Short Black

An Army of Ants (Part 5)

2005-10-02T15:17:00.000+10:00

And while I sit here now, sealed in this study, behind a locked door, I can no longer stem these thoughts. These ideas and memories, they are caught in the erratic drifts of my mind. I write in an uncertain hand; trying to capture my impressions, hoping to make sense of nonsense. The words I compose are barely legible — they do no justice to the subject at hand. They barely crack the surface. But I stubbornly stay the course, just as I follow my life through to its conclusion. My elbows lean heavily on the desk. It is peculiar, but I don’t even seek to understand my purpose here anymore. I am simply vomiting up a sickness — hoping the nausea will finally leave me, once and for all.

But what does hope achieve?

The wrist of my writing hand is sore and cramped, the joints inflamed by my confession. And yet, the discomfort urges me on — like a whip to a draft horse. Everything about this wretched confession is uncomfortable, but it does not stop me. Nothing can stop me now that I have started. My back is stooped and hunched over this journal. Even my eyes have trouble deciphering the words through my reading glasses.

I ask myself why I bother — especially so late in the game.

Some paragraphs are wrenched painfully from within, like removing splinters of glass from my flesh. While others fall from me like dead leaves yielding to the inevitable. Finally they are released from their protective branches. I can only wonder how they will they fare out there, all alone, blowing about in the open?

I scribble page after page — a flurry of activity. These words must be removed from me. They must be expunged and released from their imprisonment. For far too long they have been confined in their self-made prison. But they are restless now. Their escape seems inevitable. I write like dragging a knife through flesh, etching this tainted confession in black ink onto the paper.

I can only obey the inner voice . . .

. . . I have only ever obeyed.

* * * * * * * *

For hours on end, as I have written, I have paused to stare at the family photos sitting before me. My parents, my wife, my son and grandson — all captured between the frames sitting on my desk. Is it to them I write? I look gradually from one to the other. Being dragged into different times and different places. Going back 20 years here, or 60 years there. Three generations of a single German family. My betrayal of their trust an immense weight on my shoulders, curving my spine like a bow. I wonder how many more families are out there like mine. How many more guilt-ridden grandfathers in this great land of war criminals and supposedly reformed National Socialists.

In one photograph, I see my father and mother in their youth, posing formally in an cheap studio. They wear morbid expressions. In grainy black and white, my father’s eyes bore into me. Sitting in a cane chair with his chest full and his chin up. His lips are pursed with his trademark solemnity. And above them droops a bushy moustache in the style of old. His cold black eyes glare at me — unflinching — as if penetrating my soul from the grave.

To think, when those eyes targeted me as a child I always looked away. My father’s overwhelming strength personified in their glint. I would sit in awe, insignificant in the presence of the great professor pondering me like a scientist. If only he knew what I had done. His closest friends at the Academy were Jewish. When they were stripped of their positions and deported I had overheard him cursing Hitler in hushed tones. But then, he was always smart enough to speak quietly indoors and stay silent outdoors. In fact, he was always smart full-stop. The more I look at him, the more it looks like he wants to leap from the chair and beat me from his house. I study the hands that occasionally slapped me as a child. They appear smaller now than I remember them, clasped in his lap, the knuckles a white blur.

Yes . . . I am certain he would beat me if he could.

And then, there is the image of my mother. She stands dutifully at my father’s side, one hand on his shoulder. She is beautiful — her blonde hair pulled back from a noble forehead. Wearing a simple black dress that hugs her youthful figure. Her slender forearms are exposed, the flesh a pure white that seems to glimmer with a faint glow. Her painted lips are pouted and she gazes at the camera firmly. She appears to be questioning me, accusing me. I want to apologise — to beg her for forgiveness. My face feels flushed by the urge to cry. But my eyes are incapable of such a response. I can only blink dryly. I cry . . . although I cry without releasing any anguish.

And what of my Anna? One of the photos shows us on our wedding day, way back in 1946. Arm-in-arm, we smile for the camera, dressed in all our finery. Another black and white print showing two lovers in their youth. A couple who have momentarily forgotten their pain.

The photograph returns a multitude of pleasant memories racing back to the forefront of my mind. But once there, they only create sadness. They are memories of moments lost forever. My mind attempts to recreate the pleasure of those days, but I cannot relive the lost time the photo portrays. A few days where the painful memories vanished and I fell greedily into Anna’s goodness.

Of course, it was inevitable . . . those days were numbered, right from the very start.

I lived alone from the moment I returned home from the war. Barely existing in my parent’s house, brooding in solitary confinement. The pair of them had fled west from the Russian advance that never arrived, and they had perished in the process. I never learnt how they met their end. They were simply two more souls added to the list of war-dead, never to be seen again. Two entries in a register — my mother’s name following my father’s — signalling that they had at least died together.

The day I returned to this very house, I was confronted with their last moments. I was a month too late. Everywhere I looked I could see their heritage and the impressions they had left. Their unmade bed, the smell of my father’s pipe, a mouldy meal half-eaten at the kitchen table. It was obvious they had left in a hurry, fearful of the approaching armies. Knowing Germany’s enemies would reap their revenge. Maybe even assuming that their son was no longer of the living.

I cried for days on end, seeing the open cupboards from which they had hurriedly packed their most important belongings. I recreated the scene in my mind. I saw images of them rushing nervously to escape the oncoming wrath — my father still looking the defiant Bavarian, brimming over with pride and common sense. While my mother’s face was shaken and grey — sweating fear from its very pores.

I knew the dread she must have felt, the unknown possibilities that awaited her. I can imagine her trying to ignore the fear that ate away at her sub-conscious. Like a grub it would have chewed through her defences, sneaking into her heart, quickening its beat. Making its way into her belly, consuming her appetite and leaving her stomach knotted. I had felt the same sensations at the front. The unknown, the smell of death heavy and sweet in the air. Not knowing if it was your turn to taste it and gratify the unseen, yet determined Reaper.

And at the time, I couldn’t cope with these thoughts. I felt responsible for my parent’s demise. My poor mother . . . the personification of innocence. She didn’t deserve to die like that . . . in that pointless war. She had never supported it . . . nor the National Socialists . . . nor the Kaiser in the war of her own generation.

But then, the war did not wait for us to choose sides or sit on the fence. The war itself chose for us. A line on a map made you an aggressor. A gene in your veins made you a victim.

The day I returned, my neighbours visited with some bread and a little butter. They told me of my parent’s deaths. And while they hadn’t seen their bodies, they were part of the same stream of refugees driving ever westwards. They told me of the planes that strafed them and chaos that ensued. They told me of both their sons, friends from my childhood, who were killed fighting in the east.

And from the moment they left me to myself, my grip on sanity almost completely collapsed. I took my parent’s remaining clothes, letters and personal belongings out into the back yard and doused them in kerosene. I lit a match and burnt them all — hoping to burn them from my memory. I created a fiery tomb to honour their past, and remove their existence from my mind. But it was to no avail. It was a hollow gesture. As the flames rose, licking the lower limbs of the chestnut tree, my mind still remembered. Even now, looking from the small window above this desk I can see the same chestnut tree in the corner of the yard. It stands defiantly; a constant reminder of that day; a witness to all that has passed.

* * * * * * * *

During those first few weeks, all alone in this empty house, I could not sleep. I thought myself nearer and nearer to oblivion. I suffered through the endless revolutions of my mind. Rehashing old ideas and painful memories. Immersing myself in the depths of my regrets or the shallows of past pleasures. Thousands of thoughts tumbled down the valleys and crevices of my brain, gathering momentum and strength like an unstoppable avalanche.

They devoured me — these thoughts. They swallowed all my rational restraints. I could hear the screams of despair echoing in my ears. Coming ever closer as each day progressed and another took its place. And yet, for some strange reason, the last fragile thread of my sanity held firm, stretched to its limit, but desperately hanging on. It was a single rope that barely sustained the bridge over the abyss.

A single word repeated itself to me. Over and over it sounded itself out. Like I was voicing it to myself without parting my lips. I tried to ignore it, but as the days and weeks passed it grew louder and more urgent. Until finally I actually spoke it out aloud, without thinking. It was just a whisper but the effect was more than a scream. Even now, the words strike me cold.

"Suicide." I said to myself.

And despite my fear, this single word became a consoling thought. A possibility that brought an oddly cold comfort. A knowledge that the pain of my existence could be switched off on a whim, whenever I made up my mind. And when the whispers became shouts, I could always look to it to draw me back towards life.

A few times even, I placed the barrel of my revolver in my mouth. Cocking the hammer with trembling hands. The sharp click amplified in my ears — the loudest sound one could ever imagine. I would taste the bitter metal and feel its solidity clunk against my teeth. I would even push my tongue down inside the barrel and imagine the bullet cutting it in two.

But then, I could never bring myself to follow through. I would bite the barrel so hard I even chipped a tooth. I would scream until my lungs burnt. And always, my hands were made of stone, immovable on the trigger. It was simply an order I could not obey. So, after another struggle with death, I would finally return the gun to the desk drawer. Locking it away in the darkness where it still sleeps, even to this day, still waiting patiently for me to reach back in there and finish the job.

Yes, I could pull the trigger to kill countless others, but to fire upon myself seemed impossible. I was unable to face my demons — the fear of death was too strong to overcome. I could stand on the precipice that overlooked the unknown depths below, but could never take the final step. One small movement on a trigger that would send me plummeting down.

One small moment of decisiveness . . . one small moment of disobedience.

* * * * * * * *

An Army of Ants (Part 4)

2005-09-10T22:15:00.000+10:00

I am no longer fooled when the memories appear to be losing their edge. While they are occasionally dulled by the grinding-stone of time, eventually something is bound to happen once more, sharpening them again. Maybe it is the smell of diesel fuel or burning timber. Maybe the taste of stale bread or the sound of Russian’s talking. Seemingly innocuous, everyday incidents, but incidents that act as hair-triggers nonetheless. Incidents accompanied by memories so vivid the war reemerges in all its terrible detail. These ordinary events are anchored defiantly to the dark thoughts that will not die. In fact, even catching sight of a single serrated birch leaf is enough to quicken my heart and impede my breathing. In the space of a millisecond, the leaf becomes a tree, the tree a forest and the forest an improvised execution ground.

* * * * * * * *

There are also more obvious reminders that occasionally make themselves felt. But unlike the vague triggers mentioned above I speak now of actual links to my past. Connections that appear just when I’m almost convinced they’ve been severed forever. Usually, they are links without subtlety. They aren’t symbols, hints or metaphors. The reminders I refer to are pieces of undeniable evidence that prosecute me in my own private courtroom.

Like the letter that arrived some years ago.

I was standing at our gate, leafing through the day’s mail, when I noticed a hand-addressed envelope among the regular bills and useless junk one receives. It was just an envelope — nondescript, plain and apparently harmless. But when I put on my reading glasses, deciphered the writing on the back and confirmed the sender’s name, this envelope became far from harmless.

In that moment, as they say, time stood still. All my senses seized and my saliva fast evaporated in my mouth. I read the name repeatedly, letting it sink into my mind like a red-hot bayonet.

Josef Becker — a name I had almost forgotten, having gone unspoken for so many years. Josef Becker — a comrade from the war. Josef Becker — another murderer, just like me.

And in that instant, a thousand thoughts rampaged between my ears. Sounds, sights, smells and ideas; all raging inside my skull like a violent stampede. For a second, I was almost overcome by the sudden reappearance of my friend. For a second, I thought I was close to death, my heart pumped so desperately.

But, eventually, I calmed myself down. I read the name again as if for a final confirmation. I may have even whispered it out loud. Joseph Becker — a budding farmer who had exchanged his pitchfork for a rifle, leaving his cows and his geese behind to become part of our group. We had been close friends during the war — inseparable in fact. We had gotten drunk together. We had swum naked in the Dnieper together. We had visited brothels together. We had been drawn to each other like two magnets sinking in a sea of blood. But by war’s end, the magnets that had once attracted us, repelled us like polar opposites.

To my mind, our friendship was forever interwoven with the war and could not readjust itself to peacetime. Immediately after the surrender, the fine thread of our relationship succumbed to the stronger fibres of our crimes. The few good memories were strangled by the bad. And while I know we laughed once, my mind cannot embrace the warm emotions we once felt for each other.

At that moment, looking at his neat writing on the back of that envelope, I recalled fragments of our past together. And no matter how I looked at it, I no longer saw ourselves as friends, but only as accomplices.

Later, when I had withdrawn to my study and locked the door behind me, I opened the envelope and finally discovered its contents. What I found can only be called absurd. It was an invitation. A folded card, decorated in gold leaf with my name printed in gothic script across the front. I opened it sheepishly and stared in shock at my unit’s insignia. The more I read, the more my heart trembled. I couldn’t quite believe it, even though the facts were reflected in my eyes. It was an invitation to a get-together in the capital — a reunion of the survivors from our unit.

To be blunt, it was an invitation to a meeting of murderers, their spouses and their children if they so chose to bring them. One last hurrah before we were all shipped off to the Devil himself. And all I could do was destroy it. I burnt it in the bin beneath my desk. Watching the flames consume the evidence — curling the paper and blackening it into a fragile skeleton. And as I prodded the remains with my cane until it crumbled into a fine dust, I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. My experience in such matters had taught me much more than that.

For days afterward, thoughts of Josef and the war plagued my mind. They crept stealthily into my conscious unwilled, before they suddenly leapt at me from all sides. Repressed memories sneaking to the forefront of my thoughts as I pottered about the house or sat down to dinner with Anna. While I washed the dishes, one particular image of Josef came into focus that I hadn’t thought of since it actually happened. His pale face smiling at me over his shoulder as our artillery pounded Warsaw. Cheering ecstatically as a large apartment block collapsed in a crooked heap of bricks and twisted metal. I remember I was extremely frightened in that early stage of the war. And yet, Josef’s good-natured exuberance gave me a strange courage. Even though a dead Polish soldier was propped up against the low wall beside him. Still holding a rifle in his hands as if he were only sleeping. His guts forming a neat pink pile between his legs, the only sign things were otherwise.

But as I looked at this memory with hindsight, Josef no longer looked like a friend. He was simply a beast baring his fangs. Eager to cross the bridge and sink his bayonet into more innocent flesh. Thirsty for blood and adventure, just as I learnt to become in the weeks following the short-lived Polish campaign.

I stood in my study for almost an hour after I received Josef’s letter. And as I stared at the black dust in the bottom of the bin I imagined the reunion and shook my head in disbelief. What were we to say to each other? Were we supposed to sing those old songs in between gulps of wine and mouthfuls of mutton? Were we to reminisce on what we had done? It didn’t make any sense. Was I expected to speak freely on the war, accompanied by laughter and back-slapping? Maybe Becker would remind us of the Russian he shot unawares while he took a shit. Or maybe he would remind us of the peasant girl we raped in the cellar of a house in Belarus.

It was complete madness. I couldn’t understand what they wanted to find in the bombed-out villages, the lines of refugees, the flayed corpses and the endless suffering. Were we supposed to turn organised murder into tales of heroism so our children could one day repeat the same mistakes?

Couldn’t they just let me forget?

* * * * * * * *

And so it continues. The world moves relentlessly forward into the black void, leaving time further behind. Each second, taking us further along a mysterious line we cannot understand. A hiccup in the past that leaves a bitter echo, that will nonetheless eventually fade.

But then, for now, the minds that were there still remember. People still look inward and see a period lost, an impression left behind. Like a footprint stamped in their story that the seasons are gradually blowing away. And we hang on to the past even if it tortures us. We keep it alive as long as we can. Unforgotten and unforgiven. And some, those who experienced it are willing to speak. Their stories beg to be told. Their books and their interviews bear witness. The secret archives open up like rotting corpses, revealing the pestilent records inside and incriminating another person who had once seemed so squeaky clean. Rolls of film are replayed on our television screens. Blurred images of our victims crumpling into the pits. Skeletal men running naked to their death. Images with intervals of colourful ad-breaks pushing fancy cars and tasteless lingerie.

And my only solace is the knowledge that I at least will soon pass on. A constant reminder that my suffering will eventually end, if in fact Hell doesn’t exist. My shaky hands are covered with burst blood vessels and loose skin. The flesh already losing its life, in the process of decay. My demise in unstoppable presence that has trailed me since day one. I feel her fingertips massaging me, preparing me for her sweet darkness. The final path toward the end has been found, the journey already begun. My lungs are filled with fluid and my vision is long gone. My remaining hair no longer shows life. Its thin white strands dead a skeleton of the youthful brown it once was.

Yes, soon I will be put to ground — my family crying over my passing. Their tears will fall, just like the tears of my victims’ families. But I shall be gone and their sobs unable to penetrate my coffin. My ears will not hear and my eyes will no longer see. They will view me as I lay in wake, but I will no longer exist. Soon all who experienced that war will pass on. Criminals and victims alike, returning to the earth they once travelled upon. Their memories will be buried with them as they leave this world. Then, and only then will it be history. All that will remain are words on paper and images on film, just like these words I now write. Mere words — unable to recreate the truth clearly enough to stop other fools from thinking it a noble undertaking.

Unfortunately, to them it will seem just a simple story or an exciting action film. To the future it will be just a dream.

* * * * * * * *

If only you could experience my dreams. Nightmares that wake me with the sound of my own screams. Not knowing where I am for a moment, fearing I am still at the front.

Maybe if you could experience my nightmares, you could really understand the suffering I have endured for over 60 years. Even if it is a suffering deserved.

I often dream it is my son in the line of fire. Jürgen standing there exposed, in front of the pit. Some nights he is still a child and on others he is the man he has grown to be. But always, his face is pained and confused — accusing me. His trousers stained with urine, his cheeks tear-streaked. But still, I raise my rifle on order from the officer beside me. In my mind I am screaming, fighting, crying. My mind wills my body to disobey the order, but I have no control. I cannot stop my arms from bringing the rifle to my shoulder. I am helpless. The muscles are cramped. I battle painfully the process they are determined to complete. But to no avail. The young Infantryman goes through the motions, ignoring my pleas. Over and over, the same forest projects itself on the back of my mind. A constant replaying of my son’s final moments.

If Jürgen isn’t begging for mercy, he is scowling at my betrayal. Staring at me with an intense hatred. His lips quiver uncontrollably, the same as when he cried as a child. This is what I see as I look at him down the sites. Easing the barrel in line with his heart. My chest twisting and constricting painfully, my lungs burning. I hear the sounds of the forest. The trees creaking against each other, twigs snapping and leaves falling to the forest floor. With my rifle on target, I close my eyes, and grit my teeth. And in this forced darkness I wait for the order.

And of course, it eventually comes. FIRE. The words loud and clear, followed by the rifle fire which signals Jurgen’s death.

It is then that I always wake. Torn from an imaginary forest and returned to my bed. For a moment I lie caught between my past and my reality. Not yet fully woken — a few seconds of death pulsing through me. It is this moment when I am most afraid, when I am misplaced between worlds. Have I found hell? Am I a beast? In this state of momentary psychosis, removed from sleep or truth, I have killed my own son. I truly feel the dread of having killed my own flesh and blood.

And then slowly it fades and my pulse slows. Tears blur my sight, rolling off my eyelids and onto the pillow, one by one. The rifle report echoes in my ears. Yet, it is no longer real. The smell of gunpowder and fear is but an invention of my mind. My vision comes into focus and I find my bearings. I see Anna beside me. An undeserved love. Her eyes watching me without words. Can she see my tears? As I lie there, awash in the light of the moon, her arm moves to hold me. She edges in closer, her goodness soaking in. Resting her head against my shoulder, I feel unworthy of her concern. I flinch a little at her touch — unable to cope with what she offers. She comforts me without question, unaware that I have killed our son.

But like a child, I gradually succumb to the need for love. Lowering my fortifications and allowing Anna behind my walls. I sigh a deep breath, relieved that it was only a dream. With her arm lying loosely over me, I stare at the ceiling. Thankfully I am not on the Russian steppe — I am home. I inhale the various smells of our bedroom — calm and reassuring. The scent of my life, the womanly fragrance of Anna, the smells of my living and breathing flesh.

* * * * * * * *

An Army of Ants (Part 3)

2005-08-23T23:47:00.000+10:00

At times, I remember so much from the war — too much even — and yet I can barely remember the faces of those I murdered. I do not understand it and so I no longer look for reasons. Maybe there were too many victims. Or else, maybe I just never really looked at their faces.

While I killed hundreds, myself alone, their faces and their identities are still a mystery. They merge into one another like grains of sand. Trying to recall them is like scanning the faces in a crowd. Only types and their associated incidents remain. Now, so long after the fact, I see old men with leathery skin and a stoic acceptance of what was coming. Some with white beards, others clean-shaven. I see the mothers, often hysterical and occasionally clutching babies. And then, I see the youngsters. Toddlers and teenagers. Their eyes bulging and their malnourished bodies shaking with fear. But they are only symbols. I can’t really remember them. I don’t see them. There were too many.

To me, they were simply men, women and children. No names. No stories. No identities. Just figures standing before me, waiting. Waiting like myself to hear the order to fire. The officers yelled words meaning completely different things to the executioners than to the condemned.

But I digress. None of this stops me remembering that they existed before I wiped them out.

Even now, as I write, I recall one man I shot who took several seconds to fall. It only happened one time. I fired and when my eyes opened, he was still there. His body rocking a little, stubbornly holding onto the life that seeped from the small hole in his chest. I also remember another, a Russian partisan who spoke fluent German. He cursed me right up until the final moment. His words still echo in my ears. "You will die too." he said, "Filthy murderer. You will die too."

He continued like that until I fired. Immediately, his voice evaporated. When my eyes opened, I could only see the cracked soles of his boots.

* * * * * * * *

Writing this pains me. If I could cry, I would. At times I even try to cry, but my eyes always stay dry.

But then, I am used to the memories now. I am used to the dull ache they cause me.

My mind wanders to and fro, from one memory to the other, unable to rest. I have lived an entire life since that cursed war, but my thoughts have never moved on. These recollections and more pile on top of each other like corpses, leaving me dizzy and nauseous. Sounds are replayed, like that of the bodies falling — their clothes scraping and the dull thuds. I hear the crackle of rifle fire or the sound of the children’s sobs. One youngster crying, setting off a chain reaction as the others join in. A gradual increase in volume, reaching a hellish crescendo until the shots fired once again.

Then all would be silent — or at least for a few moments.

Furthermore, if it isn’t those twisted sounds I hear, it is the visions of war I cannot help but see — the piles of dead, the armoured columns and the killing fields themselves. My memory is a photo album of epic proportions. I close my eyes and see a crooked barn, at the edge of a farm, that we converted into a tomb. We machine-gunned the occupants and tossed in a few grenades before burning it to the ground. I even see the icy field where we despatched a group of suspected Communists. The ground so frozen our victim’s struggled unsuccessfully to dig their own communal grave. Their shovels bounced off the surface, and skidded on the ice. We had laughed, my comrades and I, ordering them to try harder. But our amusement eventually subsided and we shot them helter-skelter, with pistols, rifles and machine guns. The small-arms fire popping like fire crackers and the Russians’ bodies spinning, crumpling and shuddering in clouds of exploding ice and snow.

There was a sick enjoyment involved in such acts. The laughter of the insane — I guess. But now, there is no pleasure in reliving my shame. I don’t even know why I write about it . . .

. . . to punish myself?

* * * * * * * *

It is strange, but while the thought of my death caused me no fear, I had an immense fear of seeing into the eyes of my victims. I never thought about it, I just didn’t do it. I avoided them like the limbs of lepers. It was as if their pupils were camera lenses capturing my crimes for eternity. I soon learned to keep my eyes averted from their accusatory stares. I looked at their chests, their bellies, their foreheads, but never their eyes. Their steely gazes were like the judgement of God bearing down upon me. I’m sure their eyes would have reflected the insanity of their deaths like shards of a shattered mirror.

Even now, I have brought this wartime habit into its peaceful aftermath. I rarely look at anyone directly, even my family. I avoid their eyes for all it’s worth. I wonder, am I afraid that they will see what lurks within me? Am I afraid that all the cliches about our eyes being windows to the soul are true?

Sometimes, I study my eyes in the mirror. I try to see inside them. But it doesn’t matter how long I stare — I can only see nothing.

* * * * * * * *

If you asked how many people I killed, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I imagine that once you lose count of such things, you are lost for good.

Every stooped figure I was ordered to shoot was eventually replaced by another. And I knew there would always be another one close behind. In between adrenalin-fuelled battles our superiors always found another rag-tag bunch of supposed criminals. And on occasion, when they weren’t offered to us, we would be ordered to find them ourselves. Partisans they called them — when in reality they were usually just peasants who were either being starved, worked or shot out of existence. Their hollow cheeks and bulbous joints revealed the rickety skeletons beneath malnourished flesh. And yet, we still obeyed our superiors, even though we could see they were often too weak to even hold rifles.

In the end, they were all under suspicion and so they were all guilty.

Such is the logic of war.

* * * * * * * *

At least they hated me. I took a sliver of comfort from the fact. I absorbed their hatred. I marinated in it, knowing they would kill me without hesitation. I soaked up their hatred until I hated them in reply. I listened to the devout Nazis amongst us. I nodded my head in agreement, letting their ignorance wash over me. It became much easier as my hatred grew. It wasn’t long before I too saw the enemy as inferior peoples — a subhuman disease that was infecting Europe. Deep down I knew I was fooling myself, but at least it made my task much easier to stomach.

They hated me — I hated them. They wanted me dead and I wanted them dead. I guess you could call it the primitive psychology of war. War — such a ridiculous concept. Turning everyone into patriotic robots devoid of everything we like to call human.

It’s strange, but one man in our group said we were shooting the civilians because we had no food for them. While others said it had simply become our policy — enslavement or execution being the only option for the vanquished. Some excuses were even wrapped in proverbs of old. I remember Hoftaller saying with a laugh, "When you cut down a forest, wood-chips must fly."

I guess most had some kind of lame excuse.

But for myself, to be honest, I didn’t know what to believe. I had ceased needing explanations, or wanting them for that matter. I just accepted whatever confronted me. If we had started shooting our colleagues, I would have done that as well. I was absolutely resigned to my fate, in whatever shape it revealed itself. The only certainty I held dear was a conviction in my own demise. I didn’t even question the idea that I would be dead before war’s end. And in a way, I guess I could say I did die more or less.

Day in, day out, I felt death’s existence in the marrow of my bones, from where it slowly expanded its circle of influence. It pulsated outward, inflicting me gradually with its cold tendrils. It wrapped its way around my joints which ached painfully. From there it crept into my haunted mind. Death’s presence bringing about dizzy spells, headaches and blurred vision. For days on end I couldn’t even stomach a mouthful of food. I would chew and chew, but my throat could not swallow. My belly was full — overflowing with death.

The thought of surviving the war no longer existed. I never thought I would make it home and I stopped entertaining such childish hopes. In the beginning I’d been frightened of fighting, but eventually I fought with suicidal zeal. When in battle I no longer ducked or hesitated. I fought rashly and eagerly, hoping to speed up my demise.

But the moment never came. Death touched all those around me but left without touching me. She left the room without my knowledge. One day followed the next, and still I breathed air into my lungs. One day died while another was born — on and on it went — until the war plummeted toward its end and my heart still drummed weakly in my chest.

Just as we had moved into Russia shrouded in fire, we left it the same way. A fighting retreat, prolonging our inevitable defeat and killing millions more in the process.

We burned and murdered as we fell back, vengefully repaying the civilians for our embarrassing loss. I lost many friends in the whirling tempest that threatened to envelope us. But me — as you all well know — I damn well survived.

* * * * * * * *

It is with these memories, that I now enter our church. The same church I entered with my mother, many years ago, while still a boy. And now, over 60 years later, I enter the same church, with tonnes of additional sin added to the original sin I was blessed with at birth. Walking up the stairs I always remember the war. For 60 years I’ve never stopped marching through that forest with my comrades, trying to ignore the prisoners we escort. As I mount the stairs, I still go through that horrifying routine — forming the line, racking the bolt on my rifle, aiming and firing.

I remember every time I walk through the arched entrance, deep into the house of God. My eyes stare at the rows of burning candles running down one side of the dark sanctum and congregating around the different saints and their alters. The flaming yellow tongues flicker with life. Jumping and dancing to their own tune. I see each candle like one of the nameless silhouettes I so cowardly slew. I sometimes light a few and think of the nameless ghosts who haunt my dreams. To think I have snuffed out life, as easy as blowing out their flames.

A breath of air or the twitch of a finger — such seemingly insignificant gestures.

Whenever I am there, I feel the cool gaze of Jesus upon me. There is an old carving of his execution. His hollow eyes looking down from above. It is a sombre recreation of his final earthly moments, erected high up for all to see. His large form attached to the wall, always reminding us of his sacrifice. The crown of thorns cut into his skull like the memories that cut into mine. The nails that pierce his hands and ankles are like the arthritis that now inflame my joints. His sad expression mirrors my own. Eyes downcast and face slack, crying out at our sins, but of course, either unable or indifferent to stop them.

To most people the church is a sanctuary. But to me it is like being stretched on the rack. It is a torture I am led to every week. A need for the pain and suffering I feel is deserved. It is a constant reminder of my destiny. An eternity in the inferno that awaits below.

Behind the thick stone walls it is always quiet — a deathly silence that caresses my neck like death. A silence that reminds me of my coming demise. With each footstep a sharp echo bounces off the walls — like gunshots amplified. I do not feel courage there, only fear. A fear that seeps through my skin and into my flesh. A heavy moisture that weighs me down, sucking the energy from me. Hell drains me of my strength as I swim against the tide, slowly sinking into its dark waters.

How can I forget? I sit in the house of God, living and breathing. A criminal under the judgement of the most high. An old man with excruciating arthritis. An old man with a cane and a limp leftover from that rotten war.

That is what you see — just an old man. But this old man is a murderer. The shaking, weary hands that clasp the pew in front, are hands of a killer. I wore a helmet and boots. I slung a rifle over my shoulder and marched with war songs on my lips.

Forgiveness. Redemption. They are like words out of a fairy tale, they are pure fantasy.

God will not forgive me. I do not ask for His mercy. I don’t ask for anything — except that the memories fade. I once hoped they would sneak into a mythical corner of my mind. A make-believe shredder or an open fire that would destroy the evidence. Somewhere, anywhere, just a nice place where my conscience would not feel their weight. But criminals don’t have it that easy. We are made to remember.

* * * * * * * *

An Army of Ants (Part 2)

2005-08-15T20:02:00.000+10:00

There is no logic to what I recall. Entire months are obliterated by black holes, while seemingly inane incidents are relived with frightening clarity.

Even now I remember sitting by a dirt road that cut through the heart of the Ukraine. A deep, dusty groove in the infinite wheat fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. The men of my unit were spread out on either side of the road. We had been ordered to stop our advance and that was all. Without further orders we were like children left unsupervised. We were caught in a moment where time slept, leaving one with nothing to do. These were dangerous times. Seconds where memories ate into the mind’s defences and threatened never to leave. All we could do was divert our attention away from ourselves, by any means available.

There were men all around me. Some wandered here and there, kicking up dust with their boots. While others laughed and played cards on the tanks and armoured cars. Each of us passed the time in his own special way. We allowed the seconds to move inevitably forward to our unforseen ends. All us German boys, once farmers or tradesman, students or artists — now all soldiers — sitting there uselessly in the dust. We were waiting . . . waiting to kill or be killed. We were nothing but figures in an army ledger — a number of heads, rifles, grenades and machine guns. We were numbers stripped of our identities.

I remember it all so well.

I was brooding alone, consumed by my own existence. Waiting for the order to move so I could be relieved of myself. I feared madness. I fought the urge to pull a pin from a grenade. A comrade, Lieutenant Hoftaller, was sprawled out beside me asleep. His beastly snores accompanying my thoughts like the sound of death itself. I cleaned the dust from my rifle. A yellow powder that was occasionally whipped into dark waves by powerful gales. Tiny grains of sand stinging my exposed face. And it was through these dusty clouds that I stared in fascination at a column of ants at my feet.

Who would have thought these ants would stay with me for so long? They marched in a disciplined line past my scratched boots, toward their nest at the edge of the field. I studied them, my stomach knotting at the strange thoughts they inspired. I looked from the ants to my comrades and then returned to the ants — back and forth.

Before long, I could see no difference between the two.
I saw myself akin to each and every ant I watched. Like myself, they too marched with their comrades in rigid formation, unable to stray from the group. And just like the men around me, their individual names held no relevance. The group was what mattered. The leader was what mattered. They expanded and defended the nest as we expanded and defended the Fatherland. There was no difference that I could see.

Sitting there, in that filthy muck, I realised we were just insects. And this feeling has never left me to this day. In that moment, I realised I no longer existed for myself — an ignorant boy from Bavaria. My feelings of guilt, my fear and my shame, they were all selfish. My feelings did nothing for our leader. They were feelings that menaced the group like a cancer threatening from within. Just as my guilt threatens my family today.

And as I sat there, on the side of the road, I quickly realised I hated the ants as much as my comrades; as much as myself. Their endless marching sickened me. Their obedience and their interchangeability. They served a Queen as we served our Fuhrer. And it was to overpower these thoughts that I suddenly pushed my boot straight through their parade. I stomped on the ants, again and again. I ground them under my heel and destroyed their plodding march. Oh, if only I could have found their Queen — I would have crushed her too. I stood up and followed the line of scurrying insects like a bomber targeting an enemy convoy. I stomped harder and harder as I went. Sweat was dripping from my forehead and my boots thudded loudly against the dry soil. I was going to destroy their whole army. I was going to wipe an entire division off the map.

I hated those ants because they were just like me. I hated their army as I hated my own.

Even now, I remember the madness that was burning in my veins as I killed several soldiers with each thud of my boot. By killing those ants, I was killing myself. The ants mirrored myself and I hated the despicable truth their very existence seemed to prove. Exactly like those mindless insects in the ditch, I too marched on. Instead of feeling the emotions that once flourished in the fertile soil of my mind, I stamped them out. In the end, even the unopened seeds were obliterated and the ground left dry and useless. That is how I forgot myself and ignored the screams that haunted my sleep. All I thought of was the column of ants I belonged to. Looking to the men who fought beside me. The men who formed the firing squad with me.

At that moment, I ceased caring. I hated my comrades, my Fatherland, my Fuhrer, even myself. The fact is; I hated. I stomped on them all, cursing loudly. I stomped over and over again. I killed hundreds, until the sweat was pouring off me. I was yelling by now — who knows what I was saying? I was leaping in a cloud of yellow dust until Hoftaller grabbed me. He threw me onto my back into the wheat by the side of the road, landing on top of me and pinning my shoulders.

Even now, I remember his words.

"What is the matter with you?" he yelled. "Have you gone mad?"

I did not answer. I just looked at him through dust-filled tear-streaked eyes. My comrades were crowding around by now — smirking, frowning and chattering like old women. And I stared at them with utter disgust.

How could they understand? They were all sick — every last one of them. Madness wasn’t my problem. Madness was the solution. My sanity was the curse I could not shake.

* * * * * * * *

Right from the start, I often imagined what my mother would have said if ever she knew the truth. I wondered what effect my actions would cause in such a virtuous soul.

Details aside, there is no doubt the truth would have crushed her.

I knew it all along. So after the first few months of the war, my lies had already begun. There was no avoiding it. I wrote her marvellous letters full of bullshit. I extolled the beauty of the countryside. Telling her of the strange customs the conquered peoples practised, relating stories of salted bread and vodka; infinite fields and thatched huts. Yes, I told her stupid little stories just as I told my son and my grandson. I suppose I believed she could be protected from the horror of war.

In the end though, I couldn’t stop the war from finding her of its own accord. Nobody could have. It was the war that killed both her and my father, side by side. The very war she had cried over when its outbreak was announced over the radio. In fact, she had cried when Hitler became Chancellor and even when I signed up for duty. But all this doesn’t stop me wondering . . . wondering if she would have stopped crying if she had seen what I had done.

Oh, mother. At the thought of her I cannot help but cry myself. She has been dead so long, but I still imagine her looking down on me from above. I imagine her watching me as I lie to the grandson she never had a chance to meet.

I wonder, will she ever forgive me?

My mother was a wonderful woman. She exuded so much love it was like God had given her a double-dose at birth. She overflowed with goodness. She was always speaking kind words, smiling and helping others. In raising me, she had made the greatest efforts to produce a son worthy of her reputation. God — if I ever reach heaven, how will I face her?

I’ll never forgive myself. Every crime I committed was a slap in her face. Every shot I fired, a betrayal.

* * * * * * * *

My mother did her best with me as a child. She taught me what every child should learn, if not more. She had dreams of one day seeing me wear the cassock, just as her father had done before me. She was my ally . . . the only person I could ever truly call my comrade. She always came to my defence whenever my father scolded me. And she never let anybody speak ill of me in her presence.

