

He puts down the phone. Hey, he says. It's good to see you.

It's. . . good to see you too.

We still got a bit of time.

He doesn't want to go in too early cos there's nothing but waiting inside. But not too late that he'll miss it.

I wonder if i should hope he misses it, she thinks.

They talk some more. She doesn't tell him to take care. If there is too much time before shaking hands and departing, it loses urgency.

They start calling for boarding. I still have some time, he says. No need to get up.

She wants to tell him now. But she says, how are things.

If she waits too long, and tells him just before leaving, he will say let's talk when i get back. But a world lies between departure and coming back.

Come on, she says to herself. This is it.

The huge crowd of other travellers and well wishers with him descends upon him. She is lost in the tumult of jokey talk, catching up and quick references to his other life that doesn't include her. She wonders if she should leave, does she look like a lost puppy, sitting here doe-eyed. She might get up and go to the toilet and never come back. Then he introduces her to everyone, and she can't leave. It is nice to be introduced. I want to be introduced more. But does it mean i am important?

She keeps looking at the people introduced to her. It isn't easy to remember their names.

Can they see through me, she thinks. Can they tell what i am thinking? Do any of them feel the same way?

It is time. They are walking to the gate. It seems too much too soon.

He stops and lets the others go on ahead. He turns back, turns to her.

I think i need to run to the washroom, he says. Can you hold this for me?

Wait, she says, holding his bag. He looks at her.

I have something to tell you.

He wants to go but her tone stops him.

I see, he says. They just stand there. This is a strange time to tell me.

I couldn't wait any longer, she says.

Don't i need some time to absorb this?

Probably. She says.

He steps closer.

This is a big deal, he says.

I know, she says.

Someone is calling out to him. Later, he says, waving them off.

You know i have to go right?

She nods. She doesn't speak because she can't.

If i kissed you, would it be enough til i got back?

A pause.

I'll be really quick.

She shakes her head. Then she nods. Then she shakes her head again.

Kiss me and then we'll see.

In unfinished script form it starts thus:

1. Int airport cafe.

Wide of cafe. Unclear who is talking but it is two girls at a table.

Also, OS/ single of X.

X

... I don't think i should tell him. I couldnt do it. I dont dare to. What if he says --

T

If you dont say something now, you might not get the chance. A lot can happen inbetween now and then.

X

I want to. I should.

No, i just cant.

T

He is leaving. You cant wait any -- shit here he comes.

P

Hey you guys! Hey thanks for coming. I didnt expect you to come see me off.

X

Eh, hi. (to T) dont go anywhere.

T

Hey you know what, i see someone i know over there bye.

P

Hey the guys are all over

2011-10-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

I have a garden that's burning and a sky that's so white i have to squint. The heat is hot, just sweltering. I can feel the sweat soaking the cloth on my back, sticking clammy to my skin. I got dry grass like a crackle, parched soil like a concrete desert. In my mind, all i see is a glass of cold cold water.

songs to make you cry I

2011-06-01T19:52:00.003-07:00

I tell people I taught you everything you know.

When you were young and ate the sour apples from the tree outside my house, and trimmed my hedge, did my odd jobs, and sold lemonade door to door, I watched over you and told you how to climb the tree to reach the higher, sweeter fruit, how to get the lemonade mix just right. You dawdled outside my house one afternoon with a bloody nose, you lost a fight in school. It was the hardest thing not to just go right up and punch that kid in return, and instead tell you something about punching back yourself.

When you were grown I asked you to come and work with me. You wanted to be a pilot or a farmer, but I convinced you. We put on the overralls together, walked the halls together, ate in the cafeteria often. I always said that the company was there to provide, and not just the electricity to the punters in the faraway city, but to all of us living in the area, working our twelve hour shifts. I wanted it to provide for us all. I never listened to a bad word about the company. I never would accept anything but the company way.

Our schedules rotated out of sync, but we still met at break times and change over times. You exceeded me in every respect. Amongst my friends, my shift mates, and our seniors, you were no longer the protege, you were yourself. I was never prouder but on two occasions: the day you replaced me, and the day you took over my department. You married your high school sweetheart after years of waiting. I attended the wedding, and nearly cried when you said, he was like a father to me.

I'm so proud of you and I always say I taught you everything you know, but what I never say is the truth, that it is you who taught me everything. You are my whole family. I was a lonely shrivelled up old man till you fell from the low branch trying to reach those apples and I comforted you. I ate meals at my desk at work and never knew how to be proud of another person's success. I was a no better than a robot, thanks to you I learned how to have a heart. I knew this when we sipped tea in your new house and your son rested his head in the crook of my arm and mistook me for his grandfather.

And if this were a movie, this is where the music starts. I am old, but not useless. I retired not long after your wedding, but I have forgotten nothing. I am walking down the old hallway, I am opening the old familiar doors, and I will, for only the seventh time, put on the radiation suit and seal the helmet.

I heard that you are going into the sealed off zone. I heard that you were called and did not refuse. You are going to go in, leaving behind your wife and son and the small tidy house which amazingly survived the disastrous crash, and follow orders, maybe sort out this stricken mess. And maybe never come back.

I can't let you do that. I can't let you go and risk everything for a plot of earth and a letter of thanks to your familiy, or cancer over twenty years. I got you into this. I can't let your whole future disappear in a plume of smoke that already erupted on the day of the meltdown.

I am going to walk down the hallway, I have it all planned. I am going to the space in front of the metal airlocked door where you all have gathered. When the bell rings for standing up and calling numbers and entering through the door, I am going to pull you aside. Our colleagues are ready to change your name to mine on the register. They will pull you back, as I go in. The entry supervisor will call your number, but my name, to enter. I can do your job, which was mine before, still. I will make sure the door closes behind the last man, and seal it tight so that you can't enter.

Death is not a stranger to an old man, and I am even older now. It is correct that I am here in the airlock, not you. My life was empty anyway, until you came along. You should still be around to give to others, like you unknowingly gave to me.

I can't let your future disappear. It'll be my future too.

http://thedailywh.at/2011/06/01/bamfs-of-the-day-2/

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/japan.nuclear.suicide/

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/01/japans-unlikely-saviors-elderly-willing-to-toil-in-a-nuke-no-go-zone/

grease

2011-03-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

We put the chips on the bonnet of the pick-up truck. The heat from the engine kept it warmer, as we stood, leaned and ate. The air was cold, the oily potatoes were steamy hot. The sunshine and wind coming off the sea were bright and frozen. I leaned on the metal to feel more warmth.

She said, between bites, I have something in my pocket which I carry around. It is miniscule but it weighs a ton.

I said I have something I carry with me. It is tiny, vast and empty.

She said, I want to be happy. But it costs.

I said, everything costs.

She said, aren't we supposed to be having a conversation?

I had no reply.

When you can see through me I understand nothing anymore. How do people see through me so easily. When did you start seeing through me.

Do you feel dead inside, when you think about costs? Or do you feel urgent - a gaping hole yawning up to eat you from the inside of your heart? Do you dream of warmth or of pain? Is everything huge and great and unmoveable, as we cry ourselves to sleep, alone even though we are surrounded by people sprawled in the same room?

If you have something good in your hand, you want more of it. Sweets, tokens, love, success. But what if it isn't good. Desire, longing, ambition, thirst. Does thirst beget thirst?

We sat there on the bonnet of the truck with the oily chip paper, in the carpark on the cliff looking out to sea, wondering if the other person even understood what the one was saying.

You know, I said, without looking up, if you're thirsty and you drink saltwater you'll become dehydrated. And after a pause: you'll get thirstier.

If you drink it while you're still well-hydrated you can use it to survive, she said, looking straight ahead. Bombard. It quenches the thirst of the healthy.

It's weird to be really cold, and to be sitting on something really warm, I said.

She just kept looking away.

..

confessions

2010-10-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

#1

as i get older, though i am ever more disdainful of emo kids, i continue to be as emo as i was when i was a teenager.

#2

i still suffer from existential angst, the kind you get when looking up into the huge starry night sky and realise how small and fleeting you are, or when you switch off the tv or lie awake at night and wonder about your mortality and that of those around you and how time passes so inexorably, and what it'll feel like when you no longer exist. (and fill yourself with noise to avoid thinking about it).

#3

I hope there is no god and judgement day so that all my closely cradled secrets do not have to be known to others, but if there is none, i regret that my story will die with me in the grave.

I already had my either quarter or mid life crisis five years ago. It was too early to be the second and too late to be the first, unless my final age is rather below or above average.

I have a wife, family, struggling business in a medium i like and a social circle of kind friends. so why is Pure still harbouring emptiness?

It is because I have achieved nothing. I have made no progress in the things I desired most, and done nothing to advance the causes I believe in. There is nothing I can point to years later and write a commentary on that other people would care for. Or even comment on. I have brought neither emotion nor enlightenment to anyone through my words or works.

my life so far is a meaningless cipher.

I want to make you cry. I promised you I would. Yet I haven't done it yet.

who are you

2010-09-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

I ask myself that every now and again, and creep up to the mirror to check the answer. the answers are getting more and more dissembled.

men in the evening

2010-08-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

I wonder if you see me. Surely you must.

That's me, sitting alone in front of my meal of rice and beans, things soft enough for me to eat, cheap enough to eat a lot of, cheap enough so I can afford a cigarette or a beer as well. Simple enough so that they will always have it, so that I don't have to go somewhere else to find it. It's not that tasty that I would like to eat it everyday. But that's the least of my considerations.

That's me, sitting in front of my rice and beans in the coffee shop, eyes darting around looking at the other customers, the other tables full of noise and conversation, the laughter. Not the other laughter, because I haven't got any laughter at my table, because there's no one to talk to or laugh with. My eyes dart up at every noise, every chair pulled back or every greeting. I'm hoping to see someone I know, I suppose. Someone from the past, distant or otherwise, who remembers me fondly, who'll grin and have a conversation with me. It doesn't even have to be a pleasant conversation. It can be awkward words. I am awkward with words, maybe I always have been, I can't remember. It's been a while since I would have done such a thing. It can be a bad conversation. They can remember me unfondly, angrily; maybe I was such a person. Any conversation. If only someone remembers me.

My eyes dart all over the people at the coffee shop as I sit alone; I have no book or newspaper or tv to hide behind, I am plainly looking at the others here. I am hoping to start a conversation with a stranger too, I suppose. You feel it when I look at you.

You know me, you know you see yourself looking at me, looking at you, wondering if we'll start a conversation and if i'll start rambling on disconnectedly because I can't remember how conversations go and am afraid to let a conversation stop and be let go - because who knows how long it will be till I can have another. Who knows how long it has been since I had one before.

But frankly, when rice or gravy sticks to my shirt, I don't pick it off or wipe it. If grains or beans get onto the corner of my mouth or nose I don't remove it. Why would I. Those are manners for people who talk to people, who meet people. I don't talk to anyone. Not that I don't want to. I just, don't get to. So these things don't matter.

