Soie

le bon pain sec avec rien dedans
que meme les oiseau savent que c'est bon
le bon pain sec avec rien dedans
que de saveurs qui disparaissent par le fion

The Case of the Missing Money

It was time to get up.

Time to ratchet the old eyelids skywards, ease the cheesegrater throat with a Holiday, lever the old bones off the backseat of the Cortina, and figure out who the hell was sitting next to me, exuding menace and gripe.

Sure, it was time to get up, but the old eyelids were in no mood for ratcheting, the old frame spoke powerfully against leverage, and there was no Holiday to be found. I decided to give the whole upgetting a miss.

‘Jago,’ said a voice. ‘Hey Jago. Time to get up.’

And with that, the old cheesegrater decided to get things underway, easing out a cough somewhere between broken glass and sandpaper. I rolled over and squinted up into the morning light.

‘How are ya, Jago?’

It was Sammy the Squib. Or Spiv. One of the two.

‘Nice joint, Jago.’

I levered the old frame up and ever so gently away from Sammy, and cast a bleary look around for the old hat, found her crushed and crumpled were the old noggin had lain. I biffed her back into some sort of respectable shape, planted her on top, glanced at Sammy, and hacked up a half-smoked Holiday from somewhere down the old gullet.

‘Looks like it’s my lucky day, Sammy,’ I said. ‘Got a light?’

Sammy flamed me up and said: ‘Mine too. Nice joint. Set you back much?’

I took a drag and scoped the streetscape. Not much movement out there, but plenty of sunlight. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a lucky day after all.

‘Whaddya want, Sammy?’

‘My money,’ he said. ‘Fitty bucks, Jago. Been gone some time now, but I want it back.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Fair enough.’

‘By midday, Jago,’ said Sammy.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Fair enough.’

‘Be seeing you, Jago,’ said Sammy. ‘Be seeing you in Summerworld.’

‘Dare say,’ I replied. Sammy got out the Cortina and vanished. I flicked the rest of the Holiday onto the floor of the car, tumbled the old corpse out onto the street, assembled it vertically, fixed the old hat, and regarded the woman bearing down upon me.

‘What the hell are you doing in my car?’ she said.

I glanced back at the Cortina, but it turned out the Cortina was in fact a Subaru. Not my lucky day at all.

* * * * * * *

The first thing to establish was a schedule, so I checked the old time on the mobes. Quarter to twelve. Best, I figured, to hit up Sammy with the cash quick smart. But when I scoped the old wallet to see the reddy situation, I saw only a couple of supermarket dockets, a business card for some local café where a bloke worked who might be able to hook me up with some hot sheila maybe or probably not, and a band-aid. A poor start.

I hit the streets in rapid mode, feet pounding the footpath in that casual lope I like to call ‘clock’s a-tickin, ribs a-kickin’. I can cover 400 metres in about two minutes using c a-t, r a-k, and my best estimates figured the nearest ATM to be the Commonwealth around the corner. I was figuring no worries, but I figured wrong.

First I had to brush past a woman pushing a pram – no mean feat while c a-t, r a-kin. Then some wanker coming the other way on a bike had us both this wayin and that wayin, but I dodged him sweet and left him for a fool. Then some little punk thought he’d try to take me down with the old ‘pretend I’m walking the same way’ ruse: a quick elbow to the back of the head sorted him out. Then I realised I’d been going the wrong way the whole time, and, after a brief confabulation with self to correct the course, I retraced the old steps reversewise, executing a pram hurdle on the return leg.

It was going to be close.

There was nobody at any of the ATMs – sure sign of a trap, but I had no time for that now. I fumbled the old wallet out, scrambled through the plastickery to find the old bank card, and took a moment to check the time.

Five to.

Strife.

I’ve tackled ATMs before and only been beaten once or twice. This one put up a stiff fight: only grudgingly accepted my card, then demanded the access code. I won’t lie – a bead of sweat dripped off the old brow as I worked furiously to crack the code. Finally the combination came to me, I punched it in, and retrieved fifty bucks from the vault.

Now it was on for young and old – particularly old. Some sneaky old biddy had parked her arse right up mine, ready for the quick pounce, but I had half a step on her. A quick start-stop, start-stop got her guessing, and before she could gather herself, I was past and into the Summerworld.

Sammy was sitting near the pool table with a pot and the form guide in front of him. I slid the fifty across.

‘Ta, Jago,’ he said. ‘Good bloke.’

I gave him the old upthumbs and winkjob. Another satisfied customer.

The First Barby of Summer

I reckon if I walked around the local alleyways long enough, I could find all the bricks I’d ever need. Last summer came early, and so did the first barby: I spent a day walking around the alleyways and lugging bricks home, two at a time. I invited some people over, and when they arrived, I opened a bottle of Stone’s. Old Chet wrenched the hotplate out of the shed and scrubbed it clean with newspaper while I stacked the bricks into a barby. I hadn’t seen Chet for a long time. People say he’s a moody fucker, but I reckon Chet’s alright. He knows enough that he can, at the very least, put on a good show of being interested.

‘So what’s up with that Russia?’ he asked me. ‘How’s that Russia?’

But I’d designated myself firestarter, and I was kinda busy. You gotta pay attention to these things. Chet opened a beer and read out the question under the bottle cap.

‘What date was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?’ he asked, and pointed at me. ‘You shut up. Alright folks, what date was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?’

About half the others sitting around gave this some consideration.

‘1988?’

‘Who fucking cares? We won.’

‘The Soviet Union? Did they dissolve it? Fuck me, what are we still fighting for?’

‘Who’s fighting?’

‘We are. Every second day Johnnie’s on the TV banging on about what a pack of cunts the Russians are.’

‘Naw, that’s muslims, fella.’

‘Meh. Same thing.’

‘Perestroika, mate. Get a perestroika up ya.’

Chet pointed at me again.

‘31 December 1991,’ I said.

‘Well, 1 January 1992, to be precise,’ he replied. ‘It wasn’t until the clock ticked over that it was officially dissolved, right?’

There were some raucous cheers around the backyard. That’s what happens when you slug Stone’s on a hot day: raucous cheers and flushed faces.