I loved my mother more than myself. I hung on every word she said to me as a boy. I believed, I respected and I obeyed. She raised me as a Catholic, with her heart and soul behind it. And every Sunday, like clockwork, we made our way to the local church. My father, an atheist and professor, staying behind. I still see him in the window of his study, watching us go with a contemptuous, yet loving smirk beneath his bushy moustache. I still remember my mother saying with a cheeking grin that we should both pray for his non-believing soul. It used to make me laugh.

You cannot imagine how much I looked forward to these Sunday outings. We’d walk slowly toward the local church — a grand structure, that was the centrepiece of our town. Its twin Gothic spires rising into the sky like it was reaching toward God himself. I imagine my mother believed I enjoyed the sermons. When in fact, all I enjoyed was her company. But I was not one to disappoint her with the truth, even then.

I would sneak glances at her as she nodded her head in agreement with the Pastor. Glad that she was happy. Glad that I was loved by a woman so kind.

I always marvelled at her solemn expression as we walked to or from the church. Her small blue eyes, shining with inexplicable wisdom, looking out for memories of her youth. She would speak in soft, measured words that soothed my ears. And her slender, tiny hand would hold my own. Even as a young man I still walked holding that caring hand. Listening to the stories of her childhood, which she had spent in the same town. I would let her repeat the same tales, over and over again, as if she had never spoken of them before. Just to make her happy. I asked her questions to show my interest. And I would hear her tell of meeting my father at school, or how she had played as a child on the very street we were walking on.

Yes, they were pleasant days — days of innocence. We would walk in no rush, content to take our time. My mother wrapped in her flower dress and thick woolen stockings. Me in my crisp new uniform, about to be shipped off to Poland where unbeknownst to me, my innocence would be shattered forever.

If only I could have followed her dream and joined the seminary instead of the army. At least then I would have made her proud. Maybe father and her would never have fled and gotten themselves killed. Maybe one day, my mother would have smiled up at me from the front pew as I gave my first sermon. Instead of scowling at me from above, as she must surely be doing now.

* * * * * * * *

Decades later, I still return every Sunday to our church — in memory of my mother. I hobble there on my cane, with my wife’s hand in mine. It is a family tradition on its last legs. Our son Jürgen once joined us, but unlike myself as a child, he always ran ahead, eager to be done with it. So now, it is just Anna and I, hand-in-hand. Two determined relics of a past age, ambling toward the house of God.

I watch my Anna just as I watched my mother. Her grey hair dances in the breeze. Her cloudy eyes occasionally looking up at me, accompanied by a smile. I wonder, would she still smile if she knew?

No matter. My endless wondering sickens me. I am too afraid to find out the answer. So, I continue to keep it to myself. I swallow the shame that rises painfully like bile. My heart weighs heavy with guilt while I wear an expressionless mask. Even with my wife I am unable to come clean and bare my secrets. I am a husband and a father, and once a son. Yet I still hold my secrets from them all, hidden away in my rotten core.

As the pair of us walk silently through the church’s massive doorway, it is the same. Every Sunday I enter with the memories rising, like determined ghosts from the burial pits I helped filled. I walk between the pews with my shoulders shrinking under an invisible weight. But I do not confess, even to the lord. I hold it all inside like a poison eating at my soul. I don’t need a Priest to let God know what I did. God doesn’t miss things like organised murder. I felt His judgement as sure as I felt the rifle slam against my shoulder. I felt His pain as we waited for the next line of terrified victims to step into position.

Yes, He was there alright. It even said so on our belt buckles. GOTT MIT UNS it said — God Is With Us. I would look often at the phrase, stamped crudely in the metal as a weak justification for our crimes. The German eagle and the Swastika set boldly beneath the religious words, like some black joke.

Were we to find a sliver of comfort in the fact that God held up our pants?

It made no sense. Wherever I looked, I saw similar absurdity and contradiction. And I am sure God saw all of it as well.

I remember the group of us men, lying in a field of sunflowers after we had slaughtered the population of another village whose name I never bothered to note. Some of us had our shirts off, roasting in the hot rays of the Russian sun. We were like a bunch of school friends relaxing on a weekend trip to the countryside. But there was no picnic blanket, wine or bread. Beside us instead lay our rifles and our machine guns. And our jokes weren’t about girls we were courting, but about the atrocities we had only just committed.

I remember that moment clearly. I was mentally exhausted, trying to rest but unable to fall into the comfort of sleep. We did not talk of our pain. We all wanted to speak of our anguish. But we could not. We would laugh it off as only youngsters can do. Still fooled by a naive hope that everything would resolve itself in the end. We smiled, patting each other on the back. We laughed at how one man had tried to escape but was mowed down before he covered a few metres.

We tried to find humour in a subject without humour. Using our despicable laughter to somehow prove we were brave young men. We were in this war together, we told ourselves. When one of us was crumbling beneath its weight, the others would run to support them, to tell them it would be alright.

It’s strange, but lying in that field with my comrades I felt alone. My eyes were closed as I listened to the small insects flying past my ears. I breathed in the country air and thought of home — my mother, my father, the church or the chestnut tree in our yard. Anything to keep my mind off where I was. To my right, on a gradual rise, a forest of birch trees began. Hundreds of them swaying in the wind, their blood-red autumn leaves meeting a clear blue sky at the horizon. It was a beautiful forest that children would have played in before the war. A scene worthy of an artist’s brush. But now, the forest was empty of laughter, empty of childlike games.

At that moment, in the shade of a small clearing in the trees, lay piles of spent cartridges and a few cigarette butts. The shrubs there trampled by our hobnailed boots and the birds nowhere to be seen. Yes, while the local women shovelled dirt over their dead our group lay sunning themselves. Laughing at what we had done, trying to ease the guilt that lay heavy on our shoulders.

And as I lay there thinking about this cold hard truth — I imagined God standing in that clearing. I imagined him crying alongside the grieving widows, while I listened to the cold laughter of my comrades like the laughter of the Devil himself.

It was then that I finally accepted that I was doomed forever.

* * * * * * * *

A Different Kind Of Scribbling

2005-08-09T23:35:00.000+10:00

For better or worse; this weekend past, the Flea participated in a different kind of scribbling to his usual routine. Let's just say he exchanged his books and ideas for a pencil and an eraser. Or better yet, he exchanged his words for images.

That's right dear readers, after a twelve year hiatus from the visual art world, I have stumbled, somewhat awkwardly, back into drawing. In fact, recently I started focusing on visual artists full-stop. I've been reading various biographies and visiting local galleries. And ultimately, this has led me back to the darwing board -- literally. (Whether or not this has been a positive move, I'll let you decide).

I used to love drawing, but the last time I even tried, I was 15 years old, or there abouts. So I hope you'll bear with me and keep that front of mind when you check the below examples out.

Oh well, Part 2 of "An Army of Ants" shall be posted in another day or two. I just hope the naked sweethearts included here will make your latest visit worth the effort.

Note: these images were photographed with a shitty digital camera in poor lighting. Apologies in advance.

2005-08-03T00:13:00.000+10:00

An Army Of Ants (Part One)

2005-08-02T23:54:00.000+10:00

When my son asked what I did during the war, I lied. I have lied ever since.

In fact, whenever anyone asked me about that rotten war I have lied. But in my son’s case, I knew in advance the day would arrive. It approached like an inevitable death in the family. I knew from the moment Anna announced the pregnancy. I knew the instant they snipped his umbilical cord and I held him up for Anna to see. And from then on, I waited patiently for the fateful day to come — the day I would outdo my prior wretchedness in one giant leap.

I prepared myself for this day like a dying man making peace with god; maybe even the devil. I put my thoughts in order. I calmed myself with tepid justifications. And all the while, I waited for the explosion to ring out long after the war’s end.

This pathetic event was pre-ordained. It was written in the stars. I practised my lies as I changed Jürgen’s diapers. I rounded them out in my mind as I lay awake in bed each night.

These lies; they could not be avoided.

* * * * * *

When the time came, Jürgen looked at me with innocent expectation. He bounced up and down with nervous excitement. I can still see him, with his awe-struck expression, mouth agape. Just ten years old with an angelic purity still present in his demeanour. I suppose he was dying to hear of his father’s adventures. Let’s face it; he wanted tales of heroism. He wanted to hear something to share in the schoolyard; something to be proud of. But, in my case, there was never an incident in which to take pride.

No, there has only ever been shame. A sickening, stifling, acidic shame. And although I was lying, had always known I would, at least I didn’t speak of heroism. No . . . I can say this much; those sorts of self-serving lies would have dragged me under completely.

Yes, I admit; it’s all so ignominious, so disgraceful. It is also the truth. I threw myself into my ridiculous falsehoods without hesitation. I threw myself into them like the mud of the mass graves and the rhetoric of the National Socialists.

But then, could I have done different?

Was I supposed to hold my head up high and say I shot and hanged civilians, burned their houses and corralled them like cattle? Should I have proudly recounted my part in Hitler’s great war? Hitler’s noble venture of living space and annihilation for the greater Reich?

Yes Jürgen, one boy was about your age. He shit his pants before I shot him . . . his name? No, I never asked his name . . . their names didn’t matter.

How could I tell him the truth?

* * * * * *

Luckily, I had ample time to fine-tune my stories. Time was granted where mercy was refused. I spent a whole decade making mental notes; constantly aware the curtain would eventually be raised. I knew I would be required on stage soon enough, it was simply a matter of patience and endurance. So — when the hour finally struck, I had the appropriate tale at the ready. Like the worm I am, I played my part. I brushed aside all detail with as few words as possible. Telling a humble tale of serving in a rear-guard that saw little action. Recounting the exploits of an incompetent but innocent soldier. The main point being the intention to disappoint.

I spoke of endless marching and tasteless rations. I spoke of army drill and other assorted nonsense. Explaining my wound, my terrible limp, as a freak accident. And telling him all about the polish we used on out boots. Yes, I coated all my stories with the grey hue of boredom. All in the hope he would eventually lose interest.

Who knows, maybe he would sigh with the idea his father really had no part in the war after all.

But, if I thought that would be the end of it, I was sadly mistaken.

Years later, Jürgen’s son Friedrich posed the same questions. And as before, the lies were immediately resurrected. My grandson, as is understandable, was as eager as his father to hear of my battlefield experiences. He too smiled his cheerful smile, imagining all the possibilities of greatness I was about to reveal. He asked endless questions before I had even begun. But naturally, the floodgates of shit opened up and the same lies flowed once again. I covered him in it. His smile faded and his body sunk in on itself. He started fidgeting and his face turned the colour of ash. His beaming face slowly giving way to an expression of disappointment. All this, to the accompaniment of my monotone, inexpressive voice.

One could say, I was so tiresome, that I succeeded in my lies beyond all my intentions. But by then, my lies were second nature; impregnated in my very being. I vomited them from my mouth without shame. I was like an actor who has performed a scene over and over again. I had ironed out the flaws, perfected the key moments and not once did I forget my lines. I am convinced; no-one could tell a more boring tale. So tedious it could only be true. My voice droned on until Friedrich made his excuses to go to the bathroom. And when he leapt up and ran away before I could protest, I was overcome by a wretched relief.

The relief of all frauds when their myths have withheld for one more day.

* * * * * *

It is strange, but these lies have long since become a part of me. These drab, arduous tales; they are nearly real I have said them so often. I could almost convince myself of their authenticity, I picture it all so clearly. A multitude of non-existent incidents seen vividly in the mind’s eye. Fantastic propaganda. Like Goebbels, I have created a history from nothing.

And while I try to take comfort in these lies being convenient omissions, in the end, they are one and the same. Lies, lies, lies . . . that is all. Like omitting the fact I was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery. Never telling my son, my grandson, or even my wife for that matter. As if by not speaking of this truth I could somehow justify, or counterbalance the other omissions. I even withhold the fact I single-handedly knocked out two Soviet tanks that threatened my group’s position. In truth, I try to forget this incident and the medal that came with it. The same medal that now lies hidden beneath the river at Regensburg, along with all the other shitty pieces of tin we were supposed to grovel for.

But even I know there is no difference between lying about my bravery and lying about my obvious crimes. They are lies nonetheless.

* * * * * *

I can lie all I want. I can enlarge the region in my brain that contains all these falsehoods. But I cannot remove the tumour of truth that haunts my memory, even to this day. I remember my father telling me everything we have ever seen or heard is contained somewhere deep in the mind.

My father was always right.

Yes, no matter how hard I try, the truth is always there, buried in my pathetic little brain, contradicting the words I speak. This pathetic brain that once idolised Hitler and believed in the threat of International Jewry. It is a truth standing in stark contrast to all my bullshit. In fact, there isn’t enough bullshit in the world to completely cover the truth — not a lie large enough to swallow it.

I can lie to all and sundry, but for some reason I cannot lie to myself. There is a knowledge inside me, deep down, chained to reality and impossible to unlock. The real memories can’t even be repressed they are so extreme. The details so vivid they forever overcome the paper-thin foundations of my fanciful stories. The truth is all-knowing, all-powerful. The truth is indefatigable; unspeakable. And the truth has stayed unspoken for over 50 years.

But this doesn’t stop the endless dialogue in the depths of my being. An endless conversation between myself and the looming presence of my memory. Like all inner thoughts, it is a monologue of sorts; a monologue that pauses now and then, but never pauses long enough. It can be counted on to return no matter how long it has lain dormant. My memory will always awake. Eventually replaying all those images and sounds I only wish to forget.

For example; one truth, is my cowardice. The war highlighted it like a spotlight. I have lived with it my whole life. And to think I was awarded a medal for bravery. Bravery? I was never brave. It did not take courage to forget myself and fight without thought. Only fear could motivate such madness. Only the raging cowardice of a cornered rat could urge me to expose myself and fire on the hulking machines bearing down upon us. Surely, it wasn’t bravery that convinced me to aim my rifle at unarmed men? There is no courage in executing children, some mere toddlers, without the slightest concept of political ideals or religion? Nor is their courage in shooting a grown man.

Each time I saw a condemned man down the sites of my rifle, I did not feel brave. I did not look inward to discover an invisible virtue they like to call courage. Rather, I swallowed my protests and followed orders. I did not stray once from the path that led me to damnation. I aimed as best I could on account of my quivering arms. Aiming for the general region of their fast-beating hearts, hoping I would not miss. And I forever chose to close my eyes at the final moment; the moment I pulled the trigger. So cowardly I couldn’t even view the crimes I was committing.

In the darkness of my own skull I would hear the command and jerk the trigger, always on cue. The deafening salvo of rifle fire always shaking me to the core. The men standing on either side of me firing with me. The sharp discharge of the firing squad’s weapons echoing off the nearby mountains. Then, I would hear the muffled thuds and the scraping of the condemned, now falling lifelessly into the pit. A few seconds would pass, rifle breeches snapping open, smoky cartridges tumbling to the forest floor. My eyes would finally open to see the empty space before me. A void where a line of frightened men had just stood. Their crumpled bodies quite often still twitching in the bottom of the pits.

Bravery? No—I did not feel brave. Strangely, I didn’t feel much at all. Just a numbness cushioning my senses, resigning me to the belief that I shared the fate of the men I was then shooting. I did not feel the emotions that in peace-time move us to aid our fellow man. In fact, I did not feel human at all. I was like a stuffed animal — visually human, but entirely hollow beneath the preserved shell. Feelings were to be repressed, swallowed and digested in the acid of one’s belly. Refined emotions drove men to madness — pushing them back to a humanity where life was respected. I had seen it happen. And I knew if I returned there, I would be like a lost species. A forgotten animal of yesteryear, appearing from an unchartered wilderness.

I couldn’t exist in a world of culture and feeling. In my mind Germany no longer existed. To me, my village, my father, my mother — they were had been consumed by the inferno in which I was a part.

So instead of seeing my victims as human, I saw them exactly as Hitler had taught. They were all sub-human. They were slaughtered cattle we unfortunately couldn’t eat. I alternated between hatred of my victims and hatred of myself. Two opposites buried in my being. There was constant conflict in the air — on the battlefield and in my heart.

But I had already lost the battle against myself. That battle was lost the very instant I killed a man. A young Pollack with a pack and rifle, just as I wore. I still see him, through the sites of my rifle. Popping his head from around the wall to be shot in the throat. I can still see him lying there as we ran past, his eyes glazed over and the blood seeping in between the cracks of the cobblestones.

* * * * * *

The Currawong (Part 6 -- The Final Part)

2005-07-17T19:34:00.000+10:00

All is still. The brothel sleeps. And Nikki is alone.

She sits in night’s shadow, dishevelled and broken, locked inside a bathroom without ventilation. A small, locked window of frosted glass throwing a daub of moonlight over her crumpled form. She stares at the floor, body pulsing with short breaths. Staring at a muddy-green mould that breeds between the tiles like an alien vine. A constant drip falls from the showerhead into the stained bathtub — an intermittent plop. Over and over again. Ad infinitum.

She is locked in from her side. And her jailors leave her be — for now. The bathroom is a fragile fortress within her prison. And even her mind throws up flimsy barricades to keep the others at bay. She buries herself further inside herself. Burrowing ever deeper into the dark folds of her mind. She pulls in layer upon layer of despair, like rotten soil over her grave. All in the hope of digesting herself in the acid of her own misery, until nothing else remains.

She cannot bear her own presence. And she cannot face another human being. She fears their eyes — forever mocking her, torturing her, and taking sadistic pleasure from her pain.

She is sitting on the bathroom floor, wearing a faded track-suit. Her back against the wall and her knees tucked up against her chest. She is a mess — like a Picasso portrait. Her eyes are swollen and bloodshot and her skin pale like chalkdust. She can taste the metallic remnants of vomit in her mouth. And the smell of it still lingers in her blocked nose. She retches again, but nothing rises. Just a guttural sound in her chest like the death rattle of an expiring life.

All Nikki has left to expunge is her stomach itself. She is empty.
She looks at the toilet beside her, her own bile settling into it like black oil. She wants to flush it, but cannot find the energy. She is grounded to the spot she has already occupied for hours now, like a cat who has found a quiet place to die. Even her breathing is weak. Her pitiful gasps like a goldfish pulled from its tank and thrown into a corner to drown.

Is she dying?

She imagines death enveloping her in his black cape. His breath on her neck and his bony fingers taking her under each arm. And Nikki welcomes his image with open arms. She wants death and nothing else. She no longer fears his icy tendrils, intent on dragging her off into an infinite darkness. At least then, everything would cease and nothing would ever exist again. Nikki would finally have found nothingness, instead of hanging precariously over the precipice and staring it in the face.

But Nikki knows death has not arrived to take her just yet. Even in her black pessimism, she has not lost her mind yet.

So she raises her head and looks around. Observing what is known as the world. Her body and mind are exhausted. And her will to function in this place seems to have finally betrayed her. She looks at the walls of her prison. She looks at the ceiling, at the mouldy and peeling paint that hangs like rotten skin. Then, she looks again at the floor — a mosaic of varicoloured tiles in no order or pattern. And looking at these ting she decides nothing, nothing could be more absurd.

Her skeleton trembles from the cold seeping through her cheap track-suit. And her pale blue hands are clasped together as if in prayer. But Nikki does not pray. She only mourns. She mourns the death of her final dream. She mourns Albert. A myth of her own creation, now torn from her like everything else and sealed inside his coffin. Her imaginary friend and lover is dead and that is certain. She had used him as an argument to refute her non-existence. And yet, his death has only compounded it. She had placed all her bets on him in one last gamble.

She has lost the bet.

But of course, time rolls onwards. Night is fading. And with it, the morning light is already moving in to replace it. The day approaches stubbornly, gradually illuminating the details of a life Nikki so loathes. From the fading shadows appear the goose-bumps on her bare arms and the bleeding scabs left by Coco’s claws; the hole in one knee of her pants and the brown stain on the other. Yes, the coming daylight defines more and more of what surrounds her. The frayed and dirty toilet-brush propped up against the wall. The pastel towels hanging from the hooks on the back of the door.

Nikki sees it all with total detachment.

She can only see complete and utter absurdity, no matter where her gaze falls. Life — the ultimate absurdity — absolute fruitlessness. Now, she is totally incapable of applying purpose to what she sees. The toilet is only an object to her now — a meaningless shape. And the room is a muddle of lines, angles and colours, that mean absolutely nothing.

Is she dreaming? Is she mad? Or is this all that total lucidity can provide?

She tries to remember what she’d once imagined for herself as a child, but even these memories no longer come when called. She tries to recall what has kept her going all these years, but all she can be sure of is a fragile hope that now lies shattered, leaving nothing in its place.

Nothing — that is all Nikki can now be sure of.

She has spent most of the evening here in this room, ever since Albert executed her in cold blood. And while her time began with tears and the occasional splash of bile, it seems to have ended in nothing. Nikki is a hollow shell. Touch her and she will collapse into dust.

She has had no peace. Nor has she slept. Such a luxury has stayed forever from reach, barring her from its peaceful embrace. Instead Nikki has waited the night out — listening to the last of the rain fall upon the rooftop. Feeling the last of her strength fall upon her shoulders. Her mind has twisted and turned as it struggled against all that has passed and all that is to come. And like an earthworm in the rain, she has simply drowned and begun her journey down the drains and into the abyss.

Nikki does not want to move. She does not want to breathe. But can she stay like this forever? She knows that with morning will come life. She knows that the others will soon awake and the sounds of the world will also sprout with them. Life, growing like an unwanted weed that cannot be pulled from the soil. Growing with an accompaniment of multifarious sounds that will rise from the distance. Coughs, giggles and doors creaking on their hinges. Cars, birds and planes roaring overhead.

And this weed of life will grow until the inevitable footfalls approach her door. Maybe there will be a voice behind it, or the door handle squeaking as it turns. Either way, Nikki knows she will be drawn from her cave regardless. Surin will arrive — entering on the heel of a lock snapping open. Bringing the sound of the early morning traffic blowing in from the main road, before the door closes behind him. The keys on his belt will sing like the Reaper’s wind-chime as he approaches. And he will clear his throat with a sharp hacking cough.

The terrible, the ominous, the abominable and the tortuous — they are already closing in.

Nikki cannot bear it. The thought of their prying eyes and their accusatory stares. The shame and humiliation in which they will try to infect her.

I cannot allow them the satisfaction!

And with this Nikki feels a faint spark electrify her mind. A moment of defiance. A sharp pain like a needle stabbing into the soft flesh of her brain. She winces, drawing her arms tighter around her shoulders. The spark frightens her. But the spark quickly becomes something else — something that seems oddly warm. It is a sudden heat that conquers the cold for a moment. But what? She imagines the others seeing her so weak, standing over her, huddled in the corner. She sees Albert, Coco, Surin, Anna, Natalie and FiFi, all smiling at her wretched state and glad to find she has finally accepted the niche they had made for her. Enjoying the fact that she is nothing. And as a result of these very thoughts, the spark flickers in Nikki’s mind even brighter than before. It lights a small fire in her that straightens her curved spine and catches her attention.

Nikki’s tormented face rises like a demon from the depths of purgatory.

A small smile finds its way onto her lips. And she finally realises what has caused this burning within. Hatred — a small flame that smoulders weakly at first. But the more fuel that is added to the fire, the more it rages. Nikki thinks of Surin, and when he forced himself upon her those many months ago. She thinks of Coco’s horrible laughter and the dimples in her thighs. The fire beginning to crackle with even more spite. She thinks of Albert’s betrayal and Coco’s nails opening her flesh and making her blood flow. And the memories feed the flames like gushing winds. Nikki’s hate-filled memories blow against the timid flames until their billowing tongues rise ever higher.

And eventually, every inch of her being burns with the wraith of hell.

She will not allow them the satisfaction of breaking her. Them — they that torture her. Them — they that exist on this earth to consume until they themselves are consumed by all those that follow in their footsteps. Them — those that laugh like Hyenas in the pack, unaware that their allies are waiting for a show of weakness so they can pounce and destroy them in turn.

Them . . .

Memories Nikki has repressed suddenly begin to rise like an unstoppable storm. The fire begs for fuel and Nikki provides it. Its claws reach out in her mind for anything to maintain its hunger and its very being. An image of a customer taking her from behind flashes by — the faint impression he left inside her fluttering up through her belly. She remembers the one who drove his tongue inside her anus. Or the young couple who came together — the woman kissing and licking Nikki’s slit while the man looked on.

She remembers them all. She remembers them and swears to burn them in her fury.

The fire spits and crackles. And Nikki feels the blood in her veins rapidly thawing. She opens and closes her fists and she breathes in deeply. She must emerge from the shadows. She mustn’t give up. She is suddenly drawn to the sun rising outside and in whose rays she will eventually face them all. An instinctual voice whispers in her ears; urging her to stand, to move and to fight. And Nikki, for the first time in many months, obeys her inner voice and comes to life.

She lifts herself from the cold tiles, steadying herself with a palm flat on the wall. Her knees shake and she reels as blood rushes to her head. But still she fights it. Nikki stands silent, heaving for air, while nausea’s fingers scratch at her belly, trying to coax her into another bout of sickness. She is faint, her breathing short and erratic, her heartbeat fast and urgent. And while it is difficult going, she must go on. An impulse to fill her knotted stomach with water from the basin is strong. But, she resists, knowing it will exit the same way it entered.

No, she will go without. Nothing will stop her.

She tries to walk — stumbling forward. Her feet, bound in white socks with dust-blackened soles, shuffling her into action. She flushes the toilet, sending water whining through the pipes with a howl. And as she bows her face to the basin she catches her reflection in the mirror above it. A flash of her twin smiling back at her in the semi-dark morning light. She sees a woman she has never seen before. A corpse returned to life, but still bearing the scars of its demise. Her flesh is pale and her lips cracked like broken earth. Her desperate eyes staring back at her like the eyes of a cornered beast with nowhere left to go.

Nikki smiles knowingly at this creature before turning the tap and lowering her head to the basin.

Yes, I know . . . I know everything now.

The icy water startles her as she splashes it over her face, and yet its cool caress slowly revives her rusty senses. Nikki rubs and scrubs with both hands — forcing the cobwebs from her eyes and washing the metallic taste from her mouth. The liquid falling from the faucet like an anaesthetic. A natural opiate soaking into her bloodstream and awakening her soul.

She twists the tap off. And upon rising, Nikki turns from her reflection before it can speak. Instead, she goes for the door. She opens it without hesitation and finally emerges into the morning light which has partially penetrated the hall from windows of the backroom. Her wet fringe hangs in thick strands; stuck to her face like black leeches. And as she stands in the doorway, she looks cautiously down the empty hall. Not a sound comes from where the others sleep, but still she does not feel alone.

She imagines Surin appearing from the depths, approaching slowly. And while her fear urges her to back away and return to the shelter of the bathroom, Nikki stands her ground.

No — not this time. She will not succumb. She thinks of what they have done. She thinks of how they have treated her and thinks about how much she hates them all.

No — this time she is not afraid. If Surin appeared now, she would only laugh in his face. And if she had a knife, she would plunge it into his chest without remorse.

Nikki turns away and steps completely into the muted light of the hallway. She heads towards the backroom. It is brighter there — the rising sun filling the room with a vague blue light. She takes the small step onto the floorboards below and slowly, but with great determination, staggers past the couches and the sleeping God in the corner. She looks down on him with disgust as she makes her way to the kitchen. Spitting on the floor as she goes.

And when she enters the kitchen, Nikki does not notice the icy concrete freezing the soles of her feet. Her only focus is the window and what lies beyond. Her final steps are so shaky she almost falls, her hands gripping the bench for support. Her feet drag and her head spins, but she makes it to the sink. Relief hitting her full force as she looks down on the world below and realises she has made it so far.

The rising sun is yet to appear over the horizon to paint out the night sky. However, its great strength still shines on its approach, wrestling with the dying moon for precedence. Its flaming gaze slowly lightens the purple blanket overhead. And the result is a foregone conclusion. Gradually the blank silhouettes outside turn into three dimensional subjects. And gradually everything comes into view.

Nikki stands there for several minutes and watches silently. And gradually, over time, the garden reveals itself and so too do the rooftops. Nikki looks at the houses in the distance glowing in this strange blue light she has not seen before. She looks at the gum tree off to her right. She looks at the back lane and the buckled fence. And everything she sees is awash in this silver-blue hue that lightens the world and her heart right along with it.

She has not seen this painting before — it is like a corner of the gallery she has always missed. It is a world untarnished by the negative energies of a hundred woken souls. For a moment, Nikki even feels as if she is the only person alive. Everyone else still rests and so too does the world in which they live. Nikki is the only one awake to see the masterpiece before her and she is humbled by the experience.

All is still, the large gum tree standing like a rigid statue in calm repose. The silence is occasionally broken by the calls of the birds who talk amongst themselves in their musical tongue. And Nikki wonders whether the predatory tomcat has risen, or whether it too still lays curled up, asleep.

And then something catches her eye — movement in the branches of the gum. And she soon sees the Currawong she saw so many days ago. It may not be the same one, but to Nikki it is. The bird has returned to its castle like a noble King back from a long campaign. It hops and flaps upward, deftly skipping from branch to branch, further and further up the tree. And finally, it settles atop one of the highest limbs where it pauses to survey the scene.

It too admires the painting below, its head turning to and fro. It spreads its wings wide, stretching them calmly. One of its yellow eyes looking directly into Nikki’s eyes, before it calmly looks away. The great black bird raises its head and sings out across the valley. And then, flapping its wings, it takes to the morning air.

Nikki watches the bird go with immense admiration. She rises on tip-toes and breaths in deeply, filling herself with invisible life. With a flutter of her eyelashes that mirror the flutter of the Currawong’s wings, she smiles. And as she reaches for the carving knife in the sink, her smile only widens.

And while it is a smile filled with madness, it is a smile nonetheless. A smile soon followed by deranged laughter that quickly fills the building.

The laughter of the damned.

---------------- FIN ----------------

The Currawong (Part 5)

2005-07-11T01:06:00.000+10:00

For Nikki, another week passes in a blur. But being almost entirely without hope, it is like the blur of a thousand spinning razor blades. She follows her routines without question. And in her routines, her life is slowly consumed. The neat figures in her pad fill another page. Her hands turn over a fresh leaf and crease it down the spine, where the clean paper again awaits more ink.

And yet, nothing can stop the thoughts of Albert now that they have returned. Even when she is with a client she finds her mind wandering through memories that were once sweet, but now seem bitter to taste. They appear uncalled for, like an unwanted guest she is obliged to entertain.

In fact, Nikki is with a client now, and again she is thinking of Albert. She lies naked on the bed, her legs spread and hanging off the edge onto the floor. The client, a skeletal old man with snow white hair, kneels between them. His nose is poised but a few centimetres from her shaved sex. And he mutters deliriously as he sniffs her slit, his calloused hands massaging his a flaccid penis rising from a sea of white hair.

"Yes." he moans, "You smell so filthy. So marvellously filthy."

But Nikki does not hear his refrain. Instead she only sighs and throws an arm over her face. The man continuing his monologue as he lifts her legs now and pushes his nose against her anus. He pants and sniffs like a dog, but his tail won’t wag. And Nikki meanwhile wonders if she will see Albert again.

Albert, the man she once believed was her only friend. The only client who rose above the black waters of her suffering like an apparition. But who now seems to have sunken back from whence he came. Yes, Albert was one of her clients. And while he payed like all the others, he was a breed apart. He was a regular visitor to Nikki’s cell. He came only for her. And he was the only one who treated her like a person instead of an object. Spending most of his time talking to her with his calm voice instead of penetrating her with his tool.

The memories sadden her, but Nikki cannot help but study them endlessly. She loved Albert. In fact, she still does. His is a face she cannot forget. An image that comes to her when she is alone at night. It is a face to draw comfort from. Like the face of our mothers when we are frightened. And Nikki is like a soldier crying out for the one she loves as her life seeps out of her through a gaping wound.

Where are you darling? She wonders. I need you.

It has been almost a month now since she has seen him. And while each day bleeds into the next like a replaying silent movie, Albert’s absence seems to have smashed the projector and agitated the images upon the screen of her mind. His disappearance has crept on her like slow-moving virus. It is an attack her armour cannot deflect.

A spasm of fear pinches Nikki’s spine. The thought of never seeing Albert again impossible to bear. And for a moment, she is aware of the old man fidgeting between her legs. His depraved words rising to the surface momentarily, before they sink once more into oblivion.

"Disgusting, filthy bitch. Splendidly filthy . . ."

Nikki closes her eyes. Did she scare Albert off when she saw him last? When she allowed impulse to speak for her?

She remembers the incident as if it were yesterday. She told him she loved him. She wasn’t sure why she said it, but there was no turning back once it was said. She had spoken quietly, her mouth barely opening: "I love you Albert." And she felt great relief hearing her voice floating before her, released from the shackles of her fear. But when he simply laughed and shook his head, Nikki’s pleasure vanished abruptly. She was suddenly filled with regret. And a pain stronger than she imagined sparked through her. Albert’s laughter echoing in her ears and squeezing her chest in a vice-like grip.

Albert said: "How can you love me? You don’t even know me." And that was that.

Nikki had felt childish, a wave of humiliation washing over her. And the only thing that saved her from bursting into tears was Albert’s sudden concern. He quickly recognised her pain. And with a calm expression her leant in to hug her firmly. Whispering reassurances into her ear. His arms squeezing her tight and his warm lips pressing up against her neck.

If only he were with her now, instead of the mangy bloodhound sniffing at her backside. Whenever she was in his presence, he blew away all her fears. For the short time they were together, it was as if the world outside didn’t exist.

Nikki sadly imagines Albert’s face. She sees his square jaw and his roman nose. She recalls his thick dark hair and the rough stubble on his cleft chin. Stubble she once stroked with her hand, upwards and against the grain. She recalls his lips, like two soft delicacies. And finally she sees those eyes — blue gemstones that spoke volumes with their silence. A silent language more absolute than that of the tongue. He used to peer into her eyes with such intensity, as if their souls were entwined in an invisible embrace. He would look at her with such passion, as if he saw more than just nakedness, more than flesh, but actually saw her.

The only person alive who actually saw her.

Nikki throws her head to the side and moans. She had come to rely on Albert’s regular arrivals — sometimes several times a week. But they are no longer. He appears to have vanished into the ether, never to return. And yet, she cannot stop thinking of the times spent with him. Every time she laid eyes on him an explosion of joy would fill her veins. She would stand in line with the other girls, waiting to look into the room where an unseen client sat. Coming up to the doorway and praying it would be him sitting there on the couch. And when it was him, a flood of elation and relief would overflow inside her — the recognition on his smiling face as their eyes met and made love for the few seconds that she stood there.

Suddenly, Nikki would be energised. And with her back straight and her chest puffed with renewed vigour, she would strut off down the hall as if redeemed. Her head tilted upright as she swayed drunkenly, knowing he hadn’t seen anyone but her. Her heart fluttering and a smile turning up the corners of her lips.

Every time Nikki knew he would choose her. In fact, everyone in the brothel seemed to know. It was a game they all played — Nikki waiting for Surin to call her back to the desk where Albert would be paying for a whole hour. Nikki would stand beside him in repressed joy, her hands clasped together over her belly. And then, after the two men had completed their transaction, she would lead Albert down the hall toward their room. Nikki grinning with ecstasy as she strutted in front, feeling his eyes upon her as if they were is very hands.

So, where could he be? Why has he disappeared?

Nikki cannot find an explanation. But then, is love itself ever explicable? At the same time that Nikki fears something terrible has happened to him, she also fears he no longer thinks of her. Furthermore, she even wonders whether it was preposterous to have fallen for him in the first place. A client. A man who ventures behind these walls to consume and nothing else. How could she have believed he would be any different?

But Nikki fights such thoughts. The fantasy must be upheld. There is more to Albert than any man she has ever met. It wasn’t just his compliments or his good looks, but something so warm and definite, yet also so allusive. She felt it every time she was with him despite her inability to define it. She felt it as he held her afterwards. Her head laying on his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat and watching him smoke his cigarette. She cannot explain it. All she knows is, at those moments she was truly at ease. They were moments when she forgot all the suffering. Moments when the brothel was obliterated and she was lying in her own bed, in her own house and with her own lover.

And now, it appears, they are moments that are lost forever. Just like every other pleasant memory she once enjoyed.

And so Nikki returns momentarily to her reality. She raises her head and looks at the client’s wrinkled face with utter disgust. Sweat glistens on his bald spot and his dull eyes leer at her from drooping, blood-red sockets. He asks her to lie on her belly with a voice like death, and she slowly obeys. She buries her face in her arms once more as the man climbs onto the mattress behind her. The bed sways and creaks morbidly, like a corpse swinging from the gallows. And the old man pries her legs open with calloused hands, pushing his face in between her buttocks. His horribly warm breath slithers across her skin and his nose pushes inside her. He starts muttering again. And while he continues this strange procession, Nikki realises for the first time that she is overwhelmed by fear.