I come here early in the evening before the sun sets, order the same dinner every time, and sit down. I drag it out, eating slowly, looking around, pausing often, hoping for someone to clap me on the back too heartily and say hi. But that never happens. Yet I still pause often, hoping something will happen. The minutes stretch too slowly then, as the strangers laugh, order, eat, joke, laugh and leave, and I pausing, look around, waiting for something, or the time to pass. I finish only after night has come on, and then go back upstairs to my room. It'll be the same as when I left it. There's no one to move anything but me. Coming back to the dim room after the lights and bustle of downstairs makes the room seem more terrible than when I left it. Still, I come down to pass the sundown time so that it seems like I've been away longer; it breaks up the day, like I've done something. Somehow it's worse to watch the twilight coming on in the room, to feel the certainty of having done nothing but let the time pass.

Sometimes you'll see me in there though, eating dinner in the chair under the bulb. That's when the coffee shop is too crowded to let me have a seat or when I attempt to break free from the addiction to downstairs. I can't cook, so I still go downstairs then bring it up. But every sound is amplified, every grain, every taste, every second of every fading light ray. I never do it more than once in a row. Even if you look at me strange, I'll be down there with my beans and rice the next day.

I suppose I come here to see people, even if I can't talk to them. It's better than being alone up there, but going back up there after the noise and crowd makes it seem even more alone.

I am the man in the evening, I wonder if you see me.

I guess it's alright if you don't say anything, as long as you notice, askance, that I am here. That I am still here. But how would I ever know.

.

men in the afternoon

2010-07-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Slow slow slow

walk with me, listen to me talk about thebes, fathers and tiresias. help me when i am frail, guide me when i am blind.

when the day is oppressively hot, and the seconds slow to minutes, and the minutes to the bus stop are hours, hear my image, breathing laboriously, movements like moving through treacle. I'll come to a stop on the bench, on the chair, on the kerb, on the floor. if i hear a click i won't move, by the time i turn to see the click will have gone.

Jehanne D'arc, La Pucelle.

2010-06-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

And then Joan made several requests of the king, among others that he give his kingdom to the King of Heaven, and that after that donation the King of Heaven would do to him as he had done to his predecessors and would bring it back to its original condition; many other things that I do not remember were said until it was time for dinner; and after dinner, the king went for a walk in the fields, and there Joan ran about charging with a lance, and I, seeing Joan behave like this, carrying and running with the lance, gave her the gift of a horse.

1. Too Cute - girl runs about with lance after dinner.

2. Too indulgent - seventeen year old girl with weapon causes duke to offer her a present/a ride.

3. Too modern - teenaged girl with an oversized medieval armament is a common icon in our time.

4. Too much translation - spoken in french, translated into latin, then back into 21st century french by the modern historian, and into english by the subsequent translator.

5. Too close to the bone - I say it should not be cute or trite, their words were different 600 years ago. But it reads like a cute anecdote. This is one of my heroes. There should not be a cute anecdote for my hero.

Tree of Sighs.

2010-05-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Everyday the pixie-faced girl with the boyish haircut comes and sits in the cafe and looks at the droopy-branched tree standing by the river. Some time later, she sighs, gets up, pays and goes off.

Isn't it romantic? Marge says to Jenn, the other waitress at the cafe. What is romantic? comes the reply. Jenn is neatening up the register.

A young girl, coming here everyday at the same time, staring longingly at the same place... She must be waiting for someone, Marge says, eyes full of romance novel endings. She's been coming here for a long time time hasn't she? Since before I started working here definitely.

Ask Jenn, says the short order cook. She was here at the cafe from before Gladys bought it.

Has she? Has she been coming here since before Gladys?

Two owners ago, Jenn says.

That's a long time, Marge sighs.

Yep.

I bet she lost him in the war, Marge speculates. You know, when we all had to run... I remember everybody just ran across the border, and it was all a big mess, and people were trying to organise and fight back but no one knew where anyone else was. Don't you remember Jenn?

Yep.

I remember so many girls cut their hair and joined the ambulances and the mechanics and followed the fighting. Maybe she met him there, Jenn! She met him and then he got captured and she's hoping that he's coming back to meet her here under this tree! Or – or – or maybe he's lost his memory, that's why he's not back here yet.... This last is said in a conspiratoral whisper.

You know, says the cook in a mock-conspiratoral whisper, there's still plenty crazy people fighting in the bush, maybe that's the reason.

Anyway, says Jenn, closing the register, coming here for an hour everyday isn't going to help her meet anybody under this tree. There's a hell lot more hours in a day than this one.

II.

Jenn walks towards the cafe in the early morning. It's supposed to be Marge's turn opening the cafe but she is occupied with a suitable fabio. Jenn doesn't mind, she opens the cafe nearly every day anyway and she lives right nearby. She tells Marge so on the phone as she unlocks the door.

The opening up rituals are second nature to Jenn. When Gladys comes in, she notices the Marge absence and says, I don't know what I'd do without you. You basically keep this place running.

It's customers we can't do without, Jenn says.

Later during the busy hour Marge whispers to Jenn, I know what Pixie girl did during the war – I think she drew maps! She's sketching the tree and stuff!

Pixie girl is still staring at the tree. A pencil is behind her ear.

I bet she lost her home in the war and he's all she's got of the past, Marge says as they go about the business of serving.

You know, Jenn lost both her parents and basically her whole village in the war, why you gotta keep harping on it? says the cook.

So did I, Marge says. My brothers and mother all died in the war. But not talking about it isn't going to change that. No use pretending it didn't happen.

The tree stands at the edge of the water, alone. The hanging branches make a shady patch underneath and because of the orientation of the sun and the shady trees near the cafe, it is always lit from behind by the shining water. It is always in silhouette. The leaves rustle gently, making a sighing sound. For these reasons the tree is popular with young lovers.

III.

He's here he's here he's here! Marge shouts. Jenn is stacking cups under the counter and has to look up. Marge is holding a bowl of noodles meant for pixie girl.

He's here there's a man standing under the tree! she cries. Jenn leaps up, cups in hand, other saucers crashing.

Pixie girl is half seated, craning to see a man standing under the tree, hand resting on the trunk. She turns back to see Marge's expectant face, and Jenn's astonished disbelief.

Jenn gives a stifled cry and leaps around the counter, dropping the cups on a table and running out the door towards the tree and the water's edge. Now the astonishment is on Marge's face.

Jenn is sprinting down the hill to him. Hair flying, dishcloth pen order pad falling out of pockets but she doesn't care. She stops short. Tentative.

Jimmy, she says, is it you?

Jimmy, I knew you'd come. I knew you'd get here in the end. You told me to meet at the Tree of Sighs when we got separated on the transports during the war, you knew I could find it again easily. Jimmy, I didn't know what to think, at the refugee camp I heard so many rumours, people said you joined the militia, people said they thought they saw you dead on the field, they saw you captured, they saw you change sides... So many of them are dead Jimmy, our friends our family our school mates the people with us in the war... Oh Jimmy I thought of you everyday... You won't believe what I did to get back here... you won't believe who I joined and who I fought with... I turned over every dead body to see if it was you... I can't believe what I did to get back here.... I've been waiting for you here every day, I look out here all day everyday and I can see the tree from the window of my room I watch it all night it's been so long Jimmy... but now you're here...

She reaches out her hand to touch him.

He turns around. He is not Jimmy. He's too young, baby-faced, about the age of Pixie girl.

Do I know you? he smiles. Are you talking about the war? I remember it, I was a kid then.

The emotions that go through Jenn's face are many. Shock, horror, disappointment, agony, despair. She ends it with an awful, awful cry and sinks to the ground in sobbing grief.

Holy shit, says Marge back in the cafe, noodle bowl in hand.

The people in the cafe seem lined up like the planets lined up in orbit around the sun. Jenn, closest, is the one burned most brightly.

IV.

Jenn comes back in to the cafe, picking up the cups from the table. Pixie girl, she says. Maybe you should go talk to your guy.

What guy? That's not any guy of mine, she says.

Isn't that the guy you're waiting for? Marge says. Then who are you waiting for every day?

Why should I be waiting for anyone, she says. I'm drawing that tree.

Marge and Jenn turn to each other. Jenn slumps into a seat.

I broke some cups, Jenn says.

Nevermind, says Gladys.

Jenn looks out once more. The young man is doing stretching exercises under the tree. She looks away, back into the cafe.

the same song over and over

2010-05-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

those habits of yours which i hate, i have unwillingly and unknowingly adopted.

intimacy

the inspiral carpets

2010-05-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

vivian maier

Diane Arbus

marc ilford

Drop

2010-04-29T10:16:00.001-07:00

I want to be an orbital jumper. I want to fall out of the sky towards the big blue earth. I want to see the curve of the world expand and envelope me, like a pair of arms stretched out in embrace like mine.

I want to fall down to earth.

two broken hearts don't beat any less

2010-04-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

She's going to look at a hand full of change and wonder if it's worth while. He's going to smell perfume and vomit and remember nostalgia. They're going to eat leftovers and begin to ripen excessively.

I'm going to look at the moon while crossing the street and think about seeing stars.

I can take a picture to make it last longer, but the moment is gone when I spent it pressing the button.

the anime feeling

2009-12-27T03:58:00.000-08:00

the future now

2009-12-26T04:09:00.001-08:00

siam square

2008-09-07T22:02:00.001-07:00

Angel City

2008-09-07T21:19:00.001-07:00

altar symmetry

temple heavenly

age and naivete

hotel decency

airport spirituality

always ready for the unexpected guest

2008-06-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

blue is the colour

2008-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

How many ways can you take the same picture?

blue is the state of mind.

blast from the past; or WHAT I DID WITH MY 800 LAND CAMERA WHILE LEGS WERE BROKEN

2008-06-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you find mysterious photos in a case from another country? Of course you blog about it and post them for the world to see.

By the bye, these are polaroids. There's not another one of them in existence. Isn't that something.

Tropical.

recuperation

poise

Infirmary, man, dog.

recuperation pt II. The maple tree.