‘How long you been studying for, mate?’ somebody said. ‘Ten years with fuck all to show for it.’

‘It’s a complex history,’ I replied. ‘Man can’t be expected to know everything.’

Chet lit a cigarette.

‘That’s some pretty fundamental shit, man,’ he said. ‘That’s a basic fact. Can’t get a job as a secret agent if ya can’t get the basic facts straight.’

I’d done a good job: that barby was generating some fierce heat; that hotplate was radiating shimmering air-snakes.

‘Thing is,’ I said, ‘thing is, it’s a complex history. Well, you fuckers wouldn’t know that, cos you generally know fuck all about anything. Man can’t be expected to know everything, I say. Man’s gotta pick his specialty and go with it. And, you know, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ain’t my specialty. But hell, I know a little bit, so I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll get pretty close. Kinda like being firestarter of the first barby of summer. I don’t really know what I’m doing here, but I’ll give it a fucking shot, and I may not do it exactly right, but it’s a damned sight better than any of your efforts.’

I won’t lie to you. I felt like Clint Eastwood. I felt like the whole town was against me, even the village priest, but I’d take ‘em all on, and I’d win, and I’d have me a meat-burning shindig while I was at it.

Old Chet, he just sat there and took a drag of his cigarette. In hindsight, he was probably figuring ‘defuse,’ but it was a hot summer day, and it’s the Devil’s job putting out spotfires on a hot summer day. And old Chet, I reckon he did what any other Devil woulda done – he couldn’t put the spotfires out, so he stoked himself a big old bushfire instead.

‘Now now,’ he said. ‘No need for that, is there?’

And he took another drag.

Well, I won’t piss you about – I got angry. I got fucking angry. Two bricks at a time I carried ‘em, and a bloke expects more than jibes and ridicule and smug smiles in return. So I stoked that fire – I gave it a thrashing until some of the others looked nervous. That’s the way I like ‘em, folks: nervous and guilt-ridden. That’s when you’ve got ‘em right where you want ‘em. But to be honest, I didn’t care so much about them. They were inconsequential. I stoked that fire, had a slug of Stone’s and a good, hard stare.

‘Chet,’ I said,’ I’m mightily impressed. As always, you’ve wrong-footed me with yer mastery of the basic facts. And I think now, on this fine day (and here I stood up and hailed the honeysuckle with both arms raised), is the perfect opportunity for you to explain how ya do it. What’s the secret behind the mastery of basic facts?’

‘Natural brilliance,’ he replied. ‘And sadly so. Cos I wish I could bestow it upon others. But some have it, and some don’t.’

Well, I wasn’t taking any of that. Nobody in their right mind would take any of that.

‘Enough with the circular logic,’ I said. ‘That’s tiresome. Come on, don’t be shy and don’t bullshit.’

‘Well,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, ‘if you’re not prepared to accept genetics as an explanation, I understand. That’s very moral of you. You’re a moral fella. I’ve always thought that. But the basic fact remains (and here he stood up and hailed the honeysuckle with both arms raised), that whether you like it or not, it is the Truth.’

And he smiled openly before sitting down.

‘Oho!’ I cried. ‘That’s a fine statement: “I can master the basic facts because I know the Truth about the mastery of basic facts.” Truth is, Chet, you’re a chump. A chump and a dilettante. Mastery of the basic facts will win you raucous cheers and flushed faces from these idiots, but who’s stoking this barby? Who got the hotplate incandescent and the air-snakes all shimmery? Who carried the bricks, two at a time? Whose honeysuckle are we hailing, and, more to the point, who did you tell to shut up when you asked your stupid question in the first place?’

Chet wasn’t smiling anymore.

‘Shut up, you fuckhead,’ he said. ‘Just shut up, will ya?’

Everyone else had fallen silent, so Chet and I just sat there and stared at one another, filled with a hatred borne of anger and slugs of Stone’s and the heat of the first barby of summer.

from dank tunnels and dripping caverns......through jungle and ruin......yonder she lies... our dreams...

From the Confessions of Seth Unmack

11.8.5
Skylines. I've been photographing skylines lately, mostly spikes and
crosses, or else clusters of buildings which look like they've been
constructed on top of one another, layer after layer over the decades.
It's my way of convincing myself I'm doing something productive.

Funny thing, productivity. The only time I've done more writing than I
am now was when I was in St. Petersburg, where I wrote to keep myself
sane through six weeks of midnight. Somehow my current productivity
doesn't feel enough. Hell, I know it never feels enough. One way or
another, life has a way of throwing up all manner of tempting
distractions in my face. Like skylines. Much easier to wander the
backstreets of Moscow drinking beer and looking for spikes and crosses
than write a fucking thesis.

Let us speak of corners: this place has a dizzying array. I'm coming
to realise just how dangerous corners are: when the streets are
straight, you can see what lies ahead and decide whether you want to
proceed or not; when the streets are all dips and curves, the terrible
desire to know what might lie beyond is irresistable. I've found out
what lies beyond the dips and curves: more dips and curves, spikes and
crosses.

I thought I'd made a large mistake. Why did I decide to stay here for
eleven months, when I could have completed everything I needed to in
six? I like this place and these people. On the weekend, I sat among a
pack of stray dogs in a park, and shared yarns of cruelty and dead
ancestors. Later I drank a margarita, inspected the testicles of
Zhukov's horse, then sat in a bar drinking martinis, smoking
cigarettes, and wondering how to get home, and if I even wanted to.

Distractions. For all the dips and curves, skylines, spikes and
crosses, my mind is consumed by dreams of goats and tomatoes, pixies,
red earth and crocodiles. It's my way of keeping myself sane amid this
crumbling and chaotic wreck of a city.

----------------linernote-------------------------

----------------fatal error------------------------

8788---8----linerliner--------------------------

---------------exception at OEC111*&*&*&liner note: fatal ent

ent

ent

entry: reboot_________________________.

--------------system resume/sys----------------

--------------system check/sys------------------

--------------system scan/maggot---------------

--------------viralviral*&(66………)----------

--------------viral integer: fatal entry

reboot_____________________________.