Yes, she is suddenly afraid. Her heart has started beating in her temples and her palms feel clammy. She even feels an urge to be sick as her head starts spinning. And yet, she clenches her eyes and grits her teeth in an attempt to fight it. She knows it is doubt that afflicts her. She knows she is afraid of the truth. Fearful that her high opinion of Albert is all but a fraud. And as this cold reality sinks in, she feels her sanity straining against a slender thread inside her heart.

Is he nothing but a fantasy? Is that why she never tested their apparent friendship by asking for help or revealing her imprisonment? Is that why she resisted the urge to tell him everything all those times? Had she tried to truly connect with him, would her last remaining dream have been obliterated the moment it was touched? Like a statue made of dust?

Is that it? Nikki asks herself. Am I afraid he isn’t what I imagined him to be? Is he never going to return?

But of course, Nikki receives no answers to her questions. They are queries directed at nobody, like the prayers of the faithful. And when she speaks into this void, silence is her only reply. If anything, it is this silence that drives her to hang ever more desperately to her dream. Like the faithful hanging onto their God even when his silence only highlights his absence.

But what are we to expect? All Nikki has left is her dreams — the only objects that solidify in her mind and sustain her existence. Albert is her dream. And he is a dream that continues evolving. She dreams he will take her away one day, that he is her salvation. She has imagined him buying out her contract, and freeing her from her prison. She has dreamt that he fights for her. Throttling Surin with his large hands and kicking him with his pointed shoes. She has seen Surin cowering beneath Albert’s blows time and time again. She has seen him crying and screaming for mercy. And in this particular fantasy world, Albert even invites Nikki to join him in his punishment. Seeing Surin at her feet, whimpering and bloodied, limbs twisted and shattered. Oh, if only it were real. She would ask him how it felt, she would kick him — NO — she would whip him with a belt, across the back of his legs. But not once, continuously, a hundred times, a thousand times, more, until her arms gave out and she could no longer continue. And then she would tell him his new name — a slave name — while Albert stood beside her, smiling his sweet smile.

Albert, her saviour. Albert, like a God who has disappeared into the shadows. Her once blind faith, now ebbing away as time inexorably passes. His absence growing more pronounced with each day that dies. And her need for him becoming ever more desperate in the process.

* * * * * * * *

Night has since fallen like a great purple beast. And while the clients, as always, break time into smaller segments, they make it no less easier to chew or digest.

Nikki is again in the back room, watching the minutes drag like a slow but determined snail. And she is at her usual spot on the faded couch. Her feet tucked beneath her and her hands pressed between her knees. The other girls are absent, shut away with their respective clients, except for Coco, who sits on the opposite couch absorbed in the television. She stares at the screen as if hypnotised. Leaning forward with her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. A lipstick-stained cigarette burning in an ashtray at her feet.

Outside, a light rain falls on the tin roof overhead.

A tension is thick in the air. Hatred filling the room like an insidious but invisible energy field. And yet, the pair of them don’t dare look at each other, let alone make conversation. They are arch enemies, forced to share a cell. And in a curious way, their hatred for each other, expanding daily, seems to sustain them in their boredom. Strangely, it is a pleasant break from their mind-numbing routine. Even if this hate itself is fast becoming part of the routine.

Nikki, as usual, barely occupies herself with the workings of her mind. Like the rain above, her thoughts fall like a grey shower into a muddy puddle. She broods in silence, her thoughts taken freely by the erratic winds that billow inside her skull. Earlier, she was thinking about Albert, but now she is imagining holding a loaded pistol in her hand. Like the changing of the seasons, her thoughts have passed from boredom to love and now onto hatred.

There is no innocence left inside her. In fact, there is neither guilt.

Nikki is living in a world inside her mind, separated from reality. And in this space, she does as she pleases. Right now, to her, there is actually a gun in her hand. She sees herself standing and approaching Coco. Raising the pistol at Coco’s face. Cocking the hammer and Coco looking up to stare into the gun’s gaping black eye. Nikki imagines pulling the trigger and she imagines the deafening sound that would fill her ears. The black eye a ball of flame and Coco thrown backwards into the couch in a shower of blood and floating feathers.

Nikki smiles behind her porcelain facade, her mouth expressionless but a smile hiding behind it nonetheless. She wishes her dream was reality. She knows she wouldn’t hesitate. She would squeeze the trigger and Coco would be finished. And then Nikki would move up the hallway, determined to finish what she had started. Like an exterminator hunting rodents. She sees doors opening and her naked sisters screaming as the bullets cut them down. The clients standing and raising their hands in pathetic gestures of defence. Nikki imagines shooting some in the groin and others in their faces. Peppering their white bodies with small black holes. And last but not least, she would deal with the biggest rat there is. Surin, with his long claws, bow legs and rotten halitosis. He too, would regret all he had done, just before the jaws of revenge carved the life from his chest.

And the thought of seeing Surin’s eyes bulge before the bullets struck almost drives Nikki into hysterics. She laughs now, this time for real. And she looks at Coco, who is staring at her now, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray at her feet. But Nikki doesn’t give a fuck.

"What?" Coco snaps petulantly before looking back at the television. "Go make tea or something."

But Nikki simply ignores the command. She simply smiles and rests her head against the wall. Closing her eyes and giggling quietly.

She has come realise she is growing numb to events such as these. Coco and her venom. The clients and their depravity. Even Albert’s absence. For all Nikki cares, Coco could scratch her all over with her fingernails. It would be meaningless. Nikki is numb to the pain that comes and goes with ever increasing regularity. She even finding an odd sense of security in it. It is a certainty that calms her with its predictability. She can always be sure of her pain.

But before she can pursue this thought any further, the sound of the doorbell fills the building. And everything is still. It is like an air-raid siren that snaps the brothel’s citizens to attention. Coco and Nikki’s faces meeting across the room in a split second of indecision. A common link between them that puckers the pores of their skin.

Another client is entering the building, out of sight, but there regardless.

Surin’s voice follows close behind the sound of the doorbell. His screams barrelling down the hall. "Nikki! Coco! Quick-lah!" He yells.

There is an appropriate pause — a silence where both the girls still sit motionless, before the relevance of the interruption truly sinks into their minds.

And then they both rise, in unison. Standing slowly like synchronised beings coming out of hibernation. Waking up from the wait, the urgency gradually creeping on them. Their pace quickens as they begin preparing for the task at hand. Coco smoothing out her skimpy outfit and running a hand through her shoulder length hair. While Nikki struggles into her heels unsteadily and straightens the wrinkles from her slip.

The voice intrudes again, impatiently. "Coco! Nikki! Quick quick!"

Coco is ready first, in character and on the move. She snatches up her vinyl handbag and slings it over her bare shoulder. And as Nikki crouches to buckle her heels she looks up to see Coco confidently strut toward the doorway and the long hall. Her thick legs striding past, rigid calves and hail damaged thighs disappearing through the frame.

There is no time to lose. Surin will not wait. Nikki takes up the pale blue handbag that accompanies her outfit and rushes off into the shadow of Coco’s footsteps. And Upon entering the hallway she can see Surin up ahead, outside the waiting room. He is already introducing Coco to the faceless client, his mouth moving with unheard words. He is gesturing with his face as his hands sit rigid in his pockets. And as Nikki passes door three, she catches a fragment of Anna’s fictional orgasm emanating from within. The sound of a satisfied customer.

Finally Nikki makes it, watching Coco in profile with the halogen bulbs from the waiting room illuminating her in a yellow glow. Surin motions for Coco’s turn to end and Coco grudgingly leaves the stage. Surin takes Nikki firmly by the arm. She stumbles off-balance and regains her posture just as she appears in the doorway. Surin saying: "You know Nikki?"

And Nikki suddenly gasps. Her eyes popping and her body shuddering all over.

Albert.

And there he is, finally — Albert, as if he had never left. He is stretched out on the leather lounge, with legs spread and his arms folded smugly across his chest. Nikki’s heart double-taps beneath her breast. But from the initial moment of open-mouthed shock, she has recovered quickly. A beaming smile now greets the man in his pin-striped suit and silver tie. Her cheeks are flushed red with childish abandon and she shivers with excitement.

"Of course I know Nikki." Albert says, his baritone voice filling the room and vibrating in Nikki’s ears. He smiles a brash grin and runs his hand through his hair. "How could I forget Nikki."

He pauses to savour the vision of excellence Nikki portrays. His gaze massaging her from toes to tummy, and breasts to chin. A smile expanding warmly above his whiskers as he proceeds. Finally his gaze settles on her face which brings his smile to maximum flex — the final connection. "Hello Nikki." he says, laughing.

Nikki can barely believe it. She’s in a state of shock. And she fights the urge to burst out laughing and leap across the room into his arms. Her legs are trembling and she can’t wipe the smile off her face. She barely pulls through on the back of a vain effort to restrain her bubbling excitement.

Albert’s appearance has come like a welcome ghost through a dark fog. Like a lost relative appearing through a crowd of strangers, arms open wide for the rule-book embrace. The mere recognition of in his smiling face sends a torrent of warm emotion pumping through Nikki’s circulatory system. Her chest fills with pride and joy, all her pain washing away in an instant.

Her only purpose amongst a compost of nothingness has returned.

"Hi." she whispers. Her hands sliding down over her hips to settle with fingers spread on her upper thighs. Immediately her childish flirtation has returned to her on instinct. Automatically a smooth curve curls her spine as she quickly builds an arousing pose. One leg points forward with a slight bend at the knee, and she rounds her bottom into an ample entree. Only for you, she thinks to herself. Only for you my dear Albert.

And as she flicks her hair over her shoulder seductively, she feels Surin’s grip tighten around her arm.

With this, Nikki knows the moment is temporarily over. But what does she care? It is inevitable she will be alone in her room with Albert in only a few minutes. And the mere thought of it is inexplicable. She can barely wait to plant her lips over his and taste him once more.

She does not resist as Surin pulls her to the side. She is already floating back down the hall, waiting to be called back.

"That is all tonight sir. Just two girls." she hears Surin saying as behind her as she happily drops her facade and allows the pleasure to finally break through the dam walls. There are no more eggshells underfoot. She walks the faded carpet on a soft cloud. Not too fast either, knowing for certain that she will be the one chosen.

Albert at last. From the moment she saw him, her whole being seems to have grown an extra inch from the encounter. And with each sure-footed step she continues to flourish. There is certainty to her movements now — swinging arms, her back straight and her face upturned as opposed to her everyday downcast skew. Even her usual foot-dragging shuffle is broken by a strangely determined and proud walk. And as she passes the rooms, she doesn’t notice the squeaking of bedsprings from beneath the doors. Her thoughts are flying, skipping from images of Albert’s nakedness and remembered sensations of his touch. She is drawn to him — attached by an invisible aura that is shared between them.

She reaches the backroom and the moment she sees Coco she can’t help but smile. Coco is on her couch again, unable to hide her anger, smoking a cigarette with violent movements. Her handbag lies thrown in the corner beside the statue of Buddha and her pumps sit not far off. And in Nikki’s drunken excitement it takes her a moment to realise that she is actually staring at her nemesis without fear.

It is strange — she isn’t afraid whatsoever. In fact, she wants Coco to see her staring. She wants Coco to see her pleasure.

And it is only now that Nikki finally sees the truth.

She has beaten Coco. Driven a stake through her and destroyed her supposed superiority. Nikki can’t stop the smile growing as she gazes upon Coco’s obvious fury. Coco is staring at the television in an attempt to cloak her anguish, but Nikki knows better. Coco’s normally white flesh is flushed red and her hand trembles as she brings her cigarette to her lips.

Nikki holds back laughter, but an obvious giggle forces itself from her lips. And a muscular twitch runs through Coco’s flesh as her only reply.

Nikki cannot believe it. Albert is here. And she has beaten Coco at her own game. Nikki has finally zeroed in on something she has always missed — victory. The taste, smell and feeling of victory. All this time she has been the one with the power, the one with the true arsenal. Beauty is her trump-card. Every time Coco expresses anger at her, it is for this reason alone. Coco is the weak one — and from here on out Nikki will never forget this crucial factor.

She even laughs now without restraint. And stares Coco in the eye as Coco swears under her breath. Nikki waits in nervous excitement for Surin’s call to come. A call that she can ride out of the room like a war horse, taking the reins firmly in hand and looking back at the defeated enemy in her wake. She wants to watch Coco’s reaction when the voice comes — wants to see the subtle signs of loss devour her — the death-throws, signified by a spasm of the mouth or the blink of an eye. That is all she needs to confirm her strength over the bitch sitting but a few feet away.

Come on. Just a few seconds more.

Nikki is biting her lip and still smiling widely.

And then it comes. Loud and clear. What she has waited so long for, but not what she ever expected.

"COCO!" Surin yells. "Coco."

And for a moment. Nikki feels her heart shatter. Her face draining of all colour and her hands dropping to her sides.

And for a moment, Nikki is no longer alive. Her spirit has left her.

You could hear a pin drop — a deathly silence fills the room. All is still, except for the rain that still falls above like a billion drops of sadness.

The two girls face-off in shocked confusion. They are eye-to-eye now, both disbelieving what their ears have heard. Neither wanting to move in case they are wrong, in case they look the ultimate fool.

But then Surin’s voice comes again, no mistaking it this time.

"COCO! What you doing?"

Coco jumps from the couch, a knife that thrusts through Nikki’s breastplate. Coco stands like a champion on the podium, while Nikki’s heart coughs and splutters painfully beneath her ribs. And in typical fashion, Coco takes the knife by the hilt and gives it a twist.

"Your friend no like you anymore?" She says cooly.

And then comes the laughter, like razor-wire whipping every inch of Nikki’s body. A short cackle that subsides as Coco crouches by Buddha to collect her discarded things. Her skirt bunches up to reveal her dimpled backside. An average arse that will soon be groped by Albert’s strong hands. Long black hair that will be held firmly and white shoulders that will be nibbled when he takes her from behind. And Coco now looks back over one of these same shoulders and laughs again.

"Your friend bored with you now. It’s okay, Coco give him good fuck for you." She grabs her cunt for emphasis. "Maybe he suck me yes?"

With that said and her heels once again lengthening her legs, Coco performs her victory march past the conquered. A slow slap in the face, one part for Nikki’s pain and one part for her own pleasure. Like the Germans in the Ukraine or the Japanese in Nanking Coco rapes and pillages without remorse. Driving her point home, when the point has already been driven. She brushes past Nikki arrogantly, their naked arms touching for a moment like the final insult. "Bye-bye Miss Nikki." she taunts, close enough for Nikki to smell the smoke on her breath. And with that, Coco exits the room with a swivel of her hips and a click of her tongue.

"Coming!" she yells.

Nikki’s legs quiver beneath the weight of her pain. The burden on her shoulders increasing tenfold until it can no longer be tolerated. Her body folds and sinks into the couch like a crumpled corpse — the couch’s springs whining in protest. Her eyes are vacant. They stare into space.

And meanwhile, Coco sways down the hall, her sloppy breasts bouncing in her top and her handbag swinging. She smiles at Albert’s hunger. She smiles at Nikki’s defeat. She smiles at her own success.

And Albert watches Coco approach without a thought for Nikki. He licks his pink lips and feels his scrotum twitching in his trosuers. He folds his arms across his silver tie, his mind swimming and his loins already filling with blood. He is sure he will have a good time. I’m going to fuck the hell out of this slut. He thinks to himself with a smile.

* * * * * * * *

In Good Company

2005-07-04T23:59:00.000+10:00

The other day, I went on a book-buying binge. And like a reformed junky who has since rediscoverd the habit, I went all out. It was an intoxicating and joyous occasion, as it always is. I was delirious. Money was no object. And 20 books and over 500 dollars later, I returned home ready for my fix. I was anxious for my first hit -- dying to mainline straight into my largest vein.

I guess you could call this "Confessions of a Book-Junky"

The moment I returned home, I read Phillipe Soupalt's "Last Nights of Paris" in one sitting. And like any top quality drug, it left me intoxicated but salivating for more. And so I picked up Jean Cocteau's "The Miscreant" and read that too. Fearless in the face of a possible overdose. Self-indulgent and guiltless. The hours flew by as I reclined on my couch and I ignored the occasional ringing of my phone. The cigarette butts accumulated in the ashtray like an orange fungus. And the phlegm accumulated in my throat like, well, like green phlegm. And while I paused now and then to empty my bladder of all the coffee I had been drinking, I was pretty-much rooted to my black vinyl couch like an old man in his rocking chair.

And now, now the remaining 18 books are piled high on my desk, right here beside me. They're waiting for a date in my lounge room. And I'm admiring them like prospective lovers who cannot refuse my advances. They're all dressed up in their classy jackets and scented with the perfume of ink and pulp. Seriously, I can't wait to fuck them good and proper.

Call me a dried out bookworm -- I don't mind (I'll be the first to admit it). But the fact is, I fucking love books (or at least some books).

But then, there is a fine art to making the right selections.

It's strange, but the skill of choosing books is like choosing friends. But unlike choosing friends, where mistakes are often made, you can actually throw a book away in disgust, or at least exchange it at a dusty second-hand bookstore if it isn't to your taste. Oh, if only we could exchange some of our friends now and then. Especially the ones that read like bestsellers -- spouting endless cliches, talking only about themselves or other friends, dressed in the latest fashions and so fucking predictable you could script your next conversation. But then, life is not so simple.

But, the fact is, I'm not here to discuss friends in the flesh, but the friends I purchased yesterday and am still glancing at now and then, in between my typing. Yes, I admit, they're one-sided relationships. Like sitting down to listen to a narcissist rattle on for hours without being able to get a word in edge-wise. Even when they've said something so profound, witty, beautiful, erotic, or in some cases ridiculous. But at least, when one has made the right selection, their endless monologues don't require my opinions. I can just sit back and relax and smoke and tell them to shut the fuck up when I need to take a piss.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not reccommending the replacement of real friends for the written word. But, where else can one find such interesting people who aren't too afraid or too pompous to share their thoughts with us? Where else can one find themselves in the company of a Black Panther on one hand and a sado-masochist on the other?

You'd be lucky to meet but one person of such depth in an entire lifetime.

Look at the following list (if it doesn't bore you):

George Jackson's "Soledad Brother"
Francoise Gilot's "Life With Picasso"
Aldred Jarry "The Ubu Plays"
Jean Cocteau's "Le Livre Blanc"
Guilliame Apollinaire's "The Amorous Adventures of Prince Mony Vibescu"
Marquis De Sade's "The Crimes of Love"
George Bataille's "Erotism -- Death and Sensuality"
George Bataille's "Bataille on Nietzsche"
Jean Cocteau's "Opium -- The Diary of His Cure"
Tristan Tzara's "Seven Dada Manifestos"
Michael Green's "Bataille's Wound"
Alfred Jarry's "The Supermale"
Pablo Picasso's "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and Other Poems"
Marquis De Sade's "Selected Letters"
Henry Miller's "The World of Lawrence"
George Bataille's "The Tears of Eros"
Pierre Klossowski's "Nietzsche and The Vicious Circle"

And while I'm aware there's only one woman amongst them, I'm currently reading Susan Sontag's "The Fear of Flying", so I feel somewhat excused.

But the fact is, look at the company I find myself in. My friends are Dadaists, Surrealists, Cubists, nihilists, sadists, masochists, egoists, Black Panthers, opium addicts, philosophers, freedom fighters, libertines, rapists, accused murderers, avant-garde poets, playwrights, painters, writers, directors, heterosexuals, homosexuals, bi-sexuals, dead and buried, alive and well, on Death Row, imprisoned in the Bastille, loved and hated, lovers and haters, depraved and enlightened! George Jackson was one of the first Black Panthers. And as Jesus was the first Christian, the Marquis De Sade was surely the first sadist. George Bataille fought for Nietzsche during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Henry Miller changed the lives of thousands of men the world over.

Need I say more?

These people are everything I rarely encounter in the real world, and they are at my beck and call. And despite the cheesy romanticism colouring my words, to me they're all good friends. They may have been arseholes -- true. They may have even hated me in real life. But then, I'd rather the company of an interesting arsehole than a boring saint. I'd rather De Sade's passion for filth than the dry theology of Francis of Asisi. But hey, that's just me.

Either way, as far as I am concerned, I'm in good company.

The Currawong (Part 4)

2005-06-26T18:55:00.000+10:00

And so the routine continues. It is morning now. And Nikki is sitting on a lounge in the backroom, already dressed for the day’s work ahead. She wears a sheer, pale blue chemise. The same, unwashed outfit Fifi wore yesterday. Still smelling of cheap perfume and the faded dregs of masculine sweat.

Coco and Anna are with her, sitting on the opposite couch. But Nikki pays them no mind. Coco is painting Anna’s toenails — Anna squatting unashamedly with her legs up and her panties showing. While Nikki’s thoughts themselves drift on an open sea. Rising with the black waves and settling into the seemingly peaceful lulls.

She is staring at her fingertips, studying the curving patterns of her fingerprints, reminiscent of mountains on a topographic map. She tries to follow the paths, but becomes lost in the line of another curve, another bend, and another trail — until she is back where she started. And while the task may be boring, to Nikki, it is a task as good as any other.

She would rather stare at her fingers or into space than watch the television now playing from one corner of the room. Anything is better than that. The television’s very presence offends her — with its forced laughter and grim smiles, contrasting so strongly with Nikki’s current state of being. She hates its fanciful tales and its exaggerated dramas. And she hates the people on its screen too. White people; Australians — showing her they are happy and prosperous, while she will forever be sad and destitute. Servicing their every whim.

Nikki hates them with a tempestuous loathing. A hatred she did not know until she had reached this place. These pathetic Australians, with their fashionable outfits and their pale skin reeking of death. Their flash houses and their endless products. They are demons disguised as angels. Their cars shimmer, reflecting green forests as they glide over open highways. Their high-rise buildings jut into the sky like arrogant, concrete erections, symbolic of the men’s greed Nikki knows is impossible to stem. And the women too, slinking behind the screen and dancing in a flood of shameless sexuality. Their parasitic men escorting them nobly, while hiding their true thoughts of whores and depravity.

If only these women knew the lips they kiss each evening had been pressed against Nikki’s rectum that very morning. And the penises they occasionally endure are still moist with the fluids of others.

Nikki detests their world. Their apparently peaceful and virtuous garden. Don’t they see it is grown in an compost of human filth? Nourished only by broken bodies and an excess of human suffering?

Nikki looks over at her sisters.

Coco is finished with Anna’s toes and now paints her fingernails. Anna’s arm draped across the sickly grey bareness of Coco’s thighs. Nikki watches in disgust. They chatter like monkeys picking the lice from each other’s hides. Their aging flesh hanging from tight-fitting outfits in bulging folds.

The mere sight of them, only compounds Nikki’s anxiety. But then, what is she to do?

Nikki grits her teeth, clasping her hands between her knees and looking at the alter on the floor. An inconspicuous statue placed in the corner to honour the Gods. Buddha sits calmly within it and stares back at her with his lifeless eyes. And Nikki’s breast trembles now as she swallows the urge to scream.

It seems strange to her, but she hates the alter as much as the television. If not more. There is something in its presence that taunts her silently.

She used to enjoy lighting the incense and praying back home. But she actually had faith in her religion then. She would hold the smouldering incense sticks between both hands and watch the grey snakes of smoke slithering up to what she thought were the heavens above. She would pray for her family and her ancestors and even herself. But now, she prays for nothing. Now, she has no faith and she has no God. Her pleas for mercy have gone unanswered too long.

Yes, she still lights the incense daily, but it is an act performed solely from spite. Someone in this hell-hole must perform the duty and it is one that has fallen to her. Except, she doesn’t offer Buddha any prayers or gifts. Instead, she only curses him as he sits smugly before her in a halo of arrogance. He is no longer a symbol of hope, but a symbol of pain. She loathes his flowing robes and his ridiculously large earlobes. He is as helpless as her, trapped in the world, powerless to change anything.

Nikki wonders what he is waiting for. Propped there calmly, expecting her to find nirvana in the depths of hell. She wants to smash him to pieces. Only a prince with riches and abundance could renounce life. There is no room for those who have nothing left to renounce.

Oh, how Nikki hates him. A long-eared sadist, sitting stiffly on a lotus flower. Covered in dust and cobwebs, a mouldy mandarin at his feet and three spent incense sticks standing upright before him, like bars on a cell. Just as Nikki is, Buddha too seems imprisoned here. He is a fixture in a room full of other items and that is all. He is just as meaningless.

In fact, Nikki’s worn-out cunt has more relevance in this despicable world. You will find no cobwebs between her thighs. And every night, men come to bow at the inconspicuous slit Nikki so loathes. Every night they find illumination in her loins, instead of in Buddha’s dusty mantras.

You and your Nirvana, Nikki thinks to herself, you fool nobody.

She feels nauseous. It is all too much. Not just Buddha or her gossiping sisters — but everything. She cannot bear the stillness surrounding her — a silent killer eating at her thoughts and her patience. She has had enough. She raises herself from the couch on a futile quest for contentment. But where it can be found is anybody’s guess.

But still, she searches for something — anything to stifle her approaching madness. She wants to scream. She wants to go to the kitchen and impale herself upon the large carving knife tucked away in the drawer there. Even another client would be better than this nothingness. Anything to singe her flesh and brand itself upon her soul. Whether it be Surin’s belt across her legs, or her sisters ridiculing her as they so often do. Anything to inflame the greyness of her existence. Just a daub of colour to remind her she is alive, even if it is the colour of her own blood.

It feels as if she if forever waiting. In times such as these, each moment she spends in excruciating inactivity, she wishes and waits for another client. And then, once a client has arrived, she impatiently wishes for and awaits the excruciating inactivity once more.

It is an endless circle.

Currently, the greyness of the morning is surrounding Nikki like the soil of her own grave. She is suffocating. She is sinking forever downwards into its depths. A slow, dull and excruciating death that never completes its journey — only descending ever deeper into its core.

And even if she is buried in this grey reality, completely and totally covered over, oxygen will still force itself into her lungs and continue to sustain her existence. Even in this grey graveyard of life — she still breathes. Death may admire her youthful beauty from afar, but he will not take her until he is ready. He will not offer her respite or a profound experience. Nikki will have no rest.

Her heart beats weakly. Her breathing comes in shallow waves. And meanwhile, Coco runs a blood-red brush across Anna’s fingernails. The brothel’s doorbell staying silent, for now.

* * * * * * *

Later, Nikki stands at the kitchen sink trembling. Pupils dilated and nostrils flared. She wipes Coco’s spit from her face with a wet towel. And she runs cold water over the small wounds running down the inside of her arm. It stings — sending fire through her flesh. But she does not flinch. Instead, she just stares at the four welts where Coco’s nails dug into her flesh only moments ago. Tears run down Nikki’s face, mixing with the drops of water coating her flushed cheeks. And as she removes her arm from beneath the running tap, blood fast refills the wounds until they look like red crescent moons.

Nikki foresaw Coco’s assault. So she faced her attacker stoically and without a sound. Like a woman before the firing squad who refuses the blindfold, she stood motionless, yet oddly brave, even as Coco fired off her barrage. Coco spat into Nikki’s eyes and cursed her through gritted teeth. Coco’s manicured nails buried deep into Nikki’s arm, twisting and tugging at it violently until the pain almost overcame her. And then Coco left — hurriedly — almost as fast as she’d come. Her stiletto heels clacking loudly against the tiled floor. And leaving Nikki in a state of shock to absorb the event in an ever-oppressive solitude.

Nikki is not wholly surprised. Of the four clients who have come through the door today, every one has chosen her for their fun. They only gave Coco and Anna cursory glances before making their decisions. As far as they were concerned there was no competition. They desired only Nikki. And so they too her to undress and lie on the stained mattress once again, while Coco and Anna returned to the backroom. Anger bubbling in their veins and dreams of revenge pulsing in their temples.

So to Nikki, Coco’s attack had seemed inevitable. It was only a matter of when. Nd so it came when Nikki returned from the fourth customer, the shadow of his giant member still haunting her loins. She heard Coco’s heels follow her into the kitchen. And in an instant, she understood everything. She turned to watch her assailant approach. Staring into Coco’s eyes with an expression of obvious defiance, prepared for whatever she was to receive.

And now, after the fact, as Nikki shuts off the faucet, she listens to Anna and Coco talking in the room next door as if nothing has happened. It’s strange, but if it wasn’t for the throbbing pain in her arm she wouldn’t believe anything had.

She imagines the other two, Jasmine and Fifi, joining the party soon, when they awake from the late shift. And she imagines all four of them conspiring against her and laughing at the punishment Coco performed in their name. And with this in mind, Nikki already imagines the next customer arriving. Seeing herself smiling at her sisters as she leads him down the hall to her room. Unafraid of them, their punishment or their hatred. Again — what is the point of resistance?

If she is to be the enemy, she will accept this as she has accepted everything else.

Nikki laughs despairingly, patting her face dry with a tattered tea towel. And when she is finished, she tosses it onto the bench and looks out the small window above the sink. She puts the incident and its painful aftermath out of mind. Focussing on the vision before her and doing her best to ignore the searing pain still lurking in her arm. She won’t allow Coco’s attack to have the desired effect. So she stares through the window at the world beyond, hoping to take her mind off what has only just transpired. Driving the memory into the dark cavern deep inside her. The storeroom of all her pain and sorrow, so full now that it bulges at the seams, threatening to explode.

Nikki does not blink. She simply stares through the window. And while the glass is murky and streaked with grime on the outside, she can still see the scene below. A twisted smile possessing her tormented face as she surveys the horizon. A smile tainted by the bristles of a madman’s brush.

She stands here often, at the window above the sink, watching the strange world move beyond her borders. And still it does not tire her. She gazes upon freedom, separated from it by a slender piece of glass. The scene is the same daily, each detail able to be reproduced in her mind from memory, but she still spends many hours here. She returns to it daily — even at nights, when the dark sky hangs heavy and the house lights shimmer in the distance.

The window is Nikki’s sole diversion from the death within these walls. Another world exists outside — a world she does not know. A world full of life and activity, instead of the cemetery that is the brothel and the rotting corpses that are its occupants. So she looks upon it as life in its entirety. She looks at the window as a painting. A painting to be admired and studied, in the hope of finding an allusive meaning hidden in its depths.

And Nikki while studies the view with a careful patience, searching for new details, her imagination runs wild. She conjures up stories for the people that pass, or imagines what may be happening in one of the many houses she sees below. A wife discovering her husband has been to a brothel. A young girl on the phone to her lover. Or even a newborn baby sleeping peacefully in a crib.

Her blank expression does not betray a hint of emotion as she surveys the scene. The cold metal of the sink pressed against her bare belly and her arms folded across her chest. She is an impartial observer. At these moments, she is like God, observing the world from above.

She looks down on a shallow valley. A landscape filled with houses and other assorted buildings. Rows of rooftops — orange terra-cotta tiles, black slate and corrugated iron. There are geometrical streets, lines of streetlights and rows of parked cars. And today, from the horizon made of crooked roofs, emerges a cloudless sky. A flawless sheet — cool white at the base, fading into a pale blue the higher she goes.

She also looks into the brothel’s neglected backyard, immediately below the window. A yard enclosed in several sheets of mismatched corrugated iron, bolted together to make up a jagged fence. It is overgrown with weeds and finished by a large gum tree by the back fence. And Nikki notices a tomcat emerging from the long dry grass at its base. The cat slinks cautiously through the undergrowth, carefully placing each paw as it moves. His head raised and his determined eyes fixed intensely on something above.

Nikki follows his line of sight, looking into the swaying branches of the gum tree, wondering what has caught his attention.

A heavy wind rocks the huge tree back and forth, like a boat on stormy seas. And Nikki stays motionless. Her eyes searching the branches until she sees a flash of black. She smiles upon seeing what the Cat lusts after. It is a bird — a Currawong, fluttering its black wings and dancing from limb to limb. It settles on a dead branch devoid of leaves and opens its tail feathers like a courtesan’s fan. Tilting its head, it looks down at the hungry predator below, but seems not perturbed.

Nikki’s eyes glisten with restrained excitement. She admires the dark bird’s grandeur. Its black feathers shimmer in the sunlight like polished onyx. And its yellow eyes are bright pinpricks in the darkness of its plumage. It is obvious the bird sees the cat lurking below, but it isn’t bothered. The air of heights shield it from its claws. And as if to drive its point home, the Currawong grinds its long beak back and forth across a branch, like sharpening a blade.

Nikki is transfixed by the vision before her. And in her questionable state she is overwhelmed by its obvious symbolism.

She pictures herself as the Currawong, noble and grand, above the dirt and the pain that lurks below. Completely out of harms way. And she sees the cat like all she wishes to escape from: Surin, the clients, her sisters and the brothel. She is enjoying the cat’s obvious frustration. His frightening eyes staring cruelly at a possible victim that if fortunately far beyond his grasp. His coat of mottled fur shuddering in agitation and his mouth hanging open.

Nikki bursts into uncontrollable laughter. The cat lowering its head in resignation and pouncing over a lower portion of the fence and disappearing into the back lane. And meanwhile, the proud bird, with its chest swollen, pays it no mind. Its feathers billow about in the wind as it sways comfortably with the rocking of the tree. Like a god, it seems indifferent to the volatility of the world in which it resides. And Nikki nods her head in respect as it finally takes to the sky, gliding impressively on the winds before moving from view.

And Nikki is still smiling as her eyes stare now at the houses in the distance. But her pleasure his short-lived. The smile quickly fades and a sickening feeling grips her stomach.

She steps away from the sink, frowning and hugging her shoulders. She is thinking of Albert. His handsome face rising from the darkness of her mind into the small light that illuminates her consciousness.

She walks backwards slowly. Overcome by the sudden intrusion of his memory.

It has been weeks now since she has seen him. And in recent days she has even repressed her thoughts of him so as to reduce her suffering. And yet, her efforts have been in vane. Still, Albert’s memory haunts her. Albert — the only person who came to mean something to her in her new life.

Suddenly, he has returned — if not in the flesh, at least in the mind. And as with every warm memory that occasionally breaks through Nikki’s defences, she suddenly feels her loneliness like never before. It weighs on her like a terrible burden. It pierces her like a spear. Her loneliness fills her lungs with each breath she takes in. And as she exhales, the hollow left in her chest is like the emptiness now overcoming her heart.

"Albert . . ." she whispers, seeing his face clearly in her mind’s eye. An image that fills her with longing.

She reaches out her arm and steadies herself against the wall. Tears already welling up at the corners of her eyes.

"Where are you Albert?" she says, "Please, not you too."

A grape, having sat too long in the sun . . .

2005-06-16T16:31:00.000+10:00

The ability for pleasure is leaving me. Not the desire for, but the ability . . . I am like a once juicy grape, turned sultana in the sun. My juice has dried. And while there is flesh attached to my bones, it is simply sultana flesh.

My juice seems to have flowed out of me through an unseen wound. I have bled dry. My impulsiveness. My passion. My deliriousness. My courage. They all seem to have abandoned me. And now of all times -- when I need them most. I can only hope that they are simply in hibernation -- easily reawoken.

I need to get drunk or stoned. I need to fuck a warm cunt. Nibble on maleable breasts. Dance without restraint. I need to taste fine food and swallow mouthfuls of blood-red wine. I need to feel once more. I need to live, without a thought of the future or rememberance of things past. I need to smile. Scream. Whoop. Spit. Grind. Laugh. Ejaculate. Dance. Leap. Meditate. I need to listen to music, watch the birds, admire art. I need to exhaust myself through action and experience! Afterward, falling into a deep sleep without guilt.

Yes, I need to let go. I need to murder my thoughts and water my emotions.

A cruel, dry rationalism seems to have infected me. Maybe I have been reading too long. Maybe my thirst for literature has robbed me of my thirst for life.

What has happened to my courage?

I must leap into the abyss again. I must do something unthought of. I need to be born again. I need to rise from the grey ashes of my smouldering corpse. Otherwise, I see no solution to my current predicament.

The Currawong (Part 3)

2005-06-15T23:07:00.000+10:00

Steam . . . Silence . . . Solitude . . .

Nikki’s skull feels heavy upon her neck. The client has left and she is alone again. But then, isn’t she always alone? As the world moves around her, people enter her, speak to her, look at her, but she isn’t moving with them. Nikki exists on another plain. She is an object breathing for others’ consumption, but never for herself. A permanent fixture, trapped in time and an endless solitude. In fact, even the room seems larger now that the client has left her. It is empty and hollow, like the cavity in her chest. A hole in space time in which she floats in endless suspension.

Her presence doesn’t supply the room with warmth or humanity. In a strange way, Nikki feels as if she has no presence.

She sits naked and cold, her legs folded in front of her and her arms hugging them against her breasts. She looks at the walls of her cell. Cracked, bubbled and peeling paint. A faded, curled scrap of paper saying: Our ladies maintain a high standard of health and safety. But Nikki does not understand the meaning of the nonsensical sign. Instead, she looks again at the pornography, cello-taped to the wall. Assorted images, cut from magazines, their colours dulled over time.