Note the bag hanging off the young boy with the leg cast's wheel chair. That is the case now in my possession, I suspect.

square

2008-05-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

delicious

2007-12-22T02:11:00.000-08:00

I need you much closer

in to africa

2007-12-17T04:18:00.000-08:00

landscape

common or garden variety balcony dwelling

tuning

dressed for the occasion

unperturbed

chicken in a basket

midday sun

big entrance

i never taught you to hold it like that

she knows where it's at

The Ragamuffins

A view from Lake Tritriva

the caldera lake

pastoral

jumpy

the retreat

short depth of field

people watching

skyline

the neighbour's tree

the road to antananarivo

2007-12-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

imperious and imperial

2007-12-07T03:43:00.000-08:00

paper fortune

heian

tree house

light house

small in japan I

small in japan II

small in japan III

gardening

sake party venue

layer upon layer

gardeners, again

alley oop

river finger

theatre

small in japan IV

23 views of japan

2007-12-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

a sample from the future

2007-12-05T02:15:00.000-08:00

Japan is the future. Whatever you're using, whatever you're cooking your rice in, snapping a photo with, blasting aliens with, whatever sailor suit you're peeking upskirt with, it's yesterday in japan. So-so-soka, we had that last year, they'll say.

devolver

2007-09-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

derilious

2007-09-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

his name is qian wu. their name is qian wu. i know what you did. i know. what is the use of living if it is only to be miserable.

from now on, all their names will be qian wu.

ikimono-san

2007-08-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

portraiture

profile

rear window

detail (note: easy photography)

viewfinder open, lens cap too.

aim carefully

you shall be my new best friend

self. portrait.

2007-08-15T05:31:00.001-07:00

lost

2007-07-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

a tangle of brambles looking the same in every direction, a heat that is the same every way you turn the fan.

The traffic lights turn green but i'm not moving. I'm still still.

The map looks the same every which way i turn it.

lost is the feeling of noise and disco lights and quiet nights. It is brown light on a blue tarp or a chocolate bar.

In the afternoon, it is neither day nor night, lit nor unlit, cold nor warm, sleep nor rest. It is neither shy nor forward. Neither timeless nor timed either.

But it is peaceful. Being lost is peaceful when it's not agitation.

I look at the lazy molten traffic.

Why is it that you can make me cry like no one else ever could.

insect cure

2007-07-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

for when hands shake, only they seem still. or when things look quiet, when they are actually not.

if a bee stings you, it dies - did you kill it? (insecticide)

if you threw a rock at a beehive and the bee comes out and stings you and then it dies, did you kill it?

if that bee stings you, and you die, did you kill yourself?

if a bee stings you for no reason and you die, did it kill you?

anaphylactic shock is the body's severe reaction to a substance it is allergic to.

i am dirkon

2007-06-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

reach out (like rio)

trees, roofs

pillars

this is me

take a good look

make your own

liquid formal

2007-06-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

splash

smells like teen spirit

formal

coral

hull

liquid

red

airport

2007-06-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

i

i kept you waiting

interminable

delay

seats

symmetry

passing time

terminal row

that airport feeling

no free seating

i saw

2007-06-16T09:47:00.001-07:00

signs

boat tripping

2007-06-16T09:16:00.001-07:00

long walk off a long pier

bow

shadowrail

eat me

hanging around

windows

going somewhere

view from the bridge

don't eat me

i made this

2007-05-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

paper camera photos

benches, tables and reflections

sabina. an unintentional silhouette.

two hundred dollars

2006-12-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

six days

more than one thousand kilometres travelled

fifteen meals

five jellyfish stings

one board repaired

two impacts with rocks

three exchanges of phone number

two books read

what does "biasa" mean?

twenty-seven kretek smoked

four minutes of pain everytime my cuts enter the saltwater

two hang-fives

more waves than i can remember.

every breath

2006-12-08T20:27:00.000-08:00

like a marathon.

a boy has a dream. in it his family are going on a holiday in the hills but the coach they are travelling in crashes and is flung off the highway in a traffic accident. he sees the twisted metal, smells the singed flesh and leaking fuel. when he wakes he insists that they not go but they have been planning it for months and are looking forward to it. these are excellent coaches, they say. nothing to worry about.

he confides in a friend, what should i do? she says, well you have to do something. he goes to warn the travel agency: on this day, at this time, a crash will happen on the 92nd kilometre of the highway and eight vehicles will be in the pile up and your bus will plunge into the ravine. the agent smiles like you would to a fervent charity fundraiser. amongst other things, the ravine only begins at the 93rd kilometre.

nobody replies the phone call to the press and the internet site he sets up only gets hits from people who already believe in premonitions and their spammers. he tries to talk to the drivers but they avoid him, believing him to be bad luck. You have to do something drastic, his friend says. I tried everything, he says. No one believes.

stay with me tonight, he says to her. it will be my last night alive. You must be kidding, she says. Do you really think i'm going to let that happen? I'm off. she doesn't answer her phone the whole night.

the day comes and they are all standing at the depot waiting for the buses to pick them up. he is so filled with dread that he can't sit still. they wait and wait and wait. half an hour passes, then an hour, then another, and then another half. there is no bus. there are no buses. the travel agent comes to apologise, all of their coaches were vandalised last night. the windscreens were smashed to pieces or spray painted over. So sorry so sorry, we'll be arranging alternate transport soon.

While waiting some more, they hear that

(what should it be?)

an eight car pile up occurred at the 92nd kilometre of the highway?

a much smaller crash occurred at the 94th kilometre of the highway?

traffic is smooth up and down the highway to the hills?

a girl with a baseball bat and blue stains on her clothes is walking this way?

a pair of dice

2006-11-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

paradise island is empty when your heart is full of care.

i know you want to fuck him.

you never cared about grimey when i tried to get you interested. but now that he's here it's all that. you think the tracks i sent you were sent by him.

i was out at sea. my brother was there one minute, and then he was gone. i swam and swam to find him. in those minutes i promised god or mother ocean so many things, if only i would see him again, not lose him.

i would promise all that and more if i could not lose you. but i won't cos it won't make a difference. and i believe you'd never promise anything in a similar time and place.

temptation

2006-11-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

you kiss him good bye, smiling. he is not smiling. you walk away, to make him leave sooner, because his nearness is inhibition. you're walking towards the evening-heavy door with music, sound, breath and the warm light of the clink of glasses on the other side. there could be a hundred people here, or three, but it's equally delicious with the thought of someone new and interesting to stumble through the alleyways at four in the morning with, laughing at cracks in the pavement and coaxing the last drops out of a champagne bottle cooing insistently.

A figure at the door raises a hand, calls your name. it's the first wave of the envelope.

the walk from the side of the road to the door is the easiest, even if it is the longest.

Jealousy; I wear it like an ill-fitting suit.

2006-10-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

i should be more secure not less. i should be less possessive not more. i'm scared. of how i feel.

promiscuous

2006-10-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

so why should i care. i see you dancing with her on the floor of the club so small and packed, you can't help but push up against her. your hands cup only the air around her, but she moves like you are cradling her body in the shake and way of the music. you always say fucking is fucking and love is love; then after that you say, "i love fucking".

i'm not actually a wallflower, it just seems that i have become so. i think i'm a little cool, a little funky, at least a little unconventional. but around you i seem to clam up, or perhaps you think i'm ordinary and so my nervousness becomes construed as boring. i sit because i thought you don't dance, but you jumped at the chance with her. caught out, i said my feet hurt.

you're dancing and she's biting her lower lip tentatively and invitingly though there is nothing tentative about it. i'm only watching her expression because i can't stand to look what yours is. so when the guy comes up to me and speaks in my ear, i don't stop him when he sits down. his hand is on my knee and i laugh loudly; you might look over from the dance floor - or you might not. i tell myself i'd like it either way.

you two are fucking each other with your eyes and intentions already. if i let this guy take me home or a nearby alley and fuck me you'll be relieved to find me not sitting here so you can do the same. but who will be calling who promiscuous tomorrow?

panda beats

2006-10-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

bruised in the morning, waiting for a storm. we make a living out of talking, and expect something to be done. why should a feeling in the middle of the night dictate the truth we speak to each other in the light of the demanding afternoon? Afternoon is indeed demanding, my favourite time of the day. dishonesty is difficult in the harsh heat and light of two o'clock to six o'clock. even if you lie in the afternoon the afternoon won't allow me to care. it's so demanding we all feel like sleeping.

why don't we talk serious in the afternoon? our days are nights, when we think we speak with refreshing clarity over a glass of vodka or beer, making deals and striking a balance. but it's easy to be smooth at night, when we come out of our shells, understanding the drama of an evening's conversation, knowing that the night makes us more than human, and afraid of mortality.

in the afternoons the fan blades spin slower, the spaces between drumbeats get longer, the air gets thicker. as the limbs get heavier so too truth and lies both are harder to find. drifting off sprawled on the floor of the room, i wish the rest of my life was an afternoon.

redorange sunset

2006-10-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

a girl is talking. a tree, she says, can be planted by someone, and watered, but it is not belonged to that person. it is not, she continues, a person's responsibility that it grows or sees the sun: in soontime, it is its own living thing with a life and responsibility all its own. a tree does not owe it to a person to either bloom, wither, live or die, and whether it is stunted or tall is no one's concern but the tree. no person can make the sun shine brighter on it, no person can make the roots take in more water. no person can look at a tree and say, 'this is my tree.'

he was preoccupied but now he walks towards her. the metal and wires of his work ring out. "You're so beautiful, and so right," he says. "But you need to be quiet now." He puts the ball gag on over her mouth, and tightens the strap. he bends her over, unbuttoning her jeans and yanking her panties down.

redorange sunflower

2006-10-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

a girl plants a tree. she waters it and lets it grow. small birds nest in it, and insects crawl on it. the sun shines on it, and the branches widen. there are no fruits but flowers fall sometimes in large-ish numbers when the wind blows. the girl reads under it, sleeping in the light of the sun low in the sky when tired. three times she shelters beneath the branches in rainstorms, confident that the tree will not let itself get struck by lightning. she buries a box of old secrets like a time capsule in the soil of its roots.

the girl is soon a woman. she is standing a little way off, next to a car with a man who is surveying the land. "This tree is obstructing the path of the proposed road," he says, checking his map. "And it's not marked on this chart."

"I don't know it either," she says.

i killed you to save myself.

