The Fish Changes Everything

It’s summer now, it really is. The tourists have come, the sculpture show on the cliff path is on, the sea is warm, the sky is a pale blue and we all smell of sun screen and hot skin.
In the morning I pack a bag and walk barefoot down the gulley steps to the beach. Day ten, no cigarettes. Meg and I got drunk last night, two chilled bottles of white and two glasses, wandering among the sculptures, playing art critics, giggling and staggering, critiquing rubbish bins and dog turds, me in straw hat and bare feet, Meg in ripped jeans and a skirt. Into the second bottle we were as much an attraction to the tourists and art lovers as the welded bits of scrap and Henry Moore rip-offs were, living the dream, brown and young and reckless, golden glow in love.
We argued before I left the house this morning, maybe just so we could spend some time alone, maybe just so I could spend some time alone.
I cross the road, hopping from one foot to the other on the hot tarmac, and walk quickly through the park to the beach. I find a spot without too many people and dig in. I saw a Japanese guy do it once: he dumped his bag, fell to his knees and quickly and efficiently dug a bum shaped hole, piling the sand to make a back rest. Then he laid his towel over hole and mound and sat down like a sandy armchair ninja. Ever since that day I have done the same. Now I distain those who lie flat, it’s just so one dimensional.
Twenty minutes of sun is all I need, so after my swim I pack up, flatten my mound and wander over to the cliffs. The tide’s high and the big rock pool where dogs and kids swim and piss together has temporarily become part of the sea. I paddle, ankle deep around its edge, wincing as barnacles spike my heels. Then I see a fish, as long as my forearm, swimming lopsidedly in the deepest part of the pool. I wade in for a closer look. I don’t know what kind of fish it is, but it looks quite normal, compared to some of the weirdoes we get out here. I walk slowly towards it, until I’m nearly on top of it, then I reach down into the thigh-deep water and make a grab for it. It bolts away from me and tries to ride a small wