Cold Tide Warm Skin

Cold Tide Warm Skin.

Guilt is like a sea of darkness, raging and gnarly. And I am not drowning.

The clouds hang about steady and water-filled, they hold the water. They are part of the force which holds him. The sky is just dark and swirls the clouds round and round, the wind squeals, shrieks and howls as its rasping self divides the space between his face and the water. Minute droplets sting from the cold as they whip on and off his face and confront the next round the storm must tell. The ocean teaches a lesson a man can never tell. That is why a man cannot speak his mind, he won’t tell what is on his heart.

The clouds are grey and hang about the dome that confines a man to his being. Air sweeps in, like at the passages of the underground, with potential for a power let down of mammoth quantities. They are truculent typhoons, vast expanses of the air which whisp and blare against the brow of his face, the way of the universe permits for the weather and permits for the succession of the elements.

The glowing stars in the nights sky shine down from above. There is a light in his mind and it is ablaze.

Curiosity cradles itself on the edges of his mind, at the corner of his imagining. The light of the earth and the light of the sky is placed exactly and he flows in the nature of it all. He is like a pre- destined figure in the lyric of the universe. The word that is fate is spoken into being.

The planets’ obtrusive revolution spins the bodies off in their own directions they are carried by the sun’s gravitational pull. The Earth sits in its place. It nestles in its place a haven for its self. The dome that spins in its careful placement. The earth sits moving at a steady rate, how it should. There is a collaboration of sounds that conjours up a note. The sound is a hum. A magnificent chord made

from every sound that is. The universe hears the sound and speaks other notes into song. The universe a giant conversation. The weather of the terrestrial earth spins the air and the water off on a questionable mission. Very mysterious and obscure. The elements of the galaxy unfold in this merry delight. Its interstellar anarchy or existential peril. The formation of the planets themselves are an achievement born out of chaos or perhaps a divine plan. Either of which it is uncertain. He presses on and the wave ebbs against his open mouth and he takes in a mouth full.

The tripper flashes back to another time. A time of ups and pleasure. He sees and breathes the atmosphere. The love of nature not too far away in his memory. He can nearly remember how nature tasted. Sweet and glorious. It isn’t distant enough for him to forget those times. Even now at a time like this. Those times when his sheer love of life filled to the brim, and over-fell the limits until it crashed to the floor. Too much of the sweet stuff. Right now it was like catch up footy. Always behind the pump. He could spot that abstractness. But got lost in the complexity. That ability to appreciate life and feel its hum like a vivid dream of an idle Sunday in the gums. The place is taken up by the company, the other growing children who really liked him. The company the sense of oneness. He feels that he is back with the good old times but then is rudely brought back to the dim reality that he is struggling still and he forgets the others as a black heavy wave of dark water smacks his face once more.

Light crackles and the shock in the atmosphere sparks slightly along the water and the clouds above. The flash and crawling fork of twisted light gushes like venous blood. The sky roars and cracks and instills the frantic heart with a sudden rush.

The physical boundaries don’t hinder the progress of fate. The wait has been a long one and soon it’s potential could rise to fruition. The time is irrelevant, yet the collection of elements of all things

paves the way for beyond history. The everything could burst through the bounded physical present. The sea might rise.

There is no nothing, only an everything, the negative aspect cancels the meaning out of what there is. There is no time to think about the worst case scenario. There is no time, only the imagination. It is his primal nature that makes him step forward. The beat of his heart gives him the strength. There is a paver, only a line where they meet. Everything is still and all moments are stagnant events. They are all slides in a greater show. Each step of the path lets him make his way towards the next phase and he ponders the way it is at these intersections along his way. In some cases it is not easy to be contemplative. It is not even that easy to survive. His life is like a walk down a path. The destination is unknown.

He was taken by the tide and was not yet sinking. It was him against the world.

Things could have been better. Way better.

Carriages in the rides at the show swing about at different axis and I can feel the weight forcing my neck down, the pressure in my head feels nice. The crowd makes a collective sound, an extended murmur as the mechanical drone of machine parts pump and the chimes and sounds of prizes being won makes an extended sense of well being. It’s manufactured, and happens to most kids at the show for the first time. It permeates through the masses and the parents feel it and the ground dwellers feel it too. They all hum together and people holding show-bags for kids feel content even in the jam packed station in the hot evening.

Chapter Edit

He was alone at sea. The boat was far away now and all that he could see was a mere congregation of speckles. Spheres of light expanded at angles beyond notice at the corner of his eyes. The water refracted light in unnoticed direction beyond the vision of sight. Interrupted spheres, dissected by the awareness of the perception. (Human experience is finite.) The lights that he saw now were real. Real to him. Just like the other lights that were real to him but he knew that no one else could see them. It was his gift or his defect. The man was subjected to interrogation treatment to make him tell the truth. He had no answers at that stage anyway. But he was subjected to L.S.D. treatment in order to bring forth the truth. It had a lasting effect on the man and now he was different to ordinary spies. He was completely lucid except that he would hallucinate and now he was scared of the wilder ocean.

They were just lights he could make out from beyond the blanket of the dark and gloomy swirling impressions of water. Interrupted by crashing waves and sudden raises in the water level the presence of light was leaving him behind and his inset fear was unfaltering. The yellow and orange specks seemed to lose their value and there was no longer any presence of a ship to aid the illusion of hope.

Waves swept past like time. An eternity of coldness and numbness circling the present like a spiral of jagged glass at every exact instant.

Bounding every instant, bounding every instant, like a cell.

The instant, beyond the understanding of direction, hope or planning, offered a sense of soothing denial that softened the harsher aspects of his unfortunate set of circumstances.

Blackness, Everything. No light. Only touch the tool to tell the frantic tale. He was at a loss. The prospect of distance over

strength was a formula too advanced for him to work out under the circumstances. He imagined land. An image of dry ground in his head made the centre of his being starve. Determination set off like springs in his consciousness. His temper burbled, and his fingertips stung. He began to slap his arms on the stinging surface at a rate of increasing speed now and forever in each instant he used his energy. It was worth it and he found the lack of options a reason for the dogged approach to his desperate condition. He could only press on.

The sounds of wind that stung like a bite to the cheek seared his salty eyeballs and added to his discomfort continually approached in the unseen domain beyond light and beyond sensation. The gap between the real and touch was the dimension that let the wind juggle the rain drops like a sinister hand of cards waiting to play the hand right at his point of weakness. Splash and smack the water addled his clarity and concussed him, making his progress become sloppy.

Land remaining the destination, near or far? The question, he dare not ask himself. The mental begging for rest, it all made him believe for a moment that land was not far off. He accelerated through the thick heavy blackness and without sight, no light, he pressed his head down into the ocean. He was not drowning. The sounds droned and hissed refreshing as the new domain held a set of new playing rules. Eyes clasped tight The water covered his ears, it let the sounds of beneath get through to him, bathing his awakening. Drones of his own making opened up the vast chambers of existence from within. His nasal cavity aching with the overdose of sea salt made him swallow and the sounds that he made by himself offered a certain comfort within the frantic domain of his circumstances. An escape from the external darkness into a sanctuary, a never-world.

Chapter Edit

Somewhere far away a musician sat down on the grim looking alley way with a guitar. He was unsightly or grotesque. He turned his head in away that would catch the attention of a bystander, if there were any in his alley. He avoided the people walking on the street. He knew that he had to be a secret as the police don’t tolerate the homeless. He settled his wide bottom on the cement. It was cold and he strummed a little tune until the sun set and the darkness eclipsed the middle earth.

There was only a shining light inside. The darkness, his emptiness could not penetrate. His consciousness slipped away and the dark left his state of awareness and entered into the unconscious. Splash whack. There was no one to hear the sound.

There is a sinuosity of definitive direction, the road to truth. It exists betwixt and between. Within and without. It glimpses into my being and I look at it with varying degrees of understanding, through time it comes into alignment and solves any reason, any question any need to seek. My eyes are human and are only human. The experience is a story of divine intervention of a precious quotient. My choice and constraint circles and spires around the issue of my containment, it makes me buoyant. I am moved by the impact of every wave. It sends the power of inertia through me and moves my physical presence.

“The world is an amazing place. There is life. Everywhere. There is freedom in a sense in a lot of places. People love, some get to, others love their social world, their career, the family, some lead lives of solitude and never feel the need for companionship. Humans are everywhere and we are evolved beings. We have foods and language arts and crafts. From where I stand I see the conflict. It stares at me. I know things that you don’t, my work requires that I have this knowledge. The government has ways of communication, lots of things get concealed and lots of details must remain confidential. It’s the way of the world, as long as

there are terrorists there is a threat and the laws that bind make sure that there is freedom for the majority in the states in which we live. Life goes on and it is mainly happy. There is the drama of course and the failures, the pains the misery and all the rest, but mainly, things are good, there is potential for peace” I’m not a spy as such, I’m more of a solitary secret agent. I work alone and I know my business.

“And today we sing the praises of one hundred and ten cadets who have risen to make the high achievement of qualification in their line of work. They have worked long and fastidiously and they will surely reap the benefits of such prolonged and dedicated study. They all deserve the highest commendation for their achievements and I cannot sing their praises highly enough.”

The ceremony of accolades at the cadet qualification presentation was a proud time in his life. It was a happy time. It was what brought him to where he is now. He looked back on the days when he first entered into the force with a sense of pride and of worth.

The memory flashed back into his recollection. It sent solid images of a time when he remembered the dignity, the extreme sense of contentment, it was a feeling that let him know that everything would be alright. He felt complete in those days, he was doing everything by the book. It made him feel like he was on track when he was achieving the goals which he set for himself back at high- school. He had his dreams. His aspirations would set fast and he would follow them by aiming for perfection. He worked fastidiously and wanted to be the best. That was how he got his rank. That was why he became a man of secrecy. He knew things that made him a target and he would always have to hide behind the veneer of mystery. His life was dedicated to the detail. The facts of the matter. The facts were what made light of any situation. Without the facts there was no meaning and the issues

never get resolved. It was the way of all things. He was a stranger with a lifestyle dedicated to factuality.

He remembered the pride when he walked up onto the podium all dressed in his finest uniform. With his cap on he was the embodiment of respect, which he showed to the force and displayed the qualities of a good character to all, back in the days. He was a lot older now and had acquired a wealth of knowledge. He was a man of pride who had seen things. He had seen the nature of man under the harshest circumstances. He had been able to see the mind-washed antics of terrorists and he had become aware of the impressionable nature of man. He had seen the ugly side of life and didn’t want to let that drag down his hopes. It took strength to keep faith in the human spirit.

He had no family. His work would not let him. He couldn’t cope with family issues and dedication to a relationship. The contact hours at the office were long and he would be called in at any time. He was on call basically and would have to meet with people from a variety of department at different locations all over the globe. He wasn’t lonely. He didn’t really get time to be. After all there was always some work to be done. He was a keen scholarly type who would strive to do the best in whatever work was cut out for him. At work he was a face without a name most of the time. It was better for everyone that way. It limited the risk of exposure. He couldn’t let any information leek. He was condemned to a busy and isolated lifestyle. It was what let him live life on the edge. The places he would go would defy the character of humanity often. It could be the nature of man that let down his spirits. He couldn’t agree with war yet he was of the belief that his employment was his livelihood so he would remain dedicated to the task that was at hand. He couldn’t agree with the character of people who step out of their ordinary lives to take up arms against other people. Sometimes it would make him cringe when people got so passionate about the state of the government and political affairs

that he would lose sight of his pride in his nationhood. That was okay he thought. He got to the point where he thought, oh well that’s the species. Understanding government trends and social relations of a range of economic hierarchies validated his stream of conscious and where it stayed still.

He couldn’t believe how good the brass band sounded when he walked up to the podium the first time that he got a commendation. He could see the clad in his thoughts.

Meet, Meat Cleavers.

Meat cleavers has been a butcher for the last twenty years of his life, until now. He is in psychosis and has a defiance problem. He has a burning desire to pursue a music career. Burning, like fire.

He goes off from the busy city and leaves his apartment in the middle of a busy city. This is now a period of transition and he attempts to reach a higher plane of enlightenment. The plateau’s have been mundane and now he attempts to transform the banal everyday into an adventure. He has lost his mind after years of smoking marijuana in his one room apartment and drinking affects him in a new way now.

Meat cleavers believes that he is still sane and cannot handle anyone telling him otherwise.

The beginning.

Meatcleavers emerges from a door in the middle of a busy city street. He pulls the door closed with his hand kept warm with khaki green mittens and locks the door. Its raining heavily and water is running down the side of the road. Rain pours out of gutters, hailstones pelt down and bounce off the paved walkway that meat cleavers is on. The clatter varies from different degrees

of loudness. Droplets accumulate all over his face, meatcleavers presses on through the weather.

His mind is racing today and he begins mumbling to himself. “Lonely, lonely, lonely. What a morning to be lonely today.” He would appear very strange to any onlookers if there were any. He walks over to the tiny butcher in the middle of the busy street and looks at the place while standing in the hail and rain. Meatcleavers fends off tears. His emotions begin to get the better of him. He pulls his green hooded jacket over his face, his cheeks cherry red, and looks to the butchers door again. “What to do, What to do?”. He sniffles at this moment and wipes away a few tears without actually letting the waterworks out. The rain persists. He is getting drenched by it. Its pelting down everywhere. Over his face and over everything. Then he looks at his watch, mottled with moisture. “7.30 and I’m leaving”. He says.

Step after step after step, He strides at a quickening pace and begins to run. Tears cascade down his cheek as he tries to hold back from crying. Its hard to run in the boots he has on but he persists. Doosh doosh doosh his shoes scuff on the pavement. Meatcleavers is in tears fully now and begins wailing as he makes his way to the train station and gets on without buying a ticket.

On the train he is crying uncontrollably but no one on the train pays him any attention whatsoever. A few teenagers look at the floor and say nothing. No ticket inspector on the train at all. When he reaches the other stop, in the main part of the capital city he scrapes together a few dollars from the shrapnel in his wallet, buys a ticket and gets on the next train. There are people all waiting to get on with their luggage so it takes for ages. Meat cleavers is full of unusual gestures and mannerisms. He moves his hand around in circles as he entertains himself with a conversation to himself. Meatcleavers speaks softly and then occasionally laughs loudly. He is beserk. He thinks that people are watching him. The police

are watching he thinks, the government too. Strange thoughts torment his mind.

The train begins to move slowly. He looks to the side through the window, he falls for the illusion that the train next to him is going the other way. He giggles to himself because now the journey away from work has begun. His giggling disturbs the other people on the train. The man sitting next to him has to get up and go away from him. But there was no verbal altercation, the man just sat up and moved to another seat.

The man sat at the front of the train now and wondered why meatcleavers was so unusual.

Meat cleavers watched the city go past him on the train. He enjoys being a passenger. It was fun for him. Anything is better than his day job. Always cutting, cutting meat arduously, that bloody smell of meat always lingering. Getting yelled at for orders. In his thoughts he places a chunk of meat down on the steel and begins to chop. The thought of the chop wakes him back up to what was going on in the train. Meatcleavers had had enough of that for now. Enough of butchery.

Slowly the city became country and he was away. At the first stop, meatcleavers recognizes the man who was sitting next to him before. He watches his actions in a distracted way. The man grabs a chocolate from the deli shop at the station. He walks out of Meat cleavers’s sight out onto another carriage on the train.

Du doosh, du doosh, the train makes noises as it takes off. The moving forces of inertia made his body sink into his chair. This made him laugh out loud. It made him feel happy. It made his gizzards move to the back of his body, like a swing ride, he thought. Paddocks and bush valleys flew past as the train made its way away from the city. Meatcleavers saw sheep and cows. He

rested his head against the glass of the train window. “Moo cow, he said”. For the next two hours he was silent and looked at the seat in front of him with a sullen depressed look on his face.

Meatcleavers’ train reached its destination. He made it to the township of Maroopna. He got off the train and once he had gotten himself off he looked ahead to the next carriage. He once again noticed that man, he could tell it was him by the back of his head. He watched him very carefully as he moved away.

Meatcleavers knew that it would get dark soon. He had to find a safe place to stay. He wandered around the town and enjoyed looking at the place. He stood at a statue for a while, shade and light shifted from brightness to shade and back again. The clouds and sun could not make up their mind. It was like they were debating how much light to give to Meatcleavers. The penumbra from the statue of a man wearing a suit faded in and out. Meatcleavers stood up straight and looked at the detail of the statue. The neat suit the eyes and face. A series of waves of warm and cold moved past the place where Meatcleavers was standing. Meatcleavers was looking shabby. His damp clothing had dried somewhat and now was reasonably warm. The place surrounding the statue was garden, trees and flowerbeds. There was a park bench there and Meatcleavers chose it for a place to rest.

When night conquered the dark and the sky became black, bats hooted and cackled in the trees that grew all around the place. Meatcleavers squealed back at them. It was a terrifying ordeal altogether. Meatcleavers looked up and saw stars fading in and out of dense blanket of sweeping cloud. The bats persisted to make noise, somehow, Meatcleavers just drifted off, quite comfortable on his bench amidst the resounding chirps of bats and bugs and frogs.

When morning came, the sky was pink and purple and blue. Birds cackled as dawn broke and the sounds of different roosters echoed also. Meatcleavers rose early. The day was young. He paced all the way into the sleepy township. He laughed and sung out to the new day. It took minutes to walk through the township with guts rumbling with hunger and as he made his way to the main road he decided that he deserved a meal.

The staff at the restaurant didn’t know just how to take meatcleavers. The staff were acrimonious in their, demeanor. Meatcleavers was sitting in his chair giggling until he was approached by the waitress. “Are you okay sir, would you like to place an order? If you don’t give me your order now you can leave.” said the woman. Black and white checkers blossomed from the dress of the waitress. Neat black top and a red hair pin. She pulled a note pad from her shirt pocket. “What are you having?”. In an impetuous and hard gritty sort of a way. Meatcleavers said “eggs on toast”

The service was tumultuous. Loud clangs and vociferous clamor. It was chaotic, but in the end he got his order.

The waitress plonked down the plate. And Meatcleavers said thankyou.

Chapter Edit

Meanwhile, in the city, pedro was starting a new job.

Pedro had just got a himself a new line of employment. His new job was in sales. He was reasonably nervous about it. He had just had an interview with the boss and now was out at his first day at work. Pedro had to get his talk right. There was no use trying to sell vouchers unless the lingo was perfect. He tried his sales pitch on a few people who did not want to be disturbed.

Pedro smiles as the first door opens for him. “Good morning, do you or any of your family ever dine out”? Slam, the door closes. Pedro was a bit upset. The words of the inspiring sales manager ringed in his mind. “To be the best you have to believe in the sale and be at your best”.

Pedro walked around to the next door. He asked again in a nervy yet polite way, “Do you or any of your family ever dine out? Have you ever been to our restaurant?”

There was a moment of silence and a look of disapproval by the householder. “Who sent you kid? Who do you work for?” It took Pedro a while to remember the name of the company, “TLC sales” he said. “Well I’m not interested and I consider this to be an abomination, a blatant invasion of privacy” The house holder looked angry now as he pointed to Pedro and then to which way he should go.

Chapter Edit

Dull grey morning shaded the cringing sky. Face down on the sand exhausted. He had taken his chance and survived. The man sat motionless for a time. A new life experience, the survival, made everything up to this point a trial there was an importance in the beating of his heart. Alive. His arms were weak. He made them move so that he could muster up an attempt to stand. Pushing hard against the grainy sand he peeled his face away from the mould of his profile that had set since the time he washed up. Suddush. Too weak his face slapped on the hard surface bruising the soft tissue in his face. He slept.

The texture of granules cracking with sounds inside his mouth made his arrival into consciousness a steep transition. His perception swooped into awake. It unsettled him and he rolled over in a lazy yet frantic snap of movements.

The eyes of a lone man on the land suddenly striking in the morning damp, he became obsessed with the immediate affliction, the extreme lack of warmth and the beyond empty sickly salty stomach offered an agony that he had to find relief. There was no room inside his gut to try a vomit the motion didn’t allow for him to be sick. He was just hanging at the end of a repetitious contraction that squashed all pleasure out of his being and the burning gut tormented him during every motion of his dull and heavy stride. The want for something in his stomach forced him to look up over and beyond the scrubby dunes that he could see for demented seconds at irregular intervals as the clarity slowly sparked up.

He couldn’t walk straight. Bits of rough strands of low lying vegetation churned up at every failing motion of his stride. He clambered out amidst the dune pile of vegetation and slumped for a couple of minutes. So tired, the glare of the grey stripping him of any directional value. The uncertainty of everything was discomforting, and he lacked the mental strength and capacity to contemplate the night before. The fragility of his awareness made it indeed an effort to cope with the next task at hand.

He had no shoes. He was struggling to keep his stride. He trudged along with a weak pace the result of the grueling ordeal that he underwent the night before

After realizing the bare nature of the seemingly uninhabited region that he found himself in, he settled for a few moments of rest and he somehow mustered up the strength to take off his sopping shirt and jumper to lay them out to dry. They got laid flat on the spiny mounds of bush which popped out from the doughnut shaped cavity in the dune. They got left out in the sun and became less damp with gradual advances into dryness. A slide show of tiny ten minutes flew past his eyes while they were opened. Wet clothes grey clouds no light, then the sky contained a glare of brilliant

magnitude too vibrant for his sight so he rested them and shut them tightly so as to seal his closed vision of the light rays through his pink and orange eyelids.

The man made a calculation that the day was in its mid day stages so he set off on the pursuit of food. His surrounds were not so inspiring the lacking field of view dampened his hope. He yearned for civilization and for it to meet his needs. He was a vagrant, a nomadic wanderer rolling on from place to place without loyalty without companionship, a loner stuck in the present, bounded by the social frameworks which cradled his every doing. Repressed by his own limitation thieving to gain and unable to stop himself from acting out of the selfish urge for personal gain, he continually chose to set off and start from scratch. And he still didn’t get any food.

The man began to stride along the rubble and his pace quickened as he saw the homestead appear over the winding undulation. Slopes evened out as the distance lessened and the homestead offered hope and immediate attraction as the true prospect of a meal made his gut buzz and his appetite hit new echelon and feel.

Somehow out in the wilderness, the man, needy, dirty and starving found the road. He saw it through the eyes of a sluggish mind. He was eagerly pressing on and he walked upon the biting bitumen before realizing how close he actually was to having a hope. He was on the road which could lead him to safety. That was his fortune, up until that point he could have been anywhere, that was why he had trudged on with such persistence ever since he found himself washed up on the shore.

Everything he saw was hollow and his mind was numb. His legs ached. As his feet slapped on the bitumen road his feet stung and he could not feel his toes.

He had nothing else, no other choice but to keep on making distance. He had learnt an important lesson. Life was a precious commodity. One only has one lifetime and it can run out. He discovered how dependent a human being really is.

A building appeared on the side of the road. He was gaining distance, there was time passing through all of this. It was agonizing. He needed food and he wanted to eradicate his discomfort.

The dropped jaw of the station hand told the tale of how out of the ordinary the man must have seemed. It didn’t phase him, he pushed through the beaded curtain and in a sparked up state of sense he directly grabbed the kit kat bar from the shelf and peeled the wrapper in quick time chewing the dry flakes into the pasty bolus of nourishment and energy.

The station hand could sense the urgency of his approach and with an uncertainty and concerned compassion he asked. “Have you had an accident in the bush?” Tentatively the stationhand without waiting for a reply as he could see the urgency in each gulp, every swallow made by the vagrant, got the phone ready and asked if he needed a hospital. “was anyone else hurt? Any one else stranded out there?” He acknowledged with no answer only a grumbled to indicate the obvious, he was eating and couldn’t be concerned with a reply at this point.

The first chocolate had been finished and his extreme hunger immediately was quelled. There was not much room in his compressed gut for anything else at this point. The hours of aching with hunger and sickness had made his digestive tract switch to survival mode, the function that the body can adapt to when it is tested to the extremes.

His bedraggled composure became apparent to him self and he suddenly grew socially aware. His disorderly appearance became within his perceptive grasp. He became aware of social boundaries, and that he had some serious answering to do. His look was beady and he was now aroused, his eyes open wide looked directly over to the man behind the counter who suddenly seemed to gain a social sense equality or perhaps consideration.

He got warm that night in the shed at the far end of the flat on the property. It lay on a removed flat at the lower end of the front of the undulating field. With reference to the homestead, the shed was on a diagonal which made the whole farmyard look a great deal larger from the perspective of the occasional onlooker or driver by. The shed was neat and well preserved. There were windows at either end of the shed which let light into the place at both ends of the large space. The light spilled in from all corners of the widow giving a dull glow to the ghostly interior.

Otherwise the shed was a rather gloomy place and visibility was low. The interior was clean, there was little dust and bits of tractor and other machines were in an orderly place in one section to the side of the shed. The Man was pleased. He grinned from sheer joy as he was happy with his situation. He counted his blessings instead of sheep and drifted into the dreamy realm of sleep.