2006-10-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

we sat in the same place for days, looking looking looking. we took notes, some pictures, ate food and drank room temperature water all while looking watching looking. we called back every few hours, sending back messages. we were looking for a weakness, sitting on a raised vantage. nobody realised we were watching, which was of course the way it ought to be.

on an afternoon three of the fellows came out with a fourth, one of our own guys. they beat him to a pulp while asking him questions. while their backs were turned in an engaging argument about whether to choose the monkey wrench, tire iron or bolt cutters next, he made a remarkable escape into the generous confusing cover in our direction.

we got startled. if they started scouring the area, we would be found. my partner and i looked at each other, then over to him.

the three had decided on the bolt cutter and realised he was gone. they fanned out to look. they shouted and fired shots randomly. finally he got up and ran.

he must not lose them, my partner said.

are we going to leave him to die, i said.

are you going to drag us into die too, my partner said.

he ran and somehow their first bullets missed him. he managed to throw a stone back and they slowed their advance on him.

i took out the rifle and gave it to my partner. my partner gave it back to me. we can't compromise our cover, she said.

he waited behind a tree trunk throwing stones. he was going to run for it when the three reloaded. he would be lost to them if he made it here. he stood up and threw another clod of dirt. they shot back. i shot him then. the three stood over his body and argued amongst themselves who had shot him and how. Then they dragged his body back and put it on a stick.

we left our hideout two days later. then bombers came and razed the whole fucking mountainside. so much for maintaining our cover.

you don't belong here

2006-10-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

why should i be surprised. because boring guys don't go out with cool girls. i might as well have hoped to go out with a supermodel or one of my teenage idols. After a momentary dalliance, what's there to keep you interested in me? the jet-set life is no place for blokes who like playing with cardboard boxes. crap in bed, staid, ordinary, incompetent at the arts.

wake up wake up. it's time for good bye.

vignette

2006-09-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

on the other side of the world, a surgeon is sleeping. the surgeon lights a cigarette, drinks a scotch, eats french fries, and blows the smoke out a window.

on another side of the world, a secretary is reading. the secretary slips from thought to thought, cool like an underwater swimmer. without hesitation he plucks the smoke from the window and breathes it in an underwater bubble.

on my side of the world, a soldier is poking a knife into the soil around a landmine. the soldier digs it up, stabs it and throws it away. she then starts to die.

when the surgeon wakes, she wonders why she is so hoarse and sad, though her skin feels cool and dreamy.

more vignettes: one night

2006-09-07T04:40:00.000-07:00

i slept troubledly and woke up alone. it felt familiar and painful. tired, i could not sleep. i drove and drove, aimless, tugging, and then i drove and drove. i found myself staring up at your window and the shadowy cloak within. i thought of the place where we lazed peacefully one afternoonnight. i turned the key and drove more.

i found the place, its discarded wrappers and its unchanged contours. i lay down in the indentations made by your body the last time you were there. i could not sleep. perception was too much to bear.

kisses

2006-09-07T04:39:00.000-07:00

the snack or concession stand. she and i sat on a slab that was a bench. i talked, about reels, about ratios, about timing and aperture. she kissed me. it was so sweet and wrong i kissed her back, then regretted it while loving it.

he still loved her, though they were no longer married. he and i had been in the army together. she and i had been in school together. three of us and another woman came into the mountains two mornings ago. last night i was lost in the mountains and today i was back.

he saw us kissing. we dissembled. he had no control over what she said or did, but of course he was angry.

now i know why on the first night you didn't want to share a room with me, he said. it was casual, jovial, accusatory.

the two of us had planned to sleep in the decrepit castle's room, but later i decided to sleep in the wooden shed in the courtyard, to be alone and psuedo-poetic. i had not known i would get lost the next night and sleep in the open. i regret now not talking to him that night.

i realised now that she and i had also kissed earlier, once, electrically, before i had gone for a walk and gotten so very lost. it had made me excited and breathless.

we all forced a look of casualness. no, i said, that was not why - i had just wanted to be alone, that was all.

it had not started yet, i might have said. you are wrong, i might have said. but would you believe me?

Radio

2006-09-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

I admit, i love the radio. there's something about it, so random, so uncontrollable, so simple, so low tech and portable.

i love it's simplicity, no lasers, not that many moving parts, not even a transistor if necessary (you can make a radio out of a toilet roll, copper wire and a penny).

i love it's magic, plucking sound out of the invisible air, receiving the voice or song of someone somewhere far away. the longest waves travel so far, to people in remote places bringing them a friendly voice. for the extremely remote there's even a wind-up radio, to keep it powered even when no batteries or electricity can be found for miles and miles.

i love the fact that people said it would never work, and Marconi pushed on with his idea. they said the radio waves would just fly into space. i wonder if he knew that the waves would bounce off the ionosphere and come down again... or did he just take a chance?

radio is transportation. radio is listened to on transportation, but also transports you, not just into the mood of the moment, but from where you are, to the person who is at the station, and also the place the music was recorded. radio is a link.

there are limits to your music collection, but radio never ends.

radio is variety. i remember listening to talk radio, news shows or gameshows, comedies and radio plays, not just music and celebrity gossip. once i spent three hours listening to Shaw's play "Heartbreak House" on the radio in my university dorm kitchen, while cutting the vegetables, cooking the dinner eating and washing up and drinking instant coffee later, glued to the dialogue from the mono speaker.

pirate radio. on a saturday night back in my room in the same dorm, i could find a crowd of radio stations playing all kinds of drum and bass, jungle and underground music that just wouldn't be heard on mainstream channels or during the weekdays. They would keep it up all night even until sunday sometimes, keeping us updated with the lastest movements in the underground, melting away with the sunday evening time and the return to the work week.

radio is like civilisation, like society, keeping you in touch with the rest of the world, making you feel connected. i used to listen to the radio not because i didn't like the music i had (though there was a limit to my little tape collection) but because i wanted to feel like there was someone out there, like i wasn't alone. Radio connected me, with its constant stream of activity; it is the essence of another life when you feel so all alone. Hizbollah Tv, Panama Radio and Mohd Aidid's radio station are just some examples of how important it is to have a media connecting everyone.

i would leave the radio on at night when i went to bed, letting it lull me to sleep - a mechanical lullaby. i actively sought that half waking cusp of sleeping state, dreamy but alive, when the tinny, ethereal sound of the radio would become the poignant music of my sleep. radio invaded my dreams.

in the days before mp3s we had to compile our own tapes (not CDs!) and i, like so many other bankrupt teenagers, would sit ardently by the radio waiting for our favourite song to come on, trying to second guess the deejay so that i could press the "record" button at the right moment, not too early not too late, praying it would not be mixed with another song (recognise the song by its first opening notes! press quickly!) and not have it's introduction talked over by the deejay, to get a perfect dub of the track.

you can work and listen to the radio at the same time.

but obviously radio is not what it used to be. i heard a spokesman from the electronic frontier foundation remind me that radio was revolutionary in its time, changing the landscape of media, bringing all kinds of music and news to people in their homes, and scaring the life out of makers of gramaphone records because people no longer needed to buy records to listen to music, especially popular music. but that he had to remind me is something in itself. i guess people used to gather around the radios at home to listen to their favourite programs (in the way that my parents talk about gathering around the Rediffusion set... by the way, Rediffusion is still around, you know) like storytelling and soap operas, but it is pretty different now. that role has been replaced first by TV and the internet, surely.

i'm quite sure most people listen to the radio mostly in cars, which is why "drive-time" rush hour shows are so important. the decline of radio except to spin records and push commercials is pretty clear to me too, with fewer talk radio shows and stations aiming to give you less human voice and more music all the time.

but why do we need them anyway? we have the internet - every blog is like a personal radio station; i used to think that it was so important to achieve something like the end of the movie Pump Up the Volume: it was a movie about pirate radio being the voice of kids, and eventually kids make their own ham radio stations. A blog or website though, is exactly that. your own broadcast station to connect with others.

and though radio is declining, it's not gone yet. we might not listen to good old fashioned fm radio, but we have internet radio stations aplenty. there are radio station websites, but more importantly, sites which only broadcast on the net, which help us find new music or play the kind of music we like, no matter how specific or alternative. they call themselves something.fm, showing they haven't forgotten how they are connected.

we also still love the sound of radio... staticky and hollow, we pursue the sound of lo-fi transmission and reception in new music, playing with it to give ourselves the feel of a transistor.

radio has changed so much from its revolutionary place as the first broadcast media, to be almost unrecognisable. its function in our lives now is so different, yet parts of it remain so strongly whether the broadcasting or even the look of the radio itself.

when i think of what i love about radio, i think of a lazy hot afternoon, and the crackly music coming from an open window of a neighbour somewhere downstairs, mixing with the hazy heat and traffic noise to form a symphony of sensation, making me separate and together at the same time, putting me here and beside the deejay and with the music at the same time. making me a waking dream.

the last time i saw your face.

2006-07-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

look at the date.

i heard it, heard it all before, oh how time flies, oh what a pity. THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU I NEVER REALISED THAT IT WOULD BE THE LAST. if i had known, oh how things might have been. or not. where did you go, hindsight is such a terrible thing, that allows regret and gives meaning to all the things that seemed insignificant at the moment.

Dear Jessica

2006-07-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

how did you know.

Of course I do. I wonder how things would be different, how we all could have been different.

Are we all different, or are we all the same?

what do you remember?

The only living person in the world

2006-05-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

full of sleepwalkers. How can i even begin to explain it? You are alive to everything, see everything. every step is a new adventure in world that's so complicated there's a universe of revelation in every few steps: Isn't it amazing we have gravity, that we don't float away?/glass can be curved/ Wow, fingernails! - we don't need them, but we can't do without them!

The world is indeed huge and amazing with a million things going a million different places and doing a million more things once they get there. And you're the only person who realises. Everyone else is just walking around like zombies, eyes open but blind. You're the only one who sees the metallic ribbing on an oddly placed structural pillar, the tiny crabs on the beach, the grass growing by the side of the road. The world is an incredible organism teeming with lifeness, and you've just begun to explore, but the rest of the world is dead dead dead, oblivious to it all. You are the only living person in the world, and your existence makes me so very happy.

metal slug gear

2006-03-19T21:16:00.000-08:00

let's start in the middle, because where else would you want to begin? all good stuff starts in the middle right? dreams don't have a beginning, you just pop into them with a full history and personality.

i am pulling a bullet the size of a shot glass out of my arm. the slurp of blood and flesh. ouch. it's rather big isn't it, i think to myself. there's some writing on the side i can't read. there are a few more in my leg too. i can see a bulge or two from where they are lodged.

people are looking for me. they find me, and want to know "the truth". the truth is very simple, or, what i know is very simple: the senator is a crook, and he gave the order. i don't know what order. but the people looking for me aren't satisfied and they want me to tell them everything. but i don't know everything - i don't even know any more. they pump more bullets into the rest of my limbs, so that it hurts but i won't die. ow ow owch. they ask more questions. i am concentrating on the mutliple bulges in both my arms where the huge slugs have lodged themselves. after a little more torture, a very helpful girl assists me in making an escape.

i don't get far. the pain in my limbs is quite intense. i get caught by a completely different group of people looking for me, but wanting to know the same thing, and using the same methods. they grab my arm and are about to put more giant bullets in me but i tell them to stop, sob, i'll tell you everything. so i guess they must be just like the other group and i string a long tale about what i know and how i know it and a whole lot of other shit and somewhere in the midst of everything mention that the senator is a crook and he gave the order.

satisfied that they have learnt the extent of my knowledge and that it is harmless, they spare me more bulges in my limbs. Now i try to walk away, but it's too painful because there is just too much metal in my limbs, grating against bone and rubbing under my skin and just weighing me down. can't... hardly... move... eventually i sit down next to a stainless steel sink and begin yanking out the rounds, one by one. clink clink clink. the excruciating feel of digging fairly large cylinders out of my arms and looking at the holes they leave.

whew. the sink is full of these slugs, there's no more space. what am i going to do? i still have all of those in my legs (and it's too painful to walk to another sink).
perhaps i should have removed those in my leg first? but i needed to remove those in my arms to free them. oh dear.

