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MARCH 13TH 1998, A CITY IN THE MORNING
We are living in a society of killers and I'm afraid to catch the tram, inside the shops the shop lifters look vulnerable, the counter was their flimsy shield, I pass them on the street, their coal grey pockets full of chocolates, the crazy old man was pissing in the gutter, waving his cock around in the air like a hose outside the Brunswick Street bookstore, my partner tried to pretend that the situation was normal, that it was okay for a man to piss on the street with the sunlight warming his arse, that's until he got his trousers sprayed, people don't talk to each other on the trams these days, one woman fell down and they all stood there too frightened to move, nobody knows how to touch anyone else, I picked her up like she was a big pig, her warm greasy hair on my cheeks, the woman with intense eyes was trying to hand out the revivalist church pamphlets in Bourke Street Mall, the elderly couple next to me started smiling and shaking their heads at her attempt, the man said, 'you give me six dollars and I'll take one,' the woman had to hear it twice, then she said, 'in the day of judgement when the Lord comes you will be judged,' I thought, 'he will owe the Lord six dollars, the man laughed and said, 'at least I'll have plenty of company,' the woman said, 'you will go to hell,' the man said, 'I'm already there,' the world is more frightening than religion, no one is frightened of religion any more, it takes a lot more than stories to frighten them, I do not have many observations of the city, mainly that I want to go home, I keep thinking everyone here is earning more money than me, that they are happier than me, I wonder how many times they eat out and go to the theatre, I'm a writer and I don't even know when the writers festivals are on, when I got home I checked the mail, Michelle sent me a recording of whale calls on cassette, she wrote a note, 'lock the doors, close the blinds, get your pyjamas on and listen to the whales,' the songs of whales send me elsewhere, they remind me that my origins are not from Scotland or Australia, but from the ocean, I would find the right moment to be affected, it was the closest I would be to having a mother. |