She studies the images one by one, lost in thought. She wonders if this is all she is — smut? Or is she real? Her flesh, her lips, her breasts, her feelings and her thoughts — are they real?

Is there even a difference?

In her thoughts, Nikki sees herself taped to the wall, beside all the other women she sees. The blonde, laying back and opening herself. Or the brunette, with her fingers buried inside her sex. But the more she thinks about it, Nikki does not believe she is at all like them. The nakedness may be there, but there is no seductive gaze, fleeting look, or erotic pose. The image she sees of herself, is only herself. Seated on the edge of the bed, back against the wall, face drawn and eyes downcast. She cannot see how men can desire such an image. Nikki is a convict in a cell, resigned to her fate. Not an active participant like the women on the wall, playing to the lense of the camera.

The room is exceedingly cold. Nikki looks at the skin on her arms, goose-pimpled like the flesh of freshly plucked chicken. She hates the cold. To Nikki, it always feels cold, even when it is hot. It is a state of mind. Ice in the veins. A icy cold embrace, forever reminding her she still breathes. The icy air always lurking around the nearest corner, waiting to tickle the fine hairs on the back of her neck. It whispers to her day by day. It whispers the truth — a cold truth.

In the beginning, after she arrived, Nikki tried to ignore its presence. She pretended it wasn’t there and tried to find even a sliver of hope. But one can only hide from reality for so long. Sooner or later, it will break through one’s defences. And although Nikki tried to convince herself she was imagining things, that she would wake up soon, the cold truth stayed its course. Until even she had to accept its painful reality.

And now, she always feels it writhing in her depths, solidifying in her blood and crystallising in her heart. She has even come to even thrive on its icy breath. It has become part of the routine. Something she can rely on, like her clients and the horrible clothes she must wear. An aspect of her life, that while difficult to endure, is a burden easier to carry when accepted, rather than resisted.

And so Nikki, looks at the goose-pimples now coating her flesh. She even sucks the cold air deep into her lungs, focussing upon the sensations it causes. She holds it inside until it burns, until her face turns red and she must fight for more air. Finally gasping loudly. And a thick mist billowing from her mouth.

Nikki could stay in this room forever, letting her life pass her by. Allowing the cold to seep in and her mind to wander. But, as always, reality intrudes. In this case, coming in the form of the doorbell ringing insistently from the hallway.

She looks to the door, still open from when the last client left. Her weak grasp on a tenuous peace suddenly slipping. And although Surin is most likely expecting her, she does not hurry. Instead, Nikki moves slowly. She stretches her legs out in front of her, pointing her toes and feeling the muscles expand and contract. She stares at her feet, as if noticing them for the first time. And then she frowns.

More existence.

It seems ridiculous. She wiggles her toes and the sight of them moving seems absurd. She thinks of the sadness, lying perpetually in the pit of her stomach, and that too seems absurd.

And now, she must rise and continue playing this charade. The thought of resisting it just as absurd as the thought of accepting it.

What would be the point?

So Nikki moves to the edge of the bed, releasing a resigned sigh like that of the condemned. Her small feet touching the carpet, toes clenching and gripping the fabric like fists. Her naked frame stands, like a puppet on strings, controlled by someone else. Like an automaton gradually coming to life — programmed to complete a ritual signifying the close of another encounter with another client.

A ritual practised several times a day.

First, Nikki takes the soiled tissues and the used condom from the bed and dumps them into the flip-top bin. The smell of stale semen wafting into her nostrils and making her throat convulse. She also takes the client’s used towel and throws it into a cheap, wicker hamper sitting by the broken oil heater.

She moves towards the bed — the sacrificial alter. She puffs life back into the pillows and smooths out the ruffled imprint of sex from the sheets. She picks up a plastic rose from the floor and places it on top of the pillows. A faded red bud and a crooked green stem she often wishes was real. With sharp thorns on which she could lie as she is being entered by each client. The thorns tearing and stabbing through the skin of her back. The pain a pure, divine diversion from the cruel pain prodding at her womb.

She is supposed to shower now, to freshen herself for the next client, but Nikki only looks at the dripping shower cubicle with indifference. The mere thought of showering sickens her. It seems as if she is always in there, behind the foggy glass, with a jet of lukewarm water on her back. Squeezing shower gel into her hand and working it into a lather. Cleansing herself of another client’s legacy.

But why, she wonders, when they are only going to dirty her again. May another toad soil himself as she too is soiled.

So she refuses to shower. Her refusal, just another broken fragment of power on which she can clutch. So while she walks over and turns the faucets on, so Surin can hear the water rushing through the pipes, she doesn’t even think of stepping inside. Instead, she picks her wrinkled white panties off the floor and slips into them. Squeezing herself into her tight black mini-skirt and zipping it up. And after she has tied her bikini over her breasts, she sits down on the edge of the bed. She buckles her stiletto heels she watches a thick cloud of steam billow across the mouldy ceiling.

And lastly, after she has tied her hair up, Nikki retrieves a dog-eared notebook from the bedside table. Plucking it from amongst the boxes of tissues, twisted tubes of KY and shining rows of condom packets. It is a logbook of sorts — a record of each man she has serviced since she began her sentence. And, just like a convict marking her time, she marks off the last client with a ball-point pen. She writes a number down: 83. A number in blue ink that corresponds to the Orangutang — her 83rd client since she started her sentence.

She looks up at the clock now, attached to the wall, above the bed. 10:16 pm it reads. And she writes this down too, jotting the number 417 beside it. 417 more men to service before she can supposedly leave this prison. She thinks about the time and realises she has just under four hours left tonight, before her shift is over. Five more clients say, maybe more, before she can close her legs without fear of having to open them again. Until morning of course, when it starts all over again.

She watches as the clock clicks over to 10:17 pm. The minute hand making a sharp sound that makes her blink. The time ahead of her is an eternity. Nikki doesn’t even try to comprehend it, let alone the 417 clients who are to make it up. The mere thought of four more hours, before she can close her eyes and sleep, is painful enough. She’s dying to collapse into bed. Where she can enter her own private world. The only world in which she is in charge. And where she may find a fleeting pleasure in a splendid dream.

She looks again at the figures in her logbook and shudders. She stares at the numbers, trying to feel something in the offensively rational markings she herself has made. But it is as if she were reading a foreign tongue.

Four more hours . . .

417 more men . . .

She wonders whether she will live to see the end of it. She asks herself whether she can resist the carving knife, out in the kitchen. The one she uses to chop the vegetables and hack at the chicken and pork carcasses as if she were hacking away at her clients. The largest knife, with the sharpest blade.

Wouldn’t it be easy to run it once across each wrist and feel her life bleed out of her? Or maybe press the point to her chest, thrusting it between her ribs and into her heart. It would be a moment of decisiveness followed by a flash of pain. And then what?

She wonders if this is really something to fear. The end — with infinite darkness and infinite peace.

She bites her lip as she closes the logbook and returns it to its home, beside the condoms and the tissues and the lubricant. And then she stands, ignoring the imprint her bottom has left on the sheets.

And as she makes her way to the exit, the doorbell rings again, before she has even made it out into the hall.

Surin is yelling now. And Coco rushes past her, wobbling on dagger-like heels. Nikki pauses in the doorway, gripping it with her hands. Fifi too trots by, her dimpled behind shuddering as she hurries to her father on her thick, trunk-like legs.

Nikki sighs, closing her eyes momentarily, before turning to follow the parade. She sees Surin up ahead, smiling his crooked smile and holding Coco’s fat grey arm in his hand. Coco is cooing at the client, her stubby fingers cupping her breasts and pushing them over the top of her lacy bra. While Fifi runs her hands through her hair, awaiting her turn.

Nikki’s legs carry her forward shakily. But her mind is firmly in retreat.

My Apologies

2005-06-14T23:35:00.000+10:00

Hello all. Just a quick note to apologise to those who have visited in recent days in the hope of finding any updates here. Unfortunately, resurrecting The Currawong (an old story), in the hope of salvaging something from its remains, is proving to be a painful task.

How does one rework a story that has lain dead so long? Maybe one of you can tell me . . .

Don't get me wrong. I'm stubborn enough to continue. In fact, I've been working on it for a while now. But it is taking much longer than I first thought.

But, I assure you, something will be posted here in the next day or two. I just hope it will be worth my efforts and the efforts of my readers.

Fingers crossed.

Until then . . .

The Currawong (Part 2)

2005-06-06T16:01:00.000+10:00

Whatever her name, whether Nikki or Naomi, it is quite irrelevant. All it means, is the young girl she once was, no longer exists. She is a person once swallowed by society and then regurgitated. The semi-digested corpse of a girl, now named Nikki.

She has already had one false name given to her, printed on her fake passport. And if her captors so choose, they can give her another name whenever they want. In fact, the name from her forged passport is already fading from her memory. The pimp requisitioned her documents upon her arrival and she hasn’t seen them since.

So now, other than the few people who move between these walls, to the world, Nikki does not even exist.

Her name is like that used to call an animal. A tag around her neck. No surname came with it. She has no links to a family — a mother or father, brothers or sisters. She has no heritage. She has nothing but her own flesh and even that is open to debate.

Nikki is nobody.

Her family is here now. She has four sisters, all older, and all from Thailand. Coco, Anna, Jasmine and Fifi. But even then, they are more stage names, the same as her own. And just like Nikki, they are but tools to drain puss from men’s loins. They are utilities — serving a narrow purpose like knives and forks. And they are Nikki’s sisters.

Nikki hates them in silence. And they hate her in return. They rarely speak to her, and of this, Nikki is glad. She is the odd one out as they chat in their native tongue. And when they do address her, it is in broken English, like babble between children. They face each other on collapsed couches in the back room, searching for words they do not know. Resorting instead to foolish gestures, or their pathetic pidgin English. But most of the time, they just ignore her. It is as if she isn’t there. And yet, strangely, Nikki is glad they pay her no mind. She does not want their friendship. She wants nothing from her new family.

So Nikki fades into the background like a piece of furniture. Having come to accept her lowly position in the pecking order. She is an irritant that cooks their noodles and steals their clients with her youthful looks. But other than that, she is the youngest sister they all loathe. And they do little to disguise they disgust they feel for her.

They frighten her at times. They are city girls from another land, who have grown accustomed to their existence here. And Nikki, from her sheltered background, can’t figure them out. Their regular laughter flies in the face of reason, in stark contrast to where they are and what they do. And at times, it even seems as if they like what they are engaged in. They forever preen themselves in the mirror and adjust their make-up like actresses in a tragic theatre. They even rush to the pimp with an eagerness that defies logic.

Or maybe they have simply accepted him as their new father.

But while they may have accepted the pimp as their father, Nikki will never accept him. Even though he, like her real father, wakes her each morning for the day ahead. Ultimately though, whether Nikki likes it or not, she has no choice in the matter. He is her father now, for better or worse.

He wakes her each morning and drags her from her only peace, back into a cold, cruel reality. She must greet every day afresh, with the Devil himself towering above her from the doorway. Wiping the sleep from her eyes as he asks her to prepare his coffee. And on some occasions, even forcing her to take him in her mouth once more. His wax-like face never showing a hint of emotion, even as he spurts his seed into her like a human spittoon.

His name is Surin. But this too is another stage name. And yet, to Nikki, it doesn’t matter what he is called. She never addresses him, accept to nod her assent. To her, he is her jailer and that is all. The man in control of her destiny. The man who locks them in each evening at close of business. And the man who returns each morning to release them from their cages. Arriving at the brothel like clockwork, accompanied by his predictable sounds. The harsh cracking of locks coming open. The fluorescent lights flickering to life and his jailer’s keys rattling on his belt.

He rarely talks to her like a human being. Preferring instead to bark orders at her or ignore her completely. But then, Nikki is his slave. She is a dog trained to do his tricks, and he is the master who accepts nothing but his twisted sense of perfection. He doesn’t want to know her story or hear what she thinks. He only wants obedience.

Often, the mere sound of Surin seizes Nikki’s stomach in painful cramps. Filling her veins with a creeping sense of fear and dread. Her hands shaking as the sound of his approaching footsteps grow louder and louder, like an impending doom. She grits her small white teeth and clasps her hands in her lap. His footfalls like the dull thuds of an executioner approaching across the scaffold. Nikki, always hoping it is not her he seeks. Watching him as he passes by to go to the bathroom or speak to one of the others. Her breath returning with a sigh of relief.

Mostly though, Surin spends his time on the lounge in his little alcove, minding the cash-box with a banged up revolver stashed nearby. Lying back in his singlet and tailored pants, smoking clove cigarettes and watching the television at his feet. And only when he needs to defecate, eat or answer the door will he move from his throne. Rising for the electric ding of the doorbell. That fateful sound that fills the building like an air raid siren. Penetrating the back room where the girls wait in idle boredom. Its sound, like death, sending shivers down Nikki’s spine. Making her sit forward in her chair and swallow nervously.

It is always the signal of another client. And Surin’s voice will always follow close on its heels. Yelling down the hallway to his dutiful daughters. His voice harsh. Tearing at the air with its jagged edge. It is these moments Nikki most fears.

And whoever is available, will hurry to him on stiletto heels. As he stands there waiting, hands on hips and gold chains gleaming. Those detached eyes of his looking through the girls as they approach. Nikki is usually last to arrive, lining up behind the others, outside the waiting room. Hoping not to provoke Surin’s wrath. Watching as his calloused hands take each of them firmly by the arm. And waiting her turn.

Surin shows them off to the client from the doorway. One by one. Slabs of meat, paraded to the waiting customer who looks them up and down with hungry eyes. They each have a few seconds in frame to show their wares. And in this time, they must smile and introduce themselves. Swivelling their hips and arching their backs. Pouting lips and fluttering their eyelids. All while Surin looks on, stroking the sparse moustache beneath his flat nose with one hand, and holding them in place with the other.

Nikki always prays she won’t be chosen. And she always avoids making eye contact. Her smiles are forced and her arms hang slackly at her sides. She introduces herself in a whisper and the men are usually forced to ask her to repeat herself. But no matter how shy she is, this only increases the clients’ desire. No matter what she does, her efforts are in vain. Even she knows they will choose her eventually.

She knows she is the most attractive of the four. And her regular clients are proof of this fact. Sometimes, she even wonders whether she should just play the game and get it over with.

Why prolong the inevitable?

* * * * * * * *

In the end, it is all the same. Another thirty minutes of disgust. Another client. Penetrating her soul with his flesh, spitting his bitter jissom into the condom between her legs. Just like the one now washing himself in the shower cubicle in the corner. Satisfied, having had his way. A face she hasn’t seen before. Another invader but a different image.

Or is he?

Nikki can’t be sure. She doesn’t pay attention to them. In fact, she tries to block them from her consciousness. This one rode her like all the others — urgently, violently, like he wanted to be rid of the curse welling up inside him. And as he pounded away at her, he pleaded in a weak voice for her to look at him. Eager to find in her eyes a sign of recognition or submission, maybe even love. One more fool, who has tricked himself into thinking sensuousness can be found in this musty room. Thinking 90 dollars entitles him to Nikki’s soul as well as her moist flesh.

And for the second or two that Nikki actually did open her eyes and return the man’s gaze, she saw the eyes of an animal. Leering, staring, hungry eyes — with an intensity that chilled her to the bone. He was like a beast of prey: yellow teeth bared, nostrils flared and his brutish paws clawing at her breasts. His eyes bulged like scratched marbles from his puffy red sockets. And Nikki closed her eyes again and moaned as convincingly as she could. Writhing and feigning pleasure in the hope of hurrying him toward his ridiculous goal. And thankfully Nikki succeeded. The man’s sweat broke easily and his weak and spasmodic climax came quickly. He collapsed on top of her, a heaving mass of useless, wet flesh. His rasping breath panting in her ear — humid air that moistened her neck.

She felt nauseous as usual. But then, at least one more was done with. Like a prisoner marking the days on the walls of the cell, Nikki could tick one more client off the list.

Nikki watches him now, in the dimmed light that softens the truth. He steps awkwardly from the shower, stumbling as he reaches for his towel. His slug wobbling foolishly as he moves. And she looks at the useless appendage now shrivelled pathetically beneath his belly, she can’t help but be confused. They like to be told how special it is, how large it is and how much she likes it. Even her sisters have told her what she should say. But to Nikki, their penises are so very plain, almost irrelevant in her eyes. And yet, in a way, their penises are the cause of all her suffering. Is it possible, she wonders, that this useless slug is responsible for all of this?

She scans his frame in curious detachment. She takes in his overhanging belly, the sagging breasts, the grey and black hairs that coat him like a layer of dirt. And all she sees is an Orangutang. An amoral primate, yet to evolve. And if she hadn’t have heard him speak earlier, she would be sure of it. But even then, a monkey has more dignity than the beast she sees before her. A monkey has power, while this man is the embodiment of weakness. Even his manhood lacked the needed force. It was like a pliable rubber sword that could do no damage. He almost begged for it to show strength, strangely wanting to impress her like so many do. But his penis only rose like a tired slave that no longer feels the whip. Grudgingly fulfilling its task before dropping off to sleep once more.

Nikki laughs cynically, her eyes creased into a harsh scowl. She focuses upon the drooping flab that hangs from him. From his hips, his chest, his belly and from beneath his chin. And she imagines all his fat-drenched suddenly melting, as if acid were seeping through his pores. He is cursed, she thinks. She sees the blood in his veins as an enemy without a face, a sickness consuming all men. She smiles at the rickety pink legs supporting the rotting mass. Bulbous knee joints swollen like the knots of an old tree. His knees — the only area of his body wholly devoid of his wiry black hair.

Nikki laughs again, quietly and muffled by her hand. And the client glances at her nervously. She faces him defiantly now, looking him dead in the eye. But since the fire in his groin has been extinguished, he now seems to have lost his nerve. The carnivorous beast is now a mouse. He looks away quickly and dries himself with rough movements of the towel. Off-put by the blatant scrutiny of her gaze. He swallows anxiously, exhibiting a nervous tension. If only he could be free of this place, this very minute. His eyes, that once consumed her and ground her nakedness in their jaws, now show only weakness. Nikki can almost sense the courage he once had, silent now, sitting beside her. His white blood suffocated in a condom and a couple of tissues.

Has he any left, she wonders — any courage that is? Or is he now just a shy boy who wants his mother?

Nikki shuffles back on the bed until her back touches the cold wall. She hugs her knees to her chest and rests her chin on top of them. Head cocked to the side, and her eyes silently observing her nemesis in his vulnerable state. The view is nauseating. But then, he is unsettled by her gaze, which makes up for it. She knows her cold muteness shatters their confidence — that is why she does it. Almost every client seems to shrink from her stare after they have had their way with her. Especially the older, ugly ones, who could never enjoy such beauty without paying for it in cash. And the Orangutang is no different. He wipes himself down in a manner keeping the towel covering his loins. And his movements are clumsy, as if he is now embarrassed by what brought him here.

Oddly enough, very few can hold their ground while they stand naked before her after the fact. Their scrotums now emptied of their spirit. Only some are able to endure those moments — the young and handsome or the ones who see the world for their taking. But these are few and far between. Usually, the men no longer look like men. But more like children who have been caught stealing. Their shrivelled tools dangling uselessly between their thighs. And their guilty expressions unable to be hidden behind their half-hearted smiles.

Even now, the Orangutang’s mouth trembles. He wants to speak, to break the cold silence cutting into his soul. It is time for small-talk. The guilty chit-chat that almost always follows, the moment they are exposed, when they are hurrying to dress and be rid of her. They no longer wish to see the person before them. Nikki is no longer an object of their desire but a mirror-image of their weakness. The strength that becomes their weakness. They avoid her gaze, but the silence forever strengthens it. They can’t leave it quiet, they can’t suffer through it while it removes the diversion, while it points their minds inwards, toward their hidden tumour.

Maybe it is their God they feel looking down on them, or their conscience. Maybe even their spouses, waiting dutifully at home. The peace and quiet descending on them like the blade of a guillotine, snapping down over their exposed necks — guilty.

Nikki may be a servant or a slave, without power or position. But it is her moment now. She only has a small window in which to gaze upon the seductive image of power, but she will use it well. This fleeting moment where the roles are reversed and she can feel a tremor of pride and satisfaction welling up inside her. Yes, the curtain will close on her show, but she will take a bow while she still has the chance. It may be fragile, but it is a moment of reprieve.

So she stares at the client, until he finds his voice. Until the silence bears down for so long that he must break it and reveal himself.

"What, what is your name?" the man asks with a stammer.

But Nikki only plays dumb, milking the moment for as much as it’s worth. "Your name?" she says, pretending she doesn’t understand. "I don’t know."

Confusion shows on his face and he stops drying himself, keeping the towel over his groin. "No, your name?" he speaks slowly, sounding it out carefully. "What is your name?"

"Oh." she says. "My name? Nikki. My name is Nikki."

"Nikki. That’s nice. No, a lovely name." He says, trying to seem charming. "Nikki . . ."

"Nice?" she says loudly, blatantly grimacing.

If only he knew how much she resented her supposed name. Or would he even care? Either way, the fact he likes it only doubles resentment she feels for him. And so she has no shame when she sees the wedding band strangling his finger and realises her angle. She points at his hand with a slender finger and says with a smile: "Your ring. Very beautiful darling."

It works a dream. He looks at the ring with a stupefied frown. She can almost hear the cogs in his mind grinding his thoughts toward guilt. His eyes for a moment fluttering in their hollow sockets as if he has short-circuited. His aging wife at home while he stands naked before a nineteen year old prostitute.

But before the man can react, Nikki continues. "Your wife." she says, "Did she die darling?"

And the words stop him in his tracks. He drops the towel without finishing and reaches for his briefs hanging over the chair. He wants to respond, to say something, anything. But he is stumped.

"What?" he stammers, a flash of anger distorting his features as he snatches up his underwear.

"Oh, she leave you then darling? I sorry."

His reply now comes hard and fast. "No she didn’t leave me. She wouldn’t. Why do you . . . what makes you say that?"

Nikki smiles cruelly. "You have wife, but still come here?"

"Jesus, what . . . what is this?"

He hurries now, struggling to put his feet into his briefs, hopping on one foot as he pushes a foot through. A moronic dance as he pulls them up over his groin. The damp hair, still undried, soaking straight through and leaving dark patches here and there. The trousers come next — fast and urgently. And Nikki is surprised he doesn’t put them on backwards he seems in such a hurry. His shirt follows — fingers fumbling with the buttons. And Nikki watches the whole ordeal, calmly and slightly amused. An Orangutang trying to dress in record time. Head down, shoulders curved and his hairy fingers scratching and tumbling over his buttons.

"Why you come here when you have a wife?" Nikki says. "I don’t understand. You have baby too?"

But the man is far from answering her. Finally, he is fully clothed. He is red in the face, but at last he can flee. His eyes cast Nikki a troubled look as he slips into his loafers. He wants to say something, but instead he turns tail and heads for the door.

"I see you again darling?" Nikki says to his retreating back.

But he doesn’t even turn around. He only wants escape. The door opens, casting white light from the hall into the room, sucking a cold air inside. Nikki stares at his silhouette, outlined in the frame, a shape without identity. He hesitates on the threshold.

"Bye bye." she says, raising her voice.

But the black shadow is now gone. All she sees is the open doorway filled with a harsh white light. A hole in which hundreds of clients have entered, just as they have entered her. From the light of freedom into the darkness of her imprisonment. The same hole in which they eventually exit her, from the darkness out into the cold light beyond.

Nikki sighs, her head rising from her knees as she listens to the client’s footsteps fading away. A dull noise, slowly consumed by the music coming from the speakers built into the wall. The steam from the shower flows out after him, like the essence of his sickness trailing behind. And the music still plays its sickly romantic tunes as if there to purposely torture her even when she is alone.

Nikki stares at the open doorway, but does not move. A lone tear falling down her cheek. She wants to scream, but she does not. Instead she slams both her fists down onto the mattress, as hard as she can. But a muffled, dull thump is her only reply.

* * * * * * * *

The Currawong (Part 1)

2005-05-30T21:38:00.000+10:00

Note: A Currawong is an Australian bird. Almost a cross between a Magpie and a Crow.

* * * * * * *

Nikki is a prostitute (whatever that means). And it costs 90 dollars for half an hour of her time. 150 for an hour. Although most customers are either too cheap or too excited to go beyond the minimum 30 minutes. Either way, Nikki doesn’t see any of the money. It’s handed straight to the pimp without her knowledge. No, all she sees is the strained faces above her. Smelling their acrid breath and feeling their rigid flesh within her. A multitude of faces that, over time, have merged into one another like ghosts, sketching a faceless beast. A monstrous presence with no identity.

These same men leaving her alone once more. Lying in solitude. In that cramped, musty room, absorbing the vague impressions they have left imprinted inside her.

Some would call her a whore, or even a slut — but these are merely labels. Granted, the trademark symptoms of her profession are there. The well-worn uniform of the industry’s soldiers — like troops in the trenches, muddied by the conflict. There is the black polyester mini-skirt, so short it can’t hide her sex. Giving prospective clients a whiff of her nectar and a brief flash of her white panties. There is also the tiny black bikini that barely covers her immature breasts. The stiletto heels and the cherry-red lipstick.

But the wrapping does not make the present, no matter how gauche it is.

In fact, if you met Nikki before she arrived in Australia from Malaysia, you would have seen a different picture. "Whore" would have been the last word on your lips. Back then, you would have seen a simple, small-town girl. Only 19 years old. Her hazel eyes still glowing with the hope and naivety of youth. Her laughter sincere and full of warmth. But then, in those bygone days, Nikki was still immersed in the pleasures of childhood: friends, magazines, boys, shopping, and late night sojourns to the local noodle stalls. The atypical existence of most girls her age.

The future was far off. She wasn’t worried about what lay ahead. School was over, that was what mattered most. The hours of study were finished. And supposedly, the pleasures of adulthood were about to begin.

But that my friends, was another time and another country. A nostalgic memory that fades with each new client that mounts her. Their intrusive tools, hammering against all her memories, slowly wearing them down.

Nikki now imagines her past as having happened to a different person, definitely not herself. But a young girl just like her, still in Malaysia, riding her bicycle down the narrow track through the rubber plantation. Thonged feet pumping the peddles and the slender tires drawing a line in the orange mud below. Nikki imagines an energetic girl, her dreams and aspirations still intact.

She would like to meet that girl again. Go back in time and offer her some advice. She pictures sitting her down over a glass of lychee juice and explaining a few things about the real world. One last chance to warn her of the filth that lay in wait, ready to strike. She could convince her not to be so trusting. Reveal the cruelty hiding behind the smiles. The malice lurking within the kind words and the hollow promises.

Except, Nikki knows she is only dreaming. She will never have such a chance. She knows the girl of old has passed on. Buried in an unmarked grave, without a funeral or a memorial. Her existence faint, almost imperceptible. As dim in her mind’s eye as the faces of her new half hour friends.

90 dollar Nikki. Innocence lost. Another faceless Asian girl, working the dregs of the pollen in her prematurely wilting flower. Another statistic for a pie graph. Another social problem. Another electoral issue. But if one were to look, actually make an effort, they would still see a face and the flicker of a life behind it. A child’s face. A child living the life of a beast. Behind all the cheap make-up and the blank expression, there is still a face and a person.

And this face, it is right next door to the upmarket restaurant where all those people are laughing, oblivious to what goes on next door. This face is imprisoned within the dull shop-front with no name. A small number in red neon above the entrance.

The brothel is a legal operation — far enough from church or school to be deemed ethical. A sunken grey building, seemingly corrupted by its purpose. It is coated with black grime and entered from a dusty stoop. Faded black curtains blocking the windows and further sealing the inhabitants inside. A simple doorbell set beside the blank door, in which the carnivores are granted entrance to the slaughterhouse.

And it is through this blank door we now travel. Past the couches in the waiting room and the Thai pimp watching television in the alcove opposite. Down the hall sloping deeper toward the heart of the matter. Past the room where Nikki’s colleague, Coco, is blowing her twelfth trick for the night. Behind door number two, in a small room that reeks of semen, mold and air freshener. There she sits, naked and vulnerable, upon the stained and well-worn mattress. Her narrow shoulders stooped beneath an invisible burden that constantly weighs upon her.

There you go — meet Nikki.

Her hands are clasped on her bare knees, while a John Doe washes her from his loins in the shower cubicle in the corner. Her face is oval shaped and punctuated by small, fragile features. A face once drawn inspired by innocence. But an innocence that is no longer intact. The brush has slipped somewhere and somehow gone astray. The innocence is not quite complete. An element is missing, or maybe the paint is damaged. As if it her skin is peeling back and revealing a darker undercoat.

But what should we expect?

Her latest customer looks at her from the shower and smiles, rinsing soap suds from his groin. She smiles in response — but it is only a gesture, a movement of muscles pulling the corners of her mouth into a twisted grimace. Her once bright eyes no longer sparkle with sureness, but are clouded and hooded by mascara-smudged lids. And it is with these very dim eyes that she now seeks anything but the man before her. Not knowing where to look. Her eyes flicking here and there. From the client’s bloated face to the crumpled tissues beside her, soiled by his seed. And finally she settles on the porn tacked to the wall opposite. And although she often tries, she cannot hide from it. It is like dirt gradually suffocating her and burying her slowly. Glossy cocks, pussies, tits, arse — it is all there. She doesn’t understand it. But it surrounds her on all sides. She sees it every day; cocks great and small, cocks that squirm like dying grubs and others that command attention. Ones that men cover with both hands and others that have lost their engine. And whether stuck to the wall or hanging beneath another man’s paunch, they are still a mystery to her. It doesn’t matter how many shriveled slugs she sees, how many are pushed inside her, how many she tugs methodically or puts in her mouth, she still doesn’t understand. There is no link between them and pleasure, let alone love.

In fact, there may never be a link between them and pleasure. At least not for Nikki.

* * * * * * *

Nikki of course, isn’t her real name, but it may as well be. Her old name, her real name, and the person that went with it, are decaying somewhere back in Malaysia. Everything associated with her old identity has nothing in common with the sub-human beast she has become. The memories are too hard to bear. They conjure up so many painful emotions, that she chooses to repress them. Pushing and shoving them down, deep into a dark corner of her mind where she hopes they will never return.

With every man Nikki takes inside, they leave afterward, taking another part of her past with them. Further hollowing out the abyss. And further erasing the person she once was.

She didn’t choose her new name — the pimp gave her the title the day she arrived. The same time he explained to her the rules of the game. Telling her how she must fulfill five hundred contracts before she can leave. A debt she owes him, or so he said, for helping her into the country. But, if that were so, Nikki had never seen the fine print that explained the excessive cost she was now paying. She thought she was going to a job as a waitress, not as a sex slave. But now, there was nothing to be done. It was not negotiable.

And following her introduction to this harsh truth, the pimp then put her through a crash course of her duties. Training her for the contracts that lay ahead and letting her know he would be the first one.

He forced her to watch movies where people performed indescribable acts. Behaviour Nikki had never imagined. Women taking it in every hole, sometimes three at a time. Men being gagged and whipped for their own pleasure. And meanwhile, the pimp would scream at her whenever she looked away. Physically twisting her face back to the screen with his leathery fingers and horrible claws.

And throughout the show, the pimp’s hands squeezed and massaged his groin. His mouth hanging open and releasing dog-like pants. It wasn’t long before he freed his own grub with a cruel smile and asked her to suck it. And when Nikki refused, she was dragged by her hair across the room, slapped and kicked until she complied. Holding her hair firmly with one hand, he squeezed her cheeks violently with the other, forcing open her mouth. And finally Nikki knew she couldn’t resist any longer. She feared his fists over his phallus, so she eventually allowed him inside.

The sensation made her want to vomit. The smell of his sweat and the warmth of his filthy flesh on her tongue causing bile to rise in her throat. She cried in pain, in disgust, in horror. She cried convulsively as it moved in and out of her, crying until her mind finally switched itself off. Softening the blows of what was now unfolding, so painfully.

And by the time he was satisified with her throat, Nikki had no fight left in her. Her body was limp and lifeless, like her old doll back home. He had no trouble spreading her legs. He pushed them aside with his knees as he moved in to mount her. She felt a sharp pain shoot from her groin and into her belly, like being stabbed with a hot poker. But all she could do was let loose a fragile whimper. Otherwise she was quiet as he struggled away on top of her. Her eyes clenched shut and tears squeezing from the corners like drops of blood. She cried silently throughout the rape and continued to cry afterward, holding her hands over the throbbing pain below. And as he dressed, she listened to the grunts and moans from the video, still playing. Lying naked and soulless as he looked down at her like a slab of gutted meat.

He spoke quietly at first — in broken English and in a fearsome whisper.

"Your name is Nikki. Ok? Nikki." he said.

His voice repulsed her. And unable to look at him, she rolled over to face the wall. Curling herself into a ball, her hands pressed between her thighs. She wanted him dead. She wished she was dead. But as if to remind her that he was in charge, that she couldn’t die now without his permission, he lashed the back of her legs with his belt and spat on her for good measure. Finally yelling her new name at her so she would never forget it.

"NIKKI!" he screamed. "Your name Nikki ok?"

And that was it. She had no choice in the matter.

That is how she learnt her new name. And that is how she learnt she was no longer part of the living, or the dead. She was in limbo.

* * * * * * *

Resistance (Part 6 -- The Final Part)

2005-05-19T23:32:00.000+10:00

(For Parts 1 through 5, please see below)

Yes, my friends, this is the sixth and final part of this strange tale. I have struggled with this last installment. I just hope it has been worth the effort.

Thanks for reading.

* * * * * * * *

And yet, if I believed the arctic freeze of my emotions translated into common sense or a cool head, I was but a fool. My desire still burned bright, stifling the rational. Yes, the candle had dimmed, but the flame still flickered in the breeze, illuminating the object of my desire. While the so-called virtuous emotions; the sensitive man's lot, were icebergs in my veins, the beast's base desires still shot through this ice like hot lava. Parting my frozen feelings and melting them away, again and again. It tunnelled through me until it once more shot from the tip of my penis like fire and broke the thin scab sealing Mara's wound.

I tried to stop myself. Oh God I tried. But I still could not resist!

My cool indifference may have made me less of a man, but my burning desire was the same lifeblood that pulses through every virile male. Desire. It was the suffocation of rational thought. It was the birthplace of a heated passion that would burn like napalm before instantly expiring, the moment its white flames had been released. Firing over Mara's naked form, its purpose once again fulfilled.

Yes, I couldn't resist. It was my uncontrollable vice. And it was this base, commonplace desire that forever coaxed me into continuing the ridiculous charade that was our relationship. So far, I always opened the door to Mara's persitent knocks. When alone, I dreamt of her womb. Desiring her. Burning like a fever. Until I had once again had her. Until the flames suddenly died as if they had never in fact been ignited. Afterward I would lie on top of her heaving and exhausted. Looking at her with disgust. Cursing myself for having once again given in to the volcano that was my scrotum. Hoping that next time I would be strong enough to fight the desire long enough to somehow resolve our little satire.

But how naive was this childish hope of mine?

I did not realise that one does not extinguish one's desire. I thought my will would suffice. But the fact is, the fire will burn of its own accord. Just as one day it will no longer burn of its own accord. The wood having suddenly grown water-logged. Inexplicably leaving the flames with no fuel to thrive. Leaving its owner baffled by the inexplicable indifference they now feel for the person they once so strongly desired. A person whose presence no longer moves them in any way, shape, or form.

That is the truth of one's desire. It cannot be contained, controlled or directed. It burns with a force of all of its own. Desire is its own master and we are but its slaves. And how often we must feel the lash of its whip.

* * * * * * * *

As you have already read, our relationship was in a constant state of transformation. Nothing was maintained for long. And unfortunately, there was no seasonal schedule to follow while El Nino was in effect. We were caught in a state of flux -- the pendulum swinging back and forth. Opposites replacing opposites in an endless tick tock of confusion. Pleasure and pain merging and interweaving themselves. Love and hate. Indifference and passion. Like a an alternating yin and yang that could not find its balance.

Who would have thought that love would sprout in the fertile soil of Mara's heart, while mine would ice over and grow barren and useless?

It was impossible to keep track of our capricious emotions. Although sometimes, one was lulled into the belief that stability reigned.

But nothing was as it seemed. The mist of time was slowly advancing on us, with or without our knowledge. And sooner or later, it would have its way.

* * * * * * * *

Just like the day Mara visited me at home, dressed exceptionally well, instead of her usual, ordinary affairs. This fact alone, another sign of the fast-changing seasons that existed in our world. She wore an expensive dark skirt, ending just above the knee, a long split up the back giving a glimpse of her upper thighs, almost all the way to her solid backside. Her stilletto heels shot out against the floorboards and a red, low-cut blouse showed the soft flesh of her billowing breast. Even the fancy necklace and the strong perfume she wore were sign-posts I should have recognised as fresh symbols of her recent declaration of love. Obvious symbols of her hope that I could be further impressed, and quite possibly, even won.