TFR

2006-03-06T01:06:00.000-08:00

1. The studio. int. day.

a. The man in the suit plays chess with himself.

b. looking at camera, he makes the hand action of a bull's horns.

2. the car. ext. twilight (if possible).

a. the man stands outside the house (front porch) looking off-camera L or R. a black car pulls up. he opens the door and gets inside.

close up
b. the driver looks over. he is wearing a bull mask. the man in the suit is frightened
immediately a bag or hood comes from the back of the car and covers his head and the car drives off.

wider
c. the black car driving off.

3. the house . int. night.

a. a door from the inside of a house. the suited man comes in through the door as if he is being pursued. he regains composure and starts walking off to camera R.

b. he picks up things in a hallway on tables, looking at them, and then putting them back. he walks off camera R.

c. a tall flights of stairs in profile L to R. he walks up this flight of steps.

d. he comes to the top of the stairs, the crosses over to camera L.

e. he comes to a window. his back is to the camera. he opens the window to see the night sky. he suddenly turns to his left.

f. the man in the bull mask is standing there, carrying a sword.

g. return shot to the suited man.

h. the man in the bull mask starts charging.

i. the suited man bellows.

j. the man in the bull mask stops in his tracks.

k. same shot as e. the suited man leaps out of the window.

4. the lights, the night. ext. night.

a. the suited man stands outside the house on the ground beneath the open window. he begins to walk away camera R slowly, and the house lights switch off one by one.

close up

b. the suited man turns around to look at the now dark house.

wider

c. the suited man walks round to the back of the house and enters.

d. the house lights all come on.

TFR White Move

2006-03-06T01:03:00.000-08:00

(TFR 2 - white move)

scene 1

a. man in suit plays chess with nobody.

b. man in suit looks at camera and deliberately makes the other hand movement

(index fingers touch temples).

scene 2

a. man standing at foot of stairs. he sees something and runs up.

he is running up the stairs endlessly:

b. he is running up the stairs to the landing.

c. he is running up the stairs from the landing.

d. he is running up the stairs to the landing.

repeat.

scene 3

a. man holds up an apple for the camera. he takes a long bite out of it. after a while, he finds something strange. he turns around.

b. there on the table behind him, is another apple. he picks it up and turns back the other way.

c. he takes a bite out of the apple, then finds something strange again. he turns around.

d. there on the table behind him, is another apple. he drops the apple he is holding, picks it up and turns back.

e. he holds the apple, then spins around.

f. there on the table behind him, is another apple. he drops the apple he is holding, grabs it and turns back.

g. the floor at his feet is full of apples with a bite taken out of them.

scene 4

a. the car from TFR 1. the passenger door is open.

b. the man in the suit stands next to the open door. he puts one hand on the frame, the other on the door.

c. close up of hand on the frame.

d. he slams the door shut on his hand, doubling up in pain.

e. he is rolling on the ground in agony, hand cupped in hand.

scene 5

a. he gets up from the ground, hurt hand now bandaged.

b. he removes the bandage to reveal an undamaged hand with a queen inside.

dead lee

2006-02-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

Let's start simply: you're a normal person with a job and family. You may be a mother or a father, a sister or a brother, have children and a home. You work, you come home, you play, you eat and sleep.

You are at work when you notice a few people close to you clustered together near the pantry talking. Walking past and trying not to act interested in case they are preparing your surprise birthday party you try to eavesdrop. They don't look up for you. They are talking about someone who died. You walk on.

Suddenly you notice a lot of people are talking about something, sounds like the same thing. You ask Jim from Accounts, as he walks through.

"What's everybody talking about?" you ask.

Someone just died, he says.

"Who is it?" you say.

He says your name.

"No," you say. He takes it for disbelief.

It's true, he says. Funeral tomorrow.

You walk to your desk. Everything is as it was, photos pens potato snacks next to the keyboard. The drawer with your change of socks and bottled water is still locked.

Sheila from across the hall thinks she understands the look on your face.

It is a pity, she says. Weird that it could happen to any of us, isn't it?

"There's something wrong here," you say.

Don't take it to heart, she says. Just be glad it wasn't you.

You decide to go home. On the way out the door, someone calls out to ask if you're okay cos you look like a zombie. You keep walking. Don't forget to come back to work tomorrow, they say.

There are people at your house. Some friends you haven't seen in a long time, and some relatives. Not everyone is dressed in black. Your best friend is comforting your spouse. They look up. Thanks for coming, they say, before your spouse dissolves in tears.

"But I'm not dead," you say.

"Of course you're not dead," says your daughter.

You turn towards her. "Thank goodness. I thought I was becoming invisible."

"Of course not silly," she says. "You're still standing here aren't you? You're not in that coffin. Besides, dead and invisible aren't the same."

You smile. "Yes, they aren't." You reach out a hand.

She doesn't take it. "Are you a friend from old school days?" she asks. "I heard alot about that school."

You have keys in your pocket. You try the car keys. They work. You start the car, and no one says anything. You begin to drive off. No one stops you.

Your daughter comes running up and you stop. She comes up to the window. You wind it down. She asks you what it was like being at school with yourself when you were young.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you much," you say after a long, confused pause. "I don't think I have much perspective on that."

She runs back into the house because someone is calling. You realise you haven't seen the body in the coffin, but now you are already leaving and blocking other mourners' exit. You leave. The funeral is tomorrow.

You don't sleep that night. First you ask people on the street if you are alive or if they can see you, but they just look at you as if you are crazy. Then you sit in the car wondering what to do and find no answers.

The next morning you drive to the funeral service. You look at yourself in the mirror long and hard, but you realise that the image there is a reversed image, and not what you'd see looking at yourself. You should have had a photo. (But who keeps photos of themself on them?)

You attend the service. Your daughter waves hi to Old School Friend. Like the other mourners you file past the body. You blink and squint. Is that what I look like? It's too short a moment to tell. Now the earth is being tossed, and you're standing alone wondering where everyone has gone. You must have been crying too.

Not knowing what to do you return to work. Maybe it's a wormhole or something that originated there. You sit at your desk with the pens and potato snacks. Someone comes by with work you recognise.

Oh, so you're sitting here now, she says. It's a bit soon but... Well does that mean you can take care of this?

Yes, you say. Because you can. She leaves it with you and soon nobody is all that surprised to find you sitting there. Soon you have a home a family the same job different photos and maybe a different car, only you died once.

four feet under

2006-02-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

what is the name for the top part of your foot? the part before the ankle.

the bottom of your feet are the soles, the inside the arch, toes are toes of course, and an ankle an ankle (what an 'a' alliteration) - but is there a name for the top part? like the supersternal notch, i want to know because that's the part that's so close, when naked feet touch on a sofa, beneath the dining table or under covers, pleasantly crowded together in a small space.

sometimes i think that it's an event that's even more close than holding hands - anybody holds hands, for any number of reasons - like crossing the road, and teens do it to go steady though probably nowadays they do a whole lot more - but how often do we get close enough to someone to sit at home together, reading on the couch or slouched on the bed?

is that why playing footsie under the table is such a big deal? because like goodmorning, feet are a special space? is that part of why beaches are special, to feel the sand beneath your feet, and without their armour of shoes?

i know this is asia and we're functional and we expose feet to all sorts of stuff in our slippers, but we wash them and take off our shoes before going indoors, that's all quite significant too. it's rude to show your soles in thailand, but they teach kindergarten kids to clean off before going into classrooms too (so i've heard).

i remember a girl in shorts, on the phone, oblivious to me, her bare feet idly stepping on the tiles one way and then the other, step-step-stepping.

what is the word for when the soles of your feet touch mine as we drift of to sleep?

i want to know the word for the feel of four feet under the covers.

the descent,

2006-02-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

or How It Feels To Be Indulging In Mayhem

inhale, because the smoke smells like strawberries.

listen, because it's not every day that you can hear this sound.

move, if you don't want to get hit.

scream, because that's how you feel inside.

move, because everyone is moving.

move, because the crowd is seething.

clap, at the burning spectacle.

hold (my hand), because we are both conspirators now.

have you ever had a thirst you couldn't cool

2006-01-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

can such a thing exist, a hunger that cannot be filled, an unappeasable appetite? i drink and i drink, drink you in, and yet at the end it is not enough and i want some more. i'm not bloated, not even moistened, still dry for the taste of you.

i was at a party thrown with the rugby boys once. we ran around and did some passing, some kicking, some feinting. when night came we had a barbeque. for drinks they mixed rose cordial and condensed milk and ice for bandung. i was thirsty and hot from the afternoon, so i drank it. it was sweet and cool and watery, but the moment i finished the cup i felt thirsty again. so i drank some more. i drank and i drank and i drank, but each time after finishing it was as if i hadn't had anything to drink i was still thirsty. it continued the whole night.

i have that feeling again. is it too much to ask, to have another glass and another and yet another? as soon as you leave i want you back. as soon as i walk away from you i want to turn around again. as soon as i wake i want to see you again. i only saw you a moment ago, but i want to see you again.

it's not enough, i want you here, now with me. i want you dreaming on my shoulder, i want you drooling open-mouthed in the tired afternoon, i want you thoughtful on the sofa reading while feet are touching, i want you excited clicking links you gotta see this or plucking odd chords on the guitar. i want you, lost with me, wrapped in a cloud of pillows and sheets hands and limbs, skin to skin, our bodies so tangled we don't know where yours ends or mine begins.

Top 5 Records

2006-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

of 2005:

(autobiographically, I admit).

Kanye West's Slo Jamz
Dilated People's This Way
Hooverphonic's 2wicky
Snoop Dogg's Drop It Like It's Hot
Green Day's City of the Damned

Top 5 movies of 2005

This list is gonna be dominated by kid shows. Is this because of the dearth/selectiveness of movie watching i did last year, or because it was just a bad year for other stuff/good year for kid shows?

The Incredibles
Batman Begins
Howl's Moving Castle
March of the Penguins
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

and lastly, needing a mention here only because it has a lovely end sequence,

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

This is at least partially because I can't figure whether The Jacket and Closer were released in 2005 or not.

So does what you like matter more than what you are? Does your taste say more about you than your speech? I can't decide. If I look at my choices here, it's pretty dire. But that's only this year, I defend to myself. It was a terrible year (and I cheated on the records, going autobiographically). I want to be a person of decent taste, but isn't that also shallow, to judge someone based on their taste in music and film?

Top 5 bands I saw for the first time in 2005

B-quartet
Death of Cinema
Mistaken Pirates
Sally's Rejex
Gerhana Ska Cinta

I'd include Shelf but I just heard they've sort of retired.... Hi to the lead singer for saying hi first. Big up yourself guys! I hope you'll go again.