He looked out the front in the morning and felt the crispness of the air in a way that made his face and neck crawl with the crisp, fresh. The feeling was a complete contrast to the morning before which he spent on the beach. The most important thing on the mans mind was getting back to civilization. He made his way to the homestead and leaned on the wall to the side of the main entrance. The Land owner was awake happy and noticed him standing in the doorway. “You were looking a bit worse for ware yesterday”, he didn’t bother to look at him so much yet he handed him a mug of hot tea and pointed to the sugar and milk that sat in little silver tins next to

each other on the tablecloth in the living room. The kindness was heartfelt and the man already began to feel undeserving. He had this unworthiness that ran through his character. For some It is easy to take and hard to be given.

He sugared his mug and stirred it carefully. He stood there facing the other man in a moment of silence. He took his first sip and felt the warmness trickle down his inside.

“There’s a car, at the end of the garage”.

The landowner told him. “It might get you half way, then you’ll be on your own”.

He left the man in the living room by himself and put some bread into the toaster in the other room. He didn’t ask any questions, in the hope that toast would just come his way. The landowner began to tell him some important things from the other room. And the man stood there listening intently. The landowner said things like “The twenty k shop to the north has petrol and food but the way north doesn’t have a market on the way like this way does” He heard him clearly over the scrapes of butter on toast and clangs and chinks of jars of condiments. “The closest town from here is about a two hour trip” The man nodded. He didn’t reply, he could tell he was winning the favor of the landowner just by staying quiet.

There was a security in the silence. The walls and carpet filled his sights and the cosines of the place lifted his spirit. He had another slurp of the sugary tea and looked up. The room seemed to hum with warmth and safety. It became apparent to the man that he must have been one of the only visitors that the landowner had shared a meal with for a long time.

He stayed still leaning upon the same wall with his back still holding the thinly rimmed china cup by the flimsy handle. He

looked up at the ceiling and became spellbound by the artistic structure of the light shade. It seemed to display a mastery of craftsmanship from a gone by era. It didn’t stick out. It blended in with the character of the rest of the home. It suited and it was unlike the usual lighshades that he was used to. It was electric, the centre of it glowed with dull oranges expanding from the electric core. The compression of light at the centre of the globe bored into his eyes and left an imprint on his eyes. He blinked and the imprint flickered from incandescent to dark bluey greens. He looked to ground and saw the murky discoloration in front of the three dimensional distance between near and far.

The landowner hadn’t even bothered to ask the man for his name at this point. He continued to bring him food on platters. Eggs on toast, with sausages and bacon, was first then baked beans and more toast. The Man ate all that he was served and then made his way to the garage to check out the vehicle that would be his ticket to anywhere.

He pulled back the latch which sealed the drifting bits of tin-shed together. He unraveled the rusty chain and walked strait in. There was a dangling chord in front of the entrance of the shed. He walked over towards it, and pulled it. The click sound that it made was loud and the sharpness of it made his nerves shudder. Light. All around was a neatly set up shed with tools and motor vehicles that were kept to perfection. Everything looked as though it was kept in perfect working order and the green pale metallic gleam of the smaller trailer motor vehicle to the rear made him feel so good. It looked better than any car he had ever owned.

Things were looking impossibly good for the stranger who at this point had no idea what to do next. He had no immediate cause for which to attend to. The next move in his game of life would bring about another set of challenging circumstances that he would face with the same aptitude for getting himself out of the shit that he

quite often found himself in. He was a wanderer, selfish and an outlaw, the stages of events which came his way were mere challenges that made way for progress his life was a game of luck and every set of circumstances raised new problems new options and new solutions.

Before his rough weekend, after which point life took on a whole new meaning, life was about bending the rules of sensibility, testing the limits of his human limitation, trespassing the boundaries of comfort and expectation to meet his own thirst for adventure.

To him there was nothing other than the instant. The instant was of great importance to him. Time meant now. Not then not later. It was about this and now. It allowed him to act on impulse, turn his back on regret and keep on winning when the pressure was on. It was this way of being that led him to where he was. It was what made him a primordial being. He didn’t act like the rest nor did he fit in. He knew how to behave in most cases yet that just wasn’t satisfying enough.

The days were boring without the added rushes of excitement of which the man thrived. Day after day he grew increasingly tired of the decorum and the fragility of the comfort boundary. People don’t shock each other even though the world can be a shocking place. He would never be set in his ways. For the man, this place was an adventure playground. Everything had the potential to be new and exiting.

The drab woody colors of the passing trees and earth mixed into each other as the car pelted along the bitumen track. The engine hummed and the car shook as the man sped off on his way to the closest town. The fortune of luck. He quickly realized that if he had have popped up at any distance between where he did actually get washed up and where he was, near the coast road in the

country, then he would have been starving by now. Life is a risk, he thought to himself. The game of luck is my lottery of living.

The car rheemed in a state of perfect working order. He shifted down a gear gently as the engine caught on around the slight bend. The sound of the machine changed a pitch or two and then lifted as he put more pedal to the metal. He shifted gear and sat at the speed the car liked. The car became more like a tight fitting piece of clothing rather than a machine. Like his favorite cap in his teens, he got close to while he had it. The car suited his needs and worked for him perfectly.

The sun began to glare through the windscreen and the man was forced to squint as he came to a rise in the road . The sunlight burst through the clouds and rays poured out into the skyline ahead and gave warmth to his face. He had to squint for he was too sensitive to light and the grey sky glared at him sourly. He still had his bank card and wallet in his black jeans, that did not get damaged by the water, so he pulled up at the petrol station and filled his car with a bit more petrol for safety, and checked the radiator too to make sure that it all worked. ................................................................................. ...........................

The man had had it with people telling him how he should behave. Things got frustrating when other peoples minds put up barriers. He’d had it with people and their social expectation, it didn’t cut it for him any more so the only thing worth doing was to progress and leave the rest behind. So he did at every chance. It made him better, stronger and it put his mind at ease. When people imposed on his freedom then he got a bit nervy. Not in an aggressive way just a bit hot under the collar, it sparked an arousal which made him get on with it. People that tried to hold him back offered a kind of source of energy, and these emotions would direct his impulse.

For a man with incredible self control and a fortitude for discipline it would take a great deal to annoy him. He would only show his annoyance on the odd occasion. When his temper hit boiling point all he would display would be a wrinkle on his furrow brow. He didn’t let it show that often. For the length of the car ride so far he was feeling okay although he was a bit frustrated about being in the situation in the first place. It was a bit of a bungle. He didn’t want this to happen. He knew it was one of the possible outcomes and the fact that he was still breathing meant he was lucky. He didn’t have the nouse to stow-away without the notice of the terrorists for the ideal passage of time. He felt unrewarded by his mission’s outcome. It would have been ideal if he could stay on board for a lot longer and eventually reach land as the terrorists were apprehended. It was always good when he was part of a bust. The criminals of the state would be apprehended in private, if possible and the authorities would rush the undercover agents to higher ground. Usually he could just slip into secrecy without getting noticed. Other times in was a complex task to get free of notice. It would require a whole range of formal and top secret procedures.

He kept on driving. The empty road he left behind him tapered into the distance he left behind and his mission objective was now without clear direction. His whole objective description took on a whole range of new circumstances.

He drove and drove. He had acquired a map from a roadhouse that he passed when he stopped for the toilet facilities. He needed to freshen up about as much as he needed to know where he needed to go. He wondered how he could have been identified on board of the ship. He was thrown off the ship without interrogation which he found a bit unusual and a bit insulting.

The other day he was out in the swim and didn’t get a shock so it wasn’t a complete upset to be out in the sticks with somebody

else’s car. He even had to question the likely hood of their being a man alive who would be so generous to actually give him a car to drive. The circumstances would have seemed quite out of the ordinary but the man had already suspected that the farmhand could have been an agent. Anybody could be an agent. He didn’t want to know, and he didn’t need to. Sometimes people would just pop up from anywhere. They would appear in the strangest circumstances to aid his progress. I suppose it was a way for the government people to feel protection. Things were not as tightly regimented as they seemed on some occasions. While he knew that the government regarded safety of agents of great importance, the attributes of any spy are those of martyrdom. All agents must be prepared to risk their life as it is in the interests of national pride and protection that a person would lay down there life for the protection of the wider community.

Chapter Edit

He cast his mind back to times when he was younger at school. The image of his high school mathematics teacher came into his mind. He was the cause for discipline as a kid in class on the odd occasion. He was a bit of a rebel sometimes and quite often would spend time in the staff room listening to lectures that the teachers would give to him. He would speak out of turn and do the wrong thing. He received attention accordingly. The strict disciplinarian that he admired would come down on him like a ton of bricks. His teacher wouldn’t stand for any non sense. His strictness was a yardstick as how to be successful in life.

The teacher was a stern yet patient man. He would never let him off the hook for being late. If he missed work then he would have to stay behind and do it after class. It was the method he used to keep kids in line. After all punctuality is paramount to success.

He remembered the time when he forgot to hand in a maths assignment that was worth a considerable amount of marks.

“Your careless, unworthy of responsibility”, he could capture the memory of his teacher who would spend hours with him in detention after class and at recess time. He always felt on top of everything, like he was the victim amidst those who tried to captivate his free spirit. It was as if everyone was trying to hold him back. People would try to make him feel like he could achieve nothing. He wasn’t happy with it all the way it was so instead of being restrained he made it work for him.

He couldn’t work out why he was thinking about his school teacher while he was out on the open road. He must have needed some guidance and that factor must have conjured up the memories. He wanted some support. Something just to make him feel like he was back in his depth. He had been at risk for so long and the idea of finding more trouble did scare him. He wanted a security blanket or something and it was probably not going to be easy to find one. He didn’t fret about it however, he just continued on his trail he had a rough idea where he was to go now with the map. ................................................................................. ...........................

The green car was in the same old corner where he left it. The rain trickled all around. The gentle spray formed a thinly fluent stream which flowed through the bumps in the cement and bitumen tracks. He stopped and looked at the roller door to the side of the parking space. He noticed that the chain was dangling around the cracked cement base, so he took a step closer to get a better look. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, not that that bothered him anyway, he lifted the roller door halfway slowly and crept in underneath the small gap he had made. It was late at night, he peered around to get better scope as to who was around. There were a few newspaper piles and a some dirty tea cups. He washed

them out and made himself a strong coffee with lots of sugar. Suddenly a loud voice startled him and he jolted back a step. He perked up and braced himself for confrontation. A large man strong and gruff looked at him he was fierce unnerving and was holding thin piece of copper piping. He was swinging it back and forward into his open hand.

“You think you can just walk in here and get yer self a coffee?, well you thought wrong”. The man pissbolted straight around the scary bloke standing in the center of the open area. The big guy didn’t get aggressive, there wasn’t anything valuable enough to protect. He scrambled out of the place still holding the china tea cup. He quickly got into the green trailer and started it up. The globes in the headlights powered up with engine and then he screeched into reverse and pelted around the car park with frivolous motions and swerved. He was on his way once more.

The next morning he felt ashamed because he had broken in, and entered and stolen only to come away with a tea cup. He smelled his clothes that he had been wearing for the last few days to check if the stench of dread had set in yet. He couldn’t tell but he was sure that soon enough some sort of putrid pong would definitely create the need for a wash at the beach. The dreaded stench could develop after a few all-nighters out at the pub. Usually because of cigarettes and beer. The combination of these things with salty sweat meant a recipe that would be repulsive to anyone. The power of the smell was great and it caused a formidable odor thick and inescapable. To be trapped in a car with someone with the smell would be gross. It was as if the air had gone off, expired, gone past its use by date. It was repellant and repugnant. The man didn’t want the car, which had been his safe-house for nearly a week now, to become a health hazard so he stripped that night and left the clothes to air on the roof of the car.

The man would enjoy copious quantities of alcohol whenever the pressures of work were not too strenuous. He would sink back brown liquor and be merry. Usually in solitude . Wines, beers and spirits all gave him pleasure and he would drink past the point of no return. The threshold of hangover-ness was no obstacle. He would drink until he dropped. Profound guilt symptomatic of any binges or big all nighters. The man would feel wracked by guilt after a big night drinking that he would think of himself as a subhuman, weak, pusillanimous and he would regret every sip the next day. The man couldn’t remember exactly what happened.

He sat on the bench in the mall gobsmacked for hours. It was like he’d just been hit by a bus. His eyes were drifting and he was weak and tired. He was hungry again and his mind was numb from his night out on the drink. He was holding on to his heat source for lack of toilet. His gut burbled and he could feel his something vile in his gut trying to get out. People scurried past and didn’t pay much attention to him. He was half looking at people as they most past him in a constant flurry. The man looked onwards in one direction and noticed the many different kinds of footwear that the people were wearing. Black shoes, and high heels on there way to work. He pondered the insides of office buildings and looked up at the high-rise over the roof of the mall store and saw the ordered arrangement of office sections all stuck together in the angular arrangement. The modern construction was like a limb to the celestial city. Each worker like a vessel of blood sending a message, a new piece of information to the next particle of the great being. The city was alive, one of the breathing centers on the land. The Man on the bench gathered his thoughts and directed his attention to his immediate concerns.

He made a move after the first person handed him cash. He must have looked shameful. He went over to the public toilet to freshen up. It was a long way away all the way to the corner and he was bursting as he made his way through the entrance. He was lucky to

make it in time, he didn’t have any cares at this point. He hadn’t got his mind into gear he was weary and he tried hard not to nod off.

The slats on the roof were made out of fiber grass. The overlapping sections let light through in a number of shades and contrasts. The thick metal bar secured the roof and stretched along the whole length of the ceiling. Spider webs lagged from the overlap in the fibre glass and draped between the gap in the metal bar. There must have been years of webbing all over the roof and the bar.

Thud. There was someone banging on the door. He didn’t realize how long he had been there. There was something warm and safe about being enclosed. He mustered up a grunt, “hang on”, he freshened himself by washing his hands and left the room and wandered out into the glaring luminescence.

The light outside was bright and glaring. It hurt his head when he stepped out into it. His skull thumped, pounding repetitions continued and he had to squint as the sun light was so brilliant.

He paced over to the car. The distance seemed incredibly long. It was huge. He etched over to his old trailer and suddenly felt a wave of guilt. He thought about how useless he was. If it wasn’t for the generosity of the landowner who gave him the car he was driving he wouldn’t be hear. Then again he though. If it wasn’t for the sheer luck that he found a road track after getting washed up he might never have made it.

He was on the road again. He couldn’t drive for long. The hangover effect wore him down and his mind was hazy. He was feeling unhealthy and his guts were nasty. His guts were burning with hunger and alcohol. He spent a small time driving then he had to pull over to the side. He pulled over to the side of the road and reclined his chair. People in cars swooped past him and he was

uncomfortable about sticking out. He felt like he would be seen. It didn’t matter so much. He was safe. He laid back in the chair and tried to muster some rest. The comfort he got from having his eyes closed was blissful. He drifted off into peace full rest even though the woosh of rushing cars swept a vacuum of wind near the car. He ignored the sounds and took the time to sleep.

Chapter Edit

The city streets of his youth were part of his whole making. He’d spent long nights on the brightly lit street all through his teens and this was the playing field for a whole range of adventures and devious exploits. They seemed smaller every time he revisited the place but he surely felt safe among the parts which he knew like the back of his hand. There was a truth in the recurrence of familiar sites. The city was the same. It was changing somewhat but everything was how he knew it. The back streets and walkways around the building blocks that stuck out of the man made terrain. It was like the buildings were organs of the intrinsic layout of a sentient organism.

The man felt like everything was simple when he was in the city at night. The place was like any normal city yet it soothed the realm within, it inspired a place of stillness and

tranquility, made him know who he was. Cool air rushed gently over his warm flustered face. The cheeks pumped with pressure and clashed with the crispness on the other side of his skin.

He had always been overly cautious when it came to trust. Making friends wasn’t as easy as making enemies. People can remember things about you that you don’t even know yourself. There had been a few people who were close to him in his life. He rarely made himself vulnerable in the way of letting himself open. He didn’t want to get hurt. It wasn’t an option. It wasn’t as easy to forget mistakes as it was to prevent them from happening. He had learned not to let his guard down. He wouldn’t let himself be

weakened by anyone. In the end he always found that people who interfered with his life ended up causing dramas which slowed down his plans and caused setbacks.

He felt as though he was honest to himself. He wasn’t always honest. He had failed his moral guide in the past and lived in regret as a result. The situations that arose out of the way of all things, the trends of the times, meant that the man would act out of the position that he never wanted to go against his morals again. It would only cause more grief. Grief was worry and dampened his aspirations, no matter how short term or unplanned they might be. His conscience led him through his grey days and allowed the intensification of his hopes.

He had always had ideas which plagued his mind. At the side of his mind there was always the distracting side story about his internal yearning for achievement of distinction. His temperament never allowed for that to be the case. He felt the need for a nowhere book. He never got round to getting into it so he just kept going and dealt with the shit that he had to scrape through time after time.

The way he though of himself was mainly due to his unharnessed and unused disposition for ambition. He always felt like he wasn’t anywhere near reaching his full potential and that disturbed him every day. Every instant was fouled by the insistent relapsing mechanism of his mind that made him feel bad about his impoverished potential.

It would be do disturbing, too unusual to an innocent being. The trueness of life experience doesn’t shatter the minds of some, it makes the whole experience of life seem infantisimile in comparison to the compunction of the way of being, the plight of the world and the predicament of our own advance. We are not on the same boat.

When you meet the shore. If you meet the shore, stability is not a given. It is luck that gets you to where you are and then a range of factors let one secure their fate. It is the strength of character and the luck of opportunity that lets a man survive when, if they make it to the shore.

He was a bit addled during the long hot day, he was dressed in the same clothes that he had been wearing for the past few nights. His hair was scruffy and unkempt. He wasn’t clean. He felt dirty and his mind was dense with the alcoholic hangover that just kept at him.

At times like these the man needed confidence. It was the key. The key to his success and the fundamental aspect of his existence which caused him to turn around and make something happen for him self. Confidence is one of those really important things that can establish a person as a clear functional character of as an obscure type or also ran.

It is confidence that separates the slaves in bondage from their captivators. It settles in the minds of those who are great and who are worthy and will stand up to the situation at hand. It makes a shameful example of someone who doesn’t stand up because they don’t have the confidence. Confidence is a state of mind and can move in after a sudden loss or after a total deconstruction of ones self and whole sense of vision.

Accepting ones true state of being is a skill. You don’t look inside yourself from outside. People live without knowing themselves and go through the motions of everyday without looking within. People discover their true nature in a variety of ways, to challenge ones self is the test of character. It makes people see finally or actually the true situation and how much people really do have going for themselves.

This man has been without before, and now he hold’s all which is his, close, and dearly and he cares with his heart. The things which bring him joy hang on by a thread and everything he sees and interacts with are valued so much. Everything is precious.

Messages from his body language get misinterpreted by the crowds, they see a man lacking in a number of ways. To lack confidence means that your stature can be looked down on. People make judgements and they themselves feel bad about life in general when someone looks really bad. He wasn’t in a good way. He had felt worse, and he probably wasn’t going to remember much of this at all. He would if his mind could let him, perhaps not remembering some bad times was a blessing.

After all he had no-one to hide anything from. He was a lone man on a mission. His everything was his private business. There was nothing he needed to keep secret as he had no one to up keep an appearance for. He only had him self to deal with, his own company was all he needed to help him on his way. The lone line was the one which offered him all that he needed. He could encourage himself to make the next move. He was his own guide and his own steadfast.

Chapter Edit

In trusting there is despair. One suffers as a result of extreme loss, sheer failure to meet the expectations one places upon ones self can cause an emotional disaster. The man had felt trust before. It did him no good. It softened him and made him believe the untrue. He just couldn’t believe people anymore. People had always kept something from him, he didn’t even want to know anymore. There are selves that people project and withhold in order to get what they want. The motives cast a shadow on honor. He wouldn’t like unless they were of considerable worth. The man’s life let him

know that which is of little value. He had needs and his soul was always in a state of a constant mal nourishment.

In order to trust, the character of another must be proved. There are guises and misleading appearances that people take on as part of their game. The man wouldn’t deal with it, he shirked the confrontations, the interactions. They did him no good.

There had been people who had made an impression on him. They had walked into his life and played a part in shaping it. There had been women that would come and go. They had broken his heart and made him feel sad when they left him. He never could tell them about his job. It was a painful task keeping the secrecy. It was the single thing which kept the relationship alive. Without the secrecy he was vulnerable. He couldn’t commit. Women would meet with him sometimes and expect so much. He was a very busy man and could not deal with what was demanded of him.

He was single. He often would look back on his ex loves. They sometimes would haunt him with regret and other times he would feel depressed about what could have been. Quite often he felt like he didn’t take his opportunities while he could. He felt that he could have made better from the set of circumstances that lay before him. If he could do everything once more than maybe he would have done things a bit different. He might have taken a different method of approach. Doing so might have led him to a much brighter future. He could have been happier with a loving relationship. He had the attention of women for fleeting moments.

He occasionally had an inner crying out for company. It would happen every so often and it made him sad. He wanted company right at the time that he thought of them. There were a few that he had been with but it didn’t seem likely that they would pop up again from out of the blue and be in his life.

He was a quiet long time craver. He had no contact but a stead fast pining that made him get too emotional at times when he unfortunately was alone. He would rest in the pits of despair. Despair at other times was not an option. There were always details and more important things that he should consider.

He was on his own and had grown accustomed to the way things were. The shallow interactions just made it too difficult to know someone. The people who he spoke to at work had so much to say. There was nothing personal about being informed. The details would be thrown out and brought into understanding and that would be his temporary fulfillment. The interaction, as unlimitedly formal and as unlimitedly impersonal as it was, would make sure that he had some time to feel his worth. He was a government agent. That was an incredible achievement.

He had to fight on the side of good against terrorism. It was what he was made for. It brought a meaning and he loved the idea of official status and ranking. It was what made him feel good. He would feel a sense of worth at times when he thought about how good he was for having achieved goals. He was an agent. It was his calling and his direction. It made let live. It was his thing. He didn’t get any praise for what he did. Often he would work for months without hearing anything top encourage him. He was strong and could deal with that. The encouragement came from within. It poured out of his heart and shined whenever he looked to the flag. He was a proud man because of who he was, and because of the way the country is.

There was hardly ever anyone to tell him that he was doing a good job. He didn’t mind so much although sometimes the days became weeks and the weeks became months he was without human interaction for months at a time. He was okay with it. It was his thing. He would just lay low and keep his ears close to the ground.

No one led him along the road to greater things, nothing good ever came about out of something another had done for him. He learnt quickly from mistakes. Once before he trusted a fellow with his wallet. It had his bank card and money in. The friend of his knew his card number and made his way to the bank. He didn’t see him for years. It was only in another town far away from his own town that he caught a glimpse of the familiar character. He recognized him through the dense cloud of smoke that pervaded the breathing space at the watering hole. He strode through the sea of drunks and socialites having their Sunday session and gripped him with haste. There was nothing else to do but embrace the thief. After all he hadn’t seen him for so long.

With no trust there can still be a sense of knowing that is far deep and beyond the knowledge of seeing. One can become empathetic a get an extreme let down at the end of the day when you realize that really most people are selfish. After a long night of beverages and yarn telling the two ended up at each others throat. They came to a disagreement over the funds at last and that was the end. They didn’t resolve their wrangle and didn’t finish the night on good terms. There was nothing between them worth conserving and there were more important things to think about.

And then I just thought. What if the man was an under cover cop? A rogue who lost his loyalties. A crafty ex copper who knows too much? Maybe he’s avoiding the truth that he has not been able to deal with. It could be that he is a one man army against the world at the critical phase of an overthrow. Maybe right at the turn of the shift in government from the was it were to the one world system. There is always a degree of secrecy when it comes to the true agendas of the world government leaders. Maybe he cares too much and does not agree?

He just might have accepted his fate. Not with the government agency that he once worked for he seeks morality amidst turmoil

that has surfaced in the wake of the world arriving at a revolutionary new elevation. Single handedly he walks like a normal civilian with the knowledge that haunts him, that the world is being contrived to the extreme and the people of the world are being sold a lie. The peoples experience an outcome of their conditioning prevents their enlightenment. He watches the world just slip away. He won’t accept his fate as an exclusive successor like so many of the other people high up in the government organization from which he came or as an unsuspecting civilian. He will not drown in the sea of doubt.

The man is traveling through the Australian Nullarbor when he hears a faint sound on the radio. It mentions something about the prospect of war so he immediately takes an interest. He proceeds to twist the small circular knob on the side of the radio deck. It fuzzes and whirs and whizzes, the feedback is atrocious but he can make out the conversation amid the squeals and distorted pitches.