But at the time, I was too blinded by my desire to see her clothes for what they were. I was drunk from the scent of her perfume. My heart fluttering as I imagined taking her once more. I only thought of getting beneath her clothes and taking what was mine. Was I not still the hammer, and Mara the anvil? Was it not my duty to beat her and hear her respond with the harsh sounds that echoed off the walls? A constant banging that would shatter the silence and wake the neighbours?

Even on this day, we pushed forwards without pause to contemplate the details. I watched her advance down the hallway, gazing upon her swivelling hips, gyrating buttocks and taut calf muscles. The trademark scent of her animal flesh mixing with her perfume, trailing behind her, dizzying my senses and arousing my loins. I rapidly followed on her heels and it wasn't long before I had her struggling with me on the couch.

But then, on this fateful day, something happened. Yes, her hands fought me as they always had. Her lips pursed in an affected defiance and her pleas for mercy filling my ears. But on this day something suddenly slipped and broke inside me. The vital cog that had sustained our relationship, had fallen of its spindle.

The fact is, at that moment, my desire suddenly failed me. The candle flame had been extinguished. And the train that had travelled this line for so many months came off the rails and plummetted into the wilderness. I had no strength to fight her. Yes, Mara's arms beat at me, but I no longer attempted their defeat. Instead, her fists pummelled my chest and her nails scratched at my face. But I sat astride her motionless, eyes closed and teeth gritted. Quite still, until even Mara realised there was something wrong.

The script had changed.

Maybe it was an inevitable progression. Maybe it was her love that had done it. But for some reason, I no longer wished to fight for her flesh. I opened my eyes and as I looked at her, I felt a profound disgust -- even a hatred for her filling my mind. I looked down at her in anger, my chest heaving and my heart pumping violently beneath my ribs. I was straddling her on the couch, my knees pressed into her parted thighs and her skirt bunched up around her hips, showing me the white of her panties clashing with the black of her skin. A sight that would once have filled me with desire, but now only filled me with a rotten repugnance.

And then I stood up, red in the face and sick to my stomach. I looked down at her shocked expression and strangely felt no love or desire. I felt nothing but a simmering loathing, boiling and bubbling in my veins. Although, I may well have been at least satisifed that she seemed hurt by my sudden change of heart. And while she adjusted herself and looked at me in confusion, obviously unsettled by my sudden about-face, I walked away from her. Taking a seat on the other couch and lighting a cigarette, doing little to hide my anger.

I didn't want to fight anymore. I was exhausted. I was fed up. I was like a soldier in the trenches, having fought a war without an end in sight. And finally the absurdity of the situation had dawned on me. What was the point in charging over the hill over and over again, to bayonet an enemy that would always be there to taunt me? Defiant and undefeatable? A mocking enemy I could not overcome?

At that moment, I hated Mara, simply because of the power her flesh had held over me for a whole year. I had been imprisoned by her, all this time. While I thought I was the conqueror, in a way, she too had conquered me. And so I hated her because her presence seemed like an insult. Because she reminded me of my own weakness. She pin-pointed my loathesome desire and held it up for me to see.

Yes, I admit it was sudden, but in an instant I no longer saw the logic behind the charade we had been playing for so long. A one-act play where Mara was the innocent victim and I played the tyrant, abusing her virtues. Furthermore, after learning of her real and serious suffering, I felt disgusted with myself for playing along for so many months. And coupled with the fact that she now supposedly loved me, rather than feel flattered, I only felt nauseous.

I realised I did not want her love.

But then, what was it I wanted?

I no longer knew.

We sat on opposite couches, for some time. In silence. The moment lost. And a heavy, invisible weight bore down upon us. And all the while, an imperceptible mist closed in: the mist of change. The mist of time forever advancing. I stared at Mara and realised she was crying quietly, and yet, I couldn't summon the emotion required to empathise, let alone comfort her. I could only watch from where I sat. An impartial observer. Watching the trails of her tears falling down her cheeks and landing on the tops of her breasts one by one. Snaking down her cleavage where they were swallowed by the red fabric of her blouse.

I wondered, during all these months, had Mara mistaken my violent desire as love? Had the depraved love of her father, made her believe that because I too had conquered her, that I must therefore love her as well?
Mara twistched in her seat and looked at me imploringly.

But I simply drew on my cigarette and looked away.

The advancing mist was cooling the blood in my veins and the semen in my loins. I shivered slightly and folded my arms for warmth. My mind numb and empty of all thought or emotion. Even the growing sound of Mara's sobs did little to move me.

For those few minutes, I was more of a tyrant than I had ever been.

* * * * * * * *

The fact is, I held myself responsible for what had now come to pass. Although that did not mean I felt guilty. I just simply recognised the fact.

Had Mara not declared her love? Had I not weakly declared my own love in reply, knowing it was a lie? So, in a way, the ball was in my court. Mara eagerly awaited my decision. She hoped for a sign. But the truth is, I was only treading water to stay afloat. And yet, for some strange reason, I still held onto her with a weak grasp. Using her to keep my head above the surface and gasp for the sickly sweet air that now surrounded me. And while Mara felt the obvious pangs of love massaging her heart, I only felt a dark void inside -- a sheer emptiness I had long since grown accustomed to. I was trapped by a profound, existential indifference for the world and its children. Disinterested in thoughts of morality or love. Yes, I had fucked her corpse now and then, but with what I realised was an apathetic boredom. Like a soldier marching instinctively. Up and down. Back straight and bayonet sharpened to a glistening point. Trained to kill. Acting on my instincts.

But, in the end, what did that mean? What purpose did it all serve?

I went through the motions for something to do. One two three four . . . one two three four . . . onwards I had marched. And at the time, it was all the same to me. I could continue seeing her. Or I could finally bury it. One of the two. But then, why couldn't I see the difference in either choice? Neither option seemed to show any signs of positivity or negativity. They were one and the same.

Nothing moved me . . .

And yet, without reasoning or mulling over the matter, I obviously decided on keeping the spade in the cupboard for the time being. There was always time in which to dig the grave. It was simple. My mind was made up without even making a decision. I simply continued on my journey as if I had flipped a coin to find my answer. What did I care anymore? I was a tyrant. I was a nobody. I consumed her as she offered herself as the ultimate sacricfice. And like the Gods I accepted her blood without a hint of mercy or the showing of a reward.

I only knew that I would no longer fight. The fight had since left me of its own accord and the soldier had since mutineed.

While Mara cried her tears of pain, my eyes were bone dry. To me, our relationship had become an act like eating raw steak for sustenance alone. My knife hacked through the raw flesh. My jaw moved as I grinded through gristle and bone. I swallowed quietly. And the small morsels slowly sank into my belly where they were eventually disolved.

But should I have starved myself?

Did God give us hunger so as to continue eating, just as he gave us hunger so as to continue fucking? All so we could continue breathing and continue breeding?

But then, what happens when that hunger dies?

* * * * * * * *

We both sat on our respective couches, and one watched the other. It lasted many minutes. The spell had finally broken and it was now a question of what was to come afterwards. Could something be salvaged from the sudden trainwreck of my desire?

There was no turning back. We could only move forwards.

And it was Mara who made the first move. And I must credit her with it. It was a bold move. She ended up playing what would be her final hand. Slapping her cards on the table for one last gamble. A gamble on her love. Risking everything for a giant win, while hoping I didn't have a Royal Flush that would break her bank.

Maybe she even believed love could conquer chance and give her the luck she hoped for.

But is life not like this in all its realms? A constant gamble for high stakes?

Mara rose from the couch like a timid slave about to test her master's patience. She smoothed down her skirt and tied up her braids. She bit her bottom lip and stared at me, as if searching for some kind of sign in my poker face. But I only looked at her with a blank expression that revealled nothing of my inner workings. And still she studied me closely. I could see her hesitating, fighting some deeper urge within her. Still unsure whether she should make the play. And still I maintained my iron facade. I smoked my cigarette and watched her without expression. Waiting.

Waiting for whatever was to come.

In a way, I even found myself enjoying the suspense. At last I had found a cool head. And now I seemed to watch everything happening like a spectator watching a play. For some reason, I no longer felt like an active participant.

Soon, Mara decided on her move and she approached me slowly. Her movements were short and insecure. Her tender tears still clear on her face, like the footprints of several snails. And as she approached, I noticed her lips trembling slightly. I looked up at her, smoking my cigarette with a cruel, indifferent smile. Watching as she fell to her knees about a metre from me and began crawling towards me on all fours. Her head was titled back and she returned my gaze. Her sheer blouse falling open to reveal her heavy breasts that swayed as she proceeded.

I shifted in my seat, surprised by what was transpiring, extinguishing my cigarette in the ashtray as I felt her hands moving up over my knees and down my thighs toward my lower depths.

Mara stared into my eyes, as if she were pleading for mercy. Her fingers undoing my belt and unzipping my fly. She took out my member and looked into my face for some sign of assent. But still I gave away nothing. But either way she still lowered her mouth over it. And I could do little to defend myself against the warm sensation that now washed over me. It was the first time she had taken me in her mouth. In fact, it was the first time she had taken me, instead of me taking her, supposedly against her will.

I admit, I was caught off guard by her actions. Her dark eyes drilled into mine as her head bobbed up and down and my cock filled with blood. She gripped me with one hand and her pink tongue darted out from between her lips, softly whipping back and forth over my swelling glands. And all the while she watched me, still with those pleading eyes so full of hope and love.

Soon, she rose from her knees sliding her panites down her thick legs and kicking them away. She moved catlike onto my lap. Lifting her skirt and sliding her knees on either side of my thighs. She reached down and holding my rod firmly with one hand she eased herself onto it. Her wound weakly resisiting it for a time, but soon giving way to its girth. Her body impaled itself slowly down my shaft until it was in to the hilt and Mara let lose a long sigh. And feeling her wrapped around me more firmly than she had ever been went straight to my head. She rode me slowly, up and down, lifting her blouse and taking out her breasts which she soon fed to me. My tongue tickling her nipples and my teeth nibbling them gently. Her body rocking back and forth and her hands holding my face as she stared at me in admiration.

It was a wholly pleasant experience. Like that she had lit my flame once more. My hands groped beneath her ruffled skirt and kneaded the doughy flesh of her arse. Feeling the thickness of it and the small dimples that appeared when it pressed against the tops of my legs. My mouth found hers and our tongues caressed each other softly. Our gasping breath merged as one. Her insides squeezing me and milking my cock as if it were an udder.

The experience was blissful.

It was the first time we had ever made love. And it was marvellous. For those 20 minutes, we wholly forgot ourselves to the moment. I drank Mara's tears and she whispered her love into my ears. We seemed to sink into each other in an endless rapture, as if drunk on a pungent wine. Our movements were synchronised as if we were professional dancers. And even the finale was like the last leap of a grand ballet. Our orgasms rising simultaneously and our moans dancing together in a spectacular embrace.

Yes, it was the first time we had ever made love. And little did Mara know, it would also be the last.

* * * * * * * *

Can an affair be maintained indefinitely? Or are all affairs destined to unravel?

Even in the face of my growing indifference, I had tried to maintain our relationship, even though I could find no other reason than for the mere sake of sexual gratification. But even then, the capricious will of my desire had also lost interest.

For a whole year, Mara and I had met in secret, like conspirators in an immoral plot. And for a whole year we had plumbed the depths of each other's psyches. And while in the beginning, we had met once or twice a month; toward the end, the frequency of our meetings increased to several times a week. We took more risks. We had tempted fate as if spurned on by an invisible force. But this late in the game, we were no longer capable of resisting our cravings for little more than a few days. We were prepared to try aything. In fact, we no longer tried resisting our urges at all. Our opposing natures seemed to fit each other like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle. We were drawn to one another, destined to complete the still unseen, but final picture.

But then, once the final image had been realised, we were destined to come apart.

Yes, towards the end of our relationship, Mara and I gorged ourselves like aristocrats before the revolution. The music in our ears drowning out the violent din of the uprising beneath our windows. Like one last hurrah before the violent hordes finally assaulted our weak fantasy world. It was as if we both knew that our execution was fast approaching. But while Mara still deluded herself into thinking love would save the day, I was already preparing myself for the long walk up the scaffold.

The question wasn't whether it would end. But simply a question of how it would end.

Who would have thought that honesty and love would be the destruction of our relationship? Who would have dreamed that Mara would find love and I would spurn it? But I have no regrets. I did not resist Mara's love when it made itself known, I simply had nowhere to put it. Maybe she had resisted her love all along. But in the end, I stopped resisting the inevitable truth. I could not love Mara. Not that I lacked the ability to love, but in this case, I just could not love the person who had awoken the devil and then hoped to tame it.

* * * * * * * *

That evening, after we made love for the first and last time, Mara spoke gaily of leaving her fiance. She made plans like a little girl imagining her castle and her fair prince. Oblivious to the turth staring her in the face. She went on in a long monologue and I did not try to stop her. I simply listened as she spoke in her sing-song voice.

She imagined us living together, sharing the same bed, making love every evening. She imagined wearing an apron and cooking for me. She saw me taking her in the hallway or on the kitchen bench. She said we would travel overseas together. And throughout the whole speech, her eyes were dreamy and she wore a crooked childlike smile.

Her eyes were not looking at reality. They were wide open, but they seemed to be looking out into the distance toward a fantasy that would never be fulfilled. She did not see that her dreams were one-sided and not shared by myself. She was like a condemned woman believing a stay of execution would come at the last moment.

Already, I realised that everything was coming to an end. While she saw this moment as the birth of something great, for me, it was the death of something strange and macarbe.

And it was only when she had run out of breath that I finally broke the news to her. Placing my hand on her wrist and beginning to explain that it was all over.

* * * * * * * *

As was to be expected, Mara did not take it well. She broke into uncontrollable sobbing. Occasionally sobbing so violently that I thought she would choke. At times she even pleaded with me to give her a chance. To prove herself to me.

But it was no use. It had taken a year, but my mind was finally made up.

One cannot make themselves love another. It is either there or it isn't. And in my case, as I have said, I felt no love for Mara.

I did not hate her or anything like that. In fact, I actually liked her in quite a lot. But her love had been the final blow that had shattered it all. Everything came tumbling down from there on in. The castle we had built together, with dungeons and torture chambers included, collapsed on its weak foundations. Foundations we had never really solidified before building the giant structure of insanity that had towered over us.

We sat there for several hours that night. Mara's hysterics slowly giving way to a calm resignation toward reality. I spoke softly. I explained as much as I could. The cigarette butts filled the ashtray to mark the progression of time.

And in the end, I was glad to see that Mara at last understood. She even realised that her love for me was based on her own weakness and a depressing need to be enslaved. I had subjugated her to me, as this is what she had wanted from the outset. But while a slave can love and respect their master, a master cannot really love their slave. It is only their own power that they love.

I had never wanted to abuse Mara. I did not want to conquer. I did not want much at all in the end. But the fact was, I had given in to her strange desires from the beginning, and for a while there I had even found them to my liking. But wasn't the first sign of our downfall Mara's gradual revelation of her own suffering, through her confessions? She had revealled to me a past that explained the sickness that had caused her desire for punishment and enslavement, and in the face of this cruel reality, the playful fantasy of being the conqueror fast left me.

The fact is, I am not a tyrant. I never had been.

Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if Mara had had the faith to offer herself to me freely, right from the start. Without fulfilling her twisted requirements for punishment. Instead of playing the victim and accepting the role her father had forced upon her. From the outset, I had never intended on conquering her so cruelly, but her strange fantasies had awoken a beast inside me that had evntually succumbed to its violent nature.

I don't know, but maybe I could have loved Mara after all. Maybe, if the rape and the fighting; the brutality and the subjugation, had not happened right from the beginning. Maybe there would have been a chance.

If only she had offered herself to me from the start, just as she did on the fateful day that became the end of our affair. Such a gesture would have been pure. I believe it is quite possible that I would have taken her and felt love growing in my heart.

But since the terror had come beforehand, Mara's love was forever stained by its claws. One cannot begin with violence and end in love. One can only begin with love. Otherwise, all is lost. Except maybe friendship.

* * * * * * * *

I still see Mara now and then. Like the other night, when I saw her at a work reunion at the local pub. There is no mention of what went on between us. We just pretend that we are friends and nothing more. Even though behind our harmless conversations lurks the truth in our eyes. A knowledge of the strange affair we had for over a year. But as far as the people around us are concerned we are simply friends. Which suits both of us just as well.

Supposedly Mara is about to move out with her fiance. And funnily enough, she has even offered to set me up with her one of her friends. But I always gratefully refuse her offers.

And even now, to this day, when I hear a knock on the door, I am tempted to go for the knife just in case. Opening the door just a crack, to see if Mara has finally told her fiance about me. Or to see if Mara has finally decided to return, to surprise me as she used to do.

But so far, her fiance has not appeared for his venegance. And neither has Mara returned for her love. But who knows, maybe she is simply resisting the urge.

I guess I will have to wait and see.

* * * * F I N * * * *

Resistance (Part 5)

2005-05-15T12:46:00.000+10:00

(For Parts 1 through 4, please see below)

I was hoping to finish this tale with this chapter, but it appears that it's going to require a sixth chapter afterall. I just hope you can all bear with me.

* * * * * * * *

Mara couldn't resist confessing herself to me. And nor could I resist bearing witness. It became compulsive; for both of us. An addiction: myself, listening with an eager ear and Mara, spewing forth this filth from her belly. It was almost as if her body could no longer bear the burning acid inside.

And as the months passed, Mara's confessional vomit became a raging black river that covered us both. Coating us from head to toe. Increasing in volume and staining us forever.

But, by that stage, neither of us realised the cost of these addictive confessionals. We were unaware it would gradually transform our relationship until, by the end, even we would no longer recognise it. And while this change was slow in coming, a slow rising tide, it did not deter its resolute hands or soften its blows.

Unbeknownst to both of us, soon, the many threads that had once sewn us together began to unravel.

Soon, everything would change.

* * * * * * * *

Mara, by opening her doors to me, had drawn us into something beyond the simple affair we had experienced so far. And once these doors had been opened, closing them afterwards would prove impossible. With Mara's honesty we had taken a giant step beyond what had come beforehand. Leaping from a physical connection into the realms of the emotional. A situation, I now see, we were ill-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with. Especially if we hoped to maintain the cold affair we had previously pursued while stifling the newfound emotions now bubbling beneath the surface.

The fact is, this emotional connection, now thrust upon us, was much stronger than the simple formula we had previously followed. These profound emotions, these inner workings of our souls, now swallowed the limpidness of our sexuality without hesitation.

Mara had asked me into her hidden rooms and I had accepted her invitation. So we were both responsible for what came as a result. I had watched and listened as she revealed herself. And through her dark chambers and my veiled reactions, I even discovered facets of myself.

Maybe there were more rooms I was not destined to see, that would further explain the inexplicable. But even in the few rooms that had since been illuminated, I saw fragments of Mara's true self that forever altered the image I had once beheld. She had evolved before my very eyes. And through her evolution, I too had grown. Moreover, as she continued with these constant revelations, when I looked at her, I no longer saw a simple object of my desire. Now she was something entirely different. Now I saw a victim. I saw the pain of her past mirrored in every movement she made. Now I saw reason behind the unreasonable. But more importantly, I now saw the scars of my own hand upon her limbs. My own cruelty and my own selfishness, staring back at me through her dark, almsot black eyes.

And as I watched her, I felt the growing hints of self-loathing seaping into my pores. I felt a painful shard of pity shoot through me like an assassin's arrow. As if God himself had finally decided to penetrate my breast with the coldness of truth. Avenging himself upon me, for my crimes of ignorance and self indulgence. It may have taken over a year, but at last I saw the suffering etched into Mara's face as if her features had been carved by someone else's hand. As if the life she had lived up until that moment had been like a hammer and chisel, forever pounding against her sad facade. The cruel blows striking her again and again. Reducing her to the confused young woman I had come to abuse without a moment's pity. Even taking up the hammer and chisel myself and chipping away at her tender skin. For my own sick pleasure.

It was inevitable. I should have seen it sooner. So a bitter shame finally soaked into my flesh. A profound feeling of regret overcoming me. And in the face of my actions, having consumed Mara like a meal, without a thought for the feeling person buried beneath, how could I not feel regret? I asked myself: was there any difference between me and her father? As he had selfishly subjugated her for his own ends, had I not done the same? Had I once stopped to think of her?

But, even I knew that my regret was foolish. I knew that then, and I know that now. I recognised time must always proceed. And that the past would always be the past. So, as I have always done, I swallowed my pity and my regret. Forcing them down into the depths of my being where I attempted their utter anihilation beneath the force of my will.

Trying to crush the subjective with the objective.

* * * * * * * *

One day, Mara told me she loved me.

I had been expecting it, for a long time in fact. So it came as no surprise. But even then, I had been sincerely hoping our tale wouldn't have such a chapter. That I could even skip reading it, if it ever came up.
But life, like a book on its first reading, is full of surprises. So I had to accept the truth as I stumbled upon it minute by minute. Even if this work of erotica was suddenly playing out into a work of drama and twisted romance.

Mara studied me closely after she'd spoken the words. And I felt myself edging away. She was lying pressed against me: black heat on white ice. I could feel her eyes upon me like a terrible weight. But my facade was like a fortress that would not betray its occupants. My cold eyes finally looking back into hers and giving nothing away except the coldness of my heart. She reached out with her hand, a puppy-dog expression on her fragile face. Her long, manicured fingernails stroking me from temple to chin. The sensation of her touch sending shivers down my spine.

It was the sensation of an unwanted love. A terrible burden. An obligation never to be accepted.

For a time, I was silent, but I inevitably returned Mara's declaration. I told her I loved her in reply, even though I felt a coldness weighing on my chest as I spoke these false words. Listening as they fell from my lips like crumbs. Knowing I couldn't bring myself to hurt her by speaking the truth.

I remember the signs of joy that suddenly appeared on Mara's face. And I remember the indifference I felt upon seeing her reaction. I had lied and she had believed. And so it was.

Quickly, she snuggled her nakedness against me, trying to show her appreciation, maybe even her love. Her moist lips nibbling my exposed throat and her heavy thigh settling over me. Even a clawlike hand snaked between my legs to handle my sleeping member. But I felt nothing but dread at these displays of affection. I felt the dread of laying with a fresh corpse, still steaming with the warmth of lost life. She was like a cadaver I myself had murdered with my own mind. The wound between her legs still wet from the force of my dagger. The open wound that was the sign of her death and the sign of my presence left behind.

I edged away from her under the pretext of going for my cigarettes. Feeling wholly uncomfortable and confused. I sat on the edge of the bed, my naked, white back to her. I lit a smoke and sighed. Hearing her voice as she spoke, but not hearing a word. Instead, I watched a grey tail of smoke rising to the heavens like that of a ghost. My sword back in its scabbard. Mara's blood drying on its blade.

She had told me she loved me. But the words echoed in my ears without meaning.

I wondered, did she need me to conquer her before she could love me? And if so, what sick logic motivated such an impulse?

I wondered, how had it come to this? No, how had I come to this?

I continued smoking my cigarette, with my back to her. Ignoring her words. Wishing she was not lying behind me. Wishing her scent was not stuck to my skin like mud. I thought about everything that had happened and seemed to be happening. The past months flashing through my mind like a kaleidoscope of insanity.

I felt nauseous. Mara's voice sounded like the painful howls of those residing in hell.

Stubbing out my cigarette, I looked down at my shrunken penis, dangling between my legs like a slug doused in salt. I stared at it as if it were a tumour. I scowled at it like a curse I could not shake.

All this confusion, because of a piece of flesh hanging between my thighs.

Finally, I turned to face her. Looking back over my shoulder. Her dark form was spread out on the bed like a crucified saint. I lowered my gaze past her breasts and belly, still bearing the swollen scratches of my forceful hands. Downwards. Forever downwards. Eventually settling my eyes upon her sex. Her gaping wound staring back at me -- revealing her pink innards as if I myself had disembowled her and left such a mark.

I looked at her wound for quite some time. As if I had never looked at it before. Black skin, blacker than the rest of her. Glistening with the milky fluids that seaped out of it. I stared in utter confusion. A thousand small bumps where it had been plucked clean of hair. Slightly lop-sided, like the curious grin of a madman. I stared like an impartial observer. Like a murderer staring at the site where he has buried his blade. Staring, until Mara's embarrassment forced her to cross her legs and frown at me in disgust.

I looked up at her face and felt nothing. She looked like she was going to cry and still I felt nothing.

But then, how can a conqueror love those he has conquered? Once they have been pillaged, they are simply the ground for his armies to ride over. Scorched earth and nothing else.

Mara said she loved me. But, I realised, there was no way I loved her. In fact, I never had.

* * * * * * * *

Marcel Proust once said: "Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade".

To be honest, I think he was right.

* * * * * * * *

2005-05-08T17:56:00.000+10:00

"With her confessions, Mara's all too human
skeleton began to show through her dark
and curvaceous flesh. Her blood, bone and
sinew; her intestines, her skull and her vital
organs. I saw signs of what lurked beneath
the surface. I even wondered whether I was
beginning to understand her. If that is at all
possible."

Resistance (Part 4)

2005-05-06T22:30:00.000+10:00

(For Parts 1 through 3, please see below)

* * * * * * * *

Mara would make her confessions in a slow drawl, thick with the the intonations of Sierra Leone. Her voice calm, yet distant. Her eyes glazed over as if they were the eyes of the dead. She wouldn't look at me as she spoke, but seemed to search inside herself and look towards the past. As if, within her soul, she was descending the stairs leading to her cellars. Wading through cobwebs and over sodden cobblestones. Taking her time opening each iron door, one by one, creaking on their hinges. And eventually, after many months, she had released several sun-starved prisoners from within. Letting them amble out timidly into a bright and disorientating freedom. Confessing her secrets to me without hint of emotion or reason. Like she was reciting dry words from an old book she didn't understand. Morbid and depressing words. Spoken without seeming to question why she was speaking them.

And on every occasion, as Mara confessed, either lying on my bed or seated on my sofas, I would watch her closely. Confused at first. Then fascinated. But ultimately, illuminated. Each tale she told almost justifying the strange behaviour I had seen up until then. The initial erraticism of her antics slowly giving way to something else. Her supposedly abnormal behaviour soon grounded in a uniform, albeit inevitable phsychology.

Yes, everything began to make sense.

So, I would absorb her words, while hiding my judgement. Trying to maintain a disinterested facade, fearful of stemming the monotone flow of her voice. I would nod here and there and ask the occasional question to keep her going. Offering her drinks or lit cigarettes. Showing concern when I felt it was needed. But otherwise leaving her to her own devices. I was humbled by the fact she had chosen me as her confidante. I was glad to be the repository of her deeper workings. And Mara, I believe, was also glad. Glad to have finally found in me, her father confessor. Someone, or so she said, she hadn't found until now.

* * * * * * * *

The months passed us by. The mediocre days broken by interludes of brutal sex followed by calm confession. And slowly, with Mara's speeches, her splendid, even normal facade grew transparent. A vivid picture was emerging beyond the mere normality of her flesh. No longer did I see just a pretty face and a marvellous physique. And while my sexual appetite remained, something was happening to her, right before my eyes. A metamorphisis. A gradual delving deep into her core. With her confessions, Mara's all too human skeleton began to show through her dark and curvaceous flesh. Her blood, bone and sinew; her intestines, her skull and her vital organs. I saw signs of what lurked beneath the surface. I even wondered whether I was beginning to understand her. If that is at all possible.

At first, Mara told me about her regular bouts of depression. Days, to her, where all seemed futile. Where every breathing moment was like a slow unavoidable descent into the abyss. At these times, every effort was absurd -- moments where she was overwhelmed by a painful sense of helplessness. She told me about her dreams of suicide. She often mentioned she only wished to sleep. That this was her only desire. In fact, this became a reoccurring theme of her confessions. Sleep. An endless sleep from which she would never awake. And while her doctor had prescribed anti-depressants, she only took them occasionally, without any concern for the danger involved. Going days without touching them. And then days where she swallowed handfuls. Despite the fact that this, most likely, only made her suffering increase.

But, from experience, I knew it was pointless giving advice to one who isn't yet prepared to help themselves. So, I chose to stay mute instead. I only listened and watched her, in the hope there could be value to her at least voicing such issues. Watching her naked breast expand as she inhaled on her cigarette. Watching her titlt her neck and blow plumes of smoke towards the ceiling. Mara -- sitiing there before me, physically naked and psychologically naked. Her breasts just as vivid as the words she spoke.

* * * * * * * *

It was not surprising that Mara suffered from depression. Her existance, for many years, had been one of pain and subjugation at the hands of her culture and her family. Where she sacrificed herself for something I never quite understood. What she called her African culture. But what I believe may have been her own misunderstanding of that very culture. A belief that her uprbringing was normal instead of extraordinary. A concept where her individuality was to be crushed beneath the heel of the family unit. A concept she could not question, no matter what argument I put forward.

She still lived with her family and probably still does to this day. A family who generally keep to themselves and their emigre community. Avoiding the whites as much as possible, even avoiding the other African nationalities in their neighbourhood. Her parents had immigrated to Australia not long after she was born. Leaving her behind, in Sierra Leone, under the care of her grandparents. And in her absence, her father and mother had been born two more children.

It was only when Mara was nine years old that she finally joined the family she had never known, here in Australia. And from the moment of her arrival, she confessed, it was obvious that she was the unwanted child. It wasn't long before her father first beat her for an innocuous remark. And not long before the second beating ensued. Finally, when she realised that he never beat his other children, her own brother and sister, she accepted that she was fated to be the family's sacrificial lamb. The one to bear the brunt of all ill-feeling. The one to blame for all, whether responsible or not.

And from the sounds of it, Mara had long ago accepted this role. From that first attack, her father's beatings had been maintained indefinitely, even into adulthood. And as I sat there listening to her speak, a 27 year old woman who, as far as I was concerned, should have been living independantly, I was shocked to hear that the abuse still continued. She told me of the most recent attacks she had suffered. Bearing the weight of the blows in her usual stoic silence. Her tears the only signs of her pain. She told a story where her father had dragged her around the house by her hair, eventually tearing several braids from her scalp. She also mentioned another incident, where he had taken her by the throat and thrown her against the wall. Cutting off her airways as he lifted her from her feet. Her mother and her siblings watching in silence. His highness explaining that if she was dead the family would of course mourn, but would soon be over it.

Basically telling her that she was expendible. A non-entity. A person whose existance was as useful as it was unecessary. A living and breathing contradiction.

* * * * * * * *

Then came Mara's sexual confessions. Also spoken in her usual monotone. Her thick, naked thighs crossed over each other as she lent forward and rested her chin in the white palm of her otherwise black hand. Her long braids falling over bare shoulders and her fleshy belly creasing into golden folds. And while her sexual thoughts may seem trivial, even childish, to the more liberated of readers, for her, they were far from trivial. So much so, that she had resisted and repressed them her whole life. Overcome by shame and fear. Wearing a smiling face to the outside world, while the oddities of her dreams suffocated her slowly. Even maintaining her virtuous facade to the man she was supposed to be marrying.

She revealled that she had masturbated in solitude most of her childhood and from a very young age. But rather than the standard fantasies of love and albeit normal sexual behaviour, her visions were of an entirely different nature. Not once did she imagine giving herself to a man in these dreams. Not once did she imagine scenes of romance or tender carresses. Kisses and hugs were for the movies. And rape was the order of the day. In her heavily fortified mind, her flower was always taken from her by force. A taking she found great pleasure in, even though she loathed to admit it.

She would lie in her bed at night with her legs pressed firmly together. Her imagination running wild. Seeing visions of her body tied and shackled, with faceless men doing with her as they pleased. Treating her as an object for their own pleasure. Sometimes beating her or striking her so as to force her into compliance. She imagined being attacked in dark allies or secluded parks. Never seeing the faces of her attackers but only their penises and their black silhouettes. She saw whips that flayed open her flesh. She heard the sounds of tearing fabric and the cruel insults they aimed at her. And all the while her excitement would grow. Her loins burning with repressed desire. Her hand having to fight itself between her uncooperative thighs so as to find her dripping sex. Never allowing her legs to open, even to herself. Even fighting her own prying fingers that squeezed themselves through her weak barrier, until they massaged and penetrated her to an overpowering climax.

And then, afterwards, she would lie alone. In her bed that she had never shared with anybody. The smell of her sex still thick in the air and soaked into her fingers. The thoughts of what she had just imagined and just performed driving her to further despair. The momentary pleasure giving way to the regular feelings of shame and self-loathing. She might even force down a few anti-depressants, wishing she had the courage to swallow them all and finally end her suffering. Wishing she could just sleep and never wake up.

And this would continue, day after day, night after night. A constant battle between her desire and what she wanted to believe she was. Unable to meet both sides of her character and come to some level of understanding. But simply fighting one or the other . . .

An endless struggle against herself. A battle she could not win. But a battle she could not resist. Until . . .

Until she met me and finally gave way to her desire.

In the end, her resistance had always been futile.

* * * * * * * *

2005-05-02T18:27:00.000+10:00

Dungeons she had feared.
Dungeons she had resisted.
Dungeons that haunted her.
But dungeons that would now be mine to explore.

Resistance (Part 3)

2005-05-02T00:28:00.000+10:00

(For Parts 1 & 2, please see below)

* * * * * * *

So, many weeks would pass, spent in solitude. And unable to see Mara as I wished, I was left to suffer like a junky in withdrawal. Our brief meetings in the lift at work couldn't ebb the rising tide of our lust. In fact, these meetings only increased our hunger until the dam walls overflowed. These brief encounters like eating appetisers on an empty stomach. Insufficient. Excrutiating. And afterwards, it was no surprise that our loins rumbled loudly, signalling our heightened starvation. We remembered what we had devoured until now, and imagined what we would consume in future. Causing cramps in our bellies, that required only one medicine, but a medicine of which we were constantly deprived.

So we swallowed down our lust like forcing down a burning bile. The dull aching beneath our breasts forever accompanying us like our own unwanted shadows.

And with Mara leading a double life that restricted her movements, our longing only increased. While she sat at home watching telelvision with her god-fearing family, she thought of me. And while I sat reading, I found myself incapable of absorbing the words before me. I could no longer concentrate with the fragments of her ricocheting off the walls of my skull. I was obsessed with her sexuality like no other before her. Except with her, I didn't want her love as I did with the others. She could have her fiance. She could have her feelings. I only wanted to drag her further into the abyss. I only wanted to see her debased at the hands of her own repressed nature. Having already seen the first signs of the beast that lay behind her moral but fraudulent facade.

So, thoughts of Mara would pierce my mind like needles. I constantly saw her buttocks in my mind's eye, a blur of white slapping up against them. I saw her breasts and the pink illumination of her inner depths as she peeled open her dark folds. Even the sound of her howls and her insults echoed in my ears like I was trapped in an asylum of my own making.

Yes, the pain of our separation was like a slow and arduous torture. A gradual, maddening, endless dripping of acid onto our psyches. Drip by drip, the hours passing by without our desires quenched. Drip by drip of unfulfilled cravings.

Even our late night phone calls only inflamed the need for the real over the imagined. Our heavy breathing and our pornographic monlogues only a temporary reprieve from our sickness. The pair of us on either end of the line, jerking and rubbing our burning loins until climax. All the while knowing the weak alternative we had resorted to would never suffice. Certain that only one thing could alleviate our growing addiction.

And so, drip by drip we inevitably came closer to our next encounter. Fighting off the bitter disappointments where Mara couldn't break away from her virtuous obligations. Believing in a future rendezvous. Relying on the days ahead to release our imprisoned cravings. We hoped that one day soon, just once, there would come a time where we would meet again. Like prisoners in our respective cells we waited to be called for the next visit. Fighting off the imagined walls that bore down on us on all sides. Endlessly waiting. Counting off the days. Waiting and remembering the past.

Waiting for the inevitable. The day when Mara would suddenly appear on my doorstep unannounced. Taking advantage of a Saturday while her fiance was out working and she could rely on me being home alone. She would be dressed plainly on the surface so as not to raise the suspicion of her family. But beneath this humble layer of clothing lay the truth. Her fancy underwear and her waxed cunt, prepared just for the occasion. Expensive, frilly panties, to be torn asunder by my eager hands. And a smooth, almost fragile pussy to be beaten and battered into submission.

Finally, another time would come.