Perth, the City of. or "my week in holiday snaps".

2005-12-13T08:05:00.000-08:00

skyline

twoshot

the long afternoon

2005-12-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

haziness that lingers in the bones resting there unstoppering the satiatedness. a long afternoon in which bodies do not want to move, only hold, still, clasping and clasping more. skin on skin, mouth to skin, skin to mouth and skin to skin again.

i want long afternoons to last forever. i want such an afternoon.

these are long days.

intimacy junkie

2005-12-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

not touching is already too far. i want closer, no matter how small my bed is it is too large without you.

a sister or half sister; use of weapons;

2005-12-02T23:08:00.000-08:00

the little mountain monarchy was always poorly defended by a mostly ceremonial military, and now it had been invaded by its restive neighbour, familiar with territorial skirmishes and civil combat. Over half of the country had been lost already, and now what remained of the military and the rebel militia rallied to make a spirited defense.

I stood next to some picnic tables laden with boxes of donated weapons. I was dressed in office clothes, a light blue shirt and grey trousers, though it was the middle of a war. Word came round that we had to start preparing our defense, the invaders were coming. Everyone rushed off, but I realised I had no weapon, and so looked through the boxes for a suitable one. I chose a hunting rifle over an assault rifle because I figured I wanted to shoot invaders from as far away as possible, but when I removed it from the box I discovered there was only half of it.

Everyone had left by this time and so i ran to join them at the ruined fort or whatever that was the defence. Suddenly i realised how close the invaders were - they were rolling their camouflage trucks into position a few hundred metres to my left as I ran. Uh oh, I thought. And the militia was all lined up to open fire as I ran towards them with my half of a rifle.

They started shooting at me early but I waved and yelled with my arms in the air. Surely they can see that i'm not in uniform and therefore one of them, I thought. The bullets whizzed past.

The office wear must have made them realise I couldn't seriously be a soldier. They waved me to run into the lines. As I got to them I realised many were wearing blue jumpers the same shade as my shirt. Wow that was lucky. Boy do we look hungry too.

A land rover was stopped at the medical orderly tent. It offloaded a hamper basket full of treat-like things wrapped in paper. A bone chair, I thought. The orderlies asked me to take the basket/hamper to the General. I took it.

He looked at it. The deputy looked at it. They unwrapped one candied treat after another. The men were starving and the invading Marshall had sent our General pralines.

After removing several paper wrapped things the hamper became a giant heaped cake. It could have housed a person within. The General looked at it suspiciously. He put his sword through the middle of it. It passed through easily. He sliced it up, passing the pieces to me, and I was holding armfuls of cake, and his deputy was cleaning the cake off his gold sword with the elaborate snapping jaws near the hilt.

Beneath the cake was a circular wooden box the lid of which was in two sections, like a yin-yang sign. two gold keys on either lid kept it locked shut. I thought of the movie se7en, of the novel from iain m. banks, of strategy. The General grasped the twin keys, my arms were full of cake, and I feared for our defense.

good morning

2005-11-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

good morning. it's a phrase full of connotations. so heavy with pleasure, sometimes with agony.

the agony of hearing it when there's nothing good about waking at the crack of dawn to commute to a job you hate and everyone else is so damn chirpy. that's not a morning, that's sleepwalking. that's not the real good morning.

morning is an intimate space, a time alone: only the closest people to you see you in your unadulterated state of justwokenup, blearyconfusedcrumpled. good morning is the sound of closeness, when the day is barely new and soon the bacon will be frying and the coffee brewing. good morning is the sound of warmth, under blankets or sunlight pouring in, good morning is the sound of having shared the night, and your presence the first thing i sense in the day. good morning is what i want to hear, the sound of bodies wrapped together making it through the night.

good morning is the knowledge of intimacy.

"inaccessible to the masses"

2005-11-22T03:44:00.000-08:00

i won't say i know what that comment says about this blog, but i will return to my original habit of telling stories. (but i'm always telling stories - stories are everything, everything is a story).

A farmer meets a wolf out by his barn. it is bloody and ragged, having been chased by hunters who are still in pursuit. "Brother farmer," says the wolf, "please shield me." The farmer agrees, and opens the barn door, covering the wolf with straw and bidding him to lie quiet. In a moment the hunting party arrives, and ask the farmer if he has seen a wolf anywhere. The farmer says no, but the hunting party know the trail led into the farmer's land.

"I hope you find that wolf then," the farmer says. "Wolves will eat my livestock and kill my dogs. They are vermin that i can certainly do without. If I find that wolf I'll kill it myself."

The hunters cross the farmer's land to continue the chase into the forest, thanking him as they go. When the farmer opens the barn door again, he finds the wolf snarling at him, ready to pounce.

"What are you doing?" cries the farmer. "After I saved you from those hunters!"

"I can't trust you! I heard what you said," replies the wolf. "you'll kill me too, soon."

"Things change quickly, and in times of need there are things we must say for convenience," says the farmer. "Surely you must understand."

The wolf backs away subdued. "I apologise," he says, "perhaps I was over hasty in my judgement of you."

The farmer says, "No matter, let us get you out of here. I have an idea: You will hide here in a barrel next to me. I will shoot into the forest, and attract the hunters. I'll send them into the forest after you, and then you can go running in the opposite direction. It'll take them ages to pick up your trail again."

The wolf agrees, and the farmer goes to get his shotgun. When he returns, the wolf climbs into the barrel and the farmer promptly shoots him several times. The farmer tips him out, and the wolf asks in a dying breath, "but why? You said you would help me. I trusted you."

"You didn't trust me. And so, I do not trust you. Things change quickly."

Ok science people, this can't be so difficult for you. simple animal fable. thanks to ed and the daughter of the drow for the origin.

Quiz Custodiae Ipsos Custodes

2005-11-17T02:35:00.000-08:00

That's right! Who watches the watchmen?

no more rhyme

2005-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

sentimental rhymes with gentle

obsession rhymes with possession

avaricious with vicious

teutonic with laconic

silent with hydrant

elegance with malevolence

betrayal with portrayal

failure with tailored

carton with disheartened

understanding with demanding

emotional with dysfunctional

but what rhymes with longing? incompetence? desire? redemption?

no sride

2005-11-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

these are noserides by excellent riders.

to paraphrase bruce brown in an early film of his, "Look Paw, that gurl's on the wrong end of her surfin' stick".

a hundred dollars

2005-11-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

things i learned

i'd rather be dead than dismembered.

def before disowner.

water discipline is crucial.

in the countryside, people are kind to strangers.

i need a hose, a cloth and a shovel.

drive fast on wet soft sand to make sure you don't sink.

noseriding is easier than 180.

battery discipline is important. night vision is accurate.

buses can fit wings.

some petrol stations sell jelly which isn't actually jelly, just syrup with nata de coco cubes.

a deserted beach with some ruined buildings is better than a crowded beach with showers and a carpark and food.

migrating birds do sometimes break their v formation, and hunt in a swish of feathers.

when i sit on the grass and look at the sea, drinking camp coffee and eating corned beef from a tin with my brother, i am happier than when looking out the class room or cubicle window, waiting for the dreaded clock to make the time go away. we left behind the plastic world and its sticky table tops and floors, the clink of oily money and went to unpaved roads, long grass the height of your chest, sand mud unbridled trees monitor lizards on the beach and the blinking light of fireflies which make a lonely punctuation in the night.

if i soak my open wounds in seawater long enough, it stops hurting.

under a big sky, you feel small and at home.

Dark of Heartness

2005-10-17T03:28:00.000-07:00

Heart of Darkness; Conrad, Joseph (Jósef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski).
first serialised in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1899

Set as a story within a story, Heart of Darkness recounts the journey to Africa and up the
Congo River by Marlow as a representative of a trading company and his fascination with
the long unmet ivory trader Kurtz. First published in 1902, "Heart of Darkness" could refer
to human hearts or to the heart of Africa, the Dark Continent.

The author made a journey to the Congo in the 1890s. This story partially reflects some of
his experiences there.

by Dagny

Web site copyright © 2003-2005 Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation — All Rights Reserved.

I.

We went up the river on a razorblade, we trailed the savages’ blood in the crystal water behind us like tails. The ivory glowed radioactive in the night sky, calling to us greenly in the day air. The rifles spat ball bearings like a children’s straw, leaving the jungle like cheese, everyday harder than the last. At the end of the river he was waiting, where the water dried into a huge pile of tusks. I asked him why are there heads on sticks outside your house. He said, I love them so much, they are my children. I said who is that woman. He began to melt into a puddle. I pulled him to go, his children stopped me. He liquefied onto the ground. Now we could go. Savages with ball bearing holes adorning their bellies saw us off.

II. let's try again

We raced up the river at an imperceptible crawl, the boat chugging on like a bullet. I listened for the sound of the jungle. It makes two sounds, an insistent, sucking tone that draws you in devours you; and a contented heavy breathy sigh that tells you that you are insignificant in it’s existence. I knew where I was going, but I had no idea where it was. The boat fought the river, the river carried us where we wanted to go. You were waiting at the end, there was no doubt we would reach and find you. You were calling to us with your back turned to the river.

You became part of me before I even met you. But I knew you: I looked at you with the gaze of one looking upon a familiar face. I know everything about you. Your thoughts and words echo in my head louder than my own. If you did not recognise my understanding of you in that gaze, you did not show it.

I came to ask you questions but when I arrived you died. My heart was full of need and only you could fill it (the need, like my heart; already you). I searched your vacuous eyes and they told me nothing. They told me: Nothing. My heart was awakened on the journey to your house. But your mouth opened and it was a dark void.

The treasure was worth nothing, the savages were the ones on the boat. I looked to you, and saw no one.

A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness (1902) exposes
the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the
center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's
physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in
search of the mysterious trader Kurtz.

(taken from The Literature Network)

III. one more time

The river swam along the shore. The river swam past the boat. The jungle walked away from us. Newtonian hyperspace – we stood still, the world moved around us.

How much can a person sweat? A hell of a lot apparently, if one is in the jungle. No breeze, no breath, as the jungle sucks the air from around you, pulsing in the heat. Cloth sticking to skin, and moisture coming out of every pore, a sheen on skin, droplets which stream off temples and jawlines. Air so heavy it seems solid (or liquid, it is so full of humidity).

Like the boat I existed in dreamy stasis. I breathe, it plods, and the landscape moves past us like a cinema backdrop. The others are aiming into the forest, but I am afraid they will puncture holes in the screen. The loud reports keep coming from the deck as they shoot, but I am praying nobody realises the jungle is a set. Don’t undo the illusion please, I say under my breath as the bosun steers on.

I am an explorer. I am a storyteller. I am the captain. I am a chess playing detective, I am killed in a swordfight five hundred years ago. I am flying high on the sound of the Ride of the Valkyries. I am going to shoot this young girl in the head because you did not listen to me. I am the captain and the direction, and yet I control nothing.