WAR IS INEVITABLE, THE TERRORIST THREAT IS A REALITY AND ALL PEOPLE IN THE VICINITY SHOULD ECAPE TO SAFETY. This conjured a whole set of emotions which flared inside him. He felt a mixture of things. After all, his knowledge of the motives of higher powers prevented him from getting a great shock although he could help but feel a great deal of spite mixed with guilt. This guilt racked him. The events that should follow were way out of his control and he could do nothing about what was to eventuate. He was powerless it seemed. He could do nothing except sit back and watch it all go to crap. He suddenly was having a bad day. Everything was about to turn crap and he knew it. He knew he was safe from the terrorist threat in the short term while he was far out of the way of civilization. He had needs, water was a rare commodity and his fuel would only last him to the next petrol station. From now on everything was chaos and he knew that it would come to this. He knew he wasn’t ready and only time would tell how he would react.

The petrol station was a place of replenishment, it was almost as if it were a spring in the desert, life giving and restorative. He immediately asked the woman behind the store what she had heard in regard to the news on the threat of war. She replied with a simple, “well I’m not going anywhere no matter what they do” He filled up his empty drink bottles with nearly hot tap water. Out here things didn’t last if not for artificial support. The heat is too intense life needs water and the heat just dries it up. He grabbed some other little things like solid lollies and two meat pies with those little sauce squirter things.

“There invading the army cant reason with them. They got ships out there now and there not too far off the coast.”

He filled a big four litre juice bottle with some petrol, precautions were now necessary for survival. If he didn’t find shelter for the next few nights then the extra fuel could be used to torch up one of his car seats if it got too freezing for him to survive. Out in the Nullarbor the temperatures drop a long way after the sun goes down.

In his mind conversations from his days with the government ticked over and plagued his consciousness.

He could remember discussions that took place between his peers and his advisors. At the level of government employment which he was at, there was no real defineable seniority. There was a sense of cunning that men would take on to distinguish themselves opositionally from their true being. People didn’t want to let you know that they knew too much. There was a degree of secrecy and a sharp agent would develop a way of concealing the knowledge by playing the part of a not all ubiquitous all knowing person. There is a pointlessness that stems from the knowledge granted. Knowledge that is given means that there is the potential for power. There is a saying that knowledge is power. It remains a

saying and the true situation at hand means that one can do nothing more than run through the motions. One can go out of their way to make san impression on the ever changing formulation of the constructed world, One can have a part to play on the direction of the momentum. It is difficult to say whether or not there is real influencial control on the momentum of the world’s progress. The man felt as if he were a missionary revolutionary at war with the odds and willing to make a marginalized stance on his way down. He didn’t plan to fall, he just accepted that he faced the possibility and it would not bother him if that came to pass. It was a kind of sick confidence that led him to act so boldly against a situation which offered terrible odds and a harsh chance amidst the imposing force of terror. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He had no reason for which he needed to satisfy his personal liking for wealth and class banquets. He’d done everything, all he had was his morality, and it was a burden and a continual struggle. He felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

The man who got everything he always wanted, lived happily ever after.

It was evening and the sun was sinking over the flat plain. The cloudless sky went through the phase of transition from greens and maroons until night came. The stars shone brightly out there and there was a depth of vision that just isn’t possible near the city. Each twinkle was a distraction from the last and he kept searching through the glitters for moments upon moments until his eyes became heavy and tired. He felt like everything was out of control, in a way, just like it should be. He became drowsy and before too long he was tucked in tightly around his passenger seat and he sunk into the comfort of slumber.

He woke up from the sting of the cold. It seemed like it was early enough for more sleep but the swelling bladder made him make a critical choice to get up and go to the toilet. His toes stung on the

frosty ground and the granules of sand sunk and bit into the skin on his foot. He unzipped his trousers and began to piss out on to the side of the road. His bladder was so full it was difficult at first and he couldn’t get it out quick enough. It wasn’t agony, his legs shook as the extremes cold traveled up his legs and made him tremble. Bits of his urine sprayed and hit his frozen feet like spit fire and stung agitating his cold limbs. He zipped up and got back into the car quick smart. He wasn’t tired any more and felt fresh and acutely awake. He sat idle for a while trying to get a good signal on the radio to no avail, then he turned it off and started the engine. He drove off into the cold night and got to a station by sunrise.

Hmmnn. How intriguing. Water can change form. It can exist on earth as a solid, liquid or a gas. The water is the holder of conflict, the bevy of factors that are symbolic of friction between the human experience and the world. The torrential ocean is the bearer of grief and it remains a trial to the man who is put to the test. The water can change form, it also is representative of the knowledge, a sense of truth can be attained from testing the mortal limits of man. Nothing tests the limits of man more pressing than the harsher elements of the planet. It melts and joins the water body from which it was given its existence to add to a kind of collection of knowledges, ideas, mass of thought, collective conscience. It is the gas that lets us breathe, it is the relief the energy? life source it fills our lungs and our blood, it runs through out our blood stream. Like an ice berg can be deceptive in terms of its size, the larger mass can remain beneath the surface of the water, there is a pinnacle of understanding, and a concealed unknown quantity that is surrounded by the water liquid that lies beneath the surface, I believe it to be their so it must be.

Also this kind of symbolism is typified in surrealism and in metaphysics. The water can be representative of the subconscious mind and the dream, the earth and air can be a symbol of the waking and the suggestion of the real. There is a point of clarity

which binds aspects of thought to employ a meaningful adjoinment, things flow and make sense together. Completion is the aspect of mastery, it requires clarity and important relativity.

He walked over to the car. He couldn’t believe that he’d been away from a steady base to eat and sleep for so long. It was a bit distressing out here. He wanted to get some facts straight so that he could put his mind at ease. He had to make the rendedevouz. There was a need to touch base with some of the government officials. He had sweat on his brow. He felt weak. There was no way out of this. He was merely a man, a wanderer. He had been away without leave and was taking his time to meet with the officials. What could he do. He had no mentors. He hadn’t had any need for them. He was level headed and courageous. He was a fit young man. It would take him a week at least to make it to the official agency. He didn’t like to go to those places anymore. He was by far an independent agent and usually there would be no need. He wanted a reassurance. There was no need to worry about stress. The government agents of the world have to deal with confrontations, Intelligence leaks and all out war. There didn’t seem to be anyone who would tend to his needs. He realized that events were beyond his control and that there was no real need for him out on the road. He felt redundant and he was without badge and uniform.

The terrorists act out the plans that they have. Anyone could be one of them. They all have information about everything. They don’t know which side the play is on. They have a faith in the greater good. It is an act of bravery that lets a man take on his fear. It is hard to do. The nature of man is underdeveloped. It is perfect in the eyes of god, we have failings. The war on peace is the war on terror and it is won at every intersection. At every human interaction. The world is a battle field and the war continues in the midst of other people’s poverty and other peoples pains.

............Chapter Edit.......................................

He walked into the underground cavern, everything he thought he knew didn’t seem to hold the same value. He no longer felt like he was on top of things. For the first time in a long time it seemed as though their was some degree of mystery. Things were uncertain and everything now held a new and overwhelming importance. An importance in terms of his own status and generally for the prosperity of his new found fellows. He had only just met them so at this stage he was not sure if they were comrades or not. He had yet to asses their character.

They must have had inside information. There must have been an informer, someone who knew as well as he did the true extent of the situation. Everything was in place and there was a kind of security that he felt whilst inside the cavern. There were people busy everywhere all doing things that seemed orderly. It was like all people were being put to good use. There were a group of people speaking and gesticulating in a very matter of fact fashion about some information that was displayed on a PC. It appeared as though he had stumbled upon a goldmine of activism. Immediately he felt the urge to find out who was running the whole set up. He wondered for a moment who was in charge. He restrained himself from asking too many questions and stood on the side of a rather long desk. He overheard a smattering of information a series of half sentences that offered him no direct input. He was at a loss and this surprised him and gave him a new found feeling of being humble. He wanted to help at least he sort of felt like it was a safe place or rather a comfortable place to be even in the face of a disaster.

“Name” demanded a man in an apron holding a note pad of some description. “Excuse me Name” he said again with an air of superiority and lack of kindness, he was stern and seemed to be in a rush. People were flurrying about in a whirlwind of organization. “I won’t tell you” he said with a disconcerted look. He was unable to contain his overwhelming sense of bewilderment. “I need first to

speak with the chief executive or manager, I can’t disclose any detail about what I am until I feel confidence in the cause”. The Man with the pad darted off with a huff and began speaking to some people over in the far corner.

The man looked around the busy domain and felt like he didn’t mean so much. He didn’t cause too much fuss and within a few moments another man returned. He was short and balding. His face was slightly sunken to one side and he looked at the man with a kind and warm hearted smile.

“You want to know what this is all about don’t you?”

“Yes”, replied the man looking a bit out of depth. He stretched out his back and scratched his head. “Let’s step into the office and deal with this where it’s a bit safer to disclose any particular details.” They proceeded to walk along a narrow corridor the walls of which were made from the natural structure of the cavern. Small globes illuminated the long stretch with a dazzling brightness that was accompanied by a glare that stung the eyes to look at. The narrow walk way went far and deep and curved slightly until there was a doorway. “Let’s step inside” said the friendly guide.

They sat in the small room, at the side of the desk there were two chairs there was computer software and a telephone setup. The room was plain and orderly, it reminded the man of a deck on the starship enterprise or on DS9. The place was made to maximize workspace. They sat and the older man spoke.

“How did you get here?”

Okay how did he get there? The words echoed throughout his hearing. It echoed and echoed again. His cavernous skull the holder of no wiser knowledge other than the basic informed

instinct that he had acquired upon his consignment to the mission and the radio news broadcasts.

His mind blanked it was normal for that to happen. It happened from the heat and when he didn’t feel like talking. He slumped in his chair and reshuffled his collar. The relief was immense. He gathered his thoughts slowly and recollected how he did actually get here.

Like a slide show images rushed into his head. He remembered the swim. He was glad it wasn’t the sink. The boat the terrorists. How they threw him overboard. He remembered that he went to the homestead that was conveniently located within a 10 km distance from the part of the coast where he washed ashore. The old man who lent him his car sprung to mind. The journey so far to where he was now , it all was a bit hazy. He tried to sort it out all in his head. He shut his eyes momentarily. It was more like a long blink. He rested for about fifteen seconds. He remembered being drunk and meeting with an old acquaintance. He almost forgot that bit. He had a hangover and all of that was a bit of a faded patch. His memory was faded somewhat from the dehydration perhaps and also the sheer rash quantity of liquor that he had consumed. The crowded alley way where he sat when he was too hung-over to make it to the car. He remembered that feeling of being filthy rotten and sickly.

He opened his eyes and looked up to the other person who was sitting at the desk.

“Okay, the first thing I should tell you is that there was a ship off the coast somewhere between balbrooke and where we are now. It could have moved see. The first thing that happened was an accident. I was part of an undercover attempt to uncover the identities of possible and likely terrorists. It was understood that they were the only thing we needed was a confirmation by

confirmed word. I stowed away. I had been on board since the ship took off from a small island. The undisclosed place is far north of Australia. I was on board and had a range of recording and bugging devices. They never found them while I was on board. Hopefully the worked and revealed some information. If it did not then that is okay also. They are assumed not confirmed terrorists. I was escorted from the ship. The name of the vessel I could not discover for the reasons of safety and there was no real need the ship would have a separate identification that would have been recorded by navy technology, it was under surveillance. I am aware of that.

After being thrown off the vessel I struggled in the storm for hours and I cannot recall exactly what happened. I awoke of the shoreline with little or no idea where I was. I made my way to safety. I got food and shelter from a civilian who supplied me with a car and warm clothes. I drove to a bank and got special advice. I got access to my funds and continued my journey until I came to this place. I knew that I had to touch base even though my lively hood was not under threat. There was no cause for interference and I sort of figured that out as I made rapid progress. I had a night drinking, during that time I met up with an old acquaintance.

I have spent the night in various places which offer accommodation and have spent some nights in my car where I may or may not have been seen. I was given a car by an old man and that seems conspicuous at this time. That is basically it. I have no further duty until contacted. I am now aiming to get to the most protected sight in the country mainly for the purpose of self preservation also I expect that there will be no further duties me to follow.

I will resume when needed. I can be reached if found otherwise I will be lingering without cause until contacted. I aim not to leave

the country and will not leave unless it is necessary or vital to another cause.

Chapter Edit

After the long stretch in the desert, the man had come to the realization that his inventory was somewhat limited and new food and drink would be hard to come by. He didn’t let this dampen his spirit. He couldn’t avoid the fact that the way of the world was creeping up on him testing his aptitude. He had strength, it was his nature that made him strong. His training and study made his mind strong and tame. The green wagon wheeled into an off road track. On one side of the car there were tents. People were camped and there was a gathering around a campfire.

A couple rushed at him. They seemed keenly interested in his presence, it was like he being the new comer was the cause for more hype. They were ecstatic it was like their team had just won in the football. The couple couldn’t stop blurting out facts about the news, it was as if they were busting to fill the man in with the details. He found it quite amusing although he didn’t let it show. He parked the vehicle and the three walked over to the fire with the rest of the people. They all took their time to speak in turn and they got to see where everyone was coming from.

A tall wiry man with a wispy beard sat in the center of the group. The campfire light glowed against his gaunt cheekbone and the shadow gave detail to the lineage of his forehead. He was striking. His long bony legs outstretched towards the heat of the fires warmth. He held a stick that was definitely not from around here. It was long twisted and curled at the very tip. He held it prodigiously. He was softly spoken and he displayed a demeanor of serenity. He seemed so calm. The other people of the group liked him.

The couple who sat next to the man were so bubbly. They asked him a range of things, the types of questions that everyone asks to new comers. They had an accent and were on the road tourists traveling across the land. What’s your name? Where are you from originally? Are you going east? He spoke politely to them despite all the attention being a little bit unusual. He handled it well and kept his enthusiasm up. From what the male member of the pair said the people who were a part of this group had been traveling along the Nullarbor and meeting up each night to exchange inventory. It was becoming apparent that some huge changes were occurring and it was better to have some connections just for comforts sake. It seemed like the tall man holding the stick was a leader or respected authority figure.

People quickly sorted out the character of the newest member of the group. Who he was and what he expected. It was clear to see that people were making estimations upon his character, they got the feeling he didn’t want too much. Word traveled around the group circle and everyone sat quietly for a while whilst one of the women spoke. She said “The cars will meet at a point at 3 o clock and wait for an hour before taking off for the campsite at the next stop”.

The night felt safe. The company of strangers made him feel security, a mysterious sense of calm in the presence of others. There was a noticeable change in the mood at the camp when it got time for bed. Orderly and strict, it was as if lights out time had passed. There were a few mumbles that lulled over the stringent silence that imposed itself over the vast barren landscape.

He sank his head back into the seat at the front of the car in the passenger side while the murmurs and hushed chatter softened and faded out. He pulled his blanket out from the back seat and nestled himself into the snug as a bug in a rug position and just slept straight away.

The land rested. It was as if the flat land had blinked an eye. The air became green and blue with morning freshness. Frost lay all over the ground where the man stepped out from the open door.

Before too long the sun shone brightly in the blue clear morning sky. The temperature rose quickly and the car became hot. Way too hot. He reached over to the air conditioner and switched in on now that the car had been running for some time.

The long straight road with vast stretches of nothingness either side of the constant line of bitumen. It was as if it went on for ever. The time spent on his mission to the next place got boring. That was all it was really, this man was on his way to the other side of the country to avoid a feeling of responsibility. A dread that sprung from his political astuteness made his path sure. He was getting away from the risk. He knew the harsh reality. There would be invaders on the other coast for sure and before too long the infiltrators would strike in the major cities.

Sometimes he would worry. Mainly because he cared about his own neck and wanted to conserve his life span as much as possible. Most humans who aren’t suicidal are like that. He also cared about the event of war. The event of war means that there is bondage and suffering. He didn’t want to have to bear an excruciating end. He had researched heaps about the holocaust and had read the horror stories from P.O.W. So there was the anxious concern.

Out in the middle of the desert the man came to a realization, it shifted his whole perspective, the foundation of all that he knew now became flimsy and unattached. He was now in a state of insecurity, there was nothing he could trust. The removal from his groundings meant that he must explore a new road to truth. There was no relevance in the truth he had established in the realm from

which he had come. This new place brought up a range of new circumstances which called for a completely new understanding.

He was on the open road for hours. It was frustrating and there was little comfort in the air conditioning that wavered light soft cool air onto him as the car zoomed. There was sweat dripping from his furrow brow and the sun glare was so bright that it distorted his color vision through the sunglasses.

There was a pub. It seemed abandoned. The fired brick work was colonial in artistry and the ye olde sign at the top which read, step inne was swinging on its hinges. He walked around the narrow path and little patches of shrubbery and made no attempt to look at himself in the very reflective very old looking tinted window.

He pushed the air pressure door and the immediate smell of beerwells reminded him of boring winter afternoons that he used to spend with schooners at his old local. There was no noise. The empty sound was thick and had its own presence. The place was about five shades darker than the world and daylight sun that stayed evermore on the outside. The dark blue and blacky green carpet work was imperial in demeanor and was kept clean and appeared to be freshly vacuumed. He walked further, he was not hesitant yet it was a bit daunting to be in a strange place in the middle of nowhere. He walked past the reception desk that was made out of a piny wood with a glazed finish, the whole place looked carefully managed. There was a lucky eight ball on the counter and it was face down. He stretched his hand out to grab it, not because he wanted his luck tested just because it’s fun to see what it says. He piked it, it wasn’t his and this place was unknown territory. He was not familiar with the roads let alone the culture of a road pub. Then all of a sudden there was a sound which contrasted to the sheer silence that went before in the otherwise bleak establishment. Shkriff shkriff, scrubbing that made a resounding noise in the other section of the pub floor. Expandable

doors separated two open spaces and noise just wafted through the zig zag divider. The doors looked like they were from an acordian. He approached the near room and looked in.

There was a woman leaning over a billiard table. She had a bucket full of suds and pink cleaning gloves. Atop the table surface there were surface brushes. She was making sure the wooden legs of the table were bright and clean in appearance. The wood had been varnished and had a look of prestige.

She had short neat hair with a hanging fringe that she kept pushing back out of her eyes. Her mousey blonde hair-color looked sweet. She was wearing a grey sweater over a pink under shirt and she was wearing sporty leggings. The pink shirt that matched her cleaning gloves captured her true healthiness. A very healthy looking specimen indeed.

She turned to look at him with her fore arm brushing back her fringe, she didn’t want to get her face messy with the soapy suds. Immediately the man realized that he was looking into the face of a beautiful whose eyes cooled his spirit like an oasis in the harsh desert.

This was an occurrence as rare as finding an oasis in the desert. This woman was more attractive than your average barmaid. She had a look about her that suggested product names like Giorgio armani, Ralph Lauren or joico and hillfiger. Usually when a person thinks that they see a spring in the desert they are hallucinating from dehydration.

It was off putting. He immediately started to talk about his details and the matters at hand. She said politely that she must finish the work and that he should wait in the lobby for about fifteen minutes. He sided off while the owner woman went on with her work, scrubbing and polishing the billiard table. The man found a

comfy seat at the entrance of the lobby and sat, eventually becoming mesmerized by the blue and white streamers that were waving out of the air conditioning. He zonked out. All else seemed to dissipate as the structure and shape of the air conditioner and the moving streamers began to lose color to the stare. The stare was intense and all the rest of his peripheral site became dull grey and unnoticeable. Minutes ganged up on each other and became an hour at least. There was no rush, no reason to get ticked off about waiting in the air conditioning of the pub. It was cool on his skin and made his soul soothe when he closed his eyes for a bit.

He was really getting relaxed. The woman shuffled past him with a vacuum and some dangling chords. Her arms were cluttered with detergents and cleaning products.

“Hope you didn’t mind about that, I had to get that business out of the way.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind, I just want a reservation I’m not in any hurry really”

“Fine, I’ll be with you in one moment”

He got up off his cosy seat and stood over at the receptionist desk. He got out his jam packed black wallet that was made out of leather that still held a lot of the heat from outside. He shuffled business cards and vouchers that lay in amongst the wad of cash that he had handy. His personal details were clearly secured in a plastic section that prevented him from losing them every time he needed them.

He turned his wallet around so that she could see the details. She grabbed a pen from the drawer at the side and jotted down the details that were procedure.

I’ve put you down as having number four. It should be okay for you for the night.

The woman handed him his key which was attached to a pink colored tag on its ring.

To get to the room the man had to walk out along a brick path. There was a swimming pool on one side and a door with a number four on it to the other side. He turned the key and closed the door after him to stop the sweltering heat from overturning the air temperature. He rushed to the air conditioner and immediately switched it on. He went over to the small kitchen space and opened the fridge door. Their was a uht milk in the door of the fridge, he peeled off the cap and guzzled it.

He unwillingly made a trek out in the heat to his car which by now had become a stifling air balloon of dryness. The heat made him gasp, he had to remove his upper body from the car due to discomfort. He made his way into the back seat over the passenger seat entrance and made his mind up to get in and get out during this effort. He pushed through the discomfort and collapsed into the couches in the air conditioned space in the foyer. He stayed there for a few moments before gathering the strength to press on. He then got up and walked over to his room. His room was cooling so he took off his shoes and laid down on the fresh made bedding. The T.V. went on and he zoned out in the comfort for hours.

The mechanical cooler hummed. It rang with a pleasant murmer that rung throughout the small confined living quarters and he sat, flat on his back resting his weariness taking comfort as the afternoon hours slipped away.

He didn’t actually sleep for ages, he was drifting off into a snoozy doze before getting sudden shocks of awakening at irregular times

that separated his transition to sleep from the sharpness of being awake.

He got up suddenly after crashing out of a journey bound for dream land, it pissed him off but he suddenly got up. If he slept all afternoon he wouldn’t get to bed till very late and his plans would be all messed up for the following day which demanded clear and detailed planning. He didn’t have a clue why he was making plans for everything. It all had to be done right but he was just on his own really. It was just him in the world. His cause was basically to survive. He knew about the motives of higher orders and just needed himself.

When he got back onto the open road the heat began to phase him. It got at him and niggled. He sweated. The droplets that formed on his furrow brow began to drip. Salty sweat poured down his face. The hot heavy air blew and its weight against his face offered no relief whatsoever. Images, faces of women entered his mind. They circled his brain and echoes of voices lingered in the background of his consciousness. They were waving, swirling around his mind taunting him, teasing him with their womanly charm. Fragmented memories of women spurred a lot of unresolved emotions within him. He wanted them and he was too far away from them. All of them. The ones he had and had let go. The ones that he wouldn’t have and the ones that he could not. He yearned for the ones that he never got. They were players in the cat and mouse game. Everything can be likened to primal nature if one tries to make a link. The brown fringe and brown blue eyes he remembered the face clearly. A photographic image of a small princess that never let him win remained in his mind. He remembered a time when he didn’t know anyone really at all, and it was a mystery as to why he yearned for this one. He didn’t even really know her. There is only so much you can know about someone anyway before they betray you. He felt he knew her more than anyone else that was on the

scene anyhow so he got too attached and pained himself with her hurts. He was a glutton for her punishment. In the past they had got along until one drink too many became an occurrence which happened once to much and everything was ruined.

The other faces of loves. They toiled with his mood and made him grimace. At the arousal of guilt and other feelings he faced other feelings he would have much rather left alone. The open road was too boring and the drive too long, too arduous a task to keep a clear mind. The heat just nagged and dragged down his threshold for patience. He was getting shitty. He saw a flash of red and orange and slammed on the brakes. He swerved and skidded as the car screeched its wheels as it came to a stop, leaving behind some wavy rubber marks on the bitumen.

He sat. The harsh reality of the task at hand just gave him the shits. He waited for a moment. Stayed calm momentarily. Shifted his attention to being motionless. He wanted to be still. For a second or two he was calmer than usual. He felt the lugging of the heavy heat on his spirit. The sweat trickle down his temple. He gave it a break for a few minutes. He gave himself time to recollect his sanity. He flicked on the radio. It droned in the most unsatisfying whirr.

The evening after show that the sky had in store after the sun went down pleased him. It dragged a shade of blue and purple across the vast distance of sky. A progression into the night, the sky revealed specks of light as the colors all toned down.

He started up the car. Contemplated driving. Felt peace within himself, Amidst all the heat and personal pressure. Stopped about five km up from where he started and stopped the car over at the side of the road.

Out here the man thought. The world is a body of its own evidence. It is the embodiment of our actions and our own presence has a profound bearing on the physical nature. There are untouched regions. They look untouched, people haven’t been there for ages. Symbolic spaces for imagining cobwebs. The heart of the desert is like an old man who hasn’t cried for years and then bursts out when everything’s hopeless. Strong emotional intimacy can be a journey into the borderline of self gratitude. Its easy to feel bad when the dark side of our humanity is exposed. It’s a skill to stick with the truth and challenge what it is that you think you know at the time. Life is for learning and memories serve as a guide. It is natural to realize how idiotic a man can be. The admirable test is to go on.

He felt okay about things and although he was hungry to an extent, the small bags of goodies in the back seat were keeping him going. His face became seemingly impressed with the prospect of being spontaneous, and deciding just to stay here for the night. He got out of the car and walked into the wild desert.