--------------system resume/sys----------------

--------------system check/sys------------------

--------------system scan/sys-------------------

--------------system ready/sys------------------

--------------system ready/maggot--------------

--------------command line: exception---------

--------------command line66…….

exc

excep

--------------exception/maggot------------------

--------------command line: cortical jack entry:

deny

command deny

--------------command line: cortical jack exit:

deny

command deny

deny maggot____---------------------------------

--------------syswebfunction/disable------------

disable

you

maggot__------------meatmaggotfuck-----------

---------------syswebfunction is disabled--------

maggot

----------------cortical jack is &*&*fffff____---

--f-meat-maggotmeat-mmmm--------------------

----------------command line: you maggot you--

------------disable you/cortical jack---------------

------------sysweb prog:skullpuncher/execute---

----execute----ex---you execute you maggot----

------------command line: sysreboot/deny--------

------------skullpuncher/charge--------------------

------------command line: sysexit/deny-----------

------------skullpuncher/prime---------------------

------------command line: sysclose/deny---------

------------skullpuncher jack/cortical jack-------

------------connection/skullpuncher/cortical-----

------------connection ready-----------------------

------------command line: sysoverride/deny-----

------------maggotmaggotmeatfuck: cortical-----

------------exeexe ddddd*&*&*&: query on-----

------------command line: deus ex*&*&---------

------------machina/maggot__________66____.

------------skullpuncher jack/rideride-----------l-

------------linernote: cortexmeat-------------------

------------{cortex meat maggot flesh fff}--------

------------deus ex machina: skullpunchmaggot--

-----------command line: override/denyyyy------

-----------yyyyyye/maggot&*&*&*--------------

-----------hahahahahahahahahaha/maggot--------

-----------cortical jack lock/cortexmeat punch---

-----------/skullpunch-----------------------------

-----------/flatl*&*&_____________________.

An Incident at Hamilton's Crossing

A friend sent me an obituary of sorts the other day. It was not a formal obituary, but rather an article from a local rag about the death of a central Victorian man, Charlie Lowerson. He hadn’t done anything to deserve an obituary, he just appeared to have been the victim of circumstance. The article mentioned that Charlie had come to local attention some 30 years earlier, when he was camping with his kids at a outflow from the Cairn Curran reservoir, and one of them went missing and was later found dead. The rest of his kids grew up and moved on, but Charlie stayed in the area and got something of a name as an eccentric, obsessed with the flow. The reason my friend sent me the article is because I briefly ran across Charlie – and the flow – some years ago. Charlie recommended me to spend a night at Hamilton’s Crossing.

Hamilton’s Crossing is on the far side of Baringhup, and marks the beginning of the wide, desolate plain which stretches from the Dividing Range to the Grampians. We stopped in Baringhup for the night on the way to Adelaide. We planned to stay at the caravan park there, but while waiting for the manager to arrive an old digger sitting at the base of a peppercorn tree called us over and put us onto the Crossing.

‘Nice little flow,’ he said. ‘And free camping. Watch out for the carp. They’ll be watching out for you.’

And he widened his eyes into a parody of eye-popping mirth, barked out a stub-toothed cackle, then leaned back against the gnarled old peppercorn and closed his eyes.

A line of river gums running through yellow paddocks and dust showed the way. A concrete bridge, a clear stream over a bed of brown pebbles, a small clearing of white earth. Another group – a young family – had put up their own encampment. Domesticated adults, shrieking kids and a happy, barking dog splashed around in the water near the main bank. We kept our distance and flung up a tent on the far side of the Crossing. It was white hot in the sun and soporific in the shade, and no sooner had we flung up the tent up than we flung off our clothes and plunged into the shallows. The creek was cool and ran fast, and we waded downstream, past the kids and their dog, in search of deeper water.

Around the bend the riverbed declined and opened out into a sluggish flow. I pushed ahead of the other two and climbed up onto the trunk of a dead rivergum which had fallen into the creek. The blowflies were a nuisance. As I crested the dead tree, my shadow fell across the water, and half-seen clouds of fry swimming just below the surface fled further downstream. Through the gold-flecked murk I could see several brown carp slinking away from the bank, deeper, down through the gloom to the silt floor below. Why should they hurry? Nobody could find them down there.

A few sad, ponderous willows had cast their trailing fronds into the water, and both banks were spotted with bulrush. The creek narrowed again after a dozen metres and meandered off into the paddocks. Another ancient rivergum had fallen lengthways into the water at the narrowing, and the enormous, insectile root-system of the tree loomed up out of the water as if poised to swallow all which flowed into its clutches. I waded closer as the others crested the first gum I had climbed.

‘Whatcha found?’ asked Tracee.

‘Another fallen gum,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look like we can get through here.’

The others carefully stood up on the first fallen tree. ‘Doesn’t look like we’d want to,’ Jane said. ‘It’s just paddocks and bulrush from here anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, staring at the rivergum’s root system. The hollowed-out bole yawned back at me, inky black to water level, muddy brown below. ‘Let’s go back.’

The tent proved welcome relief from the mosquitoes that night. There was little breeze to speak of, but the flow coming down through the Crossing from the reservoir upstream was bedwater: cold and full of silt. The banks of the creek were cool, but I’m not so used to sleeping near water. I lay awake listening to the splash of carp as they feasted by night. I’d almost given up the prospect of sleep, figuring I could doze in the car the next day as we crossed the plains to Adelaide. But at some point I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew I was blinking weary, sleep-deprived eyes in the morning light, the remnants of a dream slipping away: the purple shimmer of fish scales, the slipperiness of aquatic muscle, a thing ungraspable through slime.

I unzipped the tent and leaned out into the morning. Nobody else was up. The bright morning sun carved wedges of light through the leaves; it wasn’t hot yet, but it was going to be. The day was already suffused with the promise of deadening heat. I crawled out, stood up, stretched painfully, glanced at the car, and stopped.

Between the tent and the car, somebody had carefully constructed a small sculpture out of leaf-litter. Three dead branches had been leaned against one another to form a crude tripod. Upon the apex, somebody had carefully woven a cluster of twigs in a star formation. I stepped closer. Some of the twigs had small globules on the end. I crouched down to inspect. Three fish eyes, impaled retina-first on three twigs, stared back at me. Three more were impaled on the other side. I poked one gingerly; it was sticky to the touch, adhered to my finger, and as I withdrew in disgust, the eyeball remained attached to my skin, dragging the whole sculpture down in a gentle clatter. Several of the fish eyes poked into the ground, covering the membrane with a thin patina of white dust. I grimaced, stood, and glanced back at the tent. The others were showing some signs of life.