I follow the invisible string, the superstring theory, the Darthside blog force representation, the sharp tugging sensation in my chest just left of the lung. I follow, I am led, because You are tugging me, You are calling me. Your store of buried treasure is burning a hole in Your hand, the hand that You use to reach out to me. At every fork in the river I know which route to take, which water path will lead me to your door – it is whichever I choose. Our meeting is inexorable, as long as the idiots don’t blow a hole in the backdrop screen and shatter the illusion.

You are all I think about, day and night, gazing upon the frustratingly imperceptibly changing vista, or tossing and turning in the tepid heat of my bunk bed. I can picture your voice, I can hear your skin, I can smell your body in it’s savage or elegant decay. I can picture a year’s worth of conversation in the first hour of our meeting. Whatever you say to me when I reach will be what I remember imagining here.

Obsession? Never. I am not crazy, though I am mortally afraid that the illusions won’t last long enough for me to meet you. I don’t want to wake up in the sepulchre unfulfilled. If I sense myself rising from a dream I’ll plunge myself deeper. The jungle is laughing and my skin is like fire, but I am not going to give up. That, would truly be crazy.

When at last I stand at your shore, I’ll see the empty rounds that were your eyes, the hollow echo of your uncaring voice. A siren does not call to you to meet you, a siren only wants your downfall. There’s a house by the river, your seat is still warm but the rooms are empty. I am willing to share you with another, even if I have less of you than her, but you want neither of us, you only want to disintegrate before us, drama in front of your most enamoured audience. I begged you not to go as she shrieked madly at us both. In return you spoke rumbles and of a rich legacy of sensation. I’d cry at the end of the story but when you sank into the ground the invisible string tore my heart right out of my chest and into the ground with you.

Downstream was uneventful. I could not even feel my pulse.

i'm sorry

2005-10-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

zero degree temperatures. it gets worse at night. no shelter, no food, no fuel.

i'm sorry. i did nothing.

the purest thing i have ever done

2005-10-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

the purest thing i have ever done was to put a house on my back, pack a few sticks, and take a walk. We ambled over, my house and i, to the place where the sea meets the sky and land. i played in the water while my house watched itself, drifted floated till i lost the part of myself i didn't want to bring with me. I sat outside my house at the place where the sea meets the sky in the sound of not saying anything. I drank a little water, made a little fire, ate a little food. We walked over some rocky roads eaten by rivulets in the past. We stopped in a clearing, and I slept. I thought of everyone, and thought not to think of them. I dreamed of only the present as I slept. i did nothing. I did everything myself.

When i was hungry, i ate. When i was tired, i stopped. the purest thing i have ever done is to become a turtle.

that seems like a long time ago. but i'm going to do it again soon. i say i will. i wish i will.

love it love it love it

2005-10-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

how true.

do it do it do it

2005-10-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

would it pierce? is this just being bloody minded?

i can see something in the middle distance

2005-10-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

"Many days also find us sitting on hills or under sparsely
shady trees, sipping a little water, waiting, watching the
distance. I can see something in the middle distance."

[i heard it's bad luck to take a picture of yourself and your bike. you'll get into an accident with that bike if you do. does this count?]

".... sometimes you'll see us stopping at crossroads, while I get
down, raise mygoggles and examine the ground. At other times
we might stop near the crest of a hill, and I dismount and
scramble to peek...."

i can't stand it

2005-09-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

i can't stand it. you near to me so close i can feel the warmth rising off your skin even though we're at the distance normal people keep from each other. we talk, or rather, you talk and my mouth moves trying to make sounds that seem normal, unlike the slush that is really my mind. i saw your skin peeking out from under clothing, i see your frame beneath the cloth. i force myself to be relaxed, force myself to sit back, to be cool. i'm not cool.

your too skinny arms and your too infectious laugh and voice punctuate the air. - punctuate? puncturing the air with holes, of movement and images. it's too much. to see what i can't have is too much too much too much too much. i feel weak and ill now.

a girl was frying breakfast in my flat. it's not often that a girl will be making breakfast instead of me. she said, let me, and i realised that i'd better. she stood there in the large dress pulled magically from the small bag she carried last night. i watched her. that frying pan isn't going to be the same anymore.

but it doesn't compare, sound of bacon frying and the new feel of morning, to one moment near those skinny arms and the attitude your bare feet take when you are relaxed. like a cat, you licked the sugar off the cake and i died.

nightmare dream

2005-09-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

i dream of a lush green earth, a landscape rolling before me, endless and true. i dream of sleeping under stars when wandering, making do when making one's way. i dream of clothing which, once acquired, is often used, protecting bodies against weather and temperature. i
dream of promise spoken of in seriousness, in which fulfilment means unfurling yourself, and reaching out in both strength and determination, to grasp destiny.

in this world i would sleep under wide shady trees, i would shield my eyes from the sun with a fan to look along the dirt road, i would feel the grass beneath my hand and not wither.

but i already live in a world with lush green scapes, i can already sleep under stars, i am myself a promise unfulfilled, a box of potential unopened.

but anyway

i dreamt of another place last night. of european buildings of brick and stone, wide staircases that accordion upwards, of paintings and precious vases which punctuate the sweeping marble hallways. at one point or at first, i was running around these buildings, trying to get from one door to another, one building to another (so many of these buildings appear separate but adjacent from the outside, but are actually continuous on the inside, especially university buildings, having taken over several townhouses, they often gut them and connect them). some doors were open to me, but other metal grilles were closed, leaving me able to gaze into the rooms and corridors on the other side, but not enter more than my arm. i had a scrap of paper, i was looking for a professor, or a doctor, or an aristocrat. it could have been an aristocrat's house.

then there was a press of people. we wore armour and held steel blades. same place. we had fought our way in the door, now we were crushed up shoulder to shoulder with each other, chest to chest with the household guard. we were a mass of bodies all the way up the stairs, following our leader in his gold armour and helmet to the top. we were shoving and stabbing, pikes waving uselessly in the air unable to come down, all colours and ranks confusingly mixed. shoving shoving shoving. i realised our own duke and leader was, sadly, played by arnold schwarzenegger (or maybe he was arnold schwarzenegger, equally sadly). he reached the top of the stairs before us. it was an ever-so-polite dinner party. lovely dresses, the clink of fine silverware on exquisite china. in the middle of the relatively large but not high ceilinged room, a circular glass elevator shaft, and inside it, part of a rocket was visible. over the twin doors which were open to allow waiters to load things, PRIMITIVE I.

the butler stopped him with a "Sir."

he looked exceedingly out of place, sword in hand, sweaty. "I need to see the Marquis," he said.

meanwhile a table of three young aristocrat girls decided they would not eat what was at their table, but rather take it along with them as a picnic. james dear, they said to the junior butler serving them tea, could you make sure this goes into a basket and along with us on the rocket? certainly madams, he bowed. i shall do it presently.

the Marquis was making his way from the back of the room. a curious light shone on arnie, and right through him. i saw more gold inside of him, simple gold mechanisms of spiral and pendulum and a lot of empty space. he is an android, i realised then. the light shows it.

"Ah my brother-in-law," said the Marquis, straightening his dinner jacket.

"I need to get on that rocket," arnie said. so. arnie is married to the Swiss Countess, the Marquis' sister.

"I have no space left," said the Marquis. "Your wife might give up her seat though."

"I and my wife must be together on it."

"That means I would have to leave someone else behind."

Arnie almost raised his sword. "Very well, I suppose I could remove one of the young ladies from this table." A gasp from one of the three. they were preparing to be outraged when they discovered which one of them it would be. arnie was happier though.

the Marquis was thoughtfully speaking out loud. "It would certainly have social repercussions in our circle, such a slight and at the last moment, but considering these young ladies' rather junior social standing, i suppose it is the lesser of two evils of refusing yourself or leaving someone else behind. Very well." He walked off to continue preparations and dining.

Android arnie, made of gold, turned back to us to tell us to stop fighting.

i personally didn't care who went or didn't. i knew nobody on that fucker of a rocket was going to come back. i just knew. and with a name like that, how could it? baroque patterns and curliques were carved onto the gold plated shell of the rocket, and reflected on the interior wallpaper and handles. how could it ever return.

that wasn't the end of the dream though.

the same or similar building. i am watching a movie, although it is not a movie. it is in a large hall, airy, but not dark. all the lights are on. where we sit, becomes the movie, like a hologram projected all around us. a forest, a seashore, a marketplace. we sit in these places as the actors play out their story of presumably blockbuster proportions in those locations. the story is so unimportant that we are free to wander around the marketplace, though not all the produce can be picked up, nor all the lego pieces played with. i play with a few, trying to make lego work with duplo.

then a pause, and some running around and searching. we have to get back for the movie, it was only an intermission but now we've got too many things to do. i squeeze in time for a haircut but all the barbers are too busy. they offer me a pair of scissors and the option of doing it myself. i take the scissors and stand in front the mirror. my companions are waiting for a shampoo or something. i carefully start snipping in an orderly manner, then grow more vigourous. it becomes uneven, though quite acceptable on the left side. while trying to rescue the weird situation on the right, i notice the lowest row of hair on the back of my head reaches down to my shoulders. i don't remember it being so long. i start on it. measured at first, i cut
furiously close when i don't seem to be getting anywhere (is it growing as i cut it?). suddenly i hold in my hand a clump of it, long, and at the root it looks like or is a row of short soft stingray bones. now for the other side. i cut or pull it off, and to my relief i have the rest in my hand too now. it is also stingray bones at its roots.

i want to get back to the business of finishing my haircut but as i cut i notice that it's getting into my mouth. i try to grab the strands and continue but my mouth is full of hair, i can feel the bristly clumps in my mouth and there's more every second and i am choking on it, choking choking trying to get to the sink to rinse it out because i can't get rid of it any other way.

i suppose i died last night. today is just a dream. with a fucker of a dream like that, there's no way i'm coming back.

good luck

2005-09-28T00:36:00.000-07:00

to all the people with tests and trials coming up. keep on going like a boxer getting battered in the ring, like a bird straining at the end of a string, like a runner gasping for breath on a final uphill stretch.

chips that pass in the night

2005-09-20T01:36:00.000-07:00

i want to be lost. i want to be dreaming. i want to be homeward bound. i want to be departing.

in a moment. nothing can happen in a moment. in a moment eyes can meet, looks can be exchanged, words can be almost said. nothing can happen in a moment, and when passed, nothing can be retrieved from the lost moment.

in a moment, nothing can happen - looks can only meet, eyes can only say i wonder who you are, walking across this space of grass everyday, with that same someone beside you, in this early morning, in opposite directions. the nonwords can only say i wonder if you recognise me every day would you know me if we bumped into each other somewhere else, would you know me if we were alone, or walk away like you must every morning? eyes can only say maybe we could talk, i look forward to our meeting our fleeting glance every dawn in which i say nothing but wish i could say a million things, at least once.