Red dust had caked itself into the corners of every crevice of the car. Its aspect was ragged and the diminishing light shone on the car and the background of the earth, the spectacle of the car, and his awareness of self amidst the articles initiated a sense of completeness.

He walked into the desert off road for about ten minutes and then raced back to the car when it got too dark.

In the morning the amount of dust on the windscreen looked abysmal and he felt like he was running behind time. The state of the car wasn’t up to scratch he would get pernickety about these things at times and really wanted things to get clean.

The open road was welcoming in the morning however it heated up immediately. That heavy heat returned in the usual unsatisfying way. He dreamed of a Mc Donalds breakfast and there were images in his head of hotcakes in Styrofoam smothered in golden syrup.

He couldn’t avoid giving thought to his distance from the nearest township, although he would have liked to. The effort to make a carefree night out n the desert was sort of therapeutic at the same time as being an emotional hinderence.

Those little syrup containers that hold that nice runny solution. Sweet and sticky. Complementary to the processed and bake that is served to the early morning junkfood eaters delight.

After the thought of food things got a bit tiresome once more. He had a long way to go. He was getting really pissed off again and his face was stern and set fast.

He kept driving. Driving still.

The door opened. No it didn’t. Huh.

The man was startled and shook his head quickly in an attempt to rouse his senses. He must be dehydrated he thought to himself. He kept driving across the long road. His mind turned to a new side track. He had images in his head of desert springs and tree frogs. All along the sides of the pool there were rocks and trees.

His mind was the haven for a paradise setting. An undisclosed setting. Somewhere no one else had been.

At this point he thought. If there was a sweetness of life out here he would put it into a tin can and binge on it. Like condensed milk. Things were testing him a bit. ................................................................................. ..........

He drove

He drove out there and the road brought him to a place where there was a dense forest. The trees were grew tall and the slopes at either side of the road were steep and becoming bumpy. To fall off the road by accident would be disastrous. The Steep slopes at the side of the road made the trees, which sprouted in straight angles away from the curvature of the earth and into the way of gravity. In the direction of the sun. The trees would shoot upwards And they all grew close together and left just enough room in between each other. They were very tall and thin. They would grow to be very tall trees.

He drove past on the road. The trees rushed past him in the other direction, there was a shade of green and earthy browns. The color of soil and wood. The colors all mixed together and with brief turns of his head he could see a single tree. He could focus on one and see it as it came closer and then it would be gone in an instant. He would grab a visual hold on the next one that he could spot. Then the blur would cease to baffle his sight. The tree would pass too. He could see the color of the crawling bark. It was grey and brown and the leaves were bushy.

He pulled over.

He got out of the car and stood there mercurial before the forrest. He trotted down an opening in the dense woodland and made his way into the forest.

The Man and Meatcleavers.

The man had just gotten off at his station. His head was a whirlwind of questions. His mission was, at this primary stage, shrouded in mystery. The man had to meet his rendezvous. Usually with these sorts of missions he would never know quite exactly what his mission would entail until he was actually on the scene. For clandestine officers a secret phone may or may not appear. Or a familiar face would provide a helpful advice. The chief inspector could not always be the sole consultant. In this business it is best not to trust anyone completely. Anyone could turn like the tide. The man knew he could never trust and could never feel pride, only the regulations of his line of work would prevail.

The man went to a scrappy looking motor inn at the end of the city shire. He had walked all that way without being noticed much by anyone. Few cars rolled by and out here faces come and go all the time. His neat casual dress was extremely ordinary, on the verge of being out of fashion. His brown corduroy jeans and blue button up shirt were looking fairly dated. He pulled his dark blue raincoat over his head. Inconspicuous as he was, the man knew the advantage of keeping a low profile. It was the result of years of training.

A few dogs barked as the sun went down. They woofed and howled a bit. Sort of like a coyote does, he thought. But there was not any round here. At least that would be unlikely. The man made his way into the little reception area, he asked, “how much for one night only”.

1

“35 dollar mate, number 27, yellow key for a yellow door”

The man handed over the money is notes that he extracted from his black leather wallet and exchanged it for a key.

“Cheerio” said the man. He then waked off to the allotted room.

“Cheerio, Ha, ha, who says cheerio?” The receptionist had a laugh to himself.

Meatcleavers was having a psychotic episode. He was chatting to himself in the now busy cafeteria. He slurped down his tea and eggs on toast. The room was becoming busy. Heads flung around too see. Meatcleavers was very peculiar indeed.

The waitress was called over to speak with her manager. It was concerning the strange man on table 13. Whispers were exchanged and a look of concern was given to the lady waitress who was before very antsy.

The words of the cafeteria manager were brief and clear.

“just show him where the door is when he finishes his food okay.”

Meatcleavers just swayed his head from side to side when he finished his food. He looked and saw a whole bunch of people who looked disturbed by him.

“there’s nothing wrong with me there’s nothing wrong with me at all.”

Meatcleavers made his exit. He pulled his hood from his jacket over his head and walked away.

It was still early in the city of Maroopna, so the shops weren’t open yet. Meatcleavers looked at the music store with wide eyes. He looked at the guitars, he wanted one. But the doors were shut and he couldn’t have one. He had enough money at this stage. He sat around for a while until the opening time had come and then he entered the music store.

Meatcleavers walked into the shop at 8.30 in the morning.

Meatcleavers strummed on the guitar that caught his attention. It was an acoustic steel string Gibson.

“Gibson”, he said. “My favourite”.

Br r r r ing. Meatcleavers strummed a basic chord and started to sing. Harmonious intonations started to stream from his voice box. He was improvising but no one could tell.

The owner of the shop was listening and was suitably impressed with what he was hearing. Occasionally the phone would ring and the shop owner would have to deal with a client. “play it again Sam”, he said with the kind of tones that a gameshow host would use, not quite like Bogart. Meatcleavers grinned at this and mumbled a few things to himself.

“its not my name anyway”.

Meanwhile, the man was getting up. Up from bed and leaving the terrors of night behind him. Those frightening visions always something there, a figure or something. They were always hard to recall upon waking but they would return again and he would know them in a spiritual sense, in sleep.

The man got to the shower. He picked up a pocket soap that was on the sink. He lathered it all over his body. He stroked back the

hair that was covering his eyes. With eyes closed he revisited the dream from the night before. He sighed and breathed water droplets out of his mouth. He rinsed off the soap and got dry. Out of the bathroom, he walked over to the bedroom. He looked at himself in the mirror while getting dressed. He checked his pager. There was an alphanumeric message on it. He picked up the landline telephone in the bedroom just next to the bed and rang the number. The voice that came through on the telephone was distorted. It said, Your Vehicle and keys are waiting at the front of the building. The man remembered the message, even the part about the registration number, he had a very good memory.

The car was a Holden, fairly well kept. It was navy blue. When he got inside there was a cd playing. It said. You will meet with Gideon at the national hotel. The man smiled, and put his foot on the accelerator. He knew that name, code name, it probably wasn’t his real name at all. It was the word that made him smirk, a wry smile. Gideon. The word conjured up meanings and memories. The man considered Gideon to be a genius. An ally in a way, but in his heart he didn’t trust anyone. Gideon would be the closest thing to a friend in this line of work, although he was not quite a friend.

Meatcleavers was having a great time. He was sick in psychosis however he was still enjoying himself. Of course the perpetual grief and the constantly wandering mind he had was hard for him to deal with, however the fact that he was playing music and people were listening to him made it an especially fine occasion.

“Bob Dylan” someone yelled out as meatcleavers was playing his song. Languid strumming ceased momentarily. He breathed in a huge breath of air and started to sing the track, One More Cup Of Coffee. His heart glowed with light, Only meatcleavers could see it. Beams of light permeated throughout the place. The hearts of the people that were gathering around were beating. Pounding in

fact. People that didn’t know each other began to hold hands and some others began to look deep into each others eyes.

While he was singing the song, he tapped his foot, and there was about ten people watching him belt out his tunes. When meatcleavers said, “No More” everybody left. Some people clapped and cheered as he purchased the guitar.

“That will be five thousand dollars thanks” said the shopkeeper.

Meatcleavers was fairly high strung as he left the music store. He walked over to the city pub. Meatcleavers laid his guitar up on the edge of a stool and sat on the other one beside it. He was chuffed to be elaqeated from the heat and he gleefully smirked to himself while in the pub.

Meatcleavers sunk beer till he reached intemperance. Till he reached the point of staggering. He was intoxicated when he asked if he could play to the audience. There was only a few people there, Sitting on their stools like pigeons, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Acrid plumes of smoke diffused till it reached every corner of the large, high roofed room. The lights caught the smoke as it wafted up from their cigs and crept up the corners of passages of light. There was an array of light lines and smoke coils and pirouettes.

Meatcleavers strummed on his guitar. He broke out into verse and sung in a rich timbre, vibrato and very deep.

The other drinkers all cheered when he finished even though the words were a bit disjointed and his verse was a bit intangential.

It was merry verse amid the heavy big men, toothless smiles, pot bellies and singlets, thongs and men with big trucks out the front.

“Play it again”, someone said, “Stairway to heaven”. Meatcleavers was all giddy and loved the attention he was getting.

He started to play it and it. It sounded exactly like the way Led Zeppelin sing it, it was perfect. An old lady at the bar started crying openly. Tears streamed down her cheek. She caught tears as they fell.

Two big men with beards and plenty of ear piercings walked over to each other, They both looked as though they were going to bear their malevolent streak, they had been enemies for several years, but now all they did was hug each other as began to sob.

Meatcleavers decided he would be a rock and not to roll, so he stuck around for a while and as events unfolded he found out that he could stay at the pub for a few nights at a low rate.

The man walked into the hotel. He sat there waiting for Gideon. He was waiting for a sign.

Meatcleavers sat on the chair his mind wandering. Gideon emerged.

Chapter edit

The flames flickered up the tentacles of trees, profuse trails of grey smoke circled around the heat mirage that lingered on the surface, just above the flame, pluming, acrid. The flicker singed the next victim and moved along to the next passing its veracious licks along the branches with leaves. It made trees frazzle in seconds as the red and orange lambent flame would stretch its self out along the tree tops. Its fingertips selectively choosing its next host. The next one. And it passed along. Tree trunks were blackened and flames furiously cooked the bark away and left coals. They would

spit firey cinders about the place and they would spurt out from the heights of trees and sprinkle onto the ground. Each ember would frazzle the low lying scrub. It would cause smoke to form and then the flame would catch.

The man walked through the trees away from the smoke. He knew that the road and his car was not far away. His compass showed him the way. He walked away from the flare, this site of desecration, nature is fierce with all its terrifying outbursts. Unforgiving fire was chewing up the bush-land. He walked , jogged, then ran to the nearby road and into his vehicle. Away.

Chapter edit

The man walked into a small tavern, the place was very quiet. There was little sound and little movement on the inside. Rapidly the nerves inside him grew into a state of being flustered. There was a bar attendant that was wiping a counter repeatedly. He had the look of solemnity and was scrunching up his face like a camel. He had big wrinkles and lips that were drooping.

The interior was gloomy, not dark but the lights were too dim to spread light over the whole place. There were upside down bottles of whiskies and bourbons. Bottles of Smirnoff and Kaluha upturned were lined up at the bar on an overhead rack. The man behind the bar took a shot glass in his hand and pressed it up to the double shot dispenser. He looked at it. Turned it in his hand. The light shone through it and incandescent glow. His eyes bulged through the other side of the glass as he inspected it from all angles.

The man walked over to the seats that layed all in crooked lines in front of the stage. There was a little podium and it looked very bare. It was a raised edge basically. Not anything at all like a big stage where big bands would play. He sat there. It was a bit hard to

breathe because the air conditioning was not working so well. The air that flowed in had a hint of the outside heat and it made it a bit uncomfortable.

A strange figure walked in. It was meatcleavers holding a guitar case. The shadow trailed from the entrance where he stood to the dance floor that was positioned right in front of the small stage. There was a greeting of sorts. Meatcleavers. could hear it. There were words being exchanged between the man holding the guitar case and the bartender. The man tried not to look. The conversation seemed brief yet it was noticeable that the two men knew each other. They were familiar to each other at least.

A man. With a guitar. He is the only person I can see. There is no one in the pub except for him and myself. He is a big man with a round face and a thickset body. He plays his chords that I recognize as familiar. He looks at me with his eyes. And I feel his presence. He shines a golden light at me and I respond with warmth. He sings the tune that is familiar to me. I heard it. It must have been one of somebody else’s or maybe it was his first and that somebody copied it. He begins to sing the words. In the eyes of a broken mind is blood and flesh the same. Then I awoke.

................................................................................. .............

He drove down winding road that undulated right near the coast. He could smell the ocean with the windows down in the green car. He made progress and the hum of the midday was joyous. He moves swiftly along these roads and was ocean conscious. He was aware of his distance from the sea. He moved his head to the side and looked out for split seconds as he was driving, the sea looked so good. It was glistening with little ripples of light all along the patch of water that lay just below the low lying sun. He turned his head for split seconds when ever the road was on a milder bend and the road was quiet. He knew that he could for a few seconds at

a time, It wasn’t the safest was to drive but the man was always ready to take a risk. He was driving slow, there was no where else he would rather be. It was a far cry different to the harsh desert that he had left after so long on the road. He had no reason to rush. He was just plodding along in his own style and with his own steady progress. He was happy with the way things were at the moment. He was driving around fertile roadways that would wind around, looping at times. He loved the country especially this part.

The radio had been on for hours but he hadn’t been paying attention to it until the very recent news report. The announcement made his heart pound. The reporter even seemed thrown by it. The word was particularly unnerving it went along the lines of:

“Terrorist boats have been identified off the following coastlines. Blah blah blah....

And the man felt lonely in the car on the road by himself. He felt naked so close to the coast. What if the terrorist ships were near him, what if he couldn’t escape. All these things conjured up in his psyche making him feel unsettled. He kept driving listening closer to the next words that were being said. They went into great detail about the military awareness and the armed forces it was all scary to him.

The car slid past the coast on a downward slope. He saw the ocean through the sides of his eyes. It turned black and dismal. The ocean was like a black oil, it swirled and squirmed together like a blob of muck. It was as dark as shoe polish and it seized him while he was sitting in the car. He wouldn’t give it a look, he didn’t deem it worthy, There was something about it like it creeped up on him that he did not let bother him. He could feel it, a sea of torment waiting to drag him down. All it wanted to do was take him down. It crawled in its despairing manner lapping onto the rocks on the mainland shore. It was edging up to the mainland. It was swarming

in towards him like a blanket of anxiety which follows and never does relent. He drove on with the thought of the sea clear in his mind. What was he to do now he thought. Perhaps it was time for him to find out exactly where the threats were. He had to carry on despite the risk. He was bound for his own free safety. He was in this situation because he was chasing a peace of mind, This was in a sense a quest for knowledge. He had to continue. There was nothing else, he couldn’t let the fear overcome him. He would be drowned by the grief. He was one man, what could he do against a threat as fierce as the terrorist group that occupied the coast.

The radio hissed out some more information, “The main areas to beware are in the following areas”, none of which were anywhere near him. He was lucky and he had played his cards right. Everything was where he thought it was. The information that he had delivered to the underground base was completely accurate and the word that he had responded to seemed to be trustworthy up to this point. He still was hesitant about relying on the words of the man that he had spoken with. He had a moment of relief, he took comfort in the fact that he was far from the threat of terrorism. He pressed on and everything was calming down.

He kept driving around bending roads. He was feeling okay now that there was no threat, no guilt, no dark sea chasing him. He was petrified of the ocean. It was a force that made him vulnerable. It would take him away if it could, but he wouldn’t let it. He was strong willed and had direction. He knew he had to press on. Chapter edit ................................................................................. ......

The man had journeyed long and the task had tested his wits and temperament. The refreshing thought of civilization gave his spirits a burst of enthusiastic excitement. The small city had a wide strip for a road and a string of cafés all along the main section. He drove down it with a relief that he would be able to find a place to stay.

The city was small and existed amidst suburban houses that stemmed from the city centre in a unique way. The walk paths blended into the side strip, and after a few seconds driving the man had already passed through the city.

He drove the dusty green car into a car park around the back streets of the place. A cool fresh breeze blew in from the sea. He locked his car and was drawn in by the lure of the not so busy café strip. He took a seat and picked up the paper without looking at it for ages. The site of people and the buildings around were pleasing and he had plenty of time to read, so he just sat a while and reflected on things. He pondered the way things were.

A waitress broke his deep thought. She sauntered through gaps between chairs and tables and flittered through a note pad asking if he was ready to be served coffee. The answer was “yes. And chocolate cake too”, he said. He sat and let the breeze cool his sweaty face and neck. It was refreshing and cool. It was a pleasing refreshment. His appetite heightened as his guts churned.

Its his temperament.

The coffee was put down onto the table with a small smack that jerked his attention from a daydream towards the lady who was at his service.

“thank you, thanks a lot” he said with his usual polite manners. He looked down at the flat surface of the coffee. It was a lovely creamy grey color with fine froth bubbles which collected around the circumference of the cup. Teeny specks of bubbles made up the creme.

He picked it up. Looked at the surface whilst taking a sip. He savored the warm liquid as it spilt down the back of his throat and down his gullet. He swallowed. The murmur in his chest pumped

in jovial thumps. His heart fluttered as if to say to him that it was happy. He enjoyed every moment.

The Man was feeling pleasant and went for an inquisitive walk around town. It was a small city and the shops were all jammed close together. The strip could be walked through in about five minutes. There was a procession of cars that rolled past him with no urgency they just lulled around the city centre and after about twenty minutes he began to recognize the cars as they went round and round.

People were walking on the street and sharing the day with partners, friends and family. The coffee strip was a haven for good feelings, the people seemed comfortable. He had past the strip once or twice and he had wandered in and out of the shops scanning all the designs of clothes that lined the hangers. He walked in and out occasionally grabbing a bit of fabric that caught his notice.

He walked over to a catherdral.

The façade of the church had stained glass which stuck together in colored patches all along the sides of the entrance. The diaphanous tinge was soothing and threw a different light on things. It was colorful and rays of colored light infiltrated the entrance. Small dribbles of water trickled down his fingers while he splashed frivolously at the holy water receptacle. He genuflected. He spent time in a silent prayer as he stood in the empty room. It was made from stone and hung on the side of the wall. He looked back at a multicolored illumination that underwent a transferal, bits of blue and green emerged from the blur. The sun must have emerged from the clouds in the mid day. He walked into the main part of the church. He was struck by high roofs and large stone pillars. The gigantic rock pillars must have been constructed by means of construction mastery. He couldn’t avoid feeling subdued by the ambience. It was a large hollow space and he felt contemplative.

He stood under one of the arches and looked over pews. Rows of them there were no people. He was soothed by the coolness of the place and he felt like he was in a divine place. He stood silently. He made himself be stilled. The place was awesome and it overwhelmed him. He brushed back his hand. He felt ashamed as the watch he was wearing made an insistent tick, tock. He could hear it softly ticking away. He scanned backwards over the long open space. He felt ashamed that he was making so much noise. He resented the sound the watch was making and wanted peace. The persevering ticking made him feel uncomfortable. It was like he was brought under the spotlight. Or the microscope even. It was a chilling emptiness and stillness that captured the moment. He felt totally vulnerable, as if he was being watched, and his total character and attitude was being observed. He walked down one of the isles, repetitious pillars slid past him as he emerged from the whisper-less den and onto the clearing before the altar. He bowed on his knees and eased into some meditation. It was easy to feel more. The space which surrounded him was his pensive arena. This was the domain of the silent and it would be an invasion, a sheer travesty if someone made so much as a sound. He felt the place as he was kneeling silent and became attuned to its silence.

He looked over at the dollar for a candle lit prayer. The bells rang. Chimes in a procession of triumphant dings and dongs reverberated. The acoustics bounced sounds in every direction. Sounds surged through the hall and into the small room at the side. The room which he entered first with the holy water. All of the candle lights were off. He looked at the pretend candles and touched one of them. It immediately glowed with a little electric flicker. He reached for his wallet and sifted through a pouch full of shrapnel. Coins chinked and he put in a what he could spare. A few twenty cent pieces making up the most of a dollar. He closed his eyes and prayed.

He stood still in the quiet cool removed place that was slightly out of the way to the central strip. He gathered his thoughts and collected himself. The time was refreshing. It was a time of spiritual rejuvenation. He felt reenergized, like he had drank of the life of everlasting youth. It was a healing moment that sanctified his journey so far. Times like these were what made his life spiritual. He would take some time out, from time to time to undergo the ritual of prayer and giving thanks. It let him alleviate from the stresses of the country. They were stresses that would stay with him through daily life and never let him down, he was dedicated to worry. He took on the fears with a cool charm.

He walked down the rocky escarpment that led from the cliff surface to the shore of the river. There was a procession of stairs that zig-zagged down in an untoward fashion.

There were fishermen all along the bank. Their heads turned one after the other as a domino effect of head swings swept the shore and the outcrop. All eyes were on him and he felt uneasy momentarily. He felt as though he was under inspection. The man at this point was trying to avoid the general public as he was a loiterer with no other business other than to loiter and it would do him best service to keep a low profile from the township. The thought was to remove himself from the sight of the city dwellers and relax with little chance of being noticed, seized and approached by strangers.

The green water was clear at the tip of the shoreline. He rubbed his toes together in the shallow water and watched little clear ripples sail in lines away from the plonk of his giant step.

Ships seemingly drifted across the scenic panorama of the bay as the floats of men’s rigs giggled and went under as fish nibbled. Clouds were still and reigned in the sky along water ways statuesque, glorious. The man couldn’t see them move and hadn’t

the attention for fine detail; to actually notice the faraway etches of their journey. The distance between the man and the clouds was so great and the slight features of the vast expanses were difficult to pick out. They spoke a story like the picture books that toddlers have with a majesty the evoked mythical majesty and supremacy of the titans. Then with the turn of his head they eddied of into the backgrounds of his unseen vision and let the clouds play with his dreams inside while he looked down to the water roaming onto the shoreline. Pebbles, rocks and shells look nice. He thought.

He trudged in wet jeans up the stairs that twisted in all directions paining the ball’s of his each feet. He shivered as the cool air rushed to him. He stripped and changed his clothes for the sake of keeping healthy. He couldn’t deal with an unkind dose of the flu. It would set him back for a week and it would be an unwanted ordeal in the back seat of his car.

He sat and dried off in the car. He put the heater up and gasped. The coldness and the sudden movements made his lungs pant. He was weak from the stinging cold and the dampness of his skin. Cold water tenderizes the skin so that it is sensitive to touch.

He opened the door and sat barefooted leaning out as the sun shone briefly onto his cool body for a mild moment. He reached into the glove box and held the book that he purchased at the antique shoppe out of town. The gold border was plated with a gold leaf. The cover was olden, it resembled a pair of new corduroys he had once then lost. The leaf was dull. The book was titled the truth of destiny(or if there is a book titled this then Ill revert resort and choose to this name, a book in my possession “Wisdom and Destiny”.

Does he read? Can a protagonist read a book within a story? Is there a meaning? What is love is a topic and a subject that is

subject to ridicule. It inspires a hatred in men and jealousy ringed out of the coils of their nature.

He ringed out his sopping jeans while looking over the first page.

Happiness justice and love are the ingredients for trickery that commit a life to an ironic vulnerability. When I have all three I am stupid and I look for all three. I question these things until Everything has lost its meaning and the light of the question has lost its fuel and the tiresome search becomes a life quest. A candle burns at both ends while I look for love and happiness. Its better to experience first hand and never to speak. To hide away and never tell about love or anything that resembles it. No man wants to share happiness unless these things he does not question. What is right and what is wrong drones in the ears of the seeker and troubles his nights as his rest sweeps his waking with the tormenting sackcloth waves that furl into pirouette and hide lightning while the potential stays and slumbers. It is there to be shown, released in explosion of light, yet doesn’t please the moment. It brings the givens into conflict. The baser aspects of the questioning believer makes the reality one of fear.

His socks don’t slide on so he scrunches them and edges them up his foot bit by bit.

The afternoon sun is gold and casts a shade on the page he just read. It is finished and the next challenge is for him to stay with the meaning. It is deep and occurs between the text, the mind and another thought.

He wonders what he will do for the night. Where he will sleep.

He admits to his lonliness. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. The sadness dwells at times and released itself from the

teary banks at the depths of the mind. It warms his soul and to cry is to be restored and rejuvenated.

The other sock went on way easier, this foot was way drier.

His sadness is intangible. Before he cries. His uneasiness is like tracing into the fear. To deny fear and to find the light inside ones self is the bravery.

He layed down in the back of his car with a rug over him as the night became dark.

He moaned in the back seat. The day was nice and all he had now was everything that he had left behind. He slapped his cheeks down on leather seats. Wahhh. Mowaaaooob waaaaa.