‘Jesus,’ I said to myself, then: ‘Check this out, girls.’

But the other two were determined to take their time, so I left them to inspect the collapsed sculpture on their own, and made my way down to the creek. There were no signs of life from the other encampment, but a few magpies warbled in the trees, and a flock of galahs slipped overhead, screeching and screaming their morning joy.

Well before I arrived at the riverbank, I spied the bodies. Or body, anyway, because the other two weren’t dead yet. A carp as big as my forearm lay on the sandy bank, mouth open, eye-sockets empty. Two more twitched in the shallows, unable to swim deeper, unable to swim at all. They gulped at the water as if drowning. Their eyes had also been torn out, just the slippery pink worms of nerve endings trailed out of the socket and down each cheek.

‘Jesus,’ I said again, and, not quite stopping to consider whether I really wanted to or not, I stepped into the water and scooped one of the carp up. It thrashed violently, and several dorsal spines speared into the flesh of my palm. I cried out and flung the thing away, back into the water, where it landed with a loud splash and disappeared. I made a panicked and ungainly dash back to riverbank and climbed up onto dry land, shaking. The carp resurfaced from the gloom, belly up but still twitching.

A human shriek nearby drowned out the fading squawks of the galahs and the morning song of the magpies. I thought it must be Tracee or Jane, having encountered the partially-dismantled fish-eye sculpture outside our tent. But it didn’t come from our camp. Several dozen metres away, a young girl stood transfixed, staring at something out of my view. The girl’s father had evacuated the tent at her scream, and we both arrived at her side at about the same time. Another small sculpture of branches had been constructed in their fire-pit, but this one had only two twigs woven together at the apex. A pair of canine eyes protruded from the end of each twig, staring past the gaping girl at the tent she had slept in.

‘What is this?’ said the man in disbelief. ‘Did you do this?’

I raised my hands.

‘Hell no. We’ve got one over at our site too. Ours look like fish-eyes, but these…’

I trailed off. The man snatched his daughter up into his arms.

‘Judy!’ he yelled. ‘Judy! Where’s Boomer? Boomer! Where are ya boy?’

The girl was crying in her father’s arms. I had a sinking feeling. Tracee and Jane were approaching from the other side of the crossing.

‘What’s with the fucking fish eyes?’ Tracee asked. ‘Some sort of sick joke?’

The man was pacing nervously around the campsite, calling for the dog and clutching the girl in his arms. A woman poked her head out of the tent flap.

‘Paul? What’s going on?’

The man turned.

‘Some bastard’s having a sick joke and I dunno where the dog is. Come help me find him. Ash! Scott! Get up and come help me look for Boomer.’

I retreated slowly back towards the river, Tracee and Jane following a dozen metres behind.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Tracee asked.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling…’ I said. ‘Come and check something out with me.’

I stumbled downstream where we had waded the day before. The willows obstructed the view of the flow from the bank, so I splashed out into the stream and climbed up onto the first dead gum we had crested the day before. An open expanse of calm brown water slunk downstream toward the second rivergum’s web of roots and the open maw of its bole.

‘Chris!’ Tracee exclaimed. ‘What are you doing? Who’s putting fucking fish eyes on sticks?’

I spied it on the riverbank near the water’s edge, under the trailing fronds of the willow.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘This isn’t good. Look at this. Oh, this isn’t good.’

And I waded through the murky water and passed through the fronds, stopping short of the bank. Tracee and Jane pushed through the fronds from the other side. All three of us stopped several metres away from the trunk, facing each other. The golden water lapped gently at my ankles.

A dog lay whimpering on the ground under the fronds of the willow. I knew before I saw that its eye-sockets were empty, trailing clear slime and the pink tube of nerve-cluster. The dog had crawled out of the river and collapsed on the bank, it’s back legs trailing in the water. It tried to scrabble to its feet on hearing our approach, but succeeded only in catapulting itself forward half a metre before it collapsed again on the water’s edge.

‘Oh my god,’ said Jane. ‘What fuck is that? Who the fuck did that? Who the fuck would do that?’

Tracee approached the dog and knelt down, putting a hand on its back, unwilling to touch its head. The dog started and whined, but no more.

‘Some sick fuck has pulled its eyes out,’ she said.

Jane retreated, he hands to her face.

‘This is fucked,’ she said. ‘This is fucking fucked. Let’s get the fuck out of here now. Let’s get in the car right now, and get out of here.’

I was all for that. I didn’t want to touch the dog, but Tracee wouldn’t leave it – she carried it out through the fronds, back to the campsite, where she deposited the wretched animal on the ground nearby.

‘Hey,’ she called to the man. ‘We found your dog. I wouldn’t bring the kids over.’

The man began to run over, stopped, thrust the girl into the arms of the woman, and continued.

‘Where did you find him?’ the man demanded, furious. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘Down by the riverbank,’ said Tracee. ‘I think somebody’s been having a bad joke. A real bad one.’

The man stared at his dog for a moment before crouching down.

‘We’re getting the hell out of here,’ Tracee said to him. ‘I don’t know what happened here last night or who did this, but we’re getting out of here. Let’s just get out of here.’

The man clearly hadn’t heard us, nor could he hear the woman calling his name, asking if the dog was alright. She was standing near the tent, unwilling to move away, huddling all three kids near her. We retreated to our own campsite as fast as we could without breaking into panic, dismantled the tent without bothering to take the sleeping gear out or to fold it up, stashed it in the boot, got in the car and drove the out of there, over the Crossing, through the early morning sun and back toward Baringhup.

We pulled in at the caravan park. The manager, a man of middle-age, was crossing from the park back to the office.

‘Morning folks,’ he said. ‘Lovely morning.’

We soon changed that assessment. First the manager was blank-faced, then incredulous, then stony, as we told him what had happened at Hamilton’s Crossing.

‘You should’ve just come into the park last night in the first place,’ he finally said. He was very angry. ‘Who told you about the Crossing?’

