Pants
In the hall that 3 cream doors face in silence, an extremely fit and handsome young man, found it necessary to be getting back into his running shorts, right outside my cream door.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled and fumbled, as I walked up the stairs and caught sight of him, pants down, on the landing between that triangle of doors to vastly different private worlds.
I did not avert my eyes as he dragged shorts up his athlete’s legs and over his jocks. Then he smirked and bolted, shoes in hand, down the stairs.
I stood in the sun that pours in from the skylight above, holding my keys, blinking behind my ridiculously over-sized sunglasses.
“Oh fuck!” Hand over nose fast, I flinched as the foot-odour he’d left behind reached me.
……………………………………………..
Behind their cream door, the couple next door fight a lot. I’m not sure which of them received Mr You-can-get-dressed-in-the-hall, but I’ve decided that one of them is definitely getting some ‘happiness’ from a stinky-footed source.
Camping
At the start…
Arrive first.
“Ooh, aah, wonderous nature!”
Relax.
Put up new tent.
Relax some more.
Friends arrive.
Much swearing ensues during tent erection period.
Drink beer.
Make dinner.
Laugh at antics of made-inept-by-anger friends.
Later…
Gusty.
Tent fucked.
Drink beer.
Begin tent resurrection.
Much swearing ensues and friends snicker.
“I don’t want your advice, this tent is a piece of crap, obviously!”
Tent resurrected, looks a bit shabby.
“Don’t say a fucking word!”
Beer.
Very early morning…
Gentle pitter patter of raindrops.
“Ooh that’s nice.”
Take a photo (virtually the only photo from the weekend).
Buckets down.
“Shit!”
Tent leaks.
Gear wet.
Little bit pissed off.
Refuse offers of alternate accomodation.
Because I can look after myself!
Later still…
Travel to big town.
Buy newer, bigger, stronger, kick-arse tent.
Whilst away male friends surmise tent demise due to female installation.
Arrive back and find a resurrected tent (you helpful idiots did you not realise how this would piss me off?)
Thank yous through clenched teeth.
Fortuitous wind gust.
Tent fucked.
“Oh…it is a piece of crap.”
Put up new tent.
Lovely tent, home away from home tent.
Wind gusts.
Tent a-ok.
Relax.
Owner/trainer
In the stables, ceiling fans kept collecting my attention with their unsynchronous spinning, and a gecko yipped as the light began to soften. The old man was leaning on a metal rail watching his horse inhaling its lucerne hay.
“You from down there…that Sydney?” he asks.
“Yeah, we live at the beach, near Manly,” at which, he shifts his weight off the rail and I look at his scaly, skinny, legs-eleven, disappearing down into his now over-sized and over-used RM Williams boots.
“No, don’t like the beach,” he shakes his head, and is quiet for a long while before adding, “rivers and dams are alright though…” he leans back on the rail and talks quietly to his horse.
“So he has a run next week, hey?” I say nodding at the big grey gelding and adopting my northqegian speak.
“Yes, they’ll both go ’round,” he sweeps one arm out to indicate the mare in the next stall.
“Are they good and fit?”
“They’ll go ’round alright,” he assures me.
He pushes off the rail and asks the little one in my arms,
“You seen a horse before girl?”
To which she nods and replies in cat-speak,
“Meow, meow!”
He blinks and asks, “You a cat?”
“Meow, meow!” she giggles as she nods again, and he smiles ever so slightly.
And then we stand without talking, because I know it is best not to ask him too much, he talks to you if and when he wants to. We watch on as the strapper works around us, muttering under her breath at our intrusion into her work-world. In the afternoon still, hot-humid air encompasses all, the gecko yipping is picking up, the strapper shovels shit and the fans spin, cobwebs dangling.
After a while the old man prepares to go home. He climbs into his car and reverses around us and waves, as I struggle with getting the kids into their seats. I watch him drive off and have to laugh at the trail of dust he leaves as he flings his car along his well-worn path. He’s defying odds, defying age, defying retirement, and sadly, he’s out-living his family and friends. He’s ninety seven and he is pretty fucking awesome.
Anywhere but here
I knew that it might be hard to leave there again. I know that what I am feeling now, is the precise reason why I had not been back there for so long. I knew I’d have a good time, but I didn’t figure on twelve years evaporating into nothing and reconnecting so strongly with the place. All was familiar even though changed, like myself, the decade has enhanced some features, a few things could do with a face-lift.
Reality crept up on me during the flight back, its sticky little paws tapping on the window, schmick…schmick…schmick, and many tears have followed.
I’m back, but for now, I’m not glad to be.
If pain persists
Truth is, I don’t sleep much. I woke, after two hours sleep, to that blackness where you have no visual sense of self, but your mind is expansive.
But the supposed unbounded blackness was not in fact limitless, and soon enough, a wave of nausea swept over me as the first flashes registered in my cortex.
Lie still and wait, maybe it was a false perception, I’m big on those of late. But no, the darkness is interspersed with zig-zagging, bright-so-it-hurts, light, always moving to places unknown, on the fringe of visual sense.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
But, sadly, that does not help. Time passes. Tick, tock, tick, tock, I need a new biological clock.
Eyes open, eyes closed, still the light zigs and the light zags.
Zigs.
Zags.
Zigs.
Zigs.
Zigs.
Zigs and fucking zags, making a mockery of my attempt at an early night.
…
A few minutes ago, I’m home alone, keeping busy, tuning out from my thoughts. Then a drunk near bashed my front door in. I opened the door (idiotic) allowing an assault of barely intelligible words, ethanol, and kebab vapour.
He was distressed,
his wife had left him,
needed someone to listen!
“But I’m not the one who will listen to you,” said the sage monkey.
For a moment the drunk stopped his tirade and his slow slide down my exterior wall, and he looked right into my soul. I stood in my doorway, door poised on slam, staring into the eyes of a stranger unable to make muscles contract, nor fingers push.
“No, I guess not,” he said, surprisingly clearly, before he suddenly lurched backwards towards the stairs and I, also suddenly, closed the door.
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