Stars shone brightly. They twinkled far above the green roof of the wagon that lay still and motionless in the night air. The car was small from the sky looking down and the rooftops looked like little boxes that sat all around the little trees that were like broccoli bits. He went over to them a bit but he had to float. He was gliding upwards and he felt normal. He looked over his shoulder and there was a door with an air hinge. It wouldn’t open when he wanted it to open, at first, but then it did open and he just walked in. The corners of the room were painted in neutral tones and there was a little fly in the corner between the carpet and the wall. Look at it its too filthy dirty in that corner of the room leave it alone. He put it down. He jerked back into his car seat bed. His heart thumped and the arteries about his ears and head surged with a pounding in time with a song. It was frightening and it made him tense it faded off into his unconscious and it sounded briefly until he couldn’t remember and drifted into normal sleep.

He remembered nothing of the strange dreaming.

The man got up and started to drive. He went to the nearest bank and withdrew his funds. He went to the Mc Donald’s family restraunt and indulged in a feast of hot cakes and syrup.

While he sat, the voices of the staff and blips of cash registers stirred him. He felt uneasy. They were talking about him. He stood up and got closer. He wanted to pin point the subject of their conversation. He wanted to know. He wanted to know everything that they were saying. The tiny words that he picked out from the conversations seemed to be cryptic. He thought for a moment that he was definitely exposed. The nature of the conversation was seemingly of an incredible likeness to the topic of his nomadic escapade. Maybe the world had heard about him and were speaking about his unusual nature. Word must have traveled fast from the last town to this one.

Nerves shot through his senses and he lost all his calmness to the anxt. He felt a threat. His privacy was being invaded. He was uneasy because it was as though, thumping down on his being, the weight had taken his freedom and traded the life circumstanced for a mild kind of fear. He was not paranoid, he thought. He listened harder. Yes one of them definitely said from Balbrooke. That was the township with the hotel. Then someone said the car from the terrace. Yes that was it that was the name of the homestead where the man gave him the trailer. He dare not move. He stood completely still and felt a strange comfort in the biological nervous rush that sent his surrounding shaking and shuddering around his centre of self.

The next evening was a time of gathering thought and reflection. He walked for a while and absorbed the mood of the weather and the change of seasons was noticeable and it made the still moments glorious as the wind lagged gently, It was barely existent. He walked along the cement paved path that ran parallel to the main

road and cut in through little secret routes through the neighborhood.

He came to a monument. It was a green field with bitumen tracks bisecting and segregating the patches of grass. He walked up the green hill. The circular pinnacle was a look out to give a view of the whole city. He could see the ocean from where he stood. He marveled at its magnificence. The sheer beauty of the glistening water was a pleasing sight. Little waves lapped out in the distance and looked like lambent sparks. The sun was too powerful a body to look at directly. It left glaring imprints that blazed after he shut his eyes. A trail of luminescent green and blinking blue stayed with his sight for minutes and he had to look away from the sun. A slope on the bitumen trailed up to the limestone monument. He walked up the steps and became captivated by the sight before him. He sat down on a ledge and rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help him see better, only time would heal his vision. The sun slowly lowered itself. It fell into the clouds that glowed with a vibrant orange amidst the gold and purple sky. The houses on the side of the sloping hill shared a deep ochre which encouraged his sentiment and spurred more reflection and allowed more appreciation for beauty. The sun fell slowly behind the slope beyond the horizon. He imagined it falling still over at the angle of earth that he could not see with his sight, but could imagine with his mind. The clouds were rich and blazed with a glorious gold that was splendid. The blue green color of the ocean stretched out far on an arc which made him try to see the earths tip. He contemplated the sea beyond the horizon, the section which still glowed in the presence of the sun.

Empathy built up in his mind and streamed like a burbling spring, flowing in the outer reaches of his thought. A wry smile crossed his face. Memories flooded his mind and the rising of imagination made him explode with smiles and grins. His face wrinkled, and his eyes widened with an earnest excitement. He had the look of a

man who’s footy team had just won the grand final after years of drought. He had gotten all sentimental as he remembered people. Men he had trusted, women who eluded him. Times that made his heart pump. He felt alive more than ever for a brief moment. The power of contemplation let him see the merry and wonderful side of the whole lot. The lot that was his and the lot that he had.

Life is a game of luck, The Man thought. It is about chance and chips. You need the chips to play and if you don’t have them then you can’t gamble. He looked at his fortune and was pleased with what he had, even though it was precious little in a practical sense. He had chips. There was money in the bank and he had his health. His glorious health.

Dogs that were at the park made him think about the trial of man. He thought of all men as dogs. A man is a dog. There are many different breeds of dog. There are silky terrier’s and Labradors, chihuaha’s and staffys. They are different in some ways but in others they are all the same. After a sniff and a quick piss its all dogs to themselves and everyone is a solitary. Some don’t know it and some don’t ever get to figure it out. Some dogs don’t see past their snout and they don’t know how good their distance from the ground. Other dogs that wouldn’t be able to jump over a fence don’t get to try because they don’t have one.

A small dog scampered about in the cool air. It ran rampant all along the grass and sniffed and pissed on a block in memory of some thing, he couldn’t tell from where he was sitting. A big puppy. It was young, he could tell immediately by the size of his feet, ran in great bounds. It lumbered with a pace and slowed up to the small dog with its nose close to the ground. The little dog scuffed his feet on the grass and nipped at the feet of the big puppy. The little dog got tired of the bigger dogs presence and ran away to the top of the highroad.

A boy appeared from around the corner. He had pair of shorts on and was holding a stick. The stick the boy was holding was as big as him self. The boy ran up to the dog and paused for a second. There seemed to be a moment of indecision about what to do. Weather to hit or pat. The boy stands over the dog and looks powerful with the big stick. He holds it and stands majestic against the still deep red and orange skyline. A long pillar of shade extends along the bitumen and the cement path. The silhouette of the boy and stick spans along the place and stands in stark contrast to the ochre color of the paver. The shadow reached right up to where the man sat on his ledge. The boy looks away from the stick and forgets that he has it in his hand. He extends his arm in compassion and says:

“hay look at this dog, come and pat this dog”

The man pondered the nature of man and the wild hearts of men. The sky got progressively greener.

A sense of calm passed over him. The memories had passed their triumphant splendor and the air grew cool as the light dimmed. The sky became green and blue and stars speckled the skyline.

He walked as the night grew dark and grasshoppers chirped as bugs flew into the fluorescence of tall overhanging street lamps.

He made it to his car ready for a night in the back seat once more. He felt secure amidst the suburban surrounds and felt a sort of secure oneness with the neighborhood. He slammed the door shut and got the back seat comfy. He waited for a few seconds while he checked for any mosquito humming. There wasn’t any, so he laid down. It really pissed him off ten minutes later when the faint hum grew louder and closer until it became a howling in his eardrum.

He opened the window trying to brush it away from his head to no avail. The sound continued despite lots of effort to direct the mosquito to freedom outside, away from its prospective meal, the feast of his arm or leg. After a while he got sick of waving his arms about so he got everything up, opened all the doors and waved his blanket about in a frenzy in the hope that it would get the message and leave him alone in peace. Eventually it worked and he crept back into the back of the green car and slept.

He slept gracefully for a few hours but was awoken at the sound of a dog barking. It barked for ages all through the night. He wondered what kind of breed it was. It made big loud woofs that repeated every few seconds. He supposed it was a rather big breed such as an Alsatian or a Great Dane but he couldn’t know for sure. Not just by the sound of the bark. Little dogs, when they bark, make a big noise so he wondered perhaps if the barking dog could possibly be a little one. He couldn’t sleep at the moment all he could think about was dogs. He wanted to sleep because he thought that he should leave the city in the morning. He had to. Even if there was a slight chance of trouble brewing anywhere along the coastline he had to make sure that he was nowhere in sight of government or authorities view. He feared the out break of war and although there didn’t seem to be any fear emanating from the public the reality was that there is a threat in the mere existence of national/patriotic/cultural differences. He had a personal fear for the safety for the future of the country and was going to make sure that he was on top of whatever predicament the fate of the country would face.

He figured that there were as many possible bad outcomes as there were good outcomes. He rested with the thought that he was living in a safe country even in the face of a possible risk. He was glad that he was far away from the boat at the other side of the country. He wondered if they were still out there off the coast, or weather they had shipped off to the next country. Perhaps they were no

longer. The crew that he was on board with were terrorists. He hadn’t obtained enough information to tell where the ship was going to next. He was just glad he was here and not out in the ocean struggling for his life. That would be the worst case scenario. All he knew was that he had to be as far away from those people as possible. If they recognized him, he would have a problem to deal with.

The man had a yearning for justice. It was a deep feeling that ran deep within him. He felt strong about freedom and the rights of human beings. That is why he had such an impassionate view. He was one for peace and equality. The wars on earth could be resolved without violence. That was the gist of his ideas. He was accepting of the reality and the nature of humans. He was of the view that men did not have an elevated understanding nor the means or intentions to change the world for an ideal utopian equality. He knew the place he lived was at a turning point. The country had been his safe haven for years and the prospect of invasion was one that caused him to act. He braced himself and took off with the means to keep safe and to avoid danger. The information exchange between people in the underground was a severe wake up. He learned from the short bald man who’s name was Secret Inspector Milson. He didn’t know for sure if the information he had gained was for the purpose of contriving his actions. He learned much that he felt was valuable and relevant to his mission. He couldn’t entirely trust anything else except for his own judgment. That was his defense against the paranoia. If he didn’t feel safe then he couldn’t possibly act safe. He had that faculty. It was his advantage and it served him well on his mission for safety. He took everything into account, every morning he would run through case scenarios in his mind, just so as to prepare him for whatever situation could arise. A selfish walk, yet for the means of compassion he continued.

Secret Inspector Milson stood at the side of his desk and watched as a the workers in the cavernous underground flitted around. They rushed to desks with papers and scattered to the next station where they would speak about the terrorists crisis. The new morning brought a new dilemma. The press had to delineate attack. They always had a way of keeping the public informed that was not as desirable as the low secret profile that the government expected. The press sometimes were most unhelpful. A resolution now must take place in the eye of the public. Their would be a whole lot of social anxiety. The people would get afraid as soon as the word terrorism was used. Especially when the word was giving reference to a locality.

Telephone heads were raised and slammed down. People would be screaming details across the room. Side conversations took place while secretarial staff spoke kindly over the roaring murmur. Milson scratched his head as he caught a moment. He just stood still in amongst the furor. He held his face in his hands and gave his cheeks a rub. Circumstances were hectic and all he could do was get involved over people who were doing their job. He had to maintain a degree of control to not get involved. It was an incredible task for him to just let them do their job.

A man threw him a copy of the national press. He frowned as he read the headline. It headed the front page with that condemning pitch that rang true with terror. He felt abysmal. It was the dread that he had never had to face before in his life time. A national risk that had gone public overnight saw that the people would be feeling insecure. It was the job of the government to unsure that the people feel safe. He licked his dry and crackly lips as he got to the end of the cover story. Continues page 5. He flicked over the pages and his depressed look told a story in itself. It was a tale of stress, not knowing how to act. The security was the main issue. He’d had conversations with members of the secret service and navy all night. The morning was not bringing him the golden sun.

It brought a bundle of new formal circumstances that would mean he wouldn’t rest for a long time as soon as the private telephone rang. He waited by it. The red phone just sat their silent. Every second without sound was blissful. He jumped in his seat as expected the explosive ring-tone. It hadn’t rung. He was just anticipating. He was braced for the intense and stressful contact that would be the first of many he thought.

He sat there with a nervous look on his face. He was wriggling in his seat. It was morning and the stress was uncomfortable to say the least. His heart skipped beats and he trembled slightly. He was all nervous and braced for the ordeal. He knew what to expect. It would be intense and that was his job. It was the worst case scenario he thought. He never wanted it to happen. He hoped it wouldn’t. This was just an out come based on the true nature of the world it was human behavior that called for these circumstances. The collaborative efforts of men that caused giant ripples through the comfort zones and made it unpleasant.

The phone rang. He picked it up. “Good morning” He gulped and stood leaning over the desk.

“Are you aware of the situation” “Yes sir, Yes I am”, he said.

The man heard the news update on the radio. It wasn’t a shock to him. He was struck by the fact that the dilemma was public knowledge now but apart from that he took the news quite casually.

He turned it up because the sound was down low and it was a bit crackly. The reception fizzed as he tuned it in. The glowing red light with the word tuning flickered as the signal slowly got onto the right wavelength. He tuned the button turning it with a series of

slight movements. He etched it a little to the left and a little to the right. He got the signal right. He clearly heard the announcer trail off into detail about the location of suspected terrorist ships. He was calmly spoken and did not give any specifications, he did not confirm anything. The man was impressed that the media had gotten onto the story as fast as they had. The government would have to be careful not to cause irrational fear amongst the public. He drove on as some top ten hit exploded with electric strings and synthesized rhythm.

As he came to a raise in the road he had to give way as a car in front of him was turning right. He waited for the car to turn and he couldn’t help but notice over to the left there was a beach. There were cars in parking spaces all along and there were gaps all along the allocated space. Dunes flanked the bitumen all along the way beyond. He saw yellow and red colors. Men with life saving colors held wave skis and others sided them up against their racks. He saw the deep blue ocean and its stillness drew him in. He wanted a swim. It was a perfect day. The sky was blue and there was not a cloud in the sky. He changed lanes and looked to the ocean. He drove to his left and made it down to the parking bay. He got out of the car and stood on a cement ledge that divided the dune from the bitumen. He leaped up onto it with one lunge and looked seaward. There was a ship or two out their but they weren’t those which were run by terrorists. The setting was surreal and looked like a painting. The golden yellow sand was glare less and he looked out as the sea turned from a clear light blue to a deep rich blue.

He took off his shirt and grabbed it in his hands. He flicked off his thongs when he got onto the beach, near enough to run to the water. He threw his shirt on the floor and put down his towel carefully. There was a clear spot on the sand. No one was around him. He could see lifesavers everywhere and the stillness of the water was so tempting he wanted to swim. He ran over to the

unbroken surface and jogged out with splashes everywhere. He fell into the heavy water as it got to thick to run through. He dove in and cooled off. His skin was refreshed and he was a sight in the sparkling ocean. It was otherwise undisturbed and still expanses of water spread out from the circular splashes that waned into insignificance as the mass of water faded it out. The spray sparkled with little flashes of light and spray flicked all along the surface around him. He was restored by the coolness and looked around in knee high water to see what the shore looked like. It was an amazing day and the beach was spectacular.

Chapter Edit

He sat on his towel. The woman was lying on hers right next to him. The straps of her top piece, were down past her shoulders and her top did not fall. She was leaning on her elbows. Her hair swirled around her neck and shoulders. It flowed from her head and covered the side of her face.

She swam. She moved through the water and emerged, her hair flat and saturated fell all across her back. In her outstretched hand she held something. It was some shells. She held some of them in her outstretched hand. She was lying on the shoreline. Very beautifully. Her legs next to each other stretched to one side while her other hand explored the array of shells and stones that she held in her grasp.

Her bikini was yellow and red and green material. The strings held together patches of fabric that covered her magnificent breasts.

She then laid on her towel. Her strap was now undone now. She laid with her back to the sun. Her head was facing me although her eyes were closed. Her curvature was accentuated by the sun and the shade. The woman with her bosom not quite revealed was an image of beauty. Her legs were full and wonderful. Her hair long and illustrious. Her face, fine with sharply defined features. I

couldn’t look away. Her mother was standing right behind her and spoke to her in another language. It might have been Italian.

He drank the warm sun with his skin and his mind began to wander back to the dark ocean.

Chapter Edit

He sat on the chair with a bemoaning look. He was uncomfortable. His wrists were in pain from the ropes which tied him. They were thick hardy ropes that were dry and heavy. They were harsh upon the skin and made his flesh more reddened and painful with every movement. It was a pain to move his arms so he stopped. He just sat there and tried to minimize the pain.

He couldn’t see behind him. He was facing a wall and there was no way of turning around. He was fastened in his seat. There was movement behind him. Threatening and it sent shock waves all through him. It was terror. He could only hear the raised voices that sung out and startled him. The silences in between offered some sort of sympathy. He tried not to let his nerves take over. It was difficult. For him, it was a moment of uncertainty. They could have a gun pointed at his head he would never know. He expected that that was the case. He wanted to just rest. He was in shock. He wanted to sleep and let it all just happen. He couldn’t watch. He wanted sanctuary. He wanted it all to just happen.

He looked at the light that shone on the wall in front of him. There were no shadows to tell any story of what was happening behind him.

He felt a stern smack on his collar. It was so strong he thought that it might have broken his collar bone. It was heavy and solid it addled him and he nearly lost consciousness. He looked up in a weary and powerless way. He was vulnerable. He knew that any

second could be his last. He gritted his teeth for a few seconds. He thought that this could be it. It could be over any second. Then he was still alive and they threw the chair back on its back. His head cracked on the floor and it sent a dull knock through his thoughts. He was getting smashed and that was all he was aware of. The back of his head stung. The temper of his assailants was volatile and they were threatening by their actions. He was scared now and could not think of any thing to do.

The two men. He could see them now. They were angry. The first one slapped him across the face and then jumped away holding his hand. He struck him very hard and the impact could have broken his hand. He tried to think clearly. The room spun slowly and the ceiling shuddered down on him. He was at the mercy of the terrorists. They rushed at him. Grabbed the chair and propped it up against the table. They began to untie his arms at the wrist. It hurt the man who was writhing in pain. The rope was cutting into his flesh. It was a dull rough agitation that stung him. They sawed through it with little consideration for the skin on his wrists and arms. The knife dug into his skin. It didn’t amount to the amount of pain that came from his bondage at from the rope.

They grabbed his arm and smacked it down on the table. One of the terrorists screamed a curse at the top of his lungs. It startled him but he was at the point of passing out. Everything was becoming dazed. He was confused. They grabbed his second digit. The man was dozing but he was frightened at the thought of what might happen. They grabbed his finger viciously and bent it back at an unnatural angle.

Arrgh.

He moaned and the socket popped at an unusual volume.

The mans torturer ripped the finger and bent it till it was a mess. It was out of place and dislocated. It was painful and gruesomely unsightly.

He screamed and howled and yelled and called curses at the height of his voice. There was rhythm to his anguished cry and he sung from a pitches soaring into the highest register. Everything hummed and vibrated around his solid head. It caused echoes to profusely waft out of his senses. He was battered and his head knew it. He could feel it and it thumped in his head.

He was awake and not attuned to the hard and heavy gloom. The reality in front of him tore down his once steady mood. Everything was a curse. The thumping head was an opposite. His senses once high and acute. Everything had become a trial. He was in pain.

He passed out in his chair. The rolling head of his reclined and his mouth opened. His toungue hung out like a sedate farm yard animals would. He was in severe trauma. He needed the rest. He laid back in the chair for hours. Time passed like a blink of an eye. Within what seemed like moments he opened his eyes to the dull flickering of the light above. He was a groggy man and his senses had been started up again once his eyes opened. His mind was into gear again. The first thing that he saw was that the sight of his eyes were restricted. The thump on his brow had caused a lump on his brow. There was a mishapened curve at the tip of his vision. It interfered with all that he could see.

He looked around him. There was no body. He looked to his left and to his right. There was no body around. He knew that this was the time to make his move. It felt like there was blood dripping from his head. He couldn’t tell. It just felt like that. He had no way of seeing himself. He galloped his chair over to the table. There was no other way out. He had to make his move right away. He hopped and hopped in the hope that something on the table would

offer him a way of being free. He hoped for a knife or a pair of scissors. It was the only way that he could get out. The man froze at the sound of the terrorists walking over head. He faked being asleep for a few seconds while the sounds came and passed. Everything was tense now and he had to make his move. The abrupt angry sound which startled him vanished in a few seconds. He was now on a mission to be free. He only had a few moments to escape. Everything was on a precious time limitation. Ity was now or never. He hopped the chair over to table once more. He scraped as he galloped. The legs of the chair made a great screech. They screeched as they scraped against the floor. They made rickety squeaks and the wooden legs squalled under the weight and the pressure.

He kept surging the weight of his body forward and the wood just edged closer and closer. The little by little approach drew him closer bit by bit to the way he was going. His goal was the table. He was just about there. A little closer. And then. Crack. The leg snapped at the leg and he was on the floor with cement on his face. The back at seat of the chair was still firmly placed on his back. The back feet of the chair had snapped. He wriggled on the floor furiously. He was immediately conscious of the sound that he had made and the fact that it could attract the terrorist was a scary thought. He knew that now was the time to break free. He stood on his legs and thrusted his body backwards. The weight of the chair and his body snapped the front legs clean off. He wriggled his hands free and undid the rope that had been twisted around a part of the chair.

He was on his feet and the time had come for his move. He hadn’t had time to plan anything. The nerves ran through him as soon as he felt that he was free. He could hear the terrorist out side on the deck. He ran up the steps and crept out onto the deck. They were speaking. In their language. He could make out a smattering of words however they did him no use. He needed to get to higher

ground and fast. He looked behind him. The years of training had all been for a situation like this. He had to be sure that he was aware of who was behind him. The people on deck had no fire arms because if they got found with weapons then they would be brought into investigation by the authorities at the port. There were always routine checks.

He spun his head around in both directions and looked out for any of the other on deck. He saw his way to freedom. The bars that lined the edge of the ship. He must make a bound. He had to take his chance for freedom. It was a rash and spare of the moment decision. He had to weigh things up. To stay on deck with the enemy and face torture when they arrived back on foreign shores. Or to seek land. On his own. With no life guard or boat. He knew what he had to do. Another bout with the terrorists might kill him. H looked up. The sky was dark ant the clouds slinked over the large moon. They turned from black to grey as they passed the glowing moon. He looked back to the deck and made a quick thought. They could hurt him badly next time, or worse, they could kill him. He looked at the bars that lined the edge. He seized the edge. Flipped one hand over the top, and plunged into the water.

Respect.

Respect. It was a single word which ran through his thoughts. It sank his spirits and made him feel shame. A shame like no other. It was this word that rang through his mind. It reminded him of relationships, the people he knew and had met. He was regrettable. He had dishonored people. He had made a fool of himself. At times when he was out of his wits he would act on impulse and feel stupid when he came to his senses. Like the time when he passed out in the city when he was young. He drunk too much alcohol from the bar. It was a phase he went through. He wanted to drink as much as he could. The end was only the shame and then the regret would flow in him as the memories came back to him.

Respect. The same word. It took on new meaning with every though of someone he knew. He had learned from his upbringing how to respect yet he had his flaws. He had dishonored men, and dishonored women. He thought about himself in a negative light in opposition to the way he thought of respect. Respect in the way that he knew it back when he was at high school. At school he always thought he deserved respect from others even when he disobeyed teachers and sat in detention. Now he wondered how he could have lost sight of that way of thinking. That feeling and the conflict in his mind would make him feel like he was his own unworthy failure. He didn’t want to let himself down anymore. That word persisted to take him down. He respected others that he thought were thinking poorly of him. He thought that the people he knew were berating him. Saying bad things. He felt like he done the wrong thing by his friends and relatives. He had lost touch. It wasn’t all due to his lack of care, at times he really wanted them around. It was that the time between visits had caused a rift in his comfort. The closeness, the intimacy with others had become thin and his personal failing now would shine through.

He fell into a sleep. He looked down at his feet. He rested his elbow on the limestone and with his other hand he cleared the planks of wood. There were planks of wood cut into sections. There was an escape hatch. The long floor boards would cover the whole floor. He looked down at the cut bits of wood. They came loose at his touch and revealed a chamber. He peered down into the dark space. It was gloomy and dank. There was a long way to the bottom. He feared the steep descent. He was intrigued by its strangeness. He felt compelled to go down there in the dark. He was leaning on a limestone block and all of a sudden light shone in there for a moment. He could see that the chamber below had a floor. It was bordered by two walls. It was an underground the size of a normal room. He looked down there and was drawn in. He became closer to the room and was overcome by a sense of vulnerability. He felt naked. Like everything that he felt bad about

was condemning him. He felt the presence of others, they mocked him and tortured him. They let him know that he had done wrong and they wouldn’t stop. The sounds of people he knew just lingered atop of the confined space that he was in. He could hear their voices overhead just niggling at him. Making him feel worse. Telling him that he had done wrong. They had a way of making him feel bad for things that he had done that were not that bad. He was in the dark room. He couldn’t get out. There was a way out at the top but he could not see how he could reach the top. Light was getting in, in small amounts from the very top. He wanted to climb. His legs would not move. The legs that climbed down with ease just stayed frozen. He swayed on his legs. He tried to reach the sides of the room but could not. They were too far away for him to reach. He was weak down there. He tried his hardest to muster up some movement but could not. The fear that went along with the room was constricting. It was disempowering him, taking away his fortune and his opportunity. He woke up as the faces of people he knew faded from where they stood at the top of the dark room. He couldn’t tell which was which or who was who. He knew that he knew them. He wondered if he knew that he was down there at all. Was it just a coincidence?

He was awake. The light shone on his face and he faced his dismay and shame once more. He doubted weather he was a respectable type. He was having a dilemma. The crisis about his respect was dragging him down. Even in the new morning. The sun shone brightly through the late morning. He rose and the feelings of guilt moved to the side for a while. He forgot about the bad feelings and forgot about the people who he would taunt himself about. Things went on as normal although he wasn’t in that dark place which held fear close to him.