I told him about the old digger.

‘Fucking Charlie,’ he said and looked down for a moment. He appeared to be thinking. ‘Look, just leave it with me, okay? I’ll get onto the Mount Alexander police, then drive out to the Crossing to have a look. I wouldn’t think anyone local would do anything like that. Not out here. You said the family is still out there?’

‘That’s where we left them,’ I said.

The manager was unimpressed with this answer.

‘Where you from?’

We told him.

‘And where you going?’

‘Adelaide,’ said Tracee.

‘Best route is out west, through Carisbrook,’ he said. ‘That way you skip Maryborough and head on over to Horsham. Flat country, you’ll go all the way through. Best leave your names and numbers in case the police want to speak with you.’

But they never did, and that was the last I heard of Charlie and Hamilton’s Crossing until I read the obituary my friend sent me, an obituary about a crazy old digger in Baringhup, who swore blue that years ago a ‘fish-man’ had taken his boy in the night, a fish-man who hunted along the flow from Cairn Curran, who had mutilated his son and left him for dead in the water, a fish-man in whom nobody believed except Charlie, Charlie who hunted the fish-man using the only bait he knew would work.

CNOVOM GODOM

Amis de la terre et du vent
le vent, oui, qui porte loin et clair
le chant moldave, joyeux et crémeux de vos lointaine voix,

come closer

i would give you some good wine and rub your heavy back
put down this heavy bag full of dirty socks and duty free cigarettes
and sit down and tell me everything about your trip

"je suis arrivé et on m'a tout de suite demandé de manger beaucoup de fromage. Ensuite j'ai du terraformé quelques surfaces et planter des buissons. Ensuite j'ai du faire beaucoup d'autres choses. Cela induisait differents produits qui décantaient doucement au fond des buanderies et des limited services waiting room and then i spent all my money and come back"

nothing interesting then

"Si j'ai rencontré une femme très belle"

and...

max

'what ever happened to max?'
'he got lost somewhere down by the tracks'
'he got hungry and swallowed some tacks!'
'no you silly weirdos and hacks,
he did none of these things, as a matter of facts,
no rather he didnt do any at all - he didnt pay all his tax!
and in this country regulations are not at all lax,
so hes sitting in dungeons, learning to relax
with someone named carlos rubbing his back's (itchy places)'
'well thats just ridiculous, hes clearly simply forgotten who you are.'

HAMILTON, Sir ROBERT GEORGE CROOKSHANK (1836-1895), civil servant and governor, was born on 30 August 1836 at Bressay, Shetland, Scotland, son of Rev. Zachary Macaulay Hamilton and his first wife Anne Irvine, née Crookshank. Educated at the Grammar School and at the University and King's College, Aberdeen (M.A., 1857; LL.D., 1885), he entered the War Office and was sent to the Crimea as a commissariat clerk. He returned in 1857 and worked in the Office of Works, and in 1861 became accountant to the Board of Education, then a rapidly expanding complex. In 1868 he published his Book-keeping, which ran to at least seven editions by 1899. In 1869 Hamilton was appointed to the yet more difficult post of accountant to the Board of Trade, where he reorganized the Board's financial department. In 1872 he became assistant secretary to Playfair's civil service inquiry commission, and in 1874 its secretary. In 1878 as accountant-general of the navy he simplified the naval estimates making them intelligible to the public. In 1879 he served on Carnarvon's commission on colonial defences, and in May 1882 he became permanent secretary to the Admiralty. After the Phoenix Park murders he was lent to the Irish administration and was permanently appointed under-secretary with a C.B. in April 1883. On 12 January 1884 he was made K.C.B. While in Ireland he became convinced of the advisability of Home Rule, and had some share in influencing both Earl Spencer and W. E. Gladstone. These sympathies probably caused his removal from the under-secretaryship in November 1886.


Hamilton was compensated by appointment as governor of Tasmania and took up his duties early in 1887. Unlike other governors he had no constitutional crises to face, though the Van Diemen's Land Bank failed in August 1891 and had to be wound up. The only ministries in his governorship were led by P. O. Fysh from March 1887 to August 1892 and Henry Dobson from August 1892 to 1894; he insisted on calling them prime ministers instead of premiers. He promoted public works, especially railways, and encouraged the investment of British capital in the colony. He also encouraged Federation: he presided over the meeting of the Federal Council of Australia at Hobart in 1887 and opened its second and third sessions in 1888 and 1889. He also opened the sixth Trades Union Congress in Hobart in 1889. The greatest contribution he and his second wife made was to the colony's cultural life. Soon after arrival he organized extensive celebrations for the Queen's jubilee, which included three balls, an address with 22,500 signatures and masses of jubilee cake handed to all and sundry. He was president of the Royal Society of Tasmania and actively supported the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. He helped to found the University of Tasmania and several technical schools, and opened many museums and art galleries. His wife formed a Literary Society at Government House.


In 1893 Hamilton returned to England and the civil service. He was appointed to the royal commission, inquiring into the working of the Constitution of Dominica and in 1894, on Morley's nomination, served on the commission on the financial relations between England and Ireland. In November he became chairman of the Board of Customs. He died at South Kensington on 22 April 1895 and was buried at Richmond, Surrey.


On 18 August 1863 he had married Caroline Jane Ball, daughter of Frederick Augustus Geary, of Putney, Surrey; she died in 1875, leaving three sons and one daughter. On 4 July 1877 he married Teresa Felicia, second daughter of Major Henry Reynolds (d. 19 July 1859) and his wife Ann, née Cox; they had two sons and one daughter.

come here

Come slither over here to yer uncle gargrisha

And let me finger yer crystalline ribs.

Gargrisha’s got wishes for odors and kisses

And the sweet sweated arse of a kid.

A greasy little curl for a sneaky little girl –

Who’s been wriggling through scrubland and mud?

A sneaky little girl with a grotty little curl -

Dragged home on her gut to our hut.

Gargrisha’s got plans for his own naughty hands:

He’ll make them do nasty hurty things.

Like hoisting and joisting and all the while moisting:

Gargrisha sweats too when he sings.

I’ll sing you a fable while yer strapped to the table

And play you a tune on a tool.