And seeing her on these moments, on the threshold, was like seeing God personified. The miracle I had been waiting for had materialised and life or death no longer mattered. Everything would become redundant -- all my worries obliterated in an instant. And in the face of her nervous glances and timid shuffling, I would catch fire. My nostrils would flare and my heartrate increase. I would bite my lip as I dragged her inside and slammed the door behind her, barring her exit. And I would consume her with my eyes, excited at what was now certain. Knowing the weeks of waiting were suddenly done with. Knowing the object of my desire was once again sacrificing herself for my pleasure, and beneath it all, her own as well.

And so the weeks of torture would explode in a geyser of restrained desire. I would leap at her like a delirious beast, intent on tearing open flesh and tasting the blood below. And Mara would fight me off with all her resources. Using both her immense strength and her heart-wrenching pleas. Until the only way I could crush her defences was to forgo any pity I felt for her. Overcoming my concept of her humanity until I saw her as an object for my own pleasure and nothing more. Knowing deep down that she needed me to take what I wanted from her as she couldn't bring herself to give it. Maintained by the fact that she had come, and there could be no other reason for her appearance.

I would gorge myself on her gifts like an epicurean deprived. My teeth would bite so hard into her nipples I would almost sever them completely. My hands gripping her throat or slapping her face. I would force as many fingers as I could inside her. I would fuck her without restraint. Pounding away as if I were trying to tear her womb open and crucifiy her with my blade. I would force her legs apart and dig my fingers into the thick flesh of her thighs. I would push my weight down on her flailing arms. While her stifled screams and foul curses filled the house and bounced off the walls.

All this and more. An hour or so of violent motion until I gradually broke her down. Like sieging a fortress with battering rams and incendiary catapaults. A piecemeal process that always ended with us cumming in unison. Mara's arms draped around me and her eyes staring at me with astonishing love. Her fingers now caressing my semen and rubbing it into her breasts instead of resisting my efforts. Her grimaces having turned to smiles. And her curses having turned to words of adoration and love.

And there we would lay, in the aftermath of the battle, on my stained matress. The thick scent of Mara's sweat filling the air and affecting me like the strongest of aphrodisiacs. The pair of us, once again, lying together like lovers. The brutal rape now forgotten and a newfound sensuousness stepping into its place. Our energy would be sapped and our beleaguered limbs entwined like crooked vines. We would stare at each other, stroke each other, talk to each other. And always, long but calm conversations would ensue. A form of pillowtalk you could say. But on Mara's behalf, a form of confession -- as if I were a priest who could offer her benediction. As if, only through the final relaxing of her resistance, could she at last speak the truth.

And over many months, these confessions gradually revealled the underlying contradictions of Mara's psyche. Like looking through a window into her dark soul, the curtains having finally been drawn apart. Her subjugation at the hands of my brutality finally giving her the opportunity to tell all. As if she could not bring herself to tear down her fortifications, but required my help. As if I had found the key to the dark dungeons that were the foundation of her picturesque but only half-true palace. Dungeons that until then, only Mara had been aware of. Dungeons she had feared. Dungeons she had resisted. Dungeons that haunted her. But dungeons that would now be mine to explore.

* * * * * * *

2005-05-01T16:38:00.000+10:00

"Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannises."

Resistance (Part 2)

2005-05-01T01:41:00.000+10:00

(For Part 1, please see below)

Every time Mara and I saw each other, after we had fucked like lovers and cursed like foes, we always agreed that it was the last time. And yet, every time a few days had passed, one of us called the other. It was inevitable. We were both incapable of resisting what we so desperately desired. Even at work, we would meet in the lift on the pretense of going for a cigarette. Lunging at each other the moment the doors had closed. My hands groping her buttocks or pressing between her legs. Our tongues flailing against each other like two warring slugs. The pair of us making the most of a rare half-minute alone, before the doors would open again and we would be thrust back into a society where adultery was frowned upon.

And still, we would try to maintain our farcical break-ups while knowing they were futile. We would argue it was the last time, that we could not continue in such manner. Agreeing that Mara was better than that. Or that I couldn't share her with anyone else (even though I didn't mind sharing her). But, as always, our time apart would never last. The comedy would collapse and we would return to each other like magnets kept in too close proximity. The invisible forces too strong for our timid and insincere resistance.

And then the comedy would start all over again. An endless loop, repeating itself ad infinitum. And while Mara would agree to the terms, it was never she who instigated them. Despite her obvious shame and self-loathing, it was always myself who started the proceedings. And they never began before we had made love mind you. They always came afterwards. A few minutes afterwards, when my desire lay splattered on her back or her belly, or lay dwelling in her stomach. Yes, it was always myself who, in these moments of momentary lassitude, tried to talk ourselves out of it. Trying to convince Mara with pure sophistry that it could no longer continue. I was always the one fighting these overpowering urges, even though Mara would inevitably agree with me after long discussion. And while Mara suffered beneath the darkness of her shame and her guilt, my resistance was never motivated by morality. Even though it never stopped me using morality in my arguments.

The real reason I resisted, was quite simply through cowardice and fear. Yes, I was afraid. Afraid of her fiance and that is all. He was an enormous, Islamic, weight-lifting fellow from Ghana who awoke all the stereotypes in my anglo-educated mind. And when I imagined him finding out about his girlfriend's betrayals with a skeletal, white infidel, I saw Afro-American Gang Bangers weilding machine pistols. I also saw Hutus decapitating Tutsis with rusty machetes and Zimbabwean rebels gunning down white farmers with their AK-47's. I even saw Danny Pearl's jugular bayonetted by masked men screaming "Allah Akbhar". These paranoid imaginings driving me to answer my door with a carving knife hidden in the small of my back. Certain that one day, a large black man would be standing there for his vengeance. Knowing I would only have a few seconds to strike out with my blade, before his giant fists rocketted into my pallid face.

But, like I said, neither Mara or myself, could resist. Even though I had seen her fiance's photograph and it was branded black in my memory. Even though his skin colour only heightened my fear. My resistance was pointless. The darkness of Mara's skin only heightened my desire. So much so, that my arguments could never win out against the pleasurable memories of driving myself inside her and fighting off her determined blows.

Yes, in the face of Mara's lascivious beauty and strange sexual antics, I could never resist. Even her tears and her violent behaviour only increased my passion for her flesh. In fact, as I got to know her psychological depravity, I found myself haunted by the darkness that not only covered her skin, but dwelt in her bitter heart. A blackness I had never experienced. And a blackness I found wholly to my liking.

Until then, I had never known the thorny road to vice to be so addictive. But I was fast discovering the pleasure hiding in both the rose and the thorns. And once our stormy relationship had started, there was no turning back. Mara had awakened the sadist sleeping beneath my breast. And I had dislodged the masochist lurking in her shadow.

Pain was wrapped in pleasure. Torment cloaked in sensuality. And resistance wrapped in subjugation.

In the words of the Marquis De Sade: "Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannises."

2005-05-01T01:40:00.000+10:00

"I remember kissing her tear-streaked face,
her neck, her eyes, her cheeks. The salty taste
of her shame driving me onwards. I licked
her tears as if they were a magic elixir."

Resistance (Part 1)

2005-04-30T23:19:00.000+10:00

The first time I made Mara orgasm, she burst into tears. Her face quivering, lips trembling and salty tears running down her cheeks. And as I looked at my white cum, spattered over her belly and breasts, contrasting with her dark African skin, I was overcome with guilt. I was also confused at her sudden outburst, trying to turn her anguished face towards me. But she only resisted my efforts, burying her grim face in the pillow, embarrassed, or maybe fearful that I should see her despair up close. I'm not quite sure.

They were not tears of joy I saw. Nor do I believe they were tears of sorrow. No, I am certain they were tears of shame. An immense shame she could not contain, knowing the pleasure she was enjoying with me should have been reserved for her fiance. The only man she had ever slept with. The man she was supposed to marry and was supposed to love. The man who, at that moment, was waiting loyally at home for her call.

Mara was ashamed of herself in totality. In fact, over time, after I had delved beneath her armour, I believed she hated herself immensely.

And that first day together, lying naked in the aftermath of such violent sex, I too was overcome by a strange emotion. It wasn't empathy but something mysteriously close. I felt sad in the face of her despair, and yet, I joyously wallowed in this sadness. I remember kissing her tear-streaked face, her neck, her eyes, her cheeks. The salty taste of her shame driving me onwards. I licked her tears as if they were a magic elixir. Savouring the animal taste of her fluids. I remember trying to comfort her and trying to understand what was wrong. But all she could say in response to my pleas was: "I shouldn't feel this way with you. I shouldn't feel this way with you. I shouldn't feel this way with you." Over and over, several times in succession, until the words petered out. Until she fell silent and stared off into the distance with her swollen, bloodshot eyes.

The pair of us, lay pressed against each other for several minutes, without saying a word. I caressed her bare and voluptuous backside and gazed at her face, marvelling at the desire I felt for her. I breathed in her scents -- the fragrant oil in her long braids and the overpowering smell of her sweat. I looked at her folded black leg cast over my white belly. Looking at our two skin colours clashing so strongly. And already I could feel my loins hardening once more. The thought of penetrating her black folds where she glowed pink making me delirious with desire. Making me want to take her once more.

But, it was not to be.

That afternoon, she dressed with embarrassment, suddenly prudish in the face of my eager eyes. Even though, only a moment before, I had been exploring her with my tongue, fingers and cock. It was odd, watching her swing so rapidly in this opposite direction. The blushing little girl I now saw contrasting so strongly with the salacious animal who had earlier grabbed my member and pulled it inside her. And while I didn't know it at the time, this was the first sign of her many contradictions. Another side of her character, that could resist its alter ego at times, and succumb at others.

As we smoked later, sitting on separates lounges, we discussed what had transpired. And it wasn't long before we both agreed not to see each other again. Confirming our sexual escapade was a one-off not to be repeated. And even though we worked with each other five days a week, we still believed we could just walk away from it. As if we could resist the strange pleasure-chest we had opened that fateful day.

But again, it was not to be.

* * * * * * *

The second time I made Mara orgasm, she clawed me with her nails and slapped my face again and again. Her forehead creased and her black eyes narrowed in a strange fury. She scowled at me as I fucked her desperately. She moaned with pleasure, pushing her pink sex against me and writhing on the bed like a wounded animal. Her screams were so loud I was amazed and I imagine the neighbours were too. And although she seemed to be resisting me, the sudden pain her slaps caused me only drove me harder, almost like a whip to a horse. And so I pounded away at her, more urgently now, fighting off her blows with my weak arms. She was almost as strong as me, maybe even stronger. And it was only when I had pinned her arms over her head with all my weight that the fight seemed to leave her.

Soon, I was at the end of my tether, my balls shrinking and the throbbing increasing in my shaft. I pulled out quickly. Staring down at her exposed form as I jerked myself onto her. Spraying her face, her braided hair, her breasts and her stomach with my white blood. While Mara lay quite still to receive my seed. Like a martyr stoically facing her execution. Her legs apart and her eyes showing no emotion. All of her dark skin shimmering with the pungent sweat which seemed to flow so freely from her flesh.

And so I looked down at her in amazement. My chest heaving as I stared into eyes so dark they seemed like pits of hell. And Mara only stared back at me, unflinching. The pair of us joined by an invisible thread of hatred. A dark sense of forboding settling over us.

"Fuck you Joel." she whispered furiously. "Fuck you. You fucking arsehole. Fuck you."

Oddly enough, I looked down at her with a sense of anger pulsing through me. I pushed her leg aside gruffly, noticing my semen had filled her belly button. I pushed her again, harder now, still listening to the insults pouring forth from her lips like a deranged mantra. I almost felt the urge to spit on her as I saw the red welts running down my chest and felt the burning in my face where she had slapped me. But instead I just said with a laugh: "Fuck you too. I gave you exactly what you wanted you fucking whore."

And I can honestly say, at that moment, I meant every single word.

* * * * * * *

Empathise With Me

2005-04-28T21:51:00.000+10:00

Why is it so hard to empathise with our fellow humans? We say: "if I were in your shoes" or "put yourself in his position". But still, it is an extremely difficult task to fulfill. We may look into the sorrowful eyes of our friends as they despairingly seek our help. We may listen to their woes. We may even offer them our advice. But even if we are listening to them, we aren't really feeling them. They may speak of their pain or their problems. Sometimes mentioning that they are suffering depression and are on some kind of medication. But, while we throw out our trademark speeches and words of concern, we rarely stop to imagine their pain. Because, ultimately, we cannot share their pain. Our imaginations lack the scope required for such a task. So, we simply nod our heads and think of what to say next. Hoping to make them feel better and maybe turn their life around.

Even when watching a news item, where an entire nation is starving or a country is gripped by civil war, this lack of empathy still applies. And even though the visuals may bring tears to our eyes and move us to a certain degree, I wonder whether we have really empathised with the poor souls we see. Or, at that moment, is it merely a weak sensation of pity we feel?

I wonder, is this a fundamental flaw with humanity? The inability to truly empathise with our fellow humans?

As an author, I often ponder this question as I believe it is a major concern for the novelist. Is it not the writer's role to empathise with his characters to such an extent that he can translate their suffering so vividly that the reader may feel their emotions in turn? Or is that an impossibility? In fact, is it not the role of the reader to empathise also. The same as an audience in a theatre watching Oedipus kill his father and wed his mother.

Often, I try to imagine the pain or the joy of my characters, as if they were myself. And while I can imagine their emotions, again, I can never absorb them enough to actually feel them. Instead, their suffering becomes an idea, a concept and that is all. The empathy required of such a task is always lacking. And so my interpretation of their feelings becomes abstract -- a mere jumble of words, disconnected from reality.

Think about it for a moment. Stop for a second and recall a time when you were in immense pain. Try to imagine how distraught you may have felt during that period. The feelings of hopelessness and despair that gripped your soul. Your yearnings for peace or salvation. The hollowness in your belly that stopped you eating. The pressure behind your eyes as your tears rose inevitably to the surface. Try to imagine it. Try to feel it. Can you manage? Can you recreate those feelings inside yourself, or, just like my writing, have they become a concept and nothing more? Has the iron thread that once joined them to your senses snapped, leaving that once overwhelming sense of dread as just a memory?

I know this post is far from interesting, but it is something I have been thinking about recently. I have decided to try and be conscious of my inability to truly empathise with my fellow humans. In the hope that when someone next comes to me for help, I will be able to treat them with the gravity the situation deserves. Rather than the disconnected, limp-wristed approach we usually adopt. The next time a friend comes to me, their existence weighing painfully on their shoulders, I will remind myself of the times I have been in their position. I will force myself with all my strength, to empathise beyond the normal pity we feel. I will endeavour to try to understand them, as if their suffering were my own.

Now, I just hope you can empathise with me for having written such a lame post.

I'm Distracted

2005-04-28T10:43:00.000+10:00

I sit here at work. Just sitting and wasting time. A large window to my left -- looking out over the factory floor. I see different printing presses, 2 colours and 5 colours. I see a shrink wrapping machine, a guillotine and shelves full of paper stock. I also see my co-workers, some standing round aimlessly, others talking self-righteously. I sit here, watching them and wasting time. Watching and wondering what purpose any of this serves, other than distraction and an excuse to earn money.

I guess it's a job like any other. A modern job if anything. Meaning a job that serves nothing except a means to employ another citizen and keep one more soul off the dole queue. And that is all. I see no point otherwise -- for myself or for society as a whole. My position here isn't needed. In fact, this whole company isn't needed. Yes -- the illusion of a purpose is there. We print lots of different items, but for what? Business cards and corporate letterheads; prospectuses and annual reports. But what the hell are they for? The need for these items creates jobs. But the items themselves are frivolous. They only go to other companies and serve the needs of other unnecessary jobs. These modern jobs that feed an economic machine and that's about all.

But I can't complain. It is a means to an end. It creates money which in turn feeds me. And that is why I sit at this desk each day, twiddling my thumbs and wasting my time. Reading news websites, taking regular smoke breaks, tapping my toes and whatever else. It's all just distraction. A distraction from the fact that my job is a useless endeavour outside of the fact that it puts money in my wallet and furthers the distraction of society. A distraction that is obviously needed to maintain the social fabric. A constant distraction that keeps us all from contemplating our fates or the fate of humanity as a whole. Just as our televisions, magazines, fashions and computer games distract us all and swallow our time.

Oh well, I guess I should get back to it. There's nothing to be done. I must at least pretend I have a purpose here. So I will get back to my various nothings. Making the required effort to give these nothings the appearance of importance.

A Self-imposed Exile

2005-04-27T22:01:00.000+10:00

Recently, as some of you may have noticed, I seemed to drop off the map and disappear completely. And while that is partially true, my life, of course, has continued to plod along in its usual manner. The standard manic balancing act -- one day tipping the scales toward despondancy and the next day tipping them back to joy again. An endless game of see-saw, that for better or worse, is my life.

The truth is, this last month I have been in self-imposed exile. Shut up in my dusty terrace. Sealed off from the world without regular company. With just my books, my writing, my cigarettes, my coffee, my DVDs and my pornography. Shut away, with my imagination and my unfortunate inclination toward constant brooding. Thinking about this and that. Worrying about God knows what. Worrying about the usual shit we all worry about. And it is only now that I have felt comfortable enough to timidly approach the world again. And thus, write a small entry here in my blog, in the hope of returning to it with fresh inspiration in the next few days.

I just hope the effort will be worth it.

Although, before I continue, let me argue semantics for a moment. Because I have just realised that maybe it wasn't an exile after all, but a hibernation I have been living in. Maybe it was inevitable that I withdrew into my cave and rolled the boulder over its narrow entrance. I cannot be sure if it was a cowardly escape from reality or a brave leap into my core. But I am certain it was an inevitable occurence. Something that needed to be done for my own state of mind. Because, if I must be honest, before I shut up shop, the outside world was wearing me down ever so slowly. The endless routines I had either created for myself or that had been thrust upon me from outside, were afflicting me with a painful hopelessness I was finding incredibly hard to bear. Something wasn't right -- that's for sure.

No matter where I looked or what facet of my existence I pondered, everything seemed to be falling apart. Cobwebs seemed to be hanging from the corners of the ceiling. A stifling dust seemed to have settled on every surface of my psyche. I could not understand how my life came to rest where I found myself. No matter how I studied it, I couldn't help but see myself as trapped in an absurdity. Cocooned in absurdity, that while being my life, could not have been consciously decided upon by myself. And while I know that I am responsible for my life, I could no longer follow the path that led to where I stood. But rather, it appeared as if I had been flowing with a violent tide. As if I had let go of the oars and the rudder long ago and just drifted off to these swampy waters into which I was now sinking.

So this is why I have been silent. This is why I have been hibernating. I could no longer continue the way I was going. I no longer felt capable of putting on a brave face while I sensed a sub-conscious despair creaking in my bones and haunting my dreams.

And now, now that I appear to be rising from my month-long meditation, I do not believe it has been in vane. In fact, I believe it has been a great success. This exile, or this hibernation, was a pre-requisite for my slow but perpetual progress. And today after I drove home from work, having spent the trip speaking in tongues, screaming and cursing, punching the ceiling of my car and feeling an immense impulse to burst into tears, I suddenly felt myself awash in an emotion of great relief. As I walked to my house I felt alive again. It was as if this momentary break-down, where my despair reached its peak, had been the final act of this process of reevaluation. Like a tribal dance after a long religious ritual, it may have appeared ridiculous, but I do believe it actually served a purpose.

I seriously think that I needed this break. I needed to stop and take stock. I needed a spring clean. And this is exactly what I have done. In this month of erratic thought I have achieved much. I have written a 20,000 word short story which I will soon post. Even though upon reading it I realise I am not very impressed with it. I have also cut loose three different women I have been dilly-dallying with for quite some time now. Deciding they were part of the excess garbage I needed to throw out. I have just begun the first few steps in a new romance with a waitress I have had my eye on for several months. Finally finding the courage to talk to her and get the ball rolling. I have reorganised my reading which I hope will open my eyes to further opportunities. I have started writing regularly every evening instead of the usual trickle I used to force from myself. And best of all, I have recognised my philosophy on life, which, if all goes well, I will be able to realign in the coming weeks.

So, my friends, if any of you still exist, I hope tonight's post will be a new beginning. Otherwise I will have to hang myself from the rafters. Hehe.

And remember what Pascal said: "I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room."

Until next time . . .

A Suicidal Shadow

2005-03-14T14:25:00.000+11:00

Today, the sun was out and the sky was cloudless. Just one monotonous, but beautiful, blue stretching out to the horizon. I walked aimlessly, up and down Newtown's main drag, crossing roads, tredding footpaths and passing strangers. Sweat was in the small of my back and on my temples. Coffee was on my lips and in my belly. Henry Miller tucked under my arm and inside my thoughts. I stopped at a cafe, in a bookstore, then in a graveyard beyond repair. I looked in shop windows at the endless stream of brands. And as usual, I watched the women who constantly passed me by. Overcome by a mix of melancholic desire, a wish to approach them and an inherent cowardice which kept me, as always, in my place. Trapped in character as the pervert, the admirer, even the connoisseuer. The connoisseuer who cannot afford the masterpieces he so endlessly desires.

But all that is frivolous. Mere background for a tale which itself may be but a mere background. But I will always continue -- stubbornly, narccissitically and self-pityingly. Just as I raise myself from the bed each morning and struggle onwards to God knows where.

And so I continue . . .

While walking this footpath beneath logo-emblazoned awnings, it was not long before I took notice of my shadow, walking with me, projected onto the aspahalt. My only companion. I walked and I watched it, cast out in front of me at an oblique angle. Watching as the pedestrians walked all over it with their high heels and their overpriced sneakers, just like stampeding cattle. I watched my arms swing and my legs stride, studying the black mass where my face should be, but only seeing the dull outline of a distorted profile. And then something ocurred to me. The vision of my shadow prompted an idea. To the outsider, isn't my shadow the same as myself -- quite simply, a grey blur? An entitiy mixing into other shadows --people's shadows, building's shadows, tree's shadows? Is it not this very shadow that everyone sees instead of myself?

I wondered. It's true. They do not see the body that projects the grey mass, but simply the mass itself. They do not see me. When I am seated in a coffee shop, or wandering aimlessly, they only see this same grey blur that I saw today. This is all they see. Nothing. Just a shape on the ground before them or on the wall beside them. Irrelevant. They do not move aside as I pass, but simply walk straight over me. Ignored and forgotten. Just a grey blur. A shadow of myself that does not reveal my pain, my thoughts, my dreams or even my pleasures. A shadow that reveals nothing but a blurred outline.

But then, this only lead me to question the people I saw passing me by. Were they not the same shadows, to me, that I am to them? Is the streetscape just a world of light and shadow -- the beings moving through it just like the streetsigns and the buildings and the cars -- non-entities? We suppose we're singular entities, but in that mass of people, aren't we just the sum of the whole? One giant shadow?

My goodness -- I don't know what I am saying. I wonder, as a shadow, can I rely on anybody in this city, maybe even this world? Or am I just a faceless nothing, in which my brothers and sisters cannot relate?

I think I know the answer.

Ponder this ridiculous scenario if you will. Think, picture this: If I walked up to a stranger on the street and pleaded with them for help, they would brush me aside like a bothersome fly. Even if I said: "Please please, I'm dying here, I feel like I'm going mad. It's all too much my kind sir, this life of ours, this city, I can't take it anymore. I'm overloading. Can you help me sir? What can I do?" Even if I said this, the person's eyes would boggle, their lips quiver and their hands rise up defensively. No, nobody would help me. Unless, of course, I offered them money, and even then they would only see the money itself. Maybe a cursory glance at the shadow, but never the person who actually casts it. And trust me, they would fill their pockets and offer me some junk out of a self-help book -- believing they had earnt their bread and calmed their conscience. No, they would not help. There is no help. One must fight through their own despair. Even my supposed friends would be concerned up until the point that they felt inconvenienced. Then my calls for help would go unanswered -- my knocks on their doors, the calls to their phones, even the emails bearing my soul. They would be just like the unknown man on the street, the man brushing me aside like a bothersome fly.

I have another scenario, more ridiculous than the first. If you chose to shoot yourself in the head, right in the middle of the City, on George street, what do you think would be the result? How would this world of shadows react to the supposedly senseless suicide of a fellow shadow? Yes, you would get their attention, that's obvious. But would they care or even shed a tear for your woes? Would they wonder what pain you must have suffered to go and do such a thing? Would it motivate their pity? I doubt it. They would be horrified and disgusted. Husbands would hug wives. Mothers would shield their children's eyes. Maybe they would even hate you for a moment, without knowing you. Loathing the shadow lying on the pavement with thick black blood forming around the skull like a halo. Maybe they would despise you for airing the insides of your dirty little mind out in public like that. Yes -- I think so. To them, you should have delted yourself in the privacy of your own home, out of sight and out of mind. You shouldn't have just thought of yourself you selfish prick -- you should have thought of their feelings. Again, they would only feel inconvenienced by your actions. They wouldn't, for a single second, think of the pain and suffering that may have driven you to such an absurd and desparate act. No -- they are incapable of such empathy. They've watched too much telelvision to imagine your pain. They're too self-centred to even bother trying. To use their own minds to conjure up such thoughts -- don't be ridiculous. In their eyes, you'd be just a shadow, a figure in a landscape that splattered some blood on their $500 shirt, an inconvenience and an unwanted laundry expense. That is all.

And what does all this prove? What am I trying to say? I guess I'm just saying that I am a shadow, but thankfully not suicidal as yet.

A Muse Who Cost Money.

2005-03-09T21:12:00.000+11:00

The first time I saw Nikki she was walking into a dimly lit room. A waiting room of sorts, with a large, golden statue of buddha to the left of me that stared nowhere with hollow eyes and a coffee table before me, covered with porno mags. I was alone when she walked in, seated on a black vinyl sofa, cigarette in hand and a crisp hundred dollar bill in my wallet. My mind mulling over the girls I had already seen and my loins doing the same. And yet, at this early moment, the very first time I laid eyes on her, I had no idea what Nikki would come to mean to me. I had no idea she would be my very first muse: a flash of inspiration amongst the blackness of my mind, like a short-lived bolt of lightning in a night sky. No -- to me, while I sat there judging the brothel's wares, she was simply another whore. A souless recepticle with fleshy curves and warm wet innards. A concept of the female form to be used by a concept of the male form. A nice wet hole to be reamed by a nice hard cock.

But overtime, all that changed.

At first glance, I knew I would choose her that evening. There was not a single doubt in my mind. I devoured her with my eyes. Masticating and swallowing her as I felt my groin swelling in my trousers. Just like Medusa, looking at her sure turned something to stone. Yes -- she was definitely the one to choose. Far beyond the usual trollops I found there.

She was Chinese, the tanned South East Asian type and about nineteen years old. Short in height with a slender build and messy black hair down to her bare shoulders. I sat forward in my seat and studied her from bottom to top, very slowly. Admiring her dainty feet with red-painted nails fitted into a pair of stilettos. Licking my lips at her muscular yet silky legs drawing my eyes up toward heaven. She wore a simple and lucid slip that barely covered her little brown body. The hem of the slip so high it almost granted a whiff of what lay beckoning at the junction of her soft thighs. The fabric so tight it left little to the imagination. Every curve on display -- the hips, the buttocks, the two handfuls of breasts and the flat, toned stomach.

And then I saw her face. Those hazel eyes and that cheeky smile I would soon know intimately. Those full pink lips and that small flat nose. She was beautiful and erotic all at the same time. I could have admired her for hours and I could have fucked her face. It didn't matter. The way she looked at me, affecting a shyness which didn't exist. The manner in which she tucked her hair behind an ear, all the while smiling seductively and cocking her hip to the side.

She said her name was Nikki. I said I would take her for a "full service". And so started my journey into the land of the legendary muses.

That first night we fucked splendidly. Our bodies fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw. Our rythyms matched and we explored each other hungrily. And unlike my experiences with other whores, Nikki was right there throughout, in the moment right along with me. Instead of closing her eyes and waiting for it all to be finished, she looked deep into my eyes like one would a lover. Instead of lying on her back and going through the routine, she took control with with ever-increasing eagerness. Her hips rolled against mine as she grinded herself and forced me ever deeper. Her hands explored my body and mine hers. I fucked her on top, from behind, the side and the bottom. And finally, when we fell in a sweaty heap with the unmistakable throbbing still pulsing through my scrotum, she lay against me and started talking. Her warm voice filling my ears and my own voice soon responding. Surprised to realise we were actually talking like a couple of good friends.

We lay on the bed naked and shared a cigarette between us. We spoke of Malaysia where she was born and where I'd once lived. She laughed and tickled me playfully. She commented on the songs filling the room through the built-in speakers. She asked if I had a girlfriend. She didn't believe me when I said no. And unlike the usual brothel aftermath where I wanted to leave the moment I was finished, I found I didn't want to leave at all. It was nice there, with her naked body lying against mine, one of her legs hooked over my belly and her sweet voice in my ear. It was nice the way she ran a finger over my chest and lightly caressed my balls. It was just nice. We seemed to get along like old friends who had rediscovered each other. The conversation lasted right up until the moment her pimp knocked on the door and advised me my time was up. We spoke in the shower as she washed me softly. We continued on the edge of the bed as she helped me slip into my clothes. We even spoke happily as we headed down the stairs and I said goodbye to her at the front door. Leaving her with a kiss on the cheek and a lingering hold of her fragile hand.

And with a whoosh of air and a squeak of hinges, the door closed and she disappeared from sight.

Until the next time I saw her.

After that first night with Nikki, I couldn't get enough of her. I returned to the brothel as often as my dwindling bank balance would allow it. One hundred dollars for half an hour. One hundred dollars well spent. Once or twice a week I was there, in that same room, fucking then talking, talking then fucking. Gradually getting to know Nikki beyond being just a wet hole without a soul. Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't in love with her. I wasn't convinced that she didn't treat every customer the same way as she treated me. But I didn't seem to care. While there, I was happy and that was all that mattered. So what she was a whore? She was the first whore I actually looked at and realised was real. The first whore I treated as a human being. The first and only whore I ever kissed without caring where her mouth had been. The first and only whore who sucked me without a condom. The first and only whore I ever went down on. The first and only whore who inspired me beyond just a simple fuck.

And while this may sound naive, I like to believe there was more to our relationship than a pre-paid interaction that was ultimately meaningless. In my mind, she was mine and mine only. She may have seen other clients, but they didn't see her like I did. She was my whore and she was my muse. Her laughter was authentic. So too was the wetness between her legs that didn't require synthetic lubrication like all the other whores. In the end, she was authentic, pure and simple. She was a whore, but she didn't mind. She was happy to be a whore and I was happy to be her John. When I entered that musty room, we threw off all the stale conventions and lived for half an hour. By God we lived.

I'm certain she enjoyed herself each time we were together. Every time I appeared she would smile like a child having just received a present. She would even stop during sex, if I was about to expire, and beg me not to finish yet. Sometimes she would talk to me about other clients and how horrible they were. Always asking me when I would return next. And even if she was just a good actress I don't mind. Even now I don't mind. I just know that for a fleeting few weeks I was happy. I was inspired.

I still remember her dancing around one night after she slipped into my boxer shorts. My oversized underwear almost falling off her slender hips as she jumped up and down on the bed in hysterics. I remember the tattoo of a dragon just abover her buttocks and how I used to kiss it. I remember how she hummed to the tunes filling the room and how she asked me to come and see her when she returned home to Malaysia. I recall her asking about my life with convincing interest and telling me about hers. Laughing one night when I came in stoned -- telling me how she used to smoke weed back home. There is so much I remember and yet so much I don't.

And then one night, I arrived at the brothel, and Nikki was gone. Gone forever. I hadn't been to see her for a few weeks due to financial obligations and now that I had some spare cash I hurried up the road to see my old friend. But as the pimp, who looked like a junkie, said in his Chinese patois: "Nikki go. No more visa. You see Coco yes?", I just felt my heart sinking, down and deep to drown beneath the surface. I couldn't believe she was gone for good. It was like a friend had suddenly died. Even afterwards, while I fucked a different whore in the same room, who may as well have been a cadaver, I couldn't help but think of my Nikki. This new bitch closed her eyes and said nothing as I pounded away. Her face set in a grim expression of stoic disgust. She said nothing as I dressed afterwards. Her lifeless eyes staring at the floor. And as I walked out, never to return to a brothel again, I could have sworn I heard Nikki's laugh echoing off the walls. A laugh I have never heard since.

But not all was lost. Greatness is often found in the worst of circumstances.

It wasn't long after I returned home that fateful evening, that an idea began growing inside me. Nikki's sudden death had planted a seed in my mind and it was growing rapidly. I had always wanted to write. For many years, I had imagined the life of a writer, but I had never done anything about it. But that evening, I did something I had never really done before. I sat down at this keyboard and I began writing my first ever story. A novella called The Currawong which may or may not ever see the light of day. A story about a Malaysian prostitute in a Sydney brothel. A tale about a whore named Nikki. I kept writing night and day, completely absorbed in my new project. Chain-smoking and drinking endless cups of coffee -- totally inspired. I kept writing until I was finished. And when I finished my first story, I began another, this time about an ex-Nazi coming to terms with his war crimes. And when I finished that story I began another, and then another, and then another. To this day, I still write and I hope to write now until the day I die.

Yes -- I may never see Nikki again, but she lives on in every word I now write. Nikki was my first muse. Nikki was the trigger that fired my mind onto paper. Splattering my brains in black ink. Making me take the plunge into the art I had always dreamed of mastering. Nikki, for better or worse, is one of the reasons I first sat down to write. And while it may seem strange that a writer writes because of a fleeting relationship with a whore, just know that stranger things have happened. Just know that Nikki was my first muse, even if she was a muse who cost money.

And that's all that matters.

This Scarecrow Wants to Stand Alone.

2005-03-05T21:51:00.000+11:00

Friedrich Nietzsche once said: "The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night."

I've always smiled at this maxim, in a sick blackish way. But whether it's the truth or not is irrelevant right now. Its the boldness in which he says it that matters to me. The boldness in which he said everything -- with such confidence, such sureness in what he was pursuing. I guess some would call the crazy Boche cynical, saying such things, but I've always been fond of him and his wit. I'm aware he's out of date these days, not quite chic anymore, and most people have probably pushed him towards the philosophical dustbin and adopted chaos theory. But not me. Not at all. He's actually one of the few writers/thinkers who actually inspires me to write and think every time I read his words. Just opening one of his works at a random page and reading, usually fills my belly with fire. Fire for his passion. Fire burning inside me, in the hope I could one day hold such passion myself. In fact, Nietzsche is credited with saying he felt as much love for each idea he pursued as a smitten lover feels for the woman he adores.

God -- if only I could feel as much passion for my writing as I would for a lover. If only I could sustain my capricious inspiration. My flighty inspiration which blinks on and off like a faulty fluroescent globe. If only I had Nietzsche's iron will (even if it failed him in the end).

Just now, I actually took Nietzsche's Ecce Homo off the shelf to test my theory and make sure I wasn't lying to you. And this is what I found, at random mind you. This is what I read. "Yes what happened to me? How did I free myself from disgust? Who rejuvinated my eyes? How did I fly to the height where the rabble no longer sit at the well?"

Okay, I don't know what your thoughts are, faceless reader, but to open a book just anywhere and find such golden words is a rare occurrence. Simply reading those few sentences above has again sparked the smouldering coals in my gut. Yes -- it has sparked the passion in my belly once more. One of the black coals once again glows a weak red. Now, I just need find the wind in my own lungs to blow on it and start the fire raging.

But, sorry to disappoint, it was not Nietzsche I actually intended on writing about right now. It was something else entirely. Nietzsche was simply the dead man who prompted the idea for this post. So, I'll try and get to the point now after this little detour.

While Nietzsche once said: "The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night." The Flea said (despite the cliche): "Our frivolous hopes are a great consolation: by means of them we get successfully through many a bad night."

Yes -- it was "hope" I was thinking of when I sat down to write this evening. And I apologise for the tangent I have run off on in the meantime. But it was all supposed to be about hope -- that aspect of our character which sustains our fragile will to live. Hope, like the timber post that holds up the scarecrow. Hope, like a crutch for the human species, as if we were all born with broken legs and need its support to function in our everyday lives. As if we were born ill-equipped for what lies ahead of us. And so, we hope. We all hope for something -- or at least most of us do. And it is this hope in which I am now growing disenchanted with. Yes, this scarecrow wants to pull the post out of his rectum and try walking, even though he has no legs. This scarecrow wants to stand alone.

Tonight, I desperately wanted to write. I just had to write, to conquer the black depression I've fallen into recently as a result of my lagging inspiration for life. But, no matter how much I wanted to, I could not write. I had nothing to say. I no longer believed in myself. I stared at the screen and my ideas fled from me like a teenager at the sight of a book. There was nothing. So I played a computer game instead. I shot German soldiers on screen as if I were shooting Nietzsche himself -- killing his will and my will simultaneously. And it is all my hope's fault.