we live by moments, each untaken simply disappearing, each ungrabbed only leading to another of the same.

but we live by moments. each seized and treasured, becoming a shining star. every morning lived in anticipation of the moment, crossing paths, trading looks, fuelling dreams. my heart beat faster every morning as we approached the grassy space.

stairs. railings. a lightening sky. also: grass, a path, bags, a chaperone. wishful glances, and talking to someone but not listening.

then pavement, railings, a midday sky. grass. a path. walking in opposite directions from the morning. the quick glance and pent up frustration of these years, a tense hello. a look of complete recognition. a complementary smile of understanding. we talked, it was easy. we were old friends even though we had never spoken before. i never knew your smile was so electric, i never knew you were so funny. (i hoped i was funny too) we laughed so much. i said good bye like i was certain i would see you again. i never did.

the first time i talked to you was the last time; it's burned in my memory like a meteor. is it sweeter that it was so ephemeral or more bitter? i can't tell.

i want to be lost. because i am dreaming.

killer be killed

2005-09-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

actually i don't like this song so much, and it's so common, but it seems so resonant now that ken has brought it to my attention. it's killing me, she's touching his... chest.

i miss

2005-09-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

you haven't hardly left but i feel empty.

a compass without a needle, a target without an arrow, a mirror without a frame, a turn too quickly passed.

you're right next to me, i can feel you slipping away.

glade is night (and the pits)

2005-09-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

the glade looked perfect and lovely. long strands of grass swaying and billowing like water.

we jumped the ledge like an avalanche, throwing our weight down the air like a heavy feather. my smile was like a toothache, i was that happy.

the grassy water was fumes, the smell of crocodile meals and waitresses who hold greasy burgers with one hand. There was no pier, but you stood next to my bike. i was up to the neck in water and obscured by grass, you were dry.

the knife flicked open in your hand, you cut the fuel line and the blue water started spilling out of the artery. i tried to walk, but grass is muddy when wet, sucking on me like an old boot. what are you standing on, i wondered.

you gunned the engine and rode off, a phoenix of flame following the fuel spill. i prayed the water level would rise, so that i could see where you were going. i got my wish - it rose, but i stayed inertia still as the water covered my nose and i sank looking at the wall of grass listening to the distant sound of engine.

the massacre

2005-09-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

so a parang is a machete. so smuggling up the cambodian rivers can lead to love. or loss of love anyway. that'll be me one day, wondering why i'm not invited to parties, stealing dogs out of a misplaced sense of animal welfare, smashing bottles over my head to sharpen them. we're the forgotten, the old, the needy, the barely subsisting, and though you see us, you don't see us. get ready, i'll be there outside your ballroom, having drunk too much and wishing i was dead so that i could be alive.

but i'm not there yet of course, because i'm still doing people's dirty work and asking all the right questions which are the wrong questions. have you read the news lately? why is my drawer full of ambulance certs and not my wall, or my wallet? why do other people ride into disaster on the backs of dragons and i sit and observe? who am i to have done so much and so little?

a horse breeder of arabian studs, a security director who imagines headlines, and a man who ran every company he owned into the ground, this is the state of the world today. screw you SUV driving rich white folks who piled up and left and then villified those left to rot in a drowned city.

but i'm no better.

read this

and this

because we're all on our own

but what am i going to do besides sit and write some more?

baby

2005-09-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

i'm glad you arrived. after the things i've seen and the reasons i've been in and around hospitals for the past few months, it's nice to have someone like you around.

summer thunder

2005-09-05T03:57:00.000-07:00

tightness is relaxedness. sunshine is the precursor to rain. apathy is responsibility. convenience is a necessity. yellow raincoats are for looking at wet gravel (for a long time). making a wine glass ring is surprisingly easy. hula is danger. speediness is slow. tightness is repose.

sunburn is something youth is not afraid of. summer thunder is a place where the countries meet, where distant booms mean many things, where clicks are sometimes clacks, where the heat can rise oppressingly and be as dazing as the storm. my voice lingers in the air like a tense moment.

nothing is busyness.

tightness is restraint.

the lion in winter

2005-08-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

a lion!

or a funnel

i think of him as radar cat

just for now

[hey radarcat you left your price tag on]

horizon

2005-08-26T03:45:00.000-07:00

after the ceremony we sat in the canteen, sipping the watered down soda and tea from the plastic cups furry with repeated scratches. other people went off to town and important places to celebrate, but we sat in the same old canteen as we had been eating all our dire lunches in for the past few years. mother and father didn't seem to mind, and i guess it was all the same to us. after all where could we go, what else would we do besides wait for the bus and go to the interchange take the other bus and go home. it didn't feel different now that i'd never have to eat there again unwillingly, but still the canteen didn't feel the same. we weren't unhappy there, though we said nothing more or less, and though we couldn't say we were happy.

i kept an extra programme for you, mother said.
thanks, i said.
it's got your name in it do you want to see it? she said.
yes, i said. she handed it to me. i took it. it had my name in it. we went back to sipping our tea and soda.

a moment and a momentous occasion share letters and root morphemes and are also a world apart. i wonder why.

a moment does not become momentous because of the pomp and the ritual and the dress that you wear, it is only momentous because of what it means and what happens in your head. the blasts of confetti and fireworks and choirs of singing ring empty inside me on new years day.
but does that mean that sitting in the crummy little canteen i knew so well that i was sick of it yesterday (but which mother and father had never seen before) everything was indeed momentous?

we're going to get up, wait for the bus, take it to the interchange, take the other bus, and walk home, for the last time.

a reminder

2005-08-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

note to self: do not juggle razor blades any more.

Godard's Handgun

2005-08-09T23:36:00.000-07:00

we stopped the car about midway up the hill. she took the high-powered rifle, the mat and the binoculars with the stand from the boot, and we carried these things up the rest of the way. on the top looking over the steep drop of the opposite face we lay the mat down and surveyed the area. a leafy valley, mostly rocky underfoot in the open spaces where the stream showed through. a bare patch near the bend of the stream, walkable from the road that passed by on the slope above. it was more than a kilometre away. it was a narrow pass.

why did we put the meet here? i asked. it has two hiding places, she said. looking more carefully now, i could see them with a little difficulty.

are those our guys in there? i said. no, she said, theirs.

aren't our boys walking into a trap? yes, she said. you don't seem bothered, i said. i'm not.

there was a long pause. we both watched, i through the binoculars, she through the rifle scope.

okay i'll bite, i said, why aren't you worried? she sighed, like you would to a troublesome child: they think we're amateurs. we chose the spot. they agreed. they are going to double cross us. they think we don't know the hiding places.

can you hit them from here with that? i asked. shhh, she snapped.

Mark Griffin, in Dali's Handgun, states that 'the perfect gun is a beautiful chimera', is 'not in the habit of saluting the dead', is 'a door someone opened'. That gun 'writes sad and ardent love letters', and 'crouches to intercept shadows'. I think of his first lines most: the perfect gun is not visible; the perfect gun exists in the savage state.

the german car rolled up even earlier than expected, too early for the meeting time. when the round friendly shape of the french car showed up, conventionally it would have been impossible to escape the trap. but our boys did not stop, instead took out the goods and carried on as if doing business. i watched the shapes up on the hill, crawling towards the hiding places, i watched the green branches of the valley sway in the wind.

the shots that were supposed to come from the hiding places never came of course when everything went sour, though lots of others did down by the stream. the distant firecracker noises made me feel weird. afterwards there were a lot of dead bodies. but in this place, no one cares about dead bodies. we watched through the binoculars and the scope.

we rolled up the mat and got ready to move off. i asked her, could you really have hit anything with that rifle at such a long way off?

no, she said. then why did you bring it? i asked.

i did not bring it to shoot any of them, she said. i brought it in case i needed to shoot you.

Did Godard get it right? Is the world orderly or disorderly? I think he was saying it is like a madness, absurd and seemingly cosmically planned. Maybe the plans we discern, like a heist or a doublecross, only serve to show how absurd and unplanned everything really is in contrast. We try to design our lives and paths and arrange our selves, but when we steal cars on a whim and jump randomly from one adventure to another, that is when we are most in tune with reality.

all your reflected images

Roll Deep

2005-08-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Roll Deep Crew is still in the UK top 20. Holy Shit. Is this signalling the mainstreaming of grime?

camel dreams

2005-08-04T05:40:00.000-07:00

me and my camel, we get along fine, we like walking, we like roaming. We travel a lot. Many days find us treading paths and following rivers, picking lines across the stony desert.

Many days also find us sitting on hills or under sparsely shady trees, sipping a little water, waiting, watching the distance. I can see something in the middle distance. I count things. I write them in my little book. I like watching the heat rise in waves off the barren ground, the mirages shimmering like water. It makes me think of home and freedom.

At night we cook a little stew to feed ourselves, though my camel doesn't eat much. I dig a hole for my fire. I try not to look at the fire too much too, it ruins my night vision. After cooking I put the fire out quickly. We huddle together for warmth, I lean back on her hump and feel the slow breathing or a creature more important to me than myself. I count the distant lights, and sometimes I fall asleep.

There are storms here, and we both hate it when that happens. We hunker down, braced against the wind, and I add extra layers to shield myself. The sand gets everywhere though, in my shirt, in my shoes. Sometimes we have to walk through the storms, and that is very trying. I don't just cover my face, I put on my goggles and tighten my straps, and trudge on through the blasts of sand, reins in my hand, leading my reluctant camel. Sometimes we ride, actually camels can see pretty well in storms, their long eyelashes help apparently. I have to confess I don't really know, because I never look into her eyes during a storm. I should find out really, because I've been thinking of getting her a pair of goggles of her own but if she doesn't need them I wouldn't want to insult her.

Out here you should never be too far away from your camel, and so I am always close by. A sun around which I orbit, whether scribbling notes in my little book perched on a sand dune or a rock, or stretched out beside her. If I go to a watering hole or uproot a bulb plant for water, I always keep within sight and come back briskly to her. We've covered miles and miles and miles together, sometimes you'll see us stopping at crossroads, while I get down, raise my goggles and examine the ground. At other times we might stop near the crest of a hill, and I dismount and scramble to peek over the top, looking into the oasis on the other side.

We range up and down this land, my camel and I, and the click swish of metal buckles and leather straps as we saddle up is the heartening sound of movement. We are alone but not truly lonely, though I am the only one who talks. She never says much but to spit or fart, and not often at that. I haven't grown tired of the endless rangings, everyday more ground to cover and things to count and jot down, and as for her, well I guess she was made to travel.

We get along fine, my camel and I, but sometimes, waking from a disgruntled sleep and reaching out to ascertain where I am or if I still exist, I wish she was alive to say something to me.