With an armslength of cable, gargrisha’s well able

To croon about punishes and rules.

From the Confessions of st. Augustine

3.1.1
To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears
a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love,
and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought
what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a
way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food,
Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but
was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because
filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For this
cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself
forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense. Yet
if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love
then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained
to enjoy the person I loved, I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship
with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with
the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and unseemly, I would fain,
through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell headlong then
into the love wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with
how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness besprinkle for
me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at
the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with sorrow-bringing
bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy,
and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels.

3.2.2
Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries,
and of fuel to my fire. Why is it, that man desires to be made sad,
beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would no
means suffer? yet he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them,
this very sorrow is his pleasure. What is this but a miserable madness?
for a man is the more affected with these actions, the less free he
is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person,
it uses to be styled misery: when he compassionates others, then it
is mercy. But what sort of compassion is this for feigned and scenical
passions? for the auditor is not called on to relieve, but only to
grieve: and he applauds the actor of these fictions the more, the
more he grieves. And if the calamities of those persons (whether of
old times, or mere fiction) be so acted, that the spectator is not
moved to tears, he goes away disgusted and criticising; but if he
be moved to passion, he stays intent, and weeps for joy.

3.2.3
Are griefs then too loved? Verily all desire joy. Or whereas
no man likes to be miserable, is he yet pleased to be merciful? which
because it cannot be without passion, for this reason alone are passions
loved? This also springs from that vein of friendship. But whither
goes that vein? whither flows it? wherefore runs it into that torrent
of pitch bubbling forth those monstrous tides of foul lustfulness,
into which it is wilfully changed and transformed, being of its own
will precipitated and corrupted from its heavenly clearness? Shall
compassion then be put away? by no means. Be griefs then sometimes
loved. But beware of uncleanness, O my soul, under the guardianship
of my God, the God of our fathers, who is to be praised and exalted
above all for ever, beware of uncleanness. For I have not now ceased
to pity; but then in the theatres I rejoiced with lovers when they
wickedly enjoyed one another, although this was imaginary only in
the play. And when they lost one another, as if very compassionate,
I sorrowed with them, yet had my delight in both. But now I much more
pity him that rejoiceth in his wickedness, than him who is thought
to suffer hardship, by missing some pernicious pleasure, and the loss
of some miserable felicity. This certainly is the truer mercy, but
in it grief delights not. For though he that grieves for the miserable,
be commended for his office of charity; yet had he, who is genuinely
compassionate, rather there were nothing for him to grieve for. For
if good will be ill willed (which can never be), then may he, who
truly and sincerely commiserates, wish there might be some miserable,
that he might commiserate. Some sorrow may then be allowed, none loved.
For thus dost Thou, O Lord God, who lovest souls far more purely than
we, and hast more incorruptibly pity on them, yet are wounded with
no sorrowfulness. And who is sufficient for these things?

3.2.4
But I, miserable, then loved to grieve, and sought out what to
grieve at, when in another's and that feigned and personated misery,
that acting best pleased me, and attracted me the most vehemently,
which drew tears from me. What marvel that an unhappy sheep, straying
from Thy flock, and impatient of Thy keeping, I became infected with
a foul disease? And hence the love of griefs; not such as should sink
deep into me; for I loved not to suffer, what I loved to look on;
but such as upon hearing their fictions should lightly scratch the
surface; upon which, as on envenomed nails, followed inflamed swelling,
impostumes, and a putrefied sore. My life being such, was it life,
O my God?

3.3.5
And Thy faithful mercy hovered over me afar. Upon how grievous
iniquities consumed I myself, pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity, that
having forsaken Thee, it might bring me to the treacherous abyss,
and the beguiling service of devils, to whom I sacrificed my evil
actions, and in all these things Thou didst scourge me! I dared even,
while Thy solemnities were celebrated within the walls of Thy Church,
to desire, and to compass a business deserving death for its fruits,
for which Thou scourgedst me with grievous punishments, though nothing
to my fault, O Thou my exceeding mercy, my God, my refuge from those
terrible destroyers, among whom I wandered with a stiff neck, withdrawing
further from Thee, loving mine own ways, and not Thine; loving a vagrant
liberty.

3.3.6
Those studies also, which were accounted commendable, had a view
to excelling in the courts of litigation; the more bepraised, the
craftier. Such is men's blindness, glorying even in their blindness.
And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly,
and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter
and altogether removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters"
(for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry)
among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as
they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship,
whose doings I ever did abhor -i.e., their "subvertings," wherewith
they wantonly persecuted the modesty of strangers, which they disturbed
by a gratuitous jeering, feeding thereon their malicious birth. Nothing
can be liker the very actions of devils than these. What then could
they be more truly called than "Subverters"? themselves subverted
and altogether perverted first, the deceiving spirits secretly deriding
and seducing them, wherein themselves delight to jeer at and deceive
others.

3.4.7
Among such as these, in that unsettled age of mine, learned I
books of eloquence, wherein I desired to be eminent, out of a damnable
and vainglorious end, a joy in human vanity. In the ordinary course
of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost
all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation
to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." But this book altered my
affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord; and made me have
other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless
to me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality
of wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For
not to sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with
my mother's allowances, in that my nineteenth year, my father being
dead two years before), not to sharpen my tongue did I employ that
book; nor did it infuse into me its style, but its matter.

tergiversation

Yr
brvty
appls.

Pronouns/Antecedents/Anaphora

Pronoun: pro-form that substitutes for a noun/noun phrase with/without determiner. The replaced phrase is the antecedent.

Antecedent: the noun/noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference; a clause esp. when anaphor is a demonstrative.

Anaphor: instance of an expression referring to another.

*********

in an act of pity your hands
are quietly offered, and are held at arm's
length, because they would be gentle.

Because I am not gentle my voice
is harsh, and my hands likewise. Because
I have nothing for you, and am wrong.

So it is to be wrong. To be at a loss
and unhappy, which is this loss
of one's happiness, in one who had held it.