He read upon a folded page in the front seat of the car. Lines segmented brightness and shade on the sheet he was reading and on the dash board. Musical notes, synthetic yet sweet played over

and over repetitiously. They lulled in over the quiet road. The feeling of childhood that entered his being rekindled a precious memory from when he was young.

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The chimes repeated and faded slowly, softening, he supposed that the sound was coming from a van and that it was driving away He turned and looked for a while. He could still hear it as it faded off into the distance and then away from his eyes. As the cloud cover cleared from the sun in the sky for a while the light shifted its contrast. Its brightness glorified by the removal of the clouds. The cloud cover moved away and the light glowed. He couldn’t see the moving clouds from where he was, his eyes were still fastened on the page in front of him. The translucency of the page he was looking at was vibrant and glowing amidst the cooler same shady space just past that definite line. The change in brightness, the sudden glow, happening in unison with the songs introduction. Now it had gone. There was only the sound of cars wooshing and peoples stride. There stamping feet and the sky returned back to grey. Light without bright glare. The raindrops accumulated on the windscreen. Each tap noticeable to the ear as they tapped one after the other on the glass. The drowning rain drowned out the sounds outside for quiet instances. Momentarily. The man just sat motionless without reason for him to even begin to seek a resolution.

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As he left the crowd

He took a step back and paused. He shuddered at the thought of being alone. He came here with the people he knew. At least he thought he knew them. It had been so long since he last saw them. People walked past him as he toiled in his pensive thought. He

straddled a smoke that was making his fingers a yucky pale color. Smoke paled all the way up his shirt and it made the shirt stink as the fumes made their way up the fabric all the way to his mouth. He breathed in and let out the toxic breath with a dismayed and puzzled look. He peered around the corners of the crowded room and still fixated on the honest and ?????? sense of bewilderment he just stood. There were people making their way over to him he knew their faces. He hadn’t seen them for ages but he knew them. They all rejoiced in an orchestrated bellow of g’days and m m mate. He felt like he had nothing in common basically. He stood around and with a beer in his hand and made gestures that would say hi I like you and you are my friend too, except he was uncomfortable because of the crowd and the overwhelming presence of the others made him feel like he wasn’t worth their time. They were standing in front of him and he felt like they had something against him. Some niggling reason to just stand before him in the pub and put him in place. He was insecure but the friends were there for the togetherness. He was a part of the scene and he was trying to make ends meet. The people he knew were all part of the same groups and people he didn’t know were all just being themselves around the communal place where everyone was standing. He looked over to a man he knew. He went to school with him. It was funny to think about things in that way from one point but from another it was all usual and awkward. He cracked a funny remark and it sparked up the part of his mates character that he knew and loved. He worked up a smile he actually smirked. It was hard. But not as hard as abstract thought. He had no grasp on the next thing. They got another beer and went home.

“What a cheeky”, he leant over and put his arm out.

Its funny how every now and then you can get a rise out of people and then they respond.

The next day when he woke up the headache he had was enormous. It was an astonishment to think of how many drinks he had. It was one after the other for too long. They all sank down until he got to bourbon. Then the guts got a pumping that it needed and then the next thing was vomit. All over the sink in the bathroom. He had top use his finger to let all of the chunky bits drain down the catchment of the plug hole. It all got clogged and it was putrid. He was blerking all over the place last night and his guts were clenched tight for ages. He was one long continuous vomit.

When he woke in the morning there was no guilt. There was no head ache. The room spun a bit but that was okay. It was pleasureable enough for him to notice how good he felt about not having any guilt. His mind raced over the events of the night before. For some strange reason there was nothing that he could think of that would make him feel bad. It was usual for the man to experience some negative feeling, if he did make a fool of himself, like everyone might have. He sank into the sheets and nestled his head into pillows. He stretched his arm behind his neck and then thought about his mate. The thought made him happy. It was the best thought.

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He wasn’t alone. He had family. He had lonely days and times when there was no one else around. He had to keep himself company. He thought to himself about solitude. The nature of existence is that there is loneliness. People are alone everywhere, he thought. When he was popular and had girls everywhere he never took into account the solitary nature of human kind. And that brought him to that thought, that he was scared of the ocean.

The Man was primed for his new mission. He had to destroy his vehicle. It had been noticed and reported to the police. A new

vehicle would reach him eventually but he had to be speedy. In his Clear vision lambent coils of flame licked the sides of the car. They spread all over the window frame and crawled like tiny fingertips walking up the ridges of the door. The material on the inside of the car charred and cracked as curled crisp bits of black separated from the metal of the door. The hot air blurred with heat and clear spires of heat withered the plastic surfaces. The heat melted the fine fabrics and turned them brown and sticky as the fire would follow the heat and the heat would follow the flame. It was hot in here and he was losing his mind amidst the acrid wastage.

The Man was about to carry out a prime directive. He had to do this, he had gathered information that was specific and he knew that Gideon was informed by the same higher order. The events which followed their meeting were filled with a uncertainty.

Gideon took the pistol from his belt. Blackout. Aimed, Blackout, and fired, Blackout.

Adult men and women were immediately stunned and then their was a sickening degeneration. The Man looked at the stunned faces turn from white as plaster to morose and hysterical, there is no other way to act in circumstances such as these. The grown adults like children in a playpen started to huddle at the sides of the room and tried to evacuate all at once. Blackout. The man looked at the number and wing no. 9f .The man stood shaky slightly on the wing of the building, blackout. Gideon emerged.

When the man left, he got out into the clearing. There was a bit of low lying scrub around the place and the sun light was fading out fast. He wanted to explore the place because it was strange new and it was what he liked to do. He just had that curiosity in his

nature that would make him wander. The sky reddened and the lack of trees gave the full view to the sunset.

He walked with the thought of what was happening back at the campsite. He had left the group yesterday. He liked their company and had spoken with the group members who were all eager to share in the news that they had heard about war and the state of affairs.

He shuffled his feet along and unrolled his sleeves. He let them drape so that he could stop mosquitoes from getting to his forearm. He had to sway his arms around a bit sometimes so that they wouldn’t land. He could hear them zoning in on him.

He kept walking and the sky which he had seen change from an orange to a dark rich magenta and red had now gone darker significantly and his visibility was becoming poor. He could hardly see the ground as he was walking when he came across the dull glow. There was a strange glow which gently lingered over a donut shaped crevasse. There was a hole in the ground. He was stunned and in a moment of wonder he was unable to move. He was frozen. Eventually he gathered his senses and made his legs move closer. He etched closer and closer until his feet were at the edge of the donut shape and he could see into the hole in the ground.

Enlightened figures. Three of them glowing with light. It seemed energy was flowing through them. They were tall. Like humans only the made no noise. All seemed to be communicating with gentle touches and gestures. They were not startled by the presence of the man who stood awestruck for minutes inspecting them. He was baffled by them. This was unlike anything he had ever seen before and he could not explain why there were luminous beings dwelling in this pit. ................................................................................. ...........................

Chapter Edit

Pedro was always a helpful soul. Helping out was his specialty. His proclivity. It was just a tendancy of his, innate perhaps. He enjoyed life. Gave of himself to make others feel at ease. He was kind and warm yet austere. Pedro always wanted to do the right thing. He was a kitchenhand at the moment and came from a well to do background and had a loving family.

Pedro went out the back for a smoke. He had ten minutes to spare the place wasn’t that busy.

Pedro handed meatcleavers a box of matches with a smile. “Sure thing brother have mine”. Smile.

It took the locals weeks to find out what the cause of the fire was.

A clear night sky with a clear full moon and a sky greening, mottled with cloud, intertwining stars made themselves manifest as they emerged from the grey green lacquer, and the locals all looked up in a daze. The question of who started the fire was solved. Now they changed to thinking, why?

Pedro was a bit worried because the thought had entered his head that the fire-starter could have been the somebody he gave the matches to. He ignored the thought for now, although that guy did seem a bit strange.

Procumbent leaves rushed past his heel. The wind sent spirals throughout the inflorescence. With a certain grace. Against hard barren cemented ground, the leaves danced. Barks became leafless in the wind. They stood in their places, harsh gushes left them bleak and bare. They tilted as the wind came down. Sticks in their soils.

The smell of smoke and burning was still in the air.

Pedro sipped at tea for ages. He sat there, sipping away, until it was like dog water.

“you know how tea is after a while? It tastes like dog water, they all do after you drink your quota, beyond the threshold of good tea.”

The funeral. The voice of the priests was occasionally drowned out by the wails of women in mourning.

There was a sea of black suits and women in dark dresses. Rows of people standing in the green garden domain where the ceremony was being held. A set of dark shades concealed the striking dark eyes of the man. He stood there alone with unfamiliar people surrounding him. He was a nowhere man, with nobody to recognize him let alone know him. He contemplated life. Living and passing on. Its something that everyone has to deal with. He felt absurd. He was at a funeral and then he would be on a high risk mission that would be dangerous for himself and fatal for another party.

As the funeral came to an end, the man walked away from the mourners. He was in a mostly all black costume consisting of black suit coat, white undershirt, black tie, black sunglasses, and black shoes. His hair was short, and light shone where it hit the part in his hair. He left the scene of the cemetery and got into his car. He thought about how right it was. The funeral and the service. The man pulled a compact disc from his front inner pocket of his suit coat and placed it into the CD drive in his car stereo system. The voice was distorted. The message played in full and as soon as it had finished the man grabbed the cigarette lighter from its position next to the CD player and placed the firey coil up onto the compact disc. It took a while for it to singe a hole right through it.

The man pulled out of his parking bay and drove out of the cemetery parking space. There was dense verdant forest to the either side of the road. The car was slick and cool. The forest green. The car a sharp metallic blue.

The man pulled a packet of cigarettes from the inner pocket of his suit coat that was lying on the seat next to him. He did this without looking at the pack at all. He was keeping his eyes on the road. He pulled the packet open. The smell of the Balinese cigarette wafted through the small space in the car. They were Gudang Garam. He pulled one of them out of the pack. Flicked the lighter and started smoking. The rich smell of cloves wafted throughout the car and the sweet taste in his mouth was pleasant. He breathed smoke as the cloves aneasthesatised his tongue and lips. He always succumbed to this guilty pleasure. It was morning, he hadn’t smoked for hours. It was time for breakfast he decided and he was hankering for bircher muesli.

The car pulled up at the spot just over the road from the café. This placed served the best breakfast. He could remember the last time that he had breakfast there. The bircher muesli was rich and creamy, just the way he liked it. The fruits were served on top of the mound of muesli and the side of yoghurt was sumptuous. He tasted the rhubarb, the blueberries and raspberries. The were a few people in the café. No one really noticed him as he quietly drank his coffee.

The man’s car took off onto the road. He was now ready for his assignment. He pulled off to the side of a quiet part of the road. He checked that there was no one around. No one to see his from any direction. He looked into the boot of his car and from it he pulled a silver hand held gun. The weapon gleamed as he held it in his hand. He looked at it was a sense of misery. He knew how bloody hard it was to carry out his assignment. He didn’t like it, nor did he like the fact that he was going to use the deadly weapon.

At the same time Gideon was taking off in his blue commodore. He had his gun strapped to his chest. The two cars were making there way to the same place. The look in Gideons eye was sickening. He was pumped and inspired. Gideon was merciless and spry. Uncaring and cold. The two cars zoomed at high speed to the city centre that was about 100 kilometres away.

A helicopter was waiting on the top of the high rise building.

The two cars were on different routes into the same centre point of the city where they had to meet. They pulled up quietly at the same time in the middle of the capital. They emerged from their cars and walked up the same set of stairs.

The doors opened as the sensor detected their movements. They both took the stairway all the way up to the top floor. It would be a disaster if the elevator were to break down while they were on a mission. Their hearts kicked into gear as they approached the top of the staircase, into attack mode. Both the man and Gideon were adrenal at this stage. They didn’t exchange any words. They knew what they were about to do. Gideon gave the Man a slight turn of the head indicating that it was time for him to make a move. The man kicked in the door and Gideon followed.

At the top of the building in the middle of the city there was a very long table with twelve men sitting at it. The pair, ubiquitous and well informed, they knew only too well, exactly who they were to seize and who they were to obliterate.

Smash, the glass door was forced open by Gideon and the man went in. The twelve men were terrified. They crouched and hid under the desk screaming for mercy. The sounds of the twelve were drowned out by the sounds of guns. Bang, Bang, Bang. Both The Man and Gideon with outstretched arms destroyed the people

they were sent to destroy. Gideon smiled to the Man who made the signal to back away. They ran as fast as they could to the top of the building. The Man and Gideon saw the helicopter. They jumped aboard and the copter flew off.

The Man and Gideon rode in the helicopter away from the city and into an unknown location. Gideon looked over to the Man. He smiled at the Man, but the Man just looked into thin air. The Man was totally disturbed by the whole ordeal. From the chopper the sea was dark and grimy and the man thought deeply about his life, he contemplated tearing away from his allotted agenda and giving away all that he had learned in this line of employment.

Chapter Edit.............................................................................

Meatcleavers killed a spider and he felt bad. It was a relatively large Huntsman. He hit it with his boot in his hand and it went squish. He was scared of spiders so at first he ran away from it. Now that it was dead he looked at the mess that it left and started thinking and talking to his self things like.

“What if that was me”.

Meatcleavers sat and wondered for hours about the meaning of life. He sat and thought about his roots and where he came from. He strummed a few chords on his Gibson and tried to make a song. Nothing seemed to work for him. His voice was amazing and the sounds that he made were excellent. He had to write it down, he thought.

“Being a butcher aint easy, but I’ll tell you a thing or two.”

Meatcleavers was sick of sitting in the pubs’ accommodation so he decided to pack up all of his things and leave. He was traveling

light so there wasn’t much to pack away. He wandered down the staircase and continued to mumble and grumble a few words to himself. He was braced with his backpack and guitar and plodded on down to the foyer. The place was quiet and there was no one in the pub that remembered him. Meatcleavers began to cry slightly. He didn’t know where he was going and for how long he would be on the road. Stoically, he wiped away some tears before becoming composed as he handed back the key and handed over the money for the accommodation. It was holiday, the first that he had taken for ages.

Meatcleavers left the pub and went down the road in the small township. He didn’t know where he would go next or what he would be doing for the next few nights. He scuffed his heels on the ground as he slowly paced around the town. He saw a pretty feather on the ground. It was getting blown around it the wind. He scurried after it because he wanted to pick it up. After a few attempts he caught it and put it in his guitar case.

.................................................................................

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The Man and Gideon were in another state of the country. The helicopter took them to a secret locale. They changed their cosmetic appearance just as a precautionary measure. Gideon shaved his beard and moustache. The man was such an average look that he didn’t have to make much of an effort to improve his appearance, no one would recognize him. Gideon and the man got into separate vehicles at the seemingly baron place. It was an abandoned industrial area that looked as though it had been left alone for years, olden and decrepit. Gideon got into a car and zoomed off. The Man thought to himself, when will I have to see that character again.

Gideon drove his car straight out of the industrial area and into a suburban street. Just as he pulled out of the area, a teenager that he could not see flung an egg into the windscreen of his car. It splattered all across the glass and sizzled on the paintwork. Gideon swerved from the shock of the attack upon his car and tried to clear his vision through the windscreen with the wipers and the water spray. He knew that it could err his situation to get out of the car. He might get seen. So he pulled over to the side and waited for the windscreen wipers to work.

The teenager ran away giggling.

The man zoomed off in another direction. He was wearing his preferred garb, black suit white shirt and black shoes and dark sunglasses. He knew only too well that his occupation at the secret intelligence organization would mean that he would have to do the dirty work for the higher powers. He put on the air conditioner and headed for the coast.

The Man stopped at the gas station. He needed to re hydrate. He parked his car in the allocated space and walked into the shop. He selected a 1 litre bottle of water and asked for a pack of Winfield blue. The woman at the desk asked him if he wanted 2 packs, but he said;

“no, I only want one.”

The woman handed him the packet of cigarettes and scanned the bottle of water. The man handed the woman a twenty dollar note and then received the change. He turned away from the woman and proceeded to walk out of the shop.

The Man was lonely that night. He looked to the stars for a source of entertainment. He was celebrating life. They were always there. The ever so small, tiny fragments of light were like pearls studded

in the thin and ever extending air of night. The very same substance that he breathed in and enjoyed. He sipped at the air, drinking in the oxygen like a fish would in the deep sea. He wasn’t thinking of the ocean now, far from it. He was relaxing in the darkness and called out a word with his arms stretched out to the unending skies.

“Bliss”

He eventually retreated and made his way back to the vehicle. There was a lot of driving ahead of him. The Man thought to himself that Its amazing how when you are away from the big cities the stars are brighter. His thought tending to return to the memory of that milkiness. He waited for something to happen, he couldn’t fathom what might be expected of him now.

The Man got cheap accommodation at the local motor inn. It was a shabby looking place inside but it would work out as a nights rest on a very long road.

He wailed in his sleep. The problem was that he was alone and he was a mercenary. The after affect of being on a mission was always feeling bad for the families and loved ones of the victims. He knew enough about the victims to know that they were operating outside the law but he still maintained a high respect for humanity and was generally accepting of deviance to order. He had to be. Otherwise how could he be forgiven. By a partner, a wife if he ever got one. As he wailed all through the night he wiped tears from his face and thought of lovers he had before. The ones that he couldn’t stand and the ones that let him go.

The morning was sweet, and the sounds of birds was rousing. Their mellifluous song reverberated around the outdoor setting as

they perched in the garden. Cicada’s ticked loudly. That sound was unmistakably one that reminded him of youth. The summers morn was lovely. The Man looked out to the skies that morning and noticed that a dense patch of rain cloud was a brewing, he got his things together into his vehicle before the rains came and before the rain pissed all over his windscreen.

The ride in the car away from the motor inn was tedious. But he didn’t look back. There were kangaroo fatalities all over the road side and the Man was becoming increasingly cautious. Kangaroos get hit on the road all of the time. They do a lot of damage to the car if you are unlucky and hit one. Lucky that it wasn’t night time. They are insidious.

The man drove until the day became night. The lights of the city were spectacular. The street lights were ongoing flares of luminescence that expanded from the night and composed gritty dollops of light. passing the car for ages. The man felt that he wanted to be assuaged from his duties for the night. He was yearning for the night life. So he went off in pursuit of fun.

There was a long line of people at the night club. The man stood anonymous in the crowd. There was no one who could recognize him here. The place seemed relatively safe. The man contemplated accidents before they would happen. He had to expect anything, he had the attributes of a spy. But he was a lonely spy and needed someone to be with.

When the man finally entered the nightclub he saw a whole lot of women. The dance-floor was filled with women with bleached hair. It took a bit of time for the man to get his confidence up and actually initiate conversation.

“hey how are you” said the man

“I can’t hear you, I can’t hear anything in this place”. Said a bleach blond woman.

The man stood there idle for a while. The two girls he was chatting up started to talk to one another. They expressed interest in him with a few glances. The women were beautiful. They were sitting down cradling glasses of house white and one of them was smoking. The Man was mesmerized by one of the women. Those long delicate fingers were beautiful to him. He longed to touch them but he could not because of nerves.

“Would you like a drink?” said the Man.

It was difficult to hear the voices in the pub. But the girls indicated that they wanted to drink by using their hands. They motioned with imaginary glasses that they wanted to drink. The man was pleased and went to the bar. He was polite in the way he pushed through the crowds. The place was extremely busy. The sounds of drums and bass reverberated throughout the place. The Man ordered a shooter and a chaser mix. It was a squashed frog, the potent drink served to mollify his current condition. He gulped at the shooter drink, then went to the place where the women were standing. They received their drinks and walked away quickly. The Man followed them up the stairs of the nightclub. He was knocked around by people by accident. The place was a sea of bodies clambering for standing room. The man could see the women a few spaces in front of him but he eventually thought to himself that it would be unusual behavior to follow them any further. After all he only just met him.

After a few drinks the Man was starting to get to the point of staggering. There were people all around him yet he was still alone. In the midst of some of the prettiest women he was more alone than ever. He contemplated his direction and couldn’t work out exactly how he was going to spend the next few years. Would

he still be alive, as a spy? He did not know. He did not know anything. Everything was uncertain. He stood there in the club and feared that a tidal wave would rush into the place and wipe out all of the civilians. Again and again he always felt scared of the ocean. Incessant, never ending fear.

Meat cleavers sat in an alleyway smoking cigarette after cigarette. Puffing them down to the butt, holding each butt missing the last draw. He was rambling and not able to cope with what was going on before his eyes. His ongoing distraction was worsening as time elapsed. He would ramble and chuckle at the thoughts that ran through his overactive psyche. He threw his cleaver a short way in front of him and was beginning to lose control. A few bystanders walked in parabolic curves to avoid his strange behavior.

In side, around the corner from where meat cleavers was sitting down. Gideon and the man were having a private meeting. Gideon whispered something to the man.

”The next targets are civilians, and they all have to go. Each one right down to the last simple one, Finito”.

Meat cleavers continued to become more obscure. Upon hearing what he thought was a villain plotting an attack, Meatcleavers decides to get involved.

“Nooo”

Meatcleavers unleashed an outburst of built up energy and crashes through the thin remnants of an old house site. He moans again.

“noooo”

Something in his head persuades him to become violent and he throws his cleaver. It spins round and round and plants itself into the head of Gideon.

Gideon stops, is stabbed through the skull and falls, to his death, on the floor of an empty old building site. The man walks away. Goes down the road and sobs.

The Man sat and waited for the Ambulance, there was nothing that he could do. He waited for the police, the man was taken away. At the station they told him in secret what his mission was to entail. He hated them for making this his new assignment. He punched the desk and cried. They told him the contraindications of his new job. He felt shocked and was a bit spun out by it all. He sat and waited in his chair, he smoked a cigarette and looked shocked, but he accepted him mission.

The result was that fatuous that the man just accepted his role in the merry play of trial. It was a concept that the new order would do away with. Trial as they knew it. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them it was all going to end. Guilty, innocent. Those words make sense to me now but nothing could prepare the world for the revolutionary judgement. Order or capitalism and the chaos of the two extremes that were going to exchange a vast blow in the way of nature. Not of the human kind. Not natural like life. But the order that controls the food we are allowed to purchase and the cars that we drive. The very fabric of modern history. The factors involved with the capitalism mixed with the poverty all contrived right down to the micro. Everything was derived to fill out a secret plan, one that would blow the minds of anyone that thought that they were logical. This is the rise of the new world and the demise of all the rest. The certain Inexorable truth that justice will be served. Ineluctable penalties such as fines and imprisonment. Impunity was the result. Impunity from the crime. It was propriety and relevant to the case at hand. A million thoughts

whirled through his conciousness and it was time for him to come to grips with his plight. It was temporal, he knew that his time on the inside would be tough.

The concept of becoming an ex convict inspired a sheer joy in his conciousness. It was a move that was of profound puissance and pulchritude. He had only been to prison to speak to prisoners that were witness to criminal activity. This was a furor of great worth and the outcome would be perilous to those who did not fit within the bounds of the new government or the Plymouth of order as he would also define it. This was absolutely a pivotal role that he would play. He felt despotic and bold. It was something inside him that knew it well. That feeling of inspiration. It was victorious and there was little or no mendacity within him. He was going to jail. He was going to serve time for a crime that he would have otherwise been court-marshaled. Shooting a man. That was all. He had shot plenty but always in the undeviating stretch of his line of work. He felt no pressure. Only guilt, because he knew only too well that the role that he was playing was for a higher order of power.

It was a precious cog in the fabric of his line of work. It was only that elevated conciousness, or so he believed. He had doubted and put his line of thinking into new and newer perspectives. This was a certainty. He was now detached from his obligation to his line of work and the outcome would be a certainty. If it wasn’t him it would be someone else. There was no two ways about it. He was not special, he was a vessel. A vessel of something like an ether, lambent and luminous. His heart was on fire and fervent swirls of pride and guilt swept in. It was as if the floodgates had opened and there was nothing that could stop it. He stood for a while and realized that there was nothing he could do but await his punishment. The voice of the judge was distant to him because he was preoccupied with his mission as a convict.

He was escorted to his cell. It was dank and very basic in its setup. There was a urinal a steel wall mirror and a sink and a bed. He had writing materials. And with his wits about him the man wrote. “The Tobacco companies are marketing death. It’s a blatant disregard for human life. The amount of money that is spent on healing the sick could feed the starving of the world”. Choice and constraint wouldn’t come into it anymore. This one concept of reality, the new imposed concept of moral strictness would evolve a new order. The lines of logic, so fragile would now dissolve, the tobacco companies were going to be put to a stop. They are finished. Of course this would complete the rift between rich and poor. There no longer would be a setup for the poor they would now be ostracized. There would be penultimate consequences before the very last turn. The turn of events that would see the absolute change in the world. Of course it would operate behind closed doors. The man closed his eyes because his heart was closed to the millions upon millions. There would be turmoil and anarchy. All this language based on a slithered sense of reality. Judgement wouldn’t come into it. The masses were doomed.