For over a week now, I've barely written a legible sentence, let alone a sentence worth reading, and it is all as a result of my friviolous hope. That fucking crutch I lean on all too often. The pole sticking up the scarecrow's arse. And in this case, it was my hope in a non-existant future which had excused me for my lack of writing. My loathsome hope in tomorrow had been helping me procrastinate, justifying my medicority, even vindicating my depression. Allowing me access to the easy path leading nowhere, instead of fighting my way to the top of the mountain where the air is fresh and Zarathustra sits lonely, waiting for comrades.

Hope -- I'm sick of it. I'm at the end of my tether. Why do I always hope in some mythical future? Why do I fall for such cheap sophistic tricks, allowing hope to argue in favour of sloth and non-action? All because some great success waits around the corner? It's pathetic. It's so normal. Why do I fall for it again and again, when hope itself is not sufficient to make anything happen?

And yet, in my lame human weakness I continue to hope for so many things. I hope for literary success -- that my books will one day be published to great applause. I hope for the Nobel Prize for Literature. I hope to meet my dream lady, with spectacular looks and a spectacular heart to boot. I hope for the Mercedes Benz passing me in the street. I hope to one day own properties in Paris, Moscow and Japan. I hope I will give up smoking. I hope I will one day write something I can actually respect. I hope for a Rolex watch. I hope I can quit working for good. I hope I will overcome my inherent lassitude. I hope the world will one day listen to me. I hope I will live on through the great literary works I am yet to write. I hope to have a family. I hope I will give up smoking. I hope to one day find confidence instead of despondency. I hope there is an afterlife where I can smoke weed with Henry Miller and slide myself inside Anais Nin. I hope to one day hang the works of Francis Bacon and Giacometti on my walls. I hope for a million things, and yet, all the while, I am still sitting there dreaming of them, while doing nothing.

But no longer. I say again, this scarecrow wants to stand alone. It was only now, when I forgot my hopes momentarily, that I sat down and wrote this, instead of falling into bed depressed. Even if these words are worthless to your eyes, they at least have blown oxygen on the coals in my belly and allowed me to burn bright again for a few short minutes.

I no longer hope for anything. I will simply reach for what I once hoped for. I cannot hope to write a masterpiece. But I can still write.

Is This What the Blogworld is About?

2005-03-05T21:27:00.000+11:00

I just looked at another person's blog. I do that very rarely. Not because I am so self-centred I wouldn't read someone else's writing, but simply because there's so much crap out there.

Anyway, the blog I read just now sent me into a dull shock. It left me confused and disenchanted with my own medicore blog and raised several questions in my mind.

The blog I read was: http://ihatemyflatmate.blogspot.com/

If you could be bothered looking, notice that this blog has been written up in several newspapers across the globe and a single post has received 73 comments (at last glance). Well, one would assume, this blog had something to offer. It's in the media. 73 people deemed it necessary to leave their thoughts on a single post (I'm lucky to have received 73 comments for my whole blog, let along a single post of a meagre 100 words). So, anyway, I read quite a few of the author's (if you could call him/her that) posts at random. And finally, I closed the damn thing down in disgust.

I couldn't believe it. No -- I CAN'T believe it.

I've never read such inane trash. Seriously, take a look at the blog, is it as pathetic as I think, or do I just have bad taste? Is this what the blogworld is about -- nothing? No depth? No creativity? No value? Just cheap entertainment? Don't get me wrong, watching TV these days is enough to make me realise the bad taste that abounds out there, but man, this blog is worse than shit if you ask me.

God -- there is so much elitist shit I could say right now, but I'll simply stand mute. But if any of the few people who read this blog (my own blog) actually do take a look at this travesty called "Things I Hate About My Flatmate" can you tell me if you agree with me or not. Or at least tell me I am out of touch with the qualities of this modern world, should forget my own writing in the face of such amazing talent, and should consider suicide.

Cause seriously, suicide seems like a good option, if http://ihatemyflatmate.blogspot.com/ is what's considered good these days.

Argh!

The Somnambulist

2005-02-28T14:59:00.000+11:00

You wake to your alarm clock. It beeps over and over again, monotonous and insidious -- penetrating the dreams you have instantly forgotten the moment you woke. Your bloated eyes blink in confusion at the bedroom that is your own. And your ears blink in confusion at the monotony of the alarm clock, that too, is your own. Your pale, slim and weary arm reaches out to kill the sound that has woken you and brought you back to the world once more. You find the button -- the endless beeping dies. Now all you hear is the sound of traffic from far off, a minah bird calling to his friends and a large plane roaring overhead.

You are awake. Or maybe you aren't. But you rise from the bed regardless. The bed with the dirty sheets and the stale, deathly scent wafting from the pillows. The sun shining in from the skylights reflecting off your pale flesh, almost blinding you. You're naked. But not for long. You slip into track-suit pants faded from too long in the sun and a t-shirt you have owned since you were a teenager. The once famous logo across the breastplate already a distant memory in the minds of the masses. A has-been logo on a has-been t-shirt on a has-been body. Your has-been body.

You go downstairs, to the kitchen where you turn on the electric kettle, to the study where you turn on the computer, back to the kitchen where you put sugar and tea into a clean mug while listening to the rumble of the fast-boiling kettle. You don't think. What is the point? You just wait -- wait for the kettle, wait for the hot water to mix with the Sri Lankan tea leaves and wait for the teaspoon to stir in a dollop of milk. Then, you walk to the couch with your hot cup of tea, down the four steps and over the Afghan rug, toward the coffee table where your cigarettes and a half-read novel wait. You sit. You light a cigarette. You open the novel, written by a Frenchman who would have once inspired you to something, but who now only helps you kill time. And so you read and smoke and sip your tea. One page, two pages, twenty pages. One cigarette, two cigarettes, three cigarettes. One sip, two sips, three sips. Your tea is finished and there is little room left in the ashtray to stub out your smouldering cigarette butt. But you have made progress. The dream has continued. You realise an hour has passed. You realise you are hungry. But you also realise there is no food in the house.

So you shower. You brush your teeth and wash your hair and scrub your groin and armpits -- all out of habit. Your mind drifting. Your dirty thoughts washing down the drain, right along with your dirty, dead skin and the dirty white suds that smell of peach and honey. You write your name with a fingertip in the mist on the glass shower screen. You read it and it means nothing to you. So you turn off the taps and step out to dry yourself with the towel that smells similar to your sheets -- drying yourself out of habit. Looking at your reflection in the semi-fogged mirror on the medicine cabinet door. You look like you have aged overnight. Your blue eyes that seem to be greying. Your shaved head, thinning at the temples. Your puffy cheeks and your sunken, almost hairless chest, except for the sparse sprouts of hair around your nipples. You think something, but you cannot remember your thoughts. They were lost almost as soon as you found them.

But time moves ahead and the dream continues. You get dressed. Putting on a Lacoste polo neck and a pair of Lee jeans and finally your white Sergio Tacchini sneakers. Clothes you spent too much money on, thinking they would add to something, change something, but which only melted into your cupboards as have all your possessions. And when fully clothed and deodorised, you look again at your reflection in the mirror, as if checking whether you're human yet. But you cannot decide in either direction. You're not human -- you can't be. You're not living. You're not dead. You just are, and there's little to be done about it.

And so you go to head out. Stopping off in the study to check your emails, to see if anybody has written overnight. You find a few new messages, plus a few old ones that you have left unanswered for now. Letters from the girl you adore, from an ex-collegue, from a supposed friend and a supposed father. But you cannot find the energy to respond, let alone read what they have to say. No -- you must escape the house, the prison cell you have created for yourself. You must venture out, out, out into the world and prove that you're human, that you can escape your mediocrity and your solitary brooding. You must go beyond your hermit's shelter, where you can always return, where you will always return. Maybe when you're outside your home you will finally wake up.

But no -- you do not wake. Of course you do not wake. You only walk a few blocks, the whole time caught in the fog of the dream from which you fear you will never awake. You seem to float on your feet, moving for the sake of moving, thinking for the sake of thinking, but at least with some kind of goal in mind -- even if it is only the French Pattiserie with the Vietnamese fellow with a French name. You pass other somnambulists along the way, some looking at you momentarilty and others ignoring you as if you were but a ghost. Maybe you are a ghost. You enter the pattiserie and buy a brioche and a croissant. Four bucks in coins slapped on the counter with a meaningless smile and a meaningless word of thanks. And then you return home to eat your meal. More tea, more cigarettes, more reading, except now you are in civillian clothes and now you have French food in your belly to go with the French literature in your hands.

And so what?

Later, a friend calls you on your mobile phone. Later you meet her at Leichhardt (or Little Italy) for coffee and meaningless conversation. All the while pretending it means something. Pretending the smiles and the talk of her welfare payments has something profound mixed in with it all. But you know otherwise -- you know this is all just part of the dream you are living. But you still smile and act concerned, or you wonder if you are concerned? But you know you are not. How can you be concerned with a dream? How can you be worried about anything when you're only sleepwalking. No, you are detached from it all nowadays. It has been a while since your alarm clock actually woke you up. No, you are nothing but eyes to see, ears to hear, mouth to taste, nose to smell and heart to feel. Even if your heart can only feel grey these days. Even if all these senses, once meant to serve something in the living world, are now useless in the the world you now move contrary to.

But again -- you console yourself that at least your rendezvouz is a goal of sorts, some kind of cheap achievement amongst the blurry hours that have already passed you by. At least you are trying to wake up. At least you are trying to be human. So you talk to her. You even call your father down from a nearby office. You even smile at him as the three of you have meaningless conversations about movies, books, lesbians, food and real estate. Ordering more coffee, smoking more cigarettes and watching more people pass you by.

Occassionally, you spot a girl you desire, filling you with a momentary feeling that almost wakes you up for a second. But you cannot snap out of your trance. You already know in advance that this dream is endless. You already know that in this dream, no desires or fantasies are fulfilled. This dream is beyond your control. You can only watch the princesses passing by, wishing you could enjoy their company and their laughter and their naked flesh and their raspy moans. But even in a state of sleep you are smart enough to know that you are moving in a different world to theirs. They are beautiful because they're alive. But you -- you are but a faceless death mask, a ghost wishing he could have another chance with the earthly pleasures you once enjoyed. Hoping for a glance from these queens with the exposed cleavages of golden flesh. The Venuses who fill Sydney's streets like an endless parade of untouchable goddesses, arm-in-arm with their gods who drive fancy cars and wear fancy clothes, better than your simple Lacoste polo neck.

God, when will I wake up? You ask yourself. When will I find the escape hatch and rejoin the living? When will I find what it is I desire? When will I solve the riddle -- crack the code to the escape hatch of this imprenatrable bubble in which I have created? When? How? How? When? What must I do?

And your dream progresses. Your friend leaves you, so too does your father. You are alone once more. You head home once more. What must I do?

Nothing has changed inside your hermit's den. Thousands of books still line the walls of your study. There is still a dead cockroach in the hall, another beneath the CD racks and another beneath the coffee table whose white entrails have glued it to the floor. There is still a half-read French book on the coffee table beside a mug and an overflowing ashtray. There are still a few hundred DVDs lined up on the entertainment unit. There are still dirty pots in the sink. There is still a man there, a man observing it all, emotionless, wondering what he should do next. Wondering if he should write in his blog and tell the world about something they wouldn't care to read. There is still a stillness around you. A quiet solitude amidst the noise of the living world outside. Yes -- you have returned to your tomb and your bed. A fine layer of dust coats everything, like the house of the dead, waiting for the auctioneers to sell what remains. Maybe they could fetch a tidy some for your remains. A skeleton maybe to sit in a museum. A cadaver to be cut and prodded by pimple-faced medical students. Corneas to be sliced out with scalpels to return vision to an Indian boy called Raj.

You stand there, with nowhere to go, noone to turn to, not even yourself. You stand there, unseen and unknown. You stand there, a somnambulist, not sleeping, nor waking, but just being. Just as Sartre said, you stand there, being and nothingess. Being in nothingess. Nothingness in being.

You are the somnambulist.

Yes -- you are the somnambulist. The fool who chose this path. The fool who pretends to be sleeping --who has convinced himself that he is different, that he cannot wake. You are the man, who wishes to be known, but fooled himself into believing the contrary. You are the self-created, self-pitying, self-obsessed somnambulist who decided to cut himself off from the world, even thought the world is indifferent to your fate, even though you are immersed in the world whether you like it or not. You are the somnambulist who thinks his acts differentiate him from the rest, as if he is separating the wheat from the chaff, when in fact, there is no chaff and there is no wheat. There is only others just like you. Struggling to find their way.

Yes -- you are the somnambulist who tries to wrap his depression in the language of poetry. A self-obsessed depression in which you are the sole cause. You are the somnambulist who is wide awake, and only wishes he was sleepwalking. You are only pretending, playacting, dreaming of some semi-conscious world, when your literary passions only prove your humanity -- forever linking you to those you wish weren't the same as you. You want to martyr yourself on the banner of art. When in reality, you are killing yourself for no other purpose than self-pity. You are self-destructing, while believing it is the world destroying you. You are retreating in the face of hardship, simply from weakness, while hoping it is strength. You are hiding from the world. But when will you learn that the world cannot be fooled? When will you learn that the world has already found you? That you can lose yourself, but never the world?

Yes -- you are the somnambulist.

This Thought Still Consoles Me

2005-02-21T14:27:00.000+11:00

Today I was free. Free as an autumn leaf released from its branch and brethren -- floating freely in the breeze before it hits the ground and is trampled underfoot. I was free. But free from what? Free from work, and that's about it. And yet, this freedom, for a dying moment, felt like the freedom of a condemned man with his death sentence suddenly commuted. I sat in the centre of the city, amongst the hurrying hordes, the unsettling noise and the glaring sun, and I felt the sweet caress of freedom -- if even for a fleeting instant. My Mondays are now free from work and therefore on Monday I am free -- free to the limited degree an illusory freedom grants us. But, this illusion was still beautiful. And this illusion, we all see like a mirage in the desert of life, will always be beautiful.

It may come as no shock, but I was, as always, sitting at a cafe. A book with me and a fresh, unopened packet of cheap cigarettes upon the table. And I was happy to be amidst my people. Still strangers, but allies in our shared humanity. Allies like brothers in arms -- struggling and fighting a common enemy. The enemy of life and existence. Battling life on our own, with our own weapons and our own strategies. Always alone, but battling the same enemy, even if we are forever in solitude. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Therefore, these unknown people were my friends.

And even though life is the enemy, it is also our greatest ally. It is the enemy we love to hate and the lover we hate to love. And it is always there, around every corner and in every breath we take. Just as my allies were there today, passing the cafe in which I sat, on their merry way to destinations only known to themselves. But destinations nonetheless. Just as I sat, stationery, still and observant -- I too had a destination. I just hadn't left port yet. I was a ship at anchor -- watching the city beyond and the sea at my back. Invisible ropes tying me to the table and chair, while the others rose and fell on a volatile sea, or scurried about on land.

I was reading my book but found it hard to concentrate. But I didn't mind. I was happy not to concentrate. Content to drift at port, while the legs of strangers bounded past, above the white pages I pretended to read. I was happy to sense the world, its people, its objects, its cacophony of sounds. Looking up to watch, to observe and to feel. I was in shadow, but on the other side of the road a determined sun lit the promendade. Baking the exposed flesh of businessmen and shoppers alike. Heating their organs and their dreams within. Boiling the liquid mass of my brothers and sisters, while the glass toweres above reflected other glass towers in an infitite replication of industrial irrelevancy.

For a time, my eyes were the eyes of a newborn child. I looked at things anew, without connection to a remembered or learned explanation. I looked at a road barrier and for a moment I saw it, instead of a road barrier. I simply saw its colours and its shapes -- the cracks in the plastic of one section where its back was broken. I saw it and I smiled. Just as I smiled at the lone tree growing out of the footpath and the sound of churchbells ringing from far off. And I smiled beacuse I saw and heard life, instead of just a tree or just churchbells. But of course, my eyes lost their virginity very quickly, and soon enough I saw what I have always seen and always will see. And yet, I still smiled regardless. No -- I was not to be defeated.

I was happy and that is all that mattered. I was happy to be at a cafe instead of an office. I was happy to drift where I wanted to, instead of being ordered this way and that by a boss I have never respected. Oh, if only every day I felt like this. If only I could sustain this meditative, accepting state, where I no longer cared about the complexities we create for ourselves.

All those people, people I will never see again, made me glad they existed. Even though, as I turned my attention to another, they ceased to exist for me. The main thing was they too shared my experience, even if they were depressed and unaware of it. And while they may not have registered my existence as they passed, I acknowledged theirs. Under my gaze, for the few seconds I watched them, they were alive. As alive as they will ever be for me. And that is sufficient.

I often wish I could enter the minds of these strangers. Know what they think they know. Feel the pain bubbling away beneath their stoic facades or immerse myself in their past or present pleasures. And in a certain way I have experienced them all. I imagine their thoughts. I imagine their histories. Like the old man shuffling on two walking sticks, his drooping eyelids revealling pink and moist flesh inside. His flesh rotting while he still lived. His mind rotting while he still breathed. I watched him and wondered what hopes he had once had. Whether he had dreamed like I dream, like everyone dreams. I wondered if he once wished to be a writer, a poet, a world leader, a painter, a famous boxer or maybe just the head of his department. I wondered if he had reached his goals or given up on his dreams. I wondered as he took his last steps, if he still hoped for something beyond the mediocrity he had found for himself. Did he even remember what he once dreamed for? Did he still recall, with trademark nostalgia, the first time he slid himself inside his first woman?

And then the old man was gone and my attention wandered elsewhere. Maybe over to the waitress once again.

Yes -- that wonderful waitress. Even now, I remember that beautiful waitress who served me my coffee. A young girl, maybe just eighteen, but a woman nonetheless. Her well-formed breasts and her swaying buttocks confirming the fact. Walking around in her black uniform -- full-length pants and figure hugging T-shirt. I smiled at her as she served other tables and she smiled back. I stared into her deep brown eyes and felt my heart flutter. And the whole time I was there, an hour or more, this beautiful waitress was there too. Moving between tables, glancing over her shoulder at me. She was aware that I was watching her. Glad to know my acknowledgement of her presence made her presence expand and her life more defined. My eyes and my attention making her somebody amongst that faceless mass of people. The pair of us joined in our little flirtateous game. Two people rising above the mass for a moment, making an electric connection.

I knew she enjoyed our game. I enjoyed it too. I let her know I was watching as she purposefully pausied near me. Bending down to wipe non-existent dirt from a neighbouring table. Unable to hide the subtle smile still playing on her superbly kissable and glossed lips. And as she bent down, her T-shirt lifted and revealed a fragment of her bare back and a slice of her underwear above the hem of her pants. And in that moment I loved her -- cherished her like a goddess. I could have kissed her there, where her skin smiled at me, where the fine downy hair rose in the curve of her spine. And in reality, I didn't kiss her. But in my mind, I kissed her again and again. I tasted the salty sweat on her flesh. I felt her body tremble beneath my lips and I felt the soft flesh of her waist as my hands held her firmly.

I smiled. Right now I smile also.

And then I packed up my gear. I paid my bill to a different waitress and I left it all behind. Giving my own waitress one last glance as I wandered off down the street. Seeing her raise her head from her duties and give me one last smile. Myself winking in reply as she flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and watched me go. And as I walked away, leaving her behind, I knew I would never see her again. I knew I would never kiss her beautiful, lower back. Nor would I taste her strawberry lip gloss and peel her clothes from her, laying my eyes and my fingers upon her pure nakedness. But that is okay. At least I have her memory for now. An image and a feeling I can still feel burning away inside me. Just as she may, this very evening, recall the young guy who watched her and desired her. The guy with the book and the shaved head; the strong flat white and the cheap cigarettes.

And even though she is lost to me forever, this thought still consoles me.

Sometimes I Imagine

2005-02-20T22:26:00.000+11:00

Sometimes I imagine who I am. Sometimes I fool myself into believing I know myself. But these creative musings barely last. I suddenly realise I am only fooling myself. I suddenly see that I know about as much as a thimbleful of water stolen from an ocean. I know very little of myself and so I must imagine myself. I must create a being -- sketch a picture that suits my ego. Conjure up ideas and concepts which I squeeze into an unknowable reality -- a reality I too must imagine, so as to convince myself I understand something.

Otherwise there is only despair. That nothingness of reality. A cold reality that assures each and every one of us that we are insignificant. Just ants in an anthill. Ants to be stepped on and fumigated. Ants that are enslaved, serving an unseen Queen, but constantly pretending we are serving ourselves. Creating virtues out of the dust. No -- imagining virtues. Imagining we are always right, when in fact, we are just cold facts and only facts. Right and wrong being but simple imaginings.

And so I imagine myself. I create myself, just as I create the short stories and novellas I have written. Just as I create each character in each and every tale I have imagined. And these characters and these stories are just as real as reality. Just as real as who I think I am, and what I see when I look at the world. Maybe even more real to me than the cool reality I am confronted with daily. Oh, how I'd much rather imagine I know, than know that I don't. And so I imagine.

Yes -- we imagine. And these imaginings are as real as the real. Every character I have ever created is but an extension of myself. They have come from myself, therefore they are myself. Just as my spit is myself; my feaces myself; my semen myself . . . and so on and so on.

And I do not say this to be depressing. I say this, simply to say something. To write something else and imagine something else. I could stay silent and wouldn't it all be the same? These words will not change humanity. But I can imagine they will -- and that is good enough. Just as I have imagined myself to be who I am. Just as I imagine my friends and my family and my life and my death. Just as I imagine myself imagining.

A Teaspoon of Desire

2005-02-20T21:43:00.000+11:00

Oftentimes I can get quite depressed. I'm human. (And no, this isn't one of those look-at-me type posts hoping for a cuddle).

So, oftentimes, I get depressed. And quite often it stems from the need for a partner, the desire for a female presence in my life, beyond my mother. I can brood on this for hours. Wishing I had a woman. Praying for a woman. Imagining the ideal woman. Crying over the woman who doesn't lie beside me in bed each evening, or on top of me for that matter.

This can go on for several painful hours. And then it will occur to me that I should masturbate. So, I settle down in front of this computer that doubles as a typewriter and I fuck my hand to the moving images of reamed buttholes and fascinating deepthroats. I jerk and tug away wide-eyed. And then, before I know it, I've blown my load and suddenly stopped worrying about whether or not I have a woman in my life. Then, for the rest of the evening, women are far from my mind. In fact, I don't even think about them. I'm no longer depressed. I'm suddenly focussed. I'm sitting down writing instead of brooding -- all because I released a teaspoon of desire into a tissue.

It's quite odd really.

Get Your Priorities Straight!

2005-02-20T20:21:00.000+11:00

Today, my mum ambushed me. Appearing on my doorstep, unannounced, just after I'd woken up. My eyes were still swollen with sleep and a cigarette dangled from my bloated lips. I wasn't impressed. And nor was my mother. Her face showed her disgust quite clearly. Her head cocked to the side and a grim expression set on her features. It was just past noon and obviously no self-respecting member of the community would be waking up at such an ungodly hour. Come to think of it, no self-respecting member of the community would smoke either. But that's another story altogether.

So, I stared at my mother standing on the threshold -- taken aback by her sudden appearance. I didn't have time to come to my senses or even rub my bloodshot eyes. She just pushed past me and started on a long harangue in her patronising voice. From the moment she entered, she was lecturing me about the state of the house -- her house mind you -- but my fucking home. She pointed out the rusty gutters out front, the leaves on the doorstep, the dust and crap in the hallway. Muttering to herself as she walked this way and that. Her finger pointing at a dead cockroach accusingly. Her lips twitching as she noticed the floorboards hadn't been mopped for an age. And all the time I listened and watched her with indifference. My head bowed as she was telling me I was just like my father. Telling me to clean up more often. Telling me she might have to sell the house. Telling me I lived like an animal. Telling me I was just like my father once again.

Basically, telling me shit I didn't need, care about, or want to hear.

Thankfully though, her visit was shortlived. She had better places to be -- better than the home of her oh-so-irresponsible son. So she had entered like a typhoon and exited like a hurricane. Leaving me sitting on my couch, extinguishing my cigarette and immediately lighting another. Sitting there like the victim of a horrendous storm. If I had hair, it would have been dishevelled. If I had a gun, it would have been smoking. But without either, I just stroked my freshly shaven head and stared at the cobwebs in the corner, brooding on this idea of housekeeping she's so keen on.

What the fuck does she care if I live like this? It's my life. I'm 26 years old for Christ's sake. I'm quite happy living like this . . . never had a problem with it. But she has to come in here and dictate to me how to live. Fuck -- imagine spending half my hours cleaning like she does.

You see, the thing is, housekeeping is the least of my worries. I don't care if friends come over and cringe at the dead cockroach in the corner or the dust on the skirting boards. I don't care if they see the mouldy pots in the sink or the fact that my ashtrays haven't been emptied in days. I've overcome that part of my pride which makes one care about the false little picture they're portraying to the world. I'm not going to live as I am supposed to live, especially while my character totally disregards such trivial matters. Seriously -- do my floorboards need to be polished mirrors for me to face society? Moving beyond ads for pest control, what does a dead cockroach really matter? I don't have a kid who is going to munch on it for a midday snack. Nor am I currently courting a germophobe with brilliant breasts and a virgin sphincter that fits like a glove.

Sorry -- I know this sounds so very trivial, but it's kind of leading somewhere, in a roundabout, rambling sort of way. Rest assured, I'll get to the point soon enough.

You see, my mother's speech opened up a can of worms in my mind -- opening up Joel's philosophy on cleaning. And since then I've been seriously thinking about this cleaning business. Shaking my head in exasperation at the trivialities of society. Furrowing my brow in disbelief at the back-to-front priorities we're supposed to adopt. To me, cleaning isn't living. To me, cleaning is dying. How many hours can one spend in their lifetime scrubbing, and rubbing, and polishing, and buffing? God -- after a week of enslavement in a dreary office, I barely have enough time to work on my novel, let alone clean. So then, what is my priority going to be? Should I clean, or should I write? Does it matter that there's dust on the furniture if I've written a masterpiece? While on my deathbed, do I want to take take stock of my life and proudly say: "I had a clean house. My floorboards were the shiniest in the neighbourhood and my toilet smelled of a pine forest."? Or would I rather say: "I had a dirty house, but I wrote several masterpieces. I had skidmarks in my toilet but the smell of my Nobel Prize for Literature was the smell of victory."?

I think I know the answer. No -- I know I know the answer. And even if I never conquer the world with my literary efforts, at least I'll be able to say: "I tried to be a writer." Instead of saying: "I tried to be a housemaid."

Seriously people, some of us need to get our priorities straight.

Speak mind, speak.

2005-02-19T21:43:00.000+11:00

The room is the same. The table and the laptop; the walls and the cobwebs; the humming of the fan in my computer. And yet, nothing is the same. I am not the same. I am a replica of a human -- a fraud. I try to find the fleeting emotions that once empowered me, only to find they have snuck away during the night. I try to find the ideas that once reassured me, the solidity of the objects around me, but I only find nothing. But a nothing contained in a supposed something . . . a supposed me; a supposed room.

What has become of me? We speak of progress but to where am I progressing? How can progress be found in a journey towards our simple annihilation?

My life isn't progression, but regression . . . a passionate regression. A regression of pain and pleasure, indifference and obsession.

Yes -- I am in a state of flux. I am a fleeting gesture. My life is a fleeting gesture. Like a wave of the hand it has passed me by. Leaving me with memories -- some real and some imagined. Some evaporating into an abyss of the mind, while others growing out of all proportions into exaggerated distortions of the truth. And this gesture is still continuing along its arc. Slicing through nothingness. This wave of the arm is only half-way there. But to where is this arm waving? To where are all my efforts taking me?

I listen to Erik Satie's "Gnossiennes No. 2" and I feel my body overcome with sadness. But it is a joyous sadness. A self-indulgent sadness. Almost as if pleasure hides within pain and pain within pleasure. Like I enjoy the tears welling up in my eyes as they are profound and passionate tears -- tears stemming from the heart. Just as there can be a hint of pain in a feeling of pleasure -- a painful knowledge that the pleasure will be short-lived.

So then, why do I love my pain, and love my pleasure? Why do I adore this gesture that is my life? Even while knowing my efforts are useless.

Speak mind, speak. Speak to me and tell me something I don't know. Speak to me like a friend and lover; an enemy and ally. Just speak to me and tell me something . . . instead of this endless confusion. Tell me I am great or tell me I am worthless, but tell me something.

Oh but it is all the same and at the same time different. I am a contradiction living in a contradiction. These words are ridiculous and at the same time profound. The work of a genius and the work of an imbecile. They are endless meanderings through a dying gesture. Maybe they will live forever . . . or maybe they are already dead.

The Objective Lense of a Security Camera

2005-02-13T18:33:00.000+11:00

Norton Street -- a Sunday afternoon. Cafes and restaurants; pavements doubling as catwalks; boutique stores stocking Italian fashions; white loafers and gelled hair. Hotted up sports cars screaming from canon-sized exhausts; people with dogs; people without dogs; Aussies and Africans, Asians and Wogs.

Today was a typical Sunday afternoon on Norton Street.

It was a sunny day too. Black shadows cast and sweating temples. The sun reflecting off fresh segments of pavement, making me squint my eyes. I walked there with Yvonn and her dog Scout. Going for breakfast and, of course, coffee. We sat at the outdoor cafe which is part of Berkelouw Books, Yvonn clearing the dirty table since one of the waiters is afraid of dogs. Even though Scout is as threatening as Steven Hawkings without his wheelchair. The table was a chrome disc with three black plastic chairs. Yvonn's dog lying under it at our feet, watching the feet of passers-by without interest, while I ordered coffee and Yvonn ordered breakfast. And so the pair of us ate, sipped, chewed, spoke and choked on tobacco smoke. Seconds turning into minutes and minutes turning into hours.

This is life.

I was in an odd mood -- people watching as usual, drifting in and out of consciousness and sub-consciousness, yet forever awake. At times I was one with the streetscape and at others I was a distant observer. My blue eyes like the objective lense of a security camera. Perched on my neck, gliding left to right, watching the world tick forward like the hands on a giant clock. People going one way and people going the other. Cars gliding up Norton Street and cars gliding down.

This is life . . . . Are you fascinated yet?

And yet, I myself was fascinated, in a sleepy sort of way. Trying to make sense of it all while knowing I couldn't. One moment I accepted and one moment I revolted. One moment I knew the answers, or thought I knew them, but then they scampered away like the dusty pigeons beneath the pedestrians' feet. Leaving me to sit baffled at the sight of the strange parade of people and machines going about their business. Unsure of which fragment in the giant kaleidoscope I should focus on, or whether I could just absorb it all like a giant sponge.

But complete absorbtion was impossible -- I am no Zen monk with piles, but a simple man with many problems. Just as I would find a zone of calm acceptance, my conscious thoughts intruded like a neural cavity search. White-gloved fingers penetrating the dark realm within and breaking my meditation into a thousand pieces. Snapping me awake with the pain and shame of the intrusion. Realising my eyes were settling on another bronzed Mediterranean girl with a short skirt and a boob tube. All made-up with straightened hair, hoop earrings and lipstick; all for her self-important afternoon parade down Norton Street.

Yes -- I was fascinated by what I heard and saw; smelt and tasted. Life passing me by as I sat idly waiting for something to happen, while knowing everything was happening at one and the same time. I conversed with Yvonn on auto-pilot. Her words dancing into my ears and registering with a part of my brain which responded accordingly, without effort or concern. My own words falling from my lips in reply and making her smile and nod and return with words of her own. Ad infinitum. Or should that be ad nauseam?

Everything was happening, and at the same time, nothing was happening. I watched as I exhaled the smoke from my cigarette -- the grey mist dissipating in the air, just as I will one day dissipate. In fact, am I not dissipating right now? But what do these thoughts or questions matter? Furthermore, what did they matter when I posed them, as I sat drinking coffee which was already history the moment it was made?

Bleh! I can sure rattle on. But please excuse me. I am struggling these days -- struggling to accept the here and now; struggling to defeat my worries on the past and on the future. Trying to find a philosophy that suits my temperament. But it is difficult. Much more difficult than I ever imagined. I admit, this may sound strange, but the acceptance of life is a complex endeavour. But thankfully, one that pays off now and then.

Yes -- there are moments of illumination and clarity, where I feel myself living -- feeling my heart beating, my lungs inflating and deflating, my life forever moving somewhere. And at these moments I am happy to be alive. Rare moments where I find a groove where everything is worthwhile and nothing seems to matter. A mindframe where all that surrounds me is accepted and savoured -- whether its the inside of my lounge room or Norton Street itself.

And while I sat at that cafe, there was a few minutes of life where I could only smile in reply. Watching and listening to the sports cars, the people, the dogs, the pigeons, the cafes, the cigarettes, the Mediterranean women who won't sleep with me, the sports exhausts, the tanned cleavages, the pale cleavages, the sloppy cleavages, the pert cleavages, the white Italian loafers, the cheap Australian thongs, the thumping bass of techno music, the panting of a dog at my feet, the laughing children, the sulking children, the pouting Cassanovas, the perverted old men, the waiters with phobias, the waitresses with little black aprons, the books in the window that aren't mine, the book in my mind that is mine, the wallet in my pocket which is empty, the words of Yvonn which are full, the sun roasting the concrete, the breeze blowing against my neck, the spectacular woman at the table beside me, her man beside her like a cut-out from a men's magazine, the fly on the edge of the table, the ash blowing out of the ashtray, the fat mamma chomping down on ice cream, the fat pappa watching her chomp . . . .

. . . . Should I stop now?

Don't worry, I will stop. But just know, there was a moment like this. A moment of perfection while I sat at that cafe on Norton Street. And it was a moment of bliss. A moment where I stopped struggling, worrying or trying. A moment where life was lived as it should be. In the here and now, instead of the back then or over there. And yet, while I write this, I am living in the past, in search of lost time. It is time I stopped -- high time I pressed "publish post" and returned to this second instead of that one back there.

It is time I lived.

Until next time my friends.

Back to Work

2005-02-02T22:40:00.000+11:00

Well my friends, it appears Flea has left the life of the living and returned to the life of the dead. That's right -- I have been forced into becoming a normal member of society by having to find paid work. Four days a week at some lame-ass printers, where I pretend to care for a measly few dollars. Sad isn't it?

Unfortunately, in case you haven't realised its relevance, this will mean less time for writing and blogging. But I assure you I will endeavour to blog something new as soon as I can.

In the mean time, just remember what Aristotle said: "All paid work absorbs and degrades the mind."

Although, that groovy Greek did say something else I should probably ponder myself. He said: "He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."

Mmmm . . .

Interrogation #0003

2005-01-30T19:51:00.000+11:00

Hello Mr X. Come in, come in. Take your usual seat . . . yes, you know where I mean. Your favourite seat in world. Ha! So -- how have you been?

You really want to know, or are you just ridiculing me?

A bit of both really, but yes, tell me, how have you been?

Well, I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from you again. So -- to be honest, I was starting to feel a bit better . . . until I got your summons of course.

Yes yes, I imagine you were feeling better. Sorry for that. As you know, the State moves very slowly at times. But, you should also know that once you're in our sights you never leave our sights.

I've figured that out by now.

Good good. I hope my men didn't rough you up too much. I notice you're bleeding.

It's to be expected.

True enough . . . just don't bleed on my desk if you can help it. Now, where were we? Yes -- it's been quite a while since I saw you last. Several months now.

I imagine you did it on purpose. Leaving me to stew in my juices -- make me even more paranoid. Right?

Oh not at all Mr X. You stewed in your juices long before we opened your case. It's in your nature to think yourself into oblivion. You're what I call an unreasonable reasoner.

That doesn't surprise me.

So, you honestly thought I was going to leave you alone after our last two meetings? How amusing.

I guess I fell for hope didn't I?

H'm . . . hope eh? I thought you knew better than that. But I can't expect you to be any less human than the others. You people like your hope don't you?

I wouldn't say we like it . . . but it's probably the only thing that stops us slitting our wrists.

Yes, you're right there. False hope abounds. And then you get old and realise there was nothing to hope for yes?

How would I know? You are the one with all the answers. Maybe you should tell me.

Very funny Mr X. Yes -- I know much more than you pagans. I know more than you can even dream of. But you know you're here to answer my questions and not the other way around. If I told you the answers, there wouldn't be any fun now would there?

Maybe not for you.

If you want me to tell you something, then how about this: You like to call us officials Big Brother or the Thought Police, but really, we are the truth personified and you civillians are nothing but a giant falsehood. We officials know the truth. And you, you pagans are simply walking in circles.

Maybe we wouldn't be walking in circles if you told us the truth.

No no my friend. Not at all. If we told you the truth you would all slit your wrists and where would that leave us? No, the State is much smarter than that. We need your falsehood. We need your ignorance as much as you need our truth.

Obviously. You'd rather torment your citizens with Stalinist interrogations than let us decide for ourselves.

You're very funny. Stalinist eh? No, Stalin's interrogations were simply torture, followed by murder. Do you think his torture ever achieved the truth? On the contrary, his victims only told the torturers what they wanted to hear. Only so the end would come more quickly. No -- we have come much farther than that paranoid Georgian. As I said to you last time -- you search for frail reasons behind these interrogations, but fail to realise your reason cannot comprehend them.

I think your methods and your ends are absurd if you want the truth. I don't care what your motives are. I've realised I must accept the absurdity in here, just as much as I must accept out there. It's all one and the same.

Very impressive Mr X. Very impressive. You have come a long way since we last spoke. I was just about to speak about this. It's all in your file. You and your thoughts of absurdity. Let me see . . . you've since quit your job, you've been working on your novel, you've slept with a girl you're barely interested in, and you seem to be progressing along this road of absurdity you just mentioned. Yes yes -- absurdity.

Then why must you ask all these questions if you know the answers already?

I say again -- I ask and you answer. It is very simple. Now, all this absurdity business. It is strange to me that you seem to believe this theory of the absurd that Albert Camus passed on to you, and yet you continue to stumble and fall into the pits of hope. Why do you think that is?

It's really quite obvious. The theory is rational that's all. I can rationalise it, but only in moments of lucidity. But those moments are few and far between. The rest of the time I'm running on auto-pilot like most people. And when that happens, I forget all my ideas and simply regress into my old thoughtless self.

Ha! Said like a true genius Mr X. I appreciate your honesty.

This is what I have been trying to solve this last month or two. Trying to stay conscious of the facts as much as possible. Passionate lucidity. Instead of thoughtless unconsciousness.

Yes, I know. Let me say that I am impressed with your attitude Mr X. I remember your first time here -- how defensive and uncooperative you were. But now, now you seem resigned to your fate. It's admirable. You may have wondered why I haven't resorted to torturing you since I've taken on your case. And it's simple. While you speak sincerely like this I have no need to force it out of you. But I do wonder why you speak to me so smugly, as if you aren't afraid. When I know that you are in fact quite frightened.

I'm permanently afraid -- that's why. Out there I am just as smug as I am in here. I have no need to shy away from reality. Fear is the norm. Threat is the norm. Your threats are just as horrible as the medicority outside this room. One death may be sudden and black, while the other death may be slow and grey -- but they're death all the same. They're painful all the same. So -- why would I face you any differently to them?

True. I like your reasoning.

Whether you like it or not is of little consequence to me.

Ha! And that is also true Mr X.

Of course it is.

Oh well, let us proceed. I would still like to speak of this hope you continue falling into. Forgive me for asking -- but it is somewhat amusing to me. You fill yourself with hope so as to face life, or the absurdity of life as you like to look at it now. But you're also afraid. Afraid of life and afraid of death. Hope and fear. It is like you're trapped between the two.

It's really not that amusing you know?

Oh, but it is -- if you could remove yourself and look at it objectively, you would see it is quite amusing. Think about it. You're afraid of facing life, but you can't end your life beacuse you're afraid of death. So all you can do is wrap yourself in hope to make life more bearable -- even though the thing you fear most is death. And death is the only thing you can honestly hope for. The one hope that isn't false.

That's why I am trying to stay as lucid as possible. That's why I am trying to stare it in the face without lapsing into thoughtlessness. Instead of fooling myself into religious immortality, or the immortality of my works, I'd rather accept it head-on and experience it while fully awake.

So -- these are your thoughts now. You believe staying lucid will make the absurdity of your life worthwhile?

No -- I believe by being aware, constantly aware, that I at least will experience life. For too long I have been wandering through a grey world. There has been no black, no white, no colours. If I am aware, the blackness of suffering is better than the mediocrity of grey, everyday nothingness. I have decided it is better to live wide awake, even if it is painful, than to live fast asleep in a dream-state. Because the dull pain of a grey normality is much worse than a lucidity of a black suffering. At least suffering has power. And I have found, in the moments of awareness, that if one is aware of the suffering, just as much as the fleeting moments of pleasure, then one's life is bearable, even enjoyable.

Oh my friend, your perspective seems so pessimistic -- and yet, under the microscope it is so positive. I understand your logic here. Tell me more. You believe your awareness turns the greys into a multitude of colours?

In the rare moments that I am lucid -- yes. But the struggle is staying lucid. It is a continuous struggle not to fall back into mediocrity. One must contemplate the world while wide awake, otherwise it passes one by like a bad television show. You live in a state of auto-hypnosis and your only lusicd truth will be when you're dying.

Very well then, if that is what you're currently fighting for, then continue. You seem to be talking a lot about death and suffering though. Sounds quite dark to me, but I think you're trying to be honest with yourself.

That is all Sir. That is all I am trying to be. And while it sounds dark, the joy comes with accepting the darkness and the light. The pleasure is in experiencing everything. Trying to multiply your experiences by being permanently lucid. You know what I believe? I believe that a man may go through life and do a thousand amazing things, but not be aware of their magnitude. And meanwhile, another man may do a few things, but by being lucid he will have experienced much more than the other man.

Yes yes -- as Marcel Proust said: 'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.' It is similar to this.

Yes it is.

It appears you are entering an interesting phase. But tell me this -- do you believe in sin Mr X? Because, if as you say, everything is absurd, then doesn't that mean everyone is free to do as they please?

You know better than anyone that everyone can do as one pleases. Yes -- the are consequences. But this does not mean we aren't free to act as we choose. It simply means that we must accept the consequences.

And where does that leave the concept of sin?

Sin doesn't concern me Sir. I read somewhere once that there is only one sin. And that every person is guilty of it.

And what's that?

That of being born. The only sin is being born.

Ha! Very nice. I have heard this said before, but I had forgotten it. Well Mr X, I believe that is enough for your third visit. I will be seeing you soon.

I'll count on it.

-CLOSE PROCEEDINGS-

The Stranger

2005-01-26T16:41:00.000+11:00

"There are days when everything in the city I live in -- the people in the streets, the traffic, the trees -- awakens in the morning with a strange aspect, the same as always yet unrecognizable, like the times when you look into the mirror and ask: 'who's that?' These for me are the loveliest days of the year."

Cesare Pavese -- "Suicides"

Today, for me, was such a day -- although I wonder whether I would call it lovely. Today the world has awoken with a 'strange aspect'. It is as if my knowledge of the past and my understanding of the present has been torn asunder. As if, while sleeping, I have slipped off the timeline -- maybe only a millisecond out of pace, but out of pace just the same. The world walking ahead of me -- or maybe behind me. The people talking, the birds singing, even the sound of a plane roaring overhead: all sounding like tape recordings or fraudulent copies of the truth. From the moment I awoke, I have been aware of this sudden change in perspective. I look at everything with virginal eyes, knowing what they are, but at the same time not knowing. I feel removed from them. As if I am the only spectator in the audience, wondering if I can jump up and join the actors on stage before me, or whether I can fight off the urge to join them. I even ponder the idea of the actors throwing me off their stage -- all of them knowing I am but an outsider. A stranger to their creed: destined to observe their rites, but never to partake in them.

How does one explain it -- this sense of isolation that occasionally grips us unawares? How does one capture this separation from reality, where we feel like impenetrable beings, sitting on top of the the world but not within it?

Right now, at this moment, I am trying to understand something -- anything -- even though the moment I have spoken of has already passed me by. But what about NOW? Is that here or back there? I know the moment is lost. I know every moment is lost. This cigarette I am smoking will never be smoked again. The gesture I have only just made: ashing the cigarette, blowing out a plume of smoke -- this gesture will never be replicated. It is times like this that I feel an afinity for the insane. Maybe the insane achieved total lucidity and their insanity was their only way of coping with it.

For example; I am sitting on a seat, my elbows on a table, my feet on a floor, my fingers on a keyboard, a watch on my wrist and clothes on my back. But everything is on -- nothing is in. Does that make sense? I do not feel anything but myself. Even when I feel the objects around me, I am only sensing them clashing against myself. All that I truly feel is myself: my heart beating, my lungs breathing, my eyes blinking. But outside of myself I know nothing else can be a part of me. Each object is an object all of its own. I too am an object all of its own. The women I desire are objects all of their own. Even though I penetrate them -- I do not actually penetrate them. I can never enter them. Their existence only rests against my existence. Their womb only sits on top of me. My tongue clashes with theirs, my hands clash with their breasts. Even when I inhale their scent -- their scent clashes with my lungs.

I know this is all insane talk -- abstract, post-modernist, existentialist, absurdist insane talk. But I do not care what you all think of it. I can only say what I think and feel. That is the best I have to offer you. Whether you like it or not.

I wonder, maybe today is lovely afterall. Maybe I am not out of synch with the world, but completely in synch with the world at this point of time. Is it possible that I am merely in a state of heightened lucidity --improved awareness? Albert Camus said the absurd man must use his revolt, his freedom and his passion as rules of life. And by doing this he finally accepts his life and his death, but refuses his suicide. Is it possible that my passion can save me from the current despair caused by my lucidity?

Just now, I paused the writing of this post to smoke a cigarette. I stood in the doorway to my back yard, leaning against the door jam, observing the world. And something occurred to me -- something lovely. I watched a small lizard scale the fence, its movements never to be repeated, its small feet never to move in the same way ever again, nor touch the same section of concrete. I watched the lizard passionately. I watched it as if I were watching a miracle unfold before my very eyes. And at that moment, I watched the lizard and knew it would die. I watched the clouds overhead and knew they too would die. But more importantly, I thought of myself, and knew I would die also. But this did not bother me. I suddenly realised this is where beauty lies. Not in immortality, but mortality itself. In the death of each moment and the life of the next.

Is it the fact of our impending death that can suddenly make life bearable, even beautiful? Is it this acceptance of our solitary life and death which we must come to terms with? Chosing to make the most of each dying moment? Realising the freedom in such a fact and using this freedom passionately?

I know all this seems strange -- going from my estrangement from the world and then speaking of death in glowing terms. But it does not appear strange to me. It is this estrangement from the world which is, in fact, my link to the world. My estrangement from and my link to the world actually negate each other -- leaving me in between the two, in this 'strange aspect'. Yes -- leaving me in the contradiction which I must accept. That place where the observance of the world and our passionate lucidity make up for our imminent demise. Where we must decide to live as opposed to dying. Where we accept every dying moment as if it was a limited gift we must make the most of.

Yes -- it is lovely. These are the loveliest days of the year.

Redemption Song

2005-01-21T21:06:00.000+11:00

Well friends, after all the angst yesterday regarding my temporary impotence, I am writing to say I have redeemed myself. Herman the One Eyed German may have taken his revenge the other night, but I had a hunch he was swallowing his own desires, simply to have his vengeance. Furthemore, I imagined it was as hard for him to stay flaccid in sight of his goal as it was for me to convince him to stand up straight.

And how right I was.

That's correct -- last night, I returned to my patient and perverted stubbornness. I prepared myself for the mission ahead -- both physically and mentally. I soaped my balls clean, brushed my teeth and even put on a fresh pair of drawers. I also stood before the mirror and psyched myself up. Like Travis Bickle or Vincent Vega I addressed my reflection directly. Just don't think about it Joel . . . if you start worrying of course it won't work. You need to lose yourself in the moment. Close your eyes and go for gold. This is the test my friend. After your shameful experience last night, it will be even harder (pardon the pun) to concentrate on the matter at hand. So don't fucking think about it. Okay? Don't fucking think about it!

I even massaged myself through my jeans and felt a reassuring stiffening between my thighs. Failure is not an option. And finally, when I felt sufficiently prepped for what lay ahead, I jumped in my car and rolled round to A's place once more. Ringing her buzzer and praying I would recover my manhood before it was too late.

Preliminaries aside, thankfully it wasn't long before A and myself were rolling round like a couple of mud wrestlers. I took it slow, trying to lose myself in her flesh. Lots of kissing and nibbling and licking -- lips, throats and breasts. Soft caresses of her smooth and hairless flesh. Squeezing buttocks like unbaked dough. Curling a hand beneath her arse and sliding her juices from cunt to arse crack. All the while with an erect nipple between my teeth -- tongue flicking it rapidly, as if it was her clitoris itself. And at times, when she straddled me, her leaking cunt soaked my belly with its hunger. Her wet lips bloated and welcoming -- like a tunnel awaiting the train. And all the while, I kept my eyes closed -- hoping the sensual would motivate my erection over the visual.

I was literally willing a reaction from my loins. The whole time, I could feel my cock reacting -- but not as much as I would have liked. He would make half mast, but then, just when I thought all was okay, he would suddenly fall again into his cruel slumber. At times I was close to despair -- my mind going round in circles. Fears of a second failure only deepening the crisis I was faced with. But then I swore I was not to be defeated so easily. I found my courage. I forced myself onwards. Like a General about to face a defeat, I kept a level head and analysed the situation. I began noticing details that were of serious consequence. I realised that whenever I opened my eyes and actually looked at her, my cock seemed to withdraw like a snail into its shell. And yet, when I kept my eyes closed, while my cock might poke his head out now and then, he still wouldn't reveal himself in all his glory.

What to do . . . what to do . . . what to do???

And then it hit me like a porno tape in the face. WHAM! I saw my cock's Achilles heel. I had found my strategy. Of course! So, keeping my eyes closed I chose to open my inner eye. The eye of the imagination coming to life. Awakening another facet of the experience I had been neglecting. I stopped thinking of A. She had simply become an extension of my imagination. I took hold of my soft penis and began rubbing the head of it up and down her dripping fur. And meanwhile I thought of other women I had slept with successfully, or other women I wanted to sleep with. I no longer looked at the plain Jane before me. Instead I chose the perfection of my vivid imagination. The sound of A's moans in my ears and the feel of her wet cunt only heightening the experience.

And wouldn't you know it -- we had lift off. Within a minute my cock was as rigid and as selfishly determined as US foreign policy. Holding him in my hand I could feel my blood pumping through him with obvious desire. His cyclop's eye was staring at its prey. Crying a creamy tear in anticipation of what was to come. (Or should I say cum?). So, it was only a matter of time before I pushed him in with a satisfied grin. Eyes clenched shut. Pussy pried open. A long groan of pleasure escaping A's mouth.

We went at it for a good half hour. Attacking it with many styles and many positions. One leg up, two legs on my shoulders, from behind, her on top. Really -- I'll leave it to your imagination. The main thing is I had succeeded. Learning something very important in the process. After I withdrew and sprayed A's torso with my white blood I collapsed onto the bed and lit a smoke. A snuggled up beside me, wholly satisfied -- looking up at me and smiling.

Right there and then I knew what the problem was. It was so damn simple I felt stupid that I hadn't realised it before. It wasn't my cock's vengeance or God's wrath. It wasn't a physical problem, nor a mental problem on my behalf. It was much simpler.

The problem was, I wasn't attracted to A in the slightest. There was nothing there. There never had been and there never would be. I looked at her and felt nothing. She wasn't very attractive. She barely had any breasts. Her arse was almost non-existent. And she was pretty inexperienced too. But since there are no other women in my life at the moment, I thought I could make do with her. I seriously thought I could enjoy myself with her -- simply because she wasn't entirely unappetising and we got along okay.

How stupid of me. But at least I learnt a serious lesson.

It's kinda like food really. When was the last time I ate McDonalds? I can't even begin to remember. And there's a reason for all of this. I don't like McDonalds. There was nothing there. There never had been and there never would be. I ate it and I tasted nothing. That was why I stopped eating it in the first place.

And just like McDonalds, A didn't tickle my fancy. Simple as that. Case closed.

Ever Poured Salt on a Slug?

2005-01-20T20:49:00.000+11:00

Well, it happened: God has had his revenge. He finally decided, in his infinite cock-sucking wisdom, to stick it to the Flea good and proper.

If you're a regular reader of this arduous mononlogue that is my blog, you may remember that lovely lass called A. And if not, see two posts down and read: "Two Poles Apart", that will fill you in. Anyway, through pure determination or sheer stupidity, I've visited A a few more times since that infamous evening. And would you believe it -- I actually got past first base with this girl. Now, don't go getting your hopes up. I still haven't hit a home run. But at least I came close to fourth base.

Turns out, I only needed approach her despoiling with that Confucian virtue known as patience. Or in the eyes of a lecherous and unpublished author: perverted stubbornness. I'll let you decide.

So, that's what I did -- I was patient and I was pervertedly stubborn. I wasn't going to let this lovely lass get in the way of a home run. So, on evening two, I had A down to her skimpy little pink panties and nothing else. Her chocolate-drop nipples erect and her cunt drooling like a pedersat at a playground. So much so, that her juices soaked straight through her panties and greeted my nostrils with the sweet, yet pungent stench of more to come. My patience was paying off. After a bit of bump and grind, my fingers crawled like a five-legged spider between her thighs, slipped her panties aside and entered her with natural-lubed ease. Lookee here . . . I've made it to second base. Working my finger-licking magic, I massaged her innards, prodded her uterus, and tickled the man wearing the hood (otherwise known as the man in the canoe). And soon enough she was twisting around my fingers like a stuck pig: squealing and rocking back and forth. Eyes white, tongue panting and teeth biting her lower lip. Bingo. And yet, her hands had not even come near Herman the One Eyed German. He was straining against my Jeans saying: Let me see. But it was a no go. For a moment I thought of taking him out myself -- but stupidity or good manners fought the urge away.

I swear, as I was leaving that evening, Herman was cursing me like he's never cursed me before. Fucking prick . . . what the fuck have you done? You don't wake me up if there isn't any work out there. Remember buddy -- God gave you two heads and only enough blood for one of them. Either you let me think for you, or you think for your fucking self . . . you, you fucking buffoon. I'll get you for this.

And, that was evening two.

Now, for evening three. On this lovely evening, I got her off her couch and into her bedroom. This time even the panties, blue on this ocassion, were kicked off and left moist and useless at the end of her bed. And I didn't wait for her to undress me either -- as this hadn't happened before. So, kneeling beside her I tore my T-shirt off, kicked off my shoes and tugged off my trousers and boxers. Herman, my good Boche friend sprung out as hard as a Krupps gun at Verdun. His cyclops eye peering hungrily at the naked chikadee before him. So, I lay down beside her, giving her clit a good twiddle with my index finger and before I knew it, her small hand was groping Herman who I could have sworn let out a satisfied sigh. Her hand gripping him like a baseball bat, tugging him up and down. Waa Hoo! Third Base.

Things sped up from here. Soon enough, A is asking me to put it in. I couldn't believe my ears. Here was a girl I'd once thought was a nun in training and now she's asking me to put it in? I thanked God and like any self respecting man I obliged. Rolling on top of her and preparing myself for fourth base. I eased her legs apart with my knees, sucking a bit of tit to build up the suspense. Kissing her and looking her in the eyes. And then I realised something. Something wasn't quite right. Herman?

I looked down and all my efforts came tumbling down. Forget patience readers -- my traitorous and vengeful Kraut friend had gone and done it to me. Exactly as he'd promised. His words: I'll get you for this rang in my ears. He was curled up between my legs, fast asleep. All wrinkled and useless. Have you ever poured salt on a slug? Watched it shrink into a soggy mass of sluggish nothingness? Well, that's exactly what my cock looked like -- a dying slug. And it must have shown on my face, as clear as day.

A looked at me, frowning with her slanted eyes. "What's wrong?" she said.

"Nothing . . . noth . . . nothing's wrong." I stammered, taking my cock in hand and trying to jerk him to life.

"You sure?" A said, her own hand moving down between my legs and touching the joke of a penis I was trying so desperately to revive. Her eyes widened and she instantly understood. "It's all right, we don't have to if you don't want to."

"But I do want to." I whined like a school boy. "It's just . . . it's just . . ."

And then I gave up. Herman had taken his sweet revenge. I could hear him laughing at me. I could hear A giggling behind her caring gaze. I could even hear God laughing. All of them laughing at this pitiful boy who thought himself a man.

"This hasn't happened before." I said weakly. "I don't understand."

"It's okay." she said, leaning in to kiss me. "Don't worry about it."

I lay beside her like a sad sack of rotten potatoes. Glancing down at the shrivelled, salt-soaked slug between my pale thighs. I swear -- I could have cried. My vivid imagination had already proposed the possibility of permanent impotence to my paranoid self. So this is what I get huh?

"It's funny." I whispered, more to reassure myself than reassure A. "How come it's acceptable for women not to be in the mood, but for men it's inconceivable?"

The moment the words were out of my mouth I felt like punching myself. I also felt like punching that smug prick Herman. And if God exists, and he had faced me then, I would have punched him for sure.

Arseholes . . . the whole bang lot of them. Why the fuck did God, of all arseholes, pour salt on my slug? It's just cruel . . . low down and dirty . . . that's what it is.

And would you believe it -- as I was driving home afterward, who do you think sprung to life inside my jeans? For no reason mind you. Unless it was his way of slapping me in the face. You guessed it. I had a roaring hard-on. Herman was wide awake. Me -- I just wanted to sleep.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying

2005-01-17T17:05:00.000+11:00

"Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit."

Ring any bells? If not to you dear reader, it does ring a few with me. And I will try to explian why.

The above passage refers to the hero (or anti-hero) of George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. In fact, the above excerpt was copied straight from the book's blurb. You see, not long ago, RuKsaK (of http://ruksak.blogspot.com fame), subtly pointed out that I reminded him of a certain Gordon Comstock. A little known character penned by the legendary creator of Animal Farm. Well unfortunately, at the time, I had no idea who or what a Gordon Comstock was, but I must admit, I quite appreciated being likened to an Orwellian character. Even one I didn't know. Furthermore, one could say RuKsaK's comment tickled the literary nerves running throughout my body. Those little nerve endings partial to romance and idealism. Those childish fancies still rampant within me that support a dying belief in future happiness and dream-like success.

Yes -- I delighted in being compared to this Orwellian fellow. And why wouldn't I like Gordon Comstock if, as RuKsaK had said, we were so alike?

But now -- now all that has changed. Now, I don't know what to make of this fictional brother of mine -- Gordon Comstock. This moth-ridden, dusty, cynical failure of a man, whose fictional existence is quite obviously reminiscent of my non-fictional existence.

Ever since RuK's comment I had been keeping an eye out for the book in question. Not only because of RuK's statement, but also because this very statement came with a personal recommendation to actually read it. And why not? Every Orwell title I'd read so far, I'd thoroughly enjoyed. And so, several days ago, I actually found a copy of Keep the Aspidistra Flying in a bookstore over at Crows Nest.

Standing there in the narrow isles, I was looking specifically for the title as mentioned. The shop was closing up, so I scanned the shelves quickly -- even half-heartedly. Not really expecting to find what I was looking for. But then I spied the silver spine smiling up at me. Keep the Aspidistra Flying -- black type on silver. So, with an open mind, I withdrew the book from its home and admired the cover for a moment. Finding the title a touch too dull -- but remembering RuK's recommendation. I soon flipped the paperback over and started reading the blurb on the back. And then it happened my friends. I suddenly felt an eerie chill wash over me. The first few words sunk into my consciousness like razor sharp blades. My mouth dropped open in disbelief and I began reading from the start once more. Reading over those words again -- more slowly this time, almsot as if I were reading them aloud.

Again, I repeat the words that penetrated my skull as if they were written solely for my eyes to consume. Words that still echo in my mind, ever since I was confronted with them. Mr Comstock fading into the background, and my own name taking over the lead role.

"Joel M loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit."

After I absorbed this oddly self-descriptive and possibly clairvoyant passage, it was inevitable that I bought the book without hesitation. Despite my current economic crisis, which had kept me from buying anything inessential this past month, I just had to have it. The mystery of Gordon Comstock needed solving. I demanded to know how every detail in that blurb mirrored my current position. The loathings, the advertising, the part-time work in a bookshop, the goal of more time to write. It just seemed too coincidental.

Obviously, RuKsaK was right when he made the comparison. The parallels are there for all to see -- or at least for those who know me. I thank him for his acute observation. Without it, I wouldn't now be ploughing through this great book in utter fascination. Most probably, I never would have bought it due to its odd title. Okay -- I admit, the first flush of disbelief has worn off, but I still feel as if Gordon Comstock is me to a certain degree. It could be a sign from God, or it could be a coincidence. Depends on one's beliefs. But again, my literary nerves would like to believe in the former. It's like something out of a book really. And while I may not have finished the book yet, I wonder whether I will learn something from it. I wonder whether the passage about the destruction of Gordon's creativity and spirit can be avoided in my case. Because in recent weeks, since I left advertising to pursue my writing, I have felt dispirited and have had trouble with my once flourishing creativity.

Maybe I will let you know the outcome, further down the track. I'm only 70 pages into the book, with over 200 to go. And who knows how far I am into the book that is my own life. Either way, hopefully I will learn something from the experience. Hopefully I will prove to RuKsaK that I'm not like Gordon Comstock afterall.

Two Poles Apart

2005-01-12T17:41:00.000+11:00

I recently met a Singaporean girl. I'll call her "A" for short. Nothing spectacular really. I've seen her a couple of times at her apartment. A cosy, studio set-up at Surry Hills: one bedroom, polished floorboards, glass bricks and German appliances. The typical modern joint you see sprouting up all over Sydney these days. They look modern for a year or two, and then they just fade into the dull landscape. Another blue-grey building with security parking and cracks in the walls. A concrete box sitting on a bed of concrete -- nothing more, nothing less.

I found A on an internet singles site. I need a girlfriend, but I also need a wet hole to make me feel alive. A few emails later and we're meeting at her place. Last night for the second time. It's been nice on both ocassions -- but just nice. Another way to pass the time I guess. Lots of chatting, chain-smoking and endless cups of tea. She's a sweet girl. A plain Jane. Physically; she's short, with small breasts, close-cropped hair, a moon-face and a genuine smile. She's good-natured -- a touch too innocent, laughs a lot, rolls her eyes, jokes regulalry.

One could say we get along reasonably well. But I don't see us setting the world on fire. I'm just playing along for now.

Anyway, so here I am at home, a day after the fact, drinking a double-shot vodka, citrus concoction. The type of thing the girls guzzle at nightclubs. The only alcoholic beverage in the fridge unfortunately. And as I sip this booze-drenched lemonade I've been thinking about last night. I was over at the her place again -- playing the nice-guy part down to a tee. Talking about anything but ourselves. Both of us pretending to be honest, when really, we were carefully selecting what cards to show.

At one stage, A was telling me about her schooldays.

"I was a real rebel at school." she said, her voice thick with Chinese rust. "I was a prefect if you can believe that. But only cause I had good marks. But it was funny. I used to wear my school dress above the knee and this teacher once confiscated it. She said I had to buy a new one. It was horrible, the new one, almost down to the ankles. Yeah, I was a real rebel. I even wore Converse sneakers when we were supposed to wear plain white sneakers with no branding."

I smiled to stop myself from laughing. Talk about being innocent. To her, a skirt above the knees was rebellion. I sipped my tea to hide the obvious grin on my face, wondering whether I should tell her about my school days. And even though I knew I'd be showing off, I couldn't help myself. It just had to be done.

So, I told her all kinds of stories from my high school days. Dropping Acid in class. Selling Weed for a living. Lebs bringing their cousins to school to beat their enemies with bats. Smoking cones in between class. Walking out the front gates whenever we wanted to. Friends who became junkies and armed robbers and murderers and convicts and whatever else. And the longer I spoke, the more I realised I was still a child. There was no way she was buying it all -- how could she even begin to comprehend what I'd done? But I kept the bravado up, enjoying the attention. Maybe even enjoying the fact that I was bursting her bubble.

I felt pretty big, even though if I went to Compton I'd be a boy scout shitting his nappies. But hey, I wasn't in Compton, so I could play big for all it was worth.

"I was a real rebel at school." she'd said. But to me, she was just a girl guide.

I began to ask myself what I was doing there. What do I want from this girl? What do we have in common? Why am I here? But then it occurred to me. The truth is, I wanted to get my end in and that was about it. And so, I edged closer and closer towards her on the couch. My movements about as subtle as an erection at the local swimming pool. But what the hell? Soon enough, I had her straddling me, both hands up her shirt and my tongue down her throat.

I should have known. If she was innocent in speech, she'd be innocent in the flesh too. I had her little teats out, suckling them like a newborn calf. Her left nipple long and erect and the right one small and indented. She kissed like a schoolgirl -- barely any tongue and her teeth ocassionally scraping against mine. I would pause now and then, ease her away so I could look at her. But every time I did so her hands would hide her breasts and she'd say "what?" in an embarrassed little voice.

We kept this up for a good hour. Kissing like teenagers. Rubbing backs. Licking necks. Sucking nipples. I even got her to moan here and there. But it just wasn't happening. We stayed at first base -- like I knew we would. If my hand even brushed the edge of her jeans she froze. In fact, I couldn't even bring myself to try and get her where I wanted. I already knew what would happen. To her, a skirt above the knees was rebellion -- remember? Fuck, for all I knew, the fact I was sucking her tits was rebellion.

I was bored. But I felt like a prick. I was already wondering how I was going to extracate myself from the situation without hurting her feelings. Her nipple in my mouth was about as exciting as sucking my thumb. I couldn't imagine her unzipping my fly and taking me in her mouth. It was like imagining Mother Teresa in French knickers. And meanwhile my balls were getting sore and bloated like ripe, purple grapes, ready to burst. I even felt like excusing myself so I could go jerk off in her bathroom.

It was useless. I felt like I was studying for an exam. Going over old ground. Re-reading the same textbook I'd read in primary school. How many tongues have I had in my mouth? How many nipples? Her lips left me cold. Only building up the pressure in my loins. A pressure I knew she'd never release.

Quite frankly, it was absurd -- an irrelevant expulsion of my energy. A waste of my time.

Not to be rude to A. Like I said, she's a lovely girl. But we're just two poles apart. I'd like to be the innocent man she's looking for. A fella who brings flowers and gives her a peck on the cheek. A man who spends weeks, maybe even months before he sleeps with her in the missionary position and with the lights out. Maybe even giving her a massage afterwards -- turning away when she gets dressed.

But the simple fact is, I'm not that man. I'm a guy who wants deep throats and a freshly waxed muff he can dive his face into. I'm a man who wants to bite nipples and spank backsides; ride like a madman while fingering an arsehole; drink saliva and hear dirty talk. Ultimately, I'm a man who wants much more than a skirt above the knees.

So, I eventually left. Giving her a simple kiss at the door. My balls in excrutiating pain. Her innocent, doe eyes watching me from her doorway as I waited for the lift. And when it came, I stupidly said, "I'll speak to you tomorrow." Silently kicking myself for having buried myself even deeper into this little charade I'm playing.

Later, when I got home, I fell into bed with my groin aflame. Every movement sending fire into my belly. It was too late to jerk off now. I had to suffer for my stupidity. Lying there questioning God's cruel joke. Wondering why he gave us men testicals -- two baby devils attached to us in a little sack. Hanging onto us and driving us mad.

And so, what do I do now? Today she emailed me three times, called four times and text messaged me twice. God -- she probably thinks we're an item since she showed me her tits and gave me a little taste of her salty nipples.

H'm. The thing is, I may be an arsehole, but I'm not a complete arsehole. It's obvious we aren't suited to each other, but I don't want to drop her like old trash. I can't bring myself to crush her innocent little soul, just because she isn't a potty-mouthed porn star. It just isn't done.

But, thinking on it all from the comfort of my book-lined study, sipping this vodka shit, I guess this is what I get for seeing a girl as a piece of meat. At least I know that's what Germain Greer would say.

But how the fuck does that help me?

Friendly Advice

2005-01-10T22:11:00.000+11:00

A friend wrote me earlier today to give me some advice. Or this is what I assumed her goal to be. Of course -- I could be wrong. It's quite possible her aim was to tear a chunk of flesh from me and see whether I could take the pain. Maybe to watch me squirm and find out for certain whether she could be honest with me and still maintain our priceless friendship.

Either way, this friend wrote me a very interesting email. And ultimately, deep down, I know her motives were genuine and something I should be grateful for. It's not often we find people who refuse to pull their punches. And this beautiful girl gives it to me straight. Every time. Jabs, hooks, right-crosses and sometimes the occasional knockout punch. And honestly, when I wake up on the canvas with my nose bloodied and my head reeling, I love her all the more for her sincerity and her astounding percipience.

This woman is one of a kind. Someone who opens me like a book and reads me at will. Never missing a beat. Always turning the next page so she can understand me better. Constantly showing me an easier way through the thorns and jagged rocks surrounding me.

And today's email was no different. She confirmed many things I'd already realised. Moreover, she revealled many things I either hadn't accepted yet or hadn't even noticed.

Here are just some of her thoughts:

" . . . You wake up and you pace around your house, thinking about your book, thinking about all the truths that spill from your ears, yet you cannot digest them, you think about all the things you should be doing, there is this pain in your stomach, you know what it is, yet you choose to ignore it, you choose to just sink into the sweet oblivion of blaming everything upon your humanity."

" . . . You wake up and you think to yourself that you're being brave, that you chose to quit the life you were leading because you aspire [to] something bigger, bigger than yourself, you think you have such dreams and that you are going to be able to make all of them come true."

" . . . While you thought you were being brave and heroic by leaving your job and simply deciding to write, you are not even doing that. You quit your job just as an excuse to sleep even harder, to sink deeper into your slumber. You gave up your monetary source, but you're still tied to your possessions. You're still tied to the old life you used to lead, the self you say you don't want anymore, the one that sleeps and simply drifts through life, the one that is warm, almost cold."

" . . . You're afraid. Afraid of living, afraid of loving, afraid of feeling. Sooner or later you will have to crawl out of it, you will have to decide if you're either waking up or definitely sleeping. There's no way that you can just stay in this in-between that you're [in] now."

" . . . What you did was only find an excuse to be idle."

There was much more where this came from -- but I'm sure you get the idea. And the thing is, despite her input being the type of advice at which many people would take offence, I only smiled upon reading it. In fact, I felt blessed to have received such an email. Not only felt blessed, but continue to feel blessed. Her keen mind sees straight to my core, almost as if I were transparent. At times it seems she knows me better than I know myself. Even though I know this to be impossible. But the fact that we have never met, and she sits on the other side of the globe, it is fascinating our kinship is so close.

At first her wisdom (if I could call it that) was frightening -- somewhat off-putting. But now, now I see it for the gift it is. I only wish I could offer her something as precious in return. Something that stacks up to the precious gems she gives me on a daily basis.

But all I can do is thank her. Thank her from the bottom of my heart.

Honesty is a gemstone people rarely find. And I think I've just found it.

A Writer's Mutiny

2005-01-10T19:05:00.000+11:00

The only thing I am sure of these days is the fact that I want to write. Otherwise, I am dazed and confused. A dead soul. I have no idea what I am going to do about work. I don't know whether I should accept someone's offer to join them in America. I don't know I should further pursue a girl I have recently met.

Really, I don't know much of anything. Except the fact I want to be a writer -- whatever that means. And even then, I don't really know what that entails. Other than just writing, I'm kind of lost what direction to take. Furthermore, my mind isn't really cooperating with my wishes.

Too often, I sit here in front of the keyboard and stare at the screen like a blind man. Eyes glazed over, sometimes even staring through the screen, looking into nothingness. Mouth open -- mind almost empty. Well, it's not emptiness as such, but something else. There is activity there. Something is going on inside this thick skull of mine. But the thoughts fall about like drunken soldiers on a rampage through a vanquished city. They fight each other. They shoot their weapons into the air. They break apart into small groups -- all with a different idea as to how the coming battle is to be waged. There has been systematic raping of the innocent civilians cowering in their basements. Looting and murder is common place.

Where are the officers? There are no generals in sight. I believe my thoughts have mutineed. They've murdered their superiors. Strung them up and bayonetted them, before running off into the fog never to be heard from again.

It's almost as if they're plotting against me. Me -- their fatherland. It's like they're on a bloody rampage, intent on filling their bellies, quenching their bloodlust and emptying their loins. All at the cost of me stringing a worthwhile sentence together. As if they don't care whether I write or not.

Sorry -- I know I'm waxing lyrical here. Throwing metaphors around as if I were an amateur. And that's just the point: I'm far from being a professional. And ain't that the truth.

But I must persevere regardless. Even if my armies are betraying me. Even if I can barely sustain a thought of any value. And especially when I have trouble writing a single sentence.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just stubborn. Maybe this is what they call writers' block. Maybe every writer has gone through this.

For example; just now, I forced myself into this chair once again. Determined to pluck something from my mind. Set on court-martialling the worst offenders in the ranks and creating a sense of order in the trenches. I may have even executed a few of the traitors -- hoping to discipline the rest. And while I can hear my fingers tapping on the keyboard and see these sentences growing on the screen, I wonder what it all amounts too. What is this writing thing about?

Communication? Expression? Art?

Or is this just a literary fart in the face of a mutinous army?