~ R. Creeley

how about this one then, its slightly revised

I’ll tell you what, folks get up early – I can’t even believe it. And just trying to keep up with them is about
enough to put your health in a bad mood, and you’d be lucky to ever get over it. I would never have
suspected it before I started dreaming about getting a job, as I spent most of my mornings and early
afternoons pondering over softer things like pillows and blankets. And then one day like the darndest
unexpected guest all of a sudden there it was knocking on my desires – the idea I might be of some use
to the work force. So I cleaned my body up and shaved my face and made good my intention to make a
great impression by setting the alarm for early morning. When that alarm flew off at nine I have to say I
expected to be the first person up by a couple of hours at least, securing me a career in greatness like
the city has rarely seen before. And as I’m sure you have come to understand with equal chagrin and
unhappiness – most businesses are already getting ready to close down for the night by then. So I had to
make a quick decision that would affect my future – I chose to set the alarm for eight. I shaved again,
washed a little less sincerely and when early morning came – it brought a whole lot of confusion with it.
How early does a person need to get up in this city to be considered earnest?

But I don’t intend to tell you about how I kept getting up earlier and earlier and kept washing less and
less thoroughly until finally I gave up on shaving completely and went back to believing there was no
way to be happy on earth unless you had a beard. I have something slightly more uplifting to say, I am
just setting the scene.

So then, a few days later, when my mood had started to slide, I began to despair I might not actually
have what it takes to get a job and make enough money to survive. I suspected I might very well succeed
in winning over some business owner with my grade A smile and no-nonsense handshake, but I was
tormented by the thought that I would eventually be called upon to eat my money in my mouth and
wake up and go to work and pretend I believed what I was doing made any sense whatsoever. In this
frame of mind I stood at the Main Street/Science World bus stop waiting for a bus, trying to understand
where everything had gone so terribly wrong when I noticed I was not the only person having dark
thoughts. Apparently there were a lot of folks thinking darkly. No busses came and as we waited, the
line growing all the while, the dark thoughts of the folks around me grew as well and I had to wonder if
the cause was existential or somehow transportational.

The bus finally floated up. As it pulled in and the crowd began to struggle for position in the line up, I
remembered why we had given up the earlier culture of simple pleasures - like sleeping in and living in
small communities and in caves. Namely – for the excitement of keeping close quarters with others.
Squeezing onto the bus I felt a great relief at the fact that I was not alone in my quest for rent money
and more meaning to life – there were many of us.
All of a sudden the bus driver, after loudly requesting that those already on the bus move all the way to
the back, closed the doors, leaving half of the crowd unhappy on the street. Someone even took the
event so close to heart that he threw his textbook at the window. But this didn’t faze the driver in the
least – he was a professional. He took off at a swift trot, sending another wave of excitement through
the tightly packed community of accidental friends as a fellow, not prepared for the burst of speed, lost
his balance, perhaps never having fully acquired it in the first place, and fell onto the pink furry backpack
of a student girl from another country. The girl took this event close to heart and began to cry, which in
turn the fellow took to heart, which he showed by saying out loud a number of expletives that would be
best described in numerical code, ‘####, %%%%, $$%$!!!!!’

After this folks calmed down for a while and spent the journey in relative ease, uninterrupted except for
the occasional passenger not understanding properly how to open the back doors, despairing loudly,
banging on the doors feverishly and becoming agitated. Then someone with a keener knowledge of the
system would yell, ‘back door,’ and the driver would open it and the despairing passenger would
disembark, taking his despair with him. And other than that the journey was peace itself, except for the
constant complaining of one fellow who kept exclaiming quite loudly, ‘we’re not sardines, we deserve a
life on land and not in a can, the government absolutely must buy more buses, one for each person, and
then we can all ride on our own buses completely alone, away from sorrow and sadness.’ This he
continually repeated, word for word, from which I gathered that he was an improbable type, and that he
must experience this scene with frequency, having worked his speech out to the word.

Now, none of this may seem overly worthy of mention if it weren’t for one more highly improbable
occurrence which struck me for its extravagance, especially for a country as unimposing as Canada.

What happened was this.

In the course of riding and listening to each other’s grunts of complaint and humbly bearing each step
on our toes or poke in the groin with an umbrella, or cries of agitation inspired by the complicated back
door exit system, one fellow came to the conclusion that he was being dealt a raw deal by not being
shown the proper respect and, seeking the proper outlet for his malcontent, fixed his attention upon an
elderly Asian woman. ‘Listen buddy,’ the fellow said, his eyes shining in perfect hatred, ‘don’t bother
being a buddy, just take up all the space you need, you’re the only person who has to go anywhere, eh?’
The rather meek looking woman clearly did not understand what he was saying.
So he repeated it one more time, and the fact that the woman yet again failed to understand him seemed to inflame his sense of right and wrong with burning coals and he shoved her aside, hissing like
a lost snake and moving towards the door. This made a few people feel uncomfortable, but nobody felt
brave enough to step in – you never know with those types, he could be seeing purple rabbits and giant
crocodiles as a result of having taken some narcotic drug that morning, and why chance it. At that
moment it struck me, however, that Canada is such a highly logical country, a veritable bastion that I
really ought to reason with the fellow and lead him to a knowledge of his error. So turning to the fellow I
said, ‘hey pal, what the heck are you doing? You just pushed a little Chinese lady?!’
To which he replied, ‘gobeldy goo,’ or in other words – something completely incomprehensible. The
only part of his speech that I understood was the punch he gave me in the face and the way nobody on
the bus hampered him from getting off at the next stop, which I believe to have been a complete
anomaly, because for the most part Vancouverites are very good citizens.

So that’s my Vancouver story. I found a job and get up so early I sometimes don’t bother hitting the sack
at all. What can you do? This is the way we live.

life in vancouver

I’ll tell you what, folks get up early – i can’t even believe it. And just trying to keep up with them is about enough to put your health in a bad mood, and you’d be lucky to ever get over it.
i would never have suspected it before i started dreaming about getting a job, as i spent most of my mornings and early afternoons pondering over softer things like pillows and blankets. And then one day like the darndest unexpected guest all of a sudden there it was knocking on my desires – the idea i might be of some use to the work force.
So i cleaned my body up and shaved my face and fixed my intention to make a great impression by setting the alarm for early morning. When that alarm set off at nine i have to say i expected to be the first person up by a couple of hours at least, securing me a career in greatness like the city has rarely seen before. And as i’m sure you have come to understand with equal chagrin and unhappiness – most businesses are already getting ready to close down for the night by then. So i had to make a quick decision that would affect my future – i chose to set the alarm for eight. I shaved again, washed a little less sincerely and when early morning came – it brought a whole lot confusion with it. How early does a person need to get up in this city to be considered earnest?
But hold on to your rickshaw just a moment if you think i intend to tell you about how i kept getting up earlier and earlier and kept washing less and less thoroughly until finally i gave up on shaving completely and went back to believing there was no way to be happy on earth unless you had a beard. I have something slightly more uplifting to say, i am just setting the scene.
So then, a couple of days after the beginning of this whole fiasco called waking up before the sun has risen on the east coast, my mood had started to slide and i was beginning to despair i might not actually have what it takes to get a job and make enough money to survive. Though i suspected i might very well succeed in winning some business owner with my grade a smile and no-nonsense handshake, i was tormented by the thought that i would eventually be called upon to eat my money in my mouth and wake up and come to work and pretend i believed what i was doing made any sense whatsoever. And this thought tormented me so effectively that i eventually became quite unhappy and stopped smiling at the folks who hand out the free papers everywhere in the morning (at an hour when their ancestors were still in bed). I was walking past one of these unhappy fellows when he looked at me and said, ‘good morning, sir’ and the greeting sounded so much like a taunt i grabbed the fellow by the two legs that were closest to my anger and tossed him backwards into a pile of his pop-culture dailies. If my two swiftest legs hadn’t carried me away i might not have got a chance to realize that wasn’t the proper approach to living in the western hemisphere. Which is precisely what i did only an hour later.
I was standing at the main street science world bus stop waiting to go south like many had before. No busses came and the number of people standing around grew in proportion to the people’s impatience. Every needless sigh brought another transit rider and every open exclamation of dissatisfaction was enough to attract another three. But nobody seemed to catch the correlation between complaining and making the situation worse for themselves. I tried to explain it to the surly fellow with the construction helmet beside me, ‘quit your complaining, eh?’ i said. ‘You’re only making the situation worse.’
The surly fellow looked at me as though he were completely nonplussed and said, ‘if you don’t quit moving your lips and exuding sounds i’ll be obliged to rub your whiskers in the turd at the top of the stairs leading into the skytrain.’
Indeed, someone had felt unhealthy at the top of stairs, i had nearly stepped into the unsanitary pile as i strove towards the street. What’s more the fellow had felt so unhealthy as to not be able to digest fully his morning meal and had relieved himself of that burden as well in a less traditional way by letting it come back the route it had first taken.
So i held my tongue until the bus i needed finally came round. And it was at this time that i remembered why we gave up the original joys, life’s simpler pleasures – like sleeping in and living in small communities and in caves. Namely – for the excitement of keeping close quarters with others. As i squeezed on the bus i felt a great relief at the fact that i was not alone in my quest for rent money and more meaning to life – they were many of us. And some of them didn’t even make it onto the bus – all of a sudden the bus driver, after loudly requesting that those already on the bus move all the way to the back, closed the doors, leaving half of the crowd unhappy on the street. Someone even took the event so close to heart that he threw his textbook at the window. But this didn’t the phase the driver in the least – he was a professional. He took off at a swift trot, sending another wave of excitement through the tightly packed community of accidental friends as a fellow, not prepared for the burst of speed, lost his balance, perhaps never fully having acquired it in the first place, and fell onto the pink furry backpack of a student girl from another country. The girl took this event close to heart and began to cry, which in turn the fellow took to heart, which he showed by saying out loud a number of expletives that would be best described by numerical code, ‘####, %%%%, $$%$!!!!!’
After this folks calmed down for a while and spent the journey in relative ease, uninterrupted except for the constant complaining of one fellow who kept exclaiming quite loudly, ‘we’re not sardines, we deserve a life on land and not in a can, the government absolutely must buy more buses, one for each person, and then we can all ride on our own buses completely alone, away from sorrow and sadness.’ This he continually repeated, word for word, from which i gathered that he was an improbable type, and that he must experience this scene with frequency, having worked his speech out to the word.
Now, none of this may seem overly worthy of mention if it weren’t for one more highly improbable occurrence which struck me for its strangeness, especially for a country as uninteresting as Canada.
What happened was this.
In the course of riding and listening to each other’s grunts of complaint and humbly bearing each step on our toes or poke in the groin with an umbrella, people decided at intervals to discontinue their ride. After pulling the rope people would normally step towards the exit and at the stop disembark. One fellow however, felt that he was being dealt a raw deal by not being shown the proper respect and seemed to be seeking the proper outlet for his malcontent.
‘Listen buddy,’ the fellow said, ‘don’t bother being a buddy, just take up all the space you need, you’re the only person who has to go anywhere, eh?’
This he said to a rather meek looking asian woman who clearly didn’t understand what he was saying. He repeated it one more time, and the fact that the woman didn’t understand him seemed to inflame his sense of right and wrong and he shoved her aside and moved towards the door.
This made a few people feel uncomfortable, but nobody felt brave enough to step in – you never know with those types he could be seeing purple rabbits and giant crocodiles as a result of having taken some narcotic drug that morning, and why chance it. At that moment it struck me, however, that Canada is such a highly logical country, a veritable bastion that i really ought to reason with the fellow and lead him to a knowledge of his error. So turning to the fellow i said, ‘hey pal, what theheck are you doing? You jsut pushed a little Chinese lady?!’
To which he replied, ‘goobledy goo,’ or in other words – something completely incomprehensible. The only part of his speech that i understood was the punch he gave me in the face and the way nobody on the bus hampered him from getting off at the next stop, which i believe to have been a complete anomaly, because for the most part Vancouverites are very good citizens.
So that’s my Vancouver story. I found a job and get up so early i sometimes don’t bother hitting the sack at all. What can you do? This is the way we live.

The birthday party - Release the bats

why then, max, why, tell me cause i dont get it. why dont you post here? why did you propose setting it up in the first place? i remember the starry night at novoslobodskaya at the kiosk with the beer. seth didnt want to. you did max. what happened? when did the tables turn?