In prison he wrote. Poems to keep sane and the lengthy document that would surely pass the legislation of the present line of order, it was funny how he thought he thought. And he would laugh despite a profound sense of guilt. He knew this now and he pondered the massive turning point in history.

Chapter edit

Out of prison after writing document.

The man spent a prison term of six years. He thought about Gideon as he left the rugged prison wall behind him.

He drove along a coast road and noticed beaches.

He breathed the air and wondered what the meaning of all this was. He was free now but he was subject to the rules of his operation. He had completed a major task. The document had been directed and redirected to facilities that are of a legal nature and also he had sent documents to the major tobacco companies around the world.

He sat on the sand with his shoes in his hands. He sat in the sun with his shirt open. Two young women with hourglass figures dropped their bags next to where he was sitting. They were very talkative and charismatic. They were pleasant to be next to. He was taken aback by their sheer beauty. They were absolutely gorgeous in all their glory. They were heavenly creatures with a sophisticated charm that drew him in. The man was infatuated from the very first moment. They shed their sunning clothes down to bikini bathers and kept up their fluent and incredibly intelligent sustaining conversation. They sat together and looked over at the man from time to time with looks, sultry and tempestuous.

He tried not to look too much. He wanted to keep it cool .In order to feel like he was he had to hold off the temptation to look. He kept his eyes off them mostly passing looks were more like little notices.

He approached them. He asked them if they would hold his car keys while he went for a swim in the water. They said: “sure no problem at all” He could tell they weren’t thieves. He dove into the water and swam out as far as he could. The waves crashed over his head, he looked up as the foamy air crashed over the diaphanous water film over his head. He resurfaced on his feet. He brushed the water off his face and had another dive. The water was cold and a fresh spark was added to his skin as the breeze blew. It darted up his skin like a subtle shock. The sound of crashing waves overturned his awareness from the fact that he might be being seen. For a moment he forgot the women were there.

He turned his head and noticed that one of the women had left. A sudden shock ran through his heart. He jogged over to the women on the towel. “Have you still got my car keys he asked with a slightly up tight sort of tone” She grabbed them from her handbag and held them in the palm of her hand and smiled with a hot grin. He could see for sure that she was a babe. She was good looking enough to be a model. “I thought she was going to steal my car” he said with a grin. “It’s not that I don’t trust you its just that I would have been in trouble if she really did”

“Why would I want to steal your car” she replied. “Out of all the cars in the car park what makes you think I would steal yours” He felt quite confronted. He didn’t know what to say, I mean she put him on the spot. He had nothing but he dealt with it and blurted out something about how the other ones probably on her way to peru by now. She laughed because he said peru and said if she was going anywhere good that she had better come and take her. The other long legged princess jogged over to her towel with a little scurry. “Thought we were plotting against you did you”. She held out her hand and introduced herself. She said “my names S”

They all hit it off. He had no towel. The first girl he spoke to said here you can have a seat. They chatted and laughed. They enjoyed each others company.

They led him down a path of distraction and into temptation. They steered him far from his own choosing and he lost his care. His care for him self centered objective for safety. He followed them and let them reach him. He was open to them. Vulnerable and willingly at their disposal. They could do anything with him and he would collapse graciously under their temptation. He was a weakling for A and would try to be cool to her the most. He would show off with his wit and play her attention with cool tones and wild nonsense that sent them all into fits of laughter. In the back of their red convertible the wind blew through the hair of them. The

driver S was half listening in so as to not miss the conversation. Each present moment was glorious and the time flew. The day was short and before they realized it was evening. They had driven far away from the beach where they met. The girls asked him what he was going to do. Where do you live asked S. He told them that he was staying in the back of a trailer and they both gave a sympathetic, “oh”. He wanted their sympathy. It made his soul feel precious. They took him back to the car park and told them to be a t the same place at the same time tomorrow. They all hugged and kissed. A gave him a small bit of paper with their numbers on it. He took it in his hand with a small and edged over to give A a small kiss on the cheek. He treasured it and placed it in his leather wallet. He was happy that night and slept like a baby. It took him a while to reach tiredness, after all he could only think of his two new friends.

They arrived at the house. It was next door to a holiday campsite resort. They drove into the long driveway and parked behind the red convertible. The porch was inviting neat and had a hammock to the right ands a coffee table to the left. They all walked in and the light went flick. “Sit down” A said. There was a grey couch that he sunk into as he sat. The sides engulfed him and he felt relaxed by its comfy-ness. They all felt good about each other and it was time for being lazy and sipping tea.

S lazed around on the floor looking wild. She had the figure of a cover girl and was most imperturbable. The most awesome woman he had ever seen. He was drawn in By A. Her soft gestures and smile made his heart pounce. It quivered and skipped around in his chest. He warmed to her and was especially fond of her. The three seemed to get along perfectly. Each of them allowed for the other and all tended to the others conversational needs. There was always something to complement. The night came closer and it was time for rest. They stayed awake watching television for an hour or so before falling asleep in a bundle of rugs and blankets in

front of the television. He couldn’t believe how fortunate he was. Having found these lovely people. They were his best friends he thought. He counted his blessings. Gave a little thought to his future movements, discarded the thoughts and just slept. It was hours before he pissed himself. There was nothing more embarrassing. He felt like an intruder in a strange house. He had a urine stain the size of Texas. He had to change. He didn’t want to make it obvious so he just crept out the door careful not to make a sound. He stripped his pants off out the front near the car. He finished off his piss out in the moonlight. He didn’t know where the toilet was and he didn’t want to ask. He pissed retentively as steam eddied off his piss fountain. He put some new undies on and a pair of trousers he felt embarrassed but he had to sleep inside again otherwise things would be stranger than unusual.

The girls were still fast asleep as he walked back into the lounge room. The light was dim. He thought they were asleep. They could have been awake and they might have known that he wet himself. He didn’t have the patience to bother with the thought that they did know. He felt comfortable with them enough even as a bed wetter. He thought they never would have guessed that they would find a bed wetter at the beach.

He crept back into his place on the floor and covered himself with the sheets. He couldn’t get warm. He tried for hours but never got warm. He didn’t snuggle up to A who was near him because he didn’t want to infect her with his piss smell. The early sunlight woke him up. He was to eager to wash to sleep in. It must have been about 6.30 quarter to 7. He scouted around the place on a mission to discover running water from a shower head. He eventually came across one and turned the tap on full. It was steaming. The hot water rushed onto the outstretched palm of his hand and he stripped off. It was blissful. When he had showered and dried off he went out into the living room. The girls were still asleep. And he sat around waiting for hours. He didn’t dare wake

them or turn on the television set in case they got annoyed. There is nothing better than sleep, he thought.

He thought about other people who he had known. In the past. He thought about loves from his past for some bizarre reason. The more unsettling side of his memories had arisen. He wasn’t as comfortable. A wave of guilt swept over him. His gut rumbled and churned. He felt uneasy. He couldn’t bare the thoughts that ran through his mind. There was unfinished torment that lay hidden beneath his comfort. It would go unnoticed for weeks and he would be able to cope with the grief in time. It just lingered. It stayed for ages. The seconds were like hours or years even. He felt as if he was being detained in an infirmary. Sweat beaded on his brow and his lip quivered. He had to relieve his stress. Somehow, he just stuck wit it and never let it overcome him. He was looking uneasy and he was well aware. For that reason he decided to pretend to sleep. The thought of a woman, the ginger hair and dangling curls, an image stayed with him fixated in the forefront of his mind. He remembered regret. All the things he wish he had not done. All the memories made him feel uneasy and he couldn’t shake the memory of that ginger one.

He left the thoughts and they fell far away into the back of his consciousness. The unnerving feelings remained and kept him feeling not so good. He was lying still and went back into a light slumber. This torment would return every now and again and remind him of his failings. He wasn’t happy with the actions of him self. There was nothing he could do but leave the lingering thoughts aside and look forward to what was in his midst at present. He couldn’t anguish his past forever, so he had to exist despite the pains that made him feel sick.

He layed in on the floor in a shallow rest. He was prodded with gentle legs when the girls woke up. They yawned and got up in a hurry.

“Breakfast” said S. He nodded and the next day began. Everything was cool and they didn’t have a clue he was a bedwetter.

The morning sun shone in from under the door. A little carpet a little ray in and it spread in from outside onto and across the carpet. There were pleasant clinks in the kitchen and the place was alive with the energy of the morning. Dishes chinked in the sink and cutlery twanged in harmonious chimes as the food was getting ready. He was the guest and was served by the two women. S looked at him and said that he needn’t lift a finger. He sat back on the couch and just let the warm morning seep into his realm of being. His feelings were better now that it was day and that there was a living presence between the three of them. Things were good.

He turned on the television. He observed happy morning show presenters telling little anecdotes to make the day get off to a good start. There were comments about stylistic ties and passing remarks faded out into the distance and became a background murmur. “Tea or coffee” said A. He sprung up and paced into the kitchen. He was bright and happy. He wanted to have coffee however when he saw that both the girls wanted tea he thought that he would to. He might as well do as they did. It is good to be different for a change. He would normally have had coffee. The subtle press of inspiration that a tea offers is far different from that of a coffee. A coffee is a sudden zap of clarity. The tea is powerful to a sensitive mind.

They all sat around the coffee table and held warm mugs. They were all awake and just content being together. They all sat for a while without any need to say a thing. There was no need to interrupt silences with any sentences that would have been drivel. Everything was to be said later. Not now. Things were fine. There was nothing to do. That was the major observation that the man made at breakfast. They had toast and cereal and hardly a word

was said. The girls assured the man that there was no need to rush off or to do anything. Things hadn’t gotten weird, and that in itself was unusually fortunate for the man. He was at ease in the company of his friends. There was no hangover affect. They two women were his friend, he liked them and he didn’t think that they would care even if he did begin to act out of the cool calm character that he had maintained since there meeting at the beach the other day. The girls chatted eventually. The man said something but he drifted off into another length of silence when he realized that what they had to say was of a greater more sustaining substance. They spoke of mood and weather. The morning fresh and feelings. It baffled the Man. He was an embodiment of impressionable. He was impressionable beyond conception. The weather had played on his nerves and tested him right through this whole journey. This mission of his to get to safety away from the threats that plagued his mind had to remain a secret. He was safe here. Where he was, far from any threat. His fears were minor. He could sweep them under the carpet, so to speak. He was in control of all the fears that pressed his nerves to the point of becoming a solitary and a fugitive. He gave serious thought to leaving his solitary lifestyle aside. If they would let him he would stay with the girls. Perhaps drift slowly about the coast. He wanted them as companions. They were pleasant to be with.

“Excuse me can you please pass me the jam, your usisng it all up”, said A. “I’d better get some of it before she uses it all and then there is none left”.

“Don’t worry there’s about enough for everyone, we just have to make it go a long way, look I’ll just spread on a little bit and then I’ll pass it on to the man”. She plunged the knife into the jar and scraped the edge of the jar with her knife. The lumpy jelly was tasty and she spread it thinly over the buttered bread.

“Hmm, strawberry is my favorite”

“Everyone likes strawberries, its impossible not to”

“Not true, I knew a girl who would be sick whenever strawberries were brought up”.

“you mean she would be sick if someone talked about them, no not really. I never saw her eat one. She would always say that she couldn’t eat them because then she would be sick.

“Imagine a life without strawberries”

“I know its hard to imagine isn’t it”

“I like strawberries heaps and strawberry jam is pretty good”

“I cant believe she got sick from straw berries, I think they’re are the tastiest fruit.”

“They must be”

They all added to the discussion. It was fun. The man could not believe how fun and happy everyone was and the mood was so calm and easy that he felt right at home. He could see this relationship developing.

“Where do prunes come from I wonder”

“The S woman blinked” she looked pensive and deep and the man thought that she was making an attempt at being funny.

“I think she’s serious said A”

“I mean I know about all of the other dried fruits, sultanas come from grapes, apricots apples and peaches are just apricots apples and peaches. But what’s a prune made out of?”.

“I really have never thought of that before, its quite strange”, said the man. “I really enjoy prunes despite their look. They are quite disgusting to look at and some people will never eat one because they are so unsightly. I really enjoy them. They are one of the most flavorsome joys”

The man couldn’t believe it. He had to eventually tell them what he did for a living he thought. He had been through all his beliefs and how he thought the world would be. He’d conceptualized his network of thought over and over, he had figured it all out and had opinions on his opinions. It had brought him to the conclusion that was inconclusive in nature. There was no real righteousness in all this. He just would strut around after his own safety. He followed a track that led him forward. It was generally tough and this last week had been unusually rewarding. The past had been difficult although he would treat himself at times.

While with the two he was like a honey eater that would suckle from the nectar of life from a flower. They would walk through the park and everything was a buzz. They would walk through the town. They raced around and giggled. They played. Childlike, they would seek the thrills and make the most of each moment.

Evenings at A and S’s house were serene and soothing. They would sit out on the verandah and wait for the night time just waiting. Sitting on the chairs in each others company sharing thoughts and being themselves. Mosquitoes would leave itches on their legs but they would stay out there despite them because the moment was so alluring. There was a sense of calm that was uninterrupted. There was nothing left to want and things couldn’t get any better. That was the thought that the man brushed aside.

The reality was that things would stay the same and would probably get worse.

Prior to this the Man had felt a deep regret about the things that he should have done.

They staggered around the block until they got to the liquor store. They bought a bottle of some cheap and nasty brown whisky and a cask of something. They were already drunk and were in the mood for a boozer. And must have appeared rude and obnoxious. They swayed as they walked around the corner with the odd offensive swear word blaring out into the otherwise still night. S ran ahead and started throwing rocks at a signpost and started celebrating with fists of glory. She raised them after the clang of rock on tin. The rocks lay scattered all along the road and footpath. They gathered all along the floor and crumbled from the big wall that led to the corner of the street.

They made their way back to the house. The light went on and they staggered in. The plonked down the bottle of whisky on the kitchen table. Altruism a desireable trait. There were drinks for everyone. The mixers were poured with coke and didn’t last very long. They were enthusiastic and taken by their conversation. There was an intrigue that led to joking and more humorous antics. They flitted around the kitchen and the room swayed. The floor shuddered underneath them. He held a the bottom of a glass to his eyes and pretended they were goggles. He couldn’t see things properly, the distorted vision that the thick glass gave him didn’t let him see his piss-vision accurately enough. They were all intoxicated well and truly and the tones became drawn and lagged.

They busted out of the door and walked all in each others arms. They tripped over each others legs and staggered once again out of the door and made their way to the beach that lay beyond the caravan park boundary.

Chapter No. Drunk And Woe

The darkness of the night swept into the arena of the drunk. He was wrestling with his intoxication. He was clouted by his baffling senses. The floor was sliding in from beneath him. The bushes to the side of him shook as he approached them. The girls still trapesing through the place. They hung onto his clothes as they all moved forward in one bungled clump. The ground shook. They were staggering. He felt a strange acuteness in the strength of his every stamp. They were ridiculously paralytic. They came to the small bay at the foot of the dune formation that lay in precious mounds protected by the low lying vegetation that held the sand together. They all trampled over the dune and slipped and fell and crawled all their way through until they got to the sandy flat.

There was little light. The sea was black. No light to let him see how it was behaving. He could hear it. It washed onto the sandy shore and bubbles sprayed all along the shoreline. He could hear the wind atop of the water line. It hushed. The dark let nothing be seen. He was standing on the grey sand and couldn’t see far in front of him. He wasn’t sure how far away the ocean was. It was foreboding and he realized that he had only been on the shore once when it was this dark. He suddenly realized how stupid he was for being there and how drunk he really was.

A sobering moment sparked his perception like an electric shock. He stood there and let the sounds fill his mind. The wind flitted his hair about and the sound hushed his nerves. He heard the girls who seemed to be squabbling. They were at ach others throats. They were being violent. He listened out for them and followed his ears. He ran over to them. He was sparked with a drunken energy. He reached them and saw them close up. He wanted to warn them that the sea was dangerous and that they should make no mistake to

enter into it at this time. He looked at them close up and realized that they were getting seriously aggressive. They were fighting.

He yelled out in a groggy senseless tone of voice; “Hey, Why are you fighting” They scrambled and pulled at each others hair. They were hitting and biting. There were shrieks and grunts. He must have lost track of the conversation ages ago. He got worried all of a sudden and started to yell; “Stop it, your being stupid cut it out or I’m leaving” They kept it up and with their swearing and their stubborn ignoring frenzy. He grabbed them by the arms and tried to tear one off the other. There was nothing he could do. He rolled on the floor and wrestled with them for a little while to no avail. He hated them fighting. Things were not the way they should be anymore. When he stood up he feared the ocean. He looked over to where he thought the sea was. He lost his bearings in the darkness. He didn’t know how far away from the sea he was. He couldn’t tell where the sprays and hushes were coming from, he was too drunk. He feared the violence. He counted on his moment of clarity to unsure that he get away from the treacherous situation. He backed away. Heat filled his face, he felt heavy behind the eyes. Water welled up in his tear-ducts, and he turned away. He wanted them to stop but they wouldn’t. He yelled as tears streamed down his face. He turned and ran swearing at the top of his voice. He ran. He looked at the ground at could hardly see the sand. There were bluey grey patches of sand. He moved his legs as fast as he could. He wanted his legs to be moving quicker. Faster, so that everything would be over with more quickly. He got to the dunes and accelerated. He wanted to scale them and run away from them forever. He made it to the top of the dune and his stomach tightened. He threw up all his drink. It was a putrid runny spray of bread food and bourbon. He repeated and spat out the vile soup out of his mouth. He was drunk and emotional. He knew in his mind he was doing the right thing being away from the sea. He got up off his haunches and ran back to the house. He got there and waited out the front for ten or fifteen minutes, or was it and hour

and fifteen minutes? He couldn’t tell. He just curled up in the corner on the veranda.

Some time passed and before he knew it the sounds of voices made their way over to him. A figure emerged from the bushes and ran over to the house. He dare not speak. He turned the other way. He could not tell who it was. He lay there in the corner and felt comfortable. He was finding comfort in the drowsy sedate feeling of being drunk. He was ready for sleep. Then a soothing voice came to him. In a moment he was delivered from the despair. The despairing forces that made him unsettled just got forgotten somehow. Her body so near to him all he wanted to do was hold her. He was tired and she was pissed also. She put her hand on his head and caressed him. She didn’t say anything else to him. Their lips met in the right way. They were cool and soft. He held her back and put his hand around her back. His fingers slowly made their way up underneath her tight shirt. He pulled it up over her head and he saw her ample supple breasts in the night. She took of his shirt and unzipped herself. They held each other naked on the porch. He wriggled out of his jeans somehow and his hands now slid in between the small knickers and her hips. Their bodies met at their hips and they reveled in passion. She whispered “then what is love” They were naked on the wooden boards around the corner on the verandah and had a brief moment of passion in the early morning darkness.

It was a hot night and a dull breeze wafted over the two of them. Her breasts were large and formed shadows on the planks at the side of them as street lights let a dull light in from the roadside. They lay with their pants on and their shirts off in the heat of the summer night and when they woke at the crack of dawn they wee comfortable with each other. They were in each others arms and happy with each other. They didn’t speak for hours. They just looked at each other and felt the warm air on their bodies.

Eventually he spoke. “There was a fight so I left”, she kept looking at him. Her eyes were brown and captivating. The light of the new morning slowly raised. The skyline had a light blue tint. The sounds of gulls squawked as they all awoke. Early rising campers made voices as they packed their bags and set off. Families were getting their bags all organized. Parents were waking their children from their tents and packing things up. The two of them just sat their she was rubbing herself up to him and keeping warm off their bodies heat. They relaxed and he rested her head on his outstretched arm. He could hear people preparing breakfast and taking off to go out fishing. People set off with crab nets and every thing was pleasant. She still had her top off and she sat up looking him in the eyes completely not afraid of being seen. He lay on his back and stared at her eyes. Everything was good. There heads thumped in their foreheads together and they felt happy as the new day greeted them with harmonious sounds of birds and people.

When they had got up. They shared the shower. They felt closer than ever. They were chatting and joking. Everything was funny and their heads really hurt. The water drops fell and splintered as they hit the tile floor. All of them within their space would shatter making a resounding chime, like those chimes that would make noise in the wind. They freshened up and brushed teeth. The man borrowed hers and they were okay with that. Between them they were content with each other. The time came for them to confront the other member of the group. Seeing that they had just had a night of passionate lovemaking it was possible, he thought, that the other woman would be jealous. They met her in her room. She was lying down in the room with a bucket next to her bed. She was hung-over and looked in a sorry state. The two girls were all apologetic. They hugged even though the woman lying on the bed was moaning with nausea.

The rest of the day was a slack affair and the three of them laid around together. They were all feeling unwell with the sickness a

result of too much drinking. They read things to each other from the tv extra magazine.

The man read something about some tv show host that he hadn’t ever seen on television. It was funny. He read it like an over enthusiast and it made them all laugh even thought they all felt so horrible.

It was afternoon by the time they could be bothered to eat. The man fixed some fruity

Bread and buttered it all. He gave it to them on a platter and bits of crust made their way into the bedspread by the time evening came around.

There was little animosity between women who seemed particularly tender towards each other. They held no grudge and it seemed that they were closer as a result. It is strange how conflicts can make people feel closer after a while. He thought about the ocean. For some reason the same fear that he felt last night returned to him. He remembered the fear that rushed through him when he realized his vulnerability. He was awake to the memory, that cold realization that left his body almost trembling. He was lying on the bed. He felt surprisingly good. It must have been because he threw up most of his stomach full before he got home last night and that he got some sex.

They all healed themselves together and eventually got up and went for a walk to the shopping center in the late afternoon.

It was a pleasant walk and they all felt much better. The man started to speak about how lucky he was for meeting these people. “Do you believe in fate?” He asked. They both nodded. “Why do you ask that” said S. “because I think that fate always wins”, he said. “It either always wins or it doesn’t exist. I mean, in the way that I can think about it”. S pondered for a moment and then

replied with. “This is our fate, right now, what we have here and now is our fate right here in the present”

“All things that happen do so for a reason.”, said S. The man said that “all things happen because of our fate and our choosing, Fate does not occur, the circumstances are not fate-full unless we are free to make choices”

“Without our freedom we are the victim of other influences” “How do we know if we are free”

“When we are free, we can choose. We can be truly free to an extent, that being the extent to which we are repressed. Without realizing that we are free at the same time as being repressed we cannot understand fate, whether it exists or not.”

A began to voice her concern. “If we were the only three people on an island then could love be my curse?” They all were dumbfounded. “If love exists between the two of you and not ever truly for me then I am repressed, mainly by the small population yet I am free because I live, I breathe and I have friends, who I think I do love although I do not see that as an ideal love”

“Perhaps that the whole idea of love is a curse” said the man. “without knowing love one cannot know what it is like to be scolded by it, a person may love freely and have many partners. Perhaps two partners on the same island. Then the love is an idea and no one gets to own the companionship”.

S spoke. “Why love”

The man replied, “To lust, and to feel completion in life. To be a giver of support and compassion.”

Straight after saying it he thought for a while to himself. What exactly is love? He couldn’t describe it properly in depth. He thought long and hard and couldn’t think about how he could say it. It was like trying to put a finger on the true meaning of Christmas. It was something people felt they knew without the definition. Because of the definition there is no meaning. Without the definition people share a common belief.

A said with a certain curiosity. “To give life so that true love can occur. The love between mother and child is the truest love, it is the foundation for all love and without this love there is no love. Love exists, its between my mother and I”.

They all kept walking. The shops were around the corner. They were ready to get their food and everything felt nearly complete.

“Food is what gives us our nourishment. Like love it gives us strength so we can survive. Yes we are definitely stronger for the food we eat.”

This was a particularly deep moment. They were lacking enthusiasm so everything they said had to be clearly thought out. The conversation was slow and clear. They were being thoughtful.

“The essence of our nature is our capacity to love. We as human have the propensity for emotional appreciation. We connect and feel fond of each other.”

“Yes, when I look at other animals in the zoo there are only a few that I can tell love”

“Hmmnn, when I look in the aquariums at the fish market I can tell that the lobsters love. It is very unusual. I feel as though I can relate with them, I feel a sort of a bond between us. They crawl around the bottom of the fish tank and they speak to me, they don’t

make a noise as such however they make sense to me through their sad eyes.”

“Yes I like them I think they are the lovely ones”

“They are so kind and they are soft to me, unlike their heavy armored look”

“Of all the creatures I think that humans love the most”

“Of all natures species the humans consciously kill more than they want to eat, The sharks eat when they are sick or hungry, The bears and lions kill to eat, so that they can survive, yet humans kill for war” Said S.

“I cannot know the full extent of the intentions of the governments who commit their armies to war, If I knew what their true intentions were then maybe I would have the groundings to decide against the countries choice for war.”

“Perhaps war prevents war as much as it is a contribution to war.”

“I am unsure without war perhaps we would be dead. We could be slaves under the rule of dictatorship, the true possibility of horrible other scenarios is hopefully not for us to find out.”

“All I can know is that there is something which I feel in human nature that lets me feel sure that there is the potential for a peace, some sort of equal ground where all people can be proud, free and happy.”

“I hope that we may see a day when all the countries of the planet live in harmony”

“So do I.”

“Me too.”

They walked into the shop and suddenly became bright and cheery. The topic of war had been forgotten and the company of each other brought a peace that ran through their hearts.

The shopping counter was quiet and there wasn’t very many people around. The blips at the checkout were accompanied with the chimes from the money till as it opened and closed. They had all of the foodstuffs that they needed and everything was becoming more clear. It was nearly the end of the day and it had taken them that long to become fully awake. They were sobering up. It had been a long day and they had only just got the strength to leave the house.

There was a polite exchange at the counter. “Hi” said the girl at the check out. They all said “hi” back and acted really happy despite their recovering state. They were awake enough to muster the hello and not look like they were ill.

Chapter No. The guilt and euphoria

When the guilt wasn’t prevalent and it didn’t get him down, he sometimes would have moments of euphoria. The grief would sink away as his cares and stresses fell away and no longer dragged him down. His heart would pound with a jovial glory and the euphoric waves of bliss that he could remember from his youth would set in. They were not forgotten feelings yet they were so infrequent that his experience of life seemed to forget what t was like to be happy from time to time. There was no sweeping grief to send him into an agonizing frenzy today. He was relaxed, his happy sectors of him brain must have sprung a leak. He was all smiles and dorky grins. He couldn’t ever work it out. Why sometimes the suffering and others the sheer pleasure of life. There was a harmony in the sound

of all things when he felt like this. The birdsong was glorious and the sounds of cars were rhythmic and musical, it was as if the divine plan in everything was a show for him to watch. The trees hushed and never whispered his name. They wouldn’t do that to scare him anymore. He felt free, He felt that everybody liked him, even nature. Nature had its singing songs, its merry tunes. The shades that soothed and the grasses that swayed. Everything was existing in a harmonious state. He loved his life when he felt like this. Everything was beautiful.

Redemption was something that needed to occur for some time. He needed to be free. There was a weight on his shoulders that would make everything more difficult. It didn’t stop him. It was his hang up. In every way, this force cast a leaden weight upon him and it was constricting. He didn’t know what to do about it. He wouldn’t wish a curse upon anyone. He had to deal with it all the same. He needed to be free and this curse that stayed with him most days would only make way for his happy nice kind nature to come forward on the odd occasion. It happened more than usual when he was in the company of S and A.

The foods they prepared the company that all of them kept. They were together and happy for it. There was the sheer pleasure of staying put. The Man had been trekking all over the Country for some time, some days had been long and boring, others ad been jam packed filled with new and exiting things. He was able to appreciate the landscape and he was able to meet people like S and A. It was rare that he would find someone who he could share a common bond with. The story so far was a pleasant one. The weather, the warm nights and the sunny days at the beach all made things worth while. He could stay with them for an eternity he thought to himself. He would like to stay with them. He loved their company. He had gotten so close to S. They had something so wonderful.

He had grown used to spending his time with them. He had grown accustomed to living life in the present. He was living in the now. There was no better time in his life and no better people that he had ever met.

He didn’t compare S to any of his other loves that he had had in the past. The other women that he had been close to had never been this fun loving and carefree. They had always been more formal relationships and they were much more boring or unrewarding in comparison to this one. It was the high time of his life basically. He felt that it was a goldmine relationship. He hadn’t given much thought to the future of his progress, it was difficult to see past the current set of circumstances. It was also difficult for him to see past the sheer beauty of his girlfriend. They all skipped and frolicked around the campsite on their way back to the home. They were happy. And all the campers were happy. This was the bliss time in the mans life. And he told them so.

“Without the company of friends, life holds a lesser meaning” he said with the happiest of expressions, he was over exited at this stage and all of his energy had come back. “Of all the people in the world that I could have met in passing I met you two and we are now so close that I think of you as my best friends ever”.

The girls clapped and jumped around with him, they were all over exited after the night of heavy drinking. Sometimes being dehydrated can do that to you. “We can’t believe how close you are to us”, said A. S run up to him and held him in her embrace. She kissed him on the cheek and put her head on his chest.

Streamers were in order. This was the sort of occasion that dreams are made of, but there were none and there were no balloons either. They had each other. Each others company was all that they needed and they had a night of cooking and eating together. “We all are having another party”, said A.

They all stood together in the kitchen and the discussion started up once more. The man began to say something else about how fortunate he felt to have run into them but S hushed him. She held her finger to his lips and he hushed. He finished speaking mid sentence and he became contently infatuated with the words which sprung from her lips. She was softly spoken.

“We are in love”, she said it with conviction and a sort of sincere authority that left the man and A in a position whereby it was difficult to say anything else but, “Yes, we are.”

The three of them pottered around the kitchen and said things about why they were in love.

“We all benefit from this strange triad”, said S. A agreed although she was not as close to S as she had been prior to the inclusion of the man. “I am happy now”, she said. “The two of you have found each other in the world and there is probably nothing that can ever take you away from each other” The two lovers hugged in the middle of the kitchen and A looked on with a happy and un-jealous smile.

“Imagine if we were to be married one day, wouldn’t that be the most amazing thing in the world”, it was clear that they were all over exited and the comment from S was not irrational although it was sort of off the cuff and a bit impulsive.

“That was impulsive”, said the man. “Why is it an impulsive thing to follow your heart.” Said S.

“The heart isn’t always tame. It can be wild and furious. Perhaps the heart is the vehicle to which one should follow the heart.” Said the man.

A replied to the conversation between the two by saying: “The heart is a pump, it is what motivates people to move, to lift heavy things and to breathe, the heart is the strong muscle which makes people weak when they see a person of whom they are fond. It makes people happy when they see a loved one and causes them to be shocked when somebody dies.

“I am not sure where you can draw the line you see it is a very complex and difficult thing.”

Chapter No. The Heart

That night the man dreamt. He dreamt about the heart. It came to him in the deepest sleep. The huge vessel drifted into his subconscious in a glowing vibrant form. The organ was huge and took up all of his mindspace. It was a great big heart with colors that were warm and full of life. The sound of beating blood swamped his sleep and he could hear the beats as they thumped and richotetted off the hollow chasm that held his captivated dream. It was like reliving being in utero. Everything was soft and warm, this giant figure just glided in wafting. He felt the warmth in his sleep and it comforted him. It was a giant pumping vessel that ticked like a clock. It was constant and unfaltering. Colors radiated from its center and around the big heart. Yellow, pinks, oranges and deep reds.

The vision of the heart changed as he watched in his dream. The heavy body, lined with vessels and hard muscular walls changed its form. Right before his sleeping sight the ventricular caverns became the hull, and the aorta and blood vessel became the mast. The heart took on the image of a ship. It changed form in his sleep and sailed along dreamy misty waters. It veered into the sleep and steered away from the frightening places and moved into the comfort. The places where he could have rest and feel the restorative qualities of sleep. The boat just sailed and sailed. Its journey was its destiny, its own being was its own hope, it was

made from the heart. It was its own life-raft, it sailed and supported itself. It was a saving vessel. There was no one on board that the man could see. He thought that it was empty. The boat would let the people drift along the foggy waters and keep them dry, if only there were some passengers. For some reason there was no one on board. It was afloat and had its mast up. It was set for sail.

The dream was strong and the graphic images remained with him in the early morning hours of the next day. He awoke next to the girls and he stared up at the ceiling while the dream memories were still strong. They became more feeble and harder to hold on to. They slowly became distant like they were sailing away.

He could hardly place the image of the boat when the girls awoke. The image of the heart had long left his memory and it was puzzling to him as to why the dreams always leave him. He slacked during the early hours. He wanted to laze around. He was listless. There was no point getting up he thought. He was hungry, his stomach was growling and his guts just squirmed as the digestive juices pumped in the empty chambers of his abdomen. He could resist helping himself for hours in the company of such compatible friends. They all stirred and everything was fun as they all woke up and greeted each other for the morning and the new day ahead. The man wriggled out of his socks. They had been on all night and nagged at him all through the early morning. He didn’t take them off because he might have smelled a bit. So he left them on even though they really were causing him some great discomfort. He was relieved when the girls got up and he could finally get up too without feeling like he had lost the special time. He picked them up off the floor and threw them into the basket at the corner of the bathroom as he walked out.

They all prepared breakfast. S and A were in the kitchen. It was a race to get the bread first. The three of them scuttled through to the kitchen and arms quickly grabbed the bread. Toast was the

foundation for a healthy start to any day. The girls raced and pushed each other out in a frantic bid to get the first bit of breakfast. The man stood over the sink and looked out. He had his hands on the steel sink rinse and peered out of the window that sat on a pane with a heap of little figurines and momentos. He inspected the. Back-yard. There was a clothes line that had little colored pegs all around the network of lines, clotheslines that draped from metal poles. There were a few bits of cloth that hung on from the pegs and looked like old bits of scruffy rag. They were probably A’s old tops or some tea-towels. His eyes turned to the corner of the backyard that stretched out to the fence post. There was a little garden. The congregation of rocks let the reeds and push through and he turned away from the window immediately to go and have a look. He rushed out of the kitchen. He jogged out of the hall way and out into the laundry door out into the backyard. He hadn’t seen it before. It was all new to him and made him happy. The grass was dry and the hard soil was parched. The grass had become a dried light green color. It was overdue for a watering. The hose lay in a neat spiral at the side of the house near some bushes. He thought that he should give it a water but he couldn’t see past the fishpond that lay the base of the small rock congregation. He thought there was something a bit unusual about it from when he stood and looked out from in the kitchen. He crept up to it. He was so exited. He peered over to it and was let down when he saw that it had no water, no fish and nothing but an empty kidney shape. He was hoping for fishies.

He liked nothing more than watching fish. He used to have one as a young boy and would watch them eat. He would let them nibble on his fingers as he stuck them under the aquatic surface. Their little mouths would move open and close as his finger made little ripples on the surface of the water. Ripples would send tiny vibrations through the ocean and the fish could tell that there was something new in the water. The fish probably thought it was food. He liked fish and got pleasure from watching them eat.

Chapter No.

The time had come for A to leave for a while. She said that she had to be with her family during a difficult time. She let the other two with a sad, teary and emotional goodbye. They were all so fond of each other, it was so sad to see her go. It always is sad when you spend so much time with someone and then they are preparing to leave. It was as though the departure of A would be the end of an era, a chamber of time that was rewarding for everyone. They had spent time together for so long and had the best times. They would always be friends they thought. As soon as A had dealt with all of the

“You two have known each other for some time”, said the man. “I have only just come to know you, and I feel like I know you so well, you are truly a wonderful being”, he said.

The two women hugged. They ran to each other and wept. They had been so close. They had been the closest friends for years. They had not spent very much time apart for most of their adult lives. They were soul mates. They stayed hugging and wouldn’t let go. The man just stood there. He couldn’t help but feel like he had gotten in the way of a beautiful relationship. He had come into their lives and changed them. It was the way of life. It was just the way it went for them. The days continued and the memories of fun times, fights accomplishments and everything all stayed with the two. They would remain close, but things would not be the same now that S was with a partner. S looked distraught because she knew that this was a turning point in her life. They ruffled each others backs with their hands. It was a ceremonial goodbye. It had never happened like this before. The hug seemed to mark the end of an era. A series of usual occasions had come to a standstill and the future confronted them like oncoming traffic. They were standing in the face of uncertainty. The world had changed. A shift

had occurred in their universe. All the conclusions that had been drawn about the world. The way life is all got brought into question. They now had to make new solutions based on new rules. The universe had changed for them. As the universe would continuously expand the two women had to move on. It was a force of nature. The physics that determined their being determined their progression through life. They would meet again. Somewhere at some time.

Chapter edit .................

“The future is uncertain for me now”, said A. “I had always known what lay before me until just now. This is a new phase in my life”.

The woman knew well that her life was going to take a new turn. Her face turned to dismay and she rested an open hand on her head. She turned her head while she contemplated the change. She and S had been so close. They were high-school friends. They had spoken and gossiped and talked about everything. She raised her hands to her face and bit into one of her nails. A small fibrous thread from her finger nail had to be removed. It was just lingering. It had been there all the while she was deep in thought. She put up with it for some time and only now decided that it had top go. She bit through it. She was relieved all but for the small cut it left at the corner of her cuticle. She looked sourly and liked it better. It was a sore little cut and she had to let it dry.

It was the way their lives had been. The two girls could always rely on each other. They knew each other inside out and that was made them soul mates. She thought at that moment that she never knew anybody quite as close. She felt like they knew how each others minds worked. She could see right into the character of her close friend, it was a familiar mind. They had cultivated a trust over time so that made it easy for them to know each others boundaries. A

could just sense when she was getting under S’s skin. There was never any cause for her to back off. They had been inseparable right through to now.

They would remain in contact but they wouldn’t be able to spend as much intimate time. A had to find her family. She had never forgotten her parents but she had drifted away since they moved out into the house near the caravan park. She looked around her in the room in which she stood. She looked out the window and became aware of how alone she really was. She really needed company.

Her parents were not strict although she was sure to never let the true extent of her wild side be noticed. She reserved the right to keep a low profile. Her parents were always keen to know what was going on in her life. She just wanted to keep a bit of herself reserved. It was just apart of her nature. She rang them on the phone quite regularly, but had never felt like she needed them quite like she did now. She had to take some time to think about how she would put it to her Mum and Dad. Some situations just required drama, as opposed to solitude. Now it was time for her to spend more time with them. She wanted to move back in with them it will be okay she thought. She looked at her watch. Assessed her options and could only think of her family. They will want me to move back.

She had the opportunity to get to know her parents a little better. She was quite emotional about all of this. Her times with her friend were the best and she never really considered that things could change so dramatically. She had her things all packed. She was ready to really go back. She looked forward to it in a way. All of the things that she left behind, when she moved out, would all still be there and that made her happy. She cried at the thought of her old bedroom it would still be exactly like it was when she left it. She sobbed softly and tried to hold back tears but couldn’t. A

shimmering tear dropped off her face and she rubbed her tears because she was trying to hold them back.

Tears were a release. The body let crying take place for a reason she thought. She had to let go of something and she gave in to her urges and just started to bawl. Drops of tears gushes from her eyes and splashed on her face. Her face screwed up, her cheeks went all red. It was a sad sight. She grabbed her pillow which was sitting on the side of the bag that was leaning on the inside of the fence.

She had a photo of S in her wallet now. She opened the small brown piece of leather and looked at the clear plastic section. It was a reminder of her best friend. She had hardly left her and already she was feeling unsettled. They were closer than just friends they were roomies and knew each other so well.

A had decided that it was time. She was going to make a move. She walked out into the hallway and leaned on the arch that connected with high walls that reached all of the way to the ceiling. The packed baggage was neatly put away into the navy travel bag. She sat out in the sun next to it holding onto her pillow as though it was a teddy bear or something else that is cuddly.

“I’m going to miss everything about this place” she said it with a sob in between involuntary stutter breaths. She was rightly emotional. She would get used to it eventually.

The cool air drifted downward. As the fan spun in a twirling rhythm in tiny revolutions. The blades of it formed a white ringed blurr as it tweaked and ticked as it spun.

It whirred. Softly, gently, the sounds like language actually sounded like they were forming words. A series of repetitious utterances.

It was as if it were saying monosyllabic words like.

This, it, fit, mit, then, that, hat and so on. It clicked and clicked away some more.

She had heard it do this so many times before. She had never given the fan in the room too much thought. It was strange that she had stayed with the thought of the fan and spent a long time looking at its outline that wavered, its centrifugal force that moved its shape. It played tricks with her eyes. The background turned grey. She zoned out on everything and let her mind stay fixed on the spinning, wobbling fan.

The car rolled up. The face of her father was kind. He was a friendly man and she felt glad that he was finally here. He wound down his window and said “hey darling with a smile”. She smiled with tears streaming down her face. The emotion was too much to deal with she lugged her bags to the pavement and ran to her father. Her arms wrapped around his neck and the tears made the collar of his shirt damp.

When she finished she put her bags in the boot. She shut it with the slam that she would always do and got back into the car. It was a familiar car. It seemed smaller, or different in some way. That was mainly because she hadn’t been in that car for such a long time.

She was happy that she was with her father. They talked all the way back to her old home which was a part of her upbringing. She loved the neat garden and the picket fence that lined the front yard. Her cat laid indolent out the front yard and lazed about soaking up the noon suns rays. The flowers in the garden patch were bright and in bloom. The large sun flowers were bright, vibrant yellows. Their massive stalks made them tall and everything was like it used to be. She immediately felt fixed. Like she had been normalized. Her lifestyle had been mended as quickly as it had

been ruined. She was complete again and she didn’t even cry for weeks after that. ................................................................................. ........................

They rolled along together in the green trailer with some new luggage. They went for a drive in the evening time. They moved over the mildly busy road after the afternoon rush and spent some nice time together while the sun set. The dim ochre, and setting vibrance shed a range of colors that painted a picture a soothing mood. Cars all shone magnificently the lighting complementing their color. Children played on swings on a grass patch right near the beach. There were families looking onwards at the kiosk and parents minded there kids with a relaxed yet careful attitude. Little kids at the knees of parents wanted things. A child wanted an icy pole. “can I have an icy pole too mum, can I can I can I. She’s got one and I want one too. She broke the twin pole in half and said, there you go kids now you’ve got two bloody icy poles.” The man and S walked side by side as other people who stayed on the beach for the sun set just left.

He chose his time carefully. He said to her with soft and clear words. “You know how I told you that I worked for the government.” Said the man.

“Oh no here we go, now that I’ve decided that I’ve fallen in love with you, you’ve got to tell me that you’re a bank robber or an accountant or something sinister like that, isn’t that right.”

“well, not exactly, its more of a trust thing really. I know you so well now and I really think that I can trust you, that is why I have to tell you.’

“Tell me what, why couldn’t you have told me before, when I was safe with my other friend, I hope that it isn’t bad news.” She grabbed his sleeve and looked worried. She was so good looking

that her worried look looked more beautiful than her content look. She pouted and looked at him with the brown puppy dog eyes.

“I have to tell you that I am a government agent, not just a government employee on leave”. She looked startled for a while. “Ok, I understand, you have intense work.”

“Yes it is a bit like that, I can’t really describe it. I mean I would tell you if I could. There is always going to be a degree of secrecy about what I do. I can never be completely open to you. I must always keep my work business a secret, It’s not because I don’t trust you, its for the good of the country”

“So you think that the country will suffer if you tell me anything in all honesty”

“It’s not like that at all” “Then what is it?”

“It’s just a part of my job description, we can never talk about it nor can you ever tell anyone what you may think that I do, In fact you can never ask me what I am doing. Its for safety, anyone could be a spy and overhear what you ask me, and that could indirectly expose me as a government agent.”

“I see. I wonder then can I ever trust you”

“S, you are the most wonderful woman on the planet, I have never met anyone as wonderful as you. I could search the entire world and never find anyone just like you. I will live for you and I would die for you, but I cannot reveal anything about my job unless I retire. The more I think about it the more that sounds like a good option.”

They went back to the home near the caravan park and settled down for evening drinks. They sat and drank champaign on deck chairs and spoke sweet nothings about how wonderful the other each one was. They had a lovely meal and washed up together with bubbly minds. They were chatty and kissed, they moved themselves around until they eventually made love in the bed room. They stayed there all night. As soon as they made love they were tired and drifted of to sleep.

A stood around till the early hours. She felt removed and lingered about the family room looking at her childhood through the many photographs that her family had kept. There were several of S. There were family photos from Christmas and school photos. She looked at the class photos. She captured the way she used to feel at high-school. At a glance she revisited the good old days. S remembered how she used to feel back in those days. There was not so much stress but there were standards. The standards that were set by her teachers and the authorities. Now that had been left behind. The boundaries had been taken away and she had forged a life style with her friend and now she had left her. Her parents had always been in the background but now she felt like she hadn’t paid them too much attention. She layed back on her own bed and sprawled out along her nice bed. It was comfy just the same as it had always been. She was still in her day clothes. The light was on. She was resting in amid a bundle of old photos. She just drifted away and sailed into a sleep.

Photos

The morning sun shone its way in the morning and sun shone into the bedroom very early. They woke up early and they felt sprightly.

They made an early start to the day. The man got up and looked out the front. He was looking for a paper. It was nestled in between two branches of a hedge. He retrieved it from the hedge, the delivery boy didn’t mean to put it there on purpose. The leaves and twigs scratched his arms as he grabbed the paper from the fork in the branch. He made his way into the house with the paper in hand. They sat around the tea table with a cup of tea. They spoke.

“What do you think we should do for the next few months” said s. “I am not sure what do you think that we should do, we could make plans and do whatever our hearts content”

“I want to see more of the country”, she said.

“We should I suppose he said.” Even though he liked where they were staying very much indeed. “We could set off at any time”, he reclined in his seat in the kitchen and read the newspaper.

The two of them drove to the lookout that revealed an amazing sight. The lookout was small and not a popular tourist attraction. There was no one there. They sat in the car. It was just the two of them and it had been that way for weeks. They were used to things and each other. There was a safety in removing them from the busy city and living the vagrant life was rewarding. They were seeing the land and getting a feel for the country.

They stepped out onto the dry land. The rubble at the edge of the vast landscape was so different in contrast to the dust in the centre. The small pebbles are like new dust. Its where it all comes from.

S grabbed her camera and said “lets get closer to the edge I want a better photo” She playfully ran right up close to the edge where the log barrier was.

The Mans face grew stern and worried expression unfolded over him like the years of grief that he had overcome. Instantaneously, it just overcame him, without warning and without justification. He was instantaneously petrified. He couldn’t move. His bones froze and his mouth was dry. He tried to make a noise but couldn’t. He wanted to yell. His voice wouldn’t work. His feet were jelly under the weight of his upper body. It was like he was living a moment from a scary dream. This was a nightmarish instant. He powerlessly just stood there. He couldn’t quite believe that she was doing what she was doing, what, no, whaaaat. God no. He was in a state of shock, a petrified confusion, She couldn’t possibly be doing what he was seeing. He was looking at her fall. She just put her legs over the logs and slid down the face of the cliff. He couldn’t see Her. She made no sound. There was no noise that he could hear. A silence, an emptiness crept in. He instantly felt like none of this made sense. He walked over to the cliff face slowly. He couldn’t move his whole body was fused now he could tremble over to the most morbid sight of his existence. His perception a whirlwind of adrenalin, he felt his heart nearly explode.

Du doosh. Du doosh. Du doosh. Du doosh.

He got nearer and couldn’t see her.

There was no sound. No voice crying for help. She must have hit the bottom. He hoped that she was alive. He cried and screamed, howling for some help. He howled to the lord. He wanted the divine creator to undo all of this to make things the way they were. He mourned. They were so far out of range. They were in the middle of no where. There was no hospital anywhere near here. He couldn’t see her she was taken away.

The clouds of darkness swept in. He was a tortured man.

He was cursed

Absolved and now he had nothing

He lived he had lost everything.

He found love, he looked halfway across the country before he found it.

It scared him, made him vulnerable and took away his stability. Love was his curse, it was his hex, his decay that left him without in the long run. It took away from him and threw him into the void. The no where, with no thing. Not just alone but without. He had a part of him missing.

There he stood a lone man on the land, an infernal curse that ringed in his ear, tortured his plain thoughts and surged through his blood. His legs seized up. His mind was a battered mess. He had nothing.

He lived and was dead. He was sick now. He kneeled on the ground as the sky became grey and the wind howled above. The light was hidden behind the clouds and folds of churning grey burgeoned. The sky was his pity, the land his truth and the sea that met with the land at this incredibly horrific moment engulfed the better part of him. The raging sea that was his guilt and his horror could not take him even though it worked its most horrible effort on him. The black sea could never win and it was his opposition. He was cursed by it, to stand by it and watch it eat at him. It was in the sky in the ocean that he couldn’t see and it ran through his veins. It soaked the passion and rinsed the clarity, its torment an unwilling companion.

The elements continued to make his anguished cry unheard. No ear could hear it. The closest ear was of the woman who lay broken at the bottom of the cliff.

The sky crumbled, The sea churned. The man howled upon howls.

The children at the show grounds cheered at the noise when they won. The prizes were super duper. And everything was happy. The parents stood around as the little ones jumped and sank into the bouncy castle, Their little legs made them look like little lambs as they joyously trounced the inflatable castle. It inflated everyone’s hope.

Peoples hearts skipped beats as sirens exploded into the air.

Football teams won and football teams lost. There was triumph and failure. The victory lived on. Everywhere. On grass patches in small country towns and on the huge playing fields of the elitists. It was the passion that never let the sea hold it back. The recipe, the antidote. The meaning. The sweetness in life. It made an old man smile. The sea can never take that away from men. Not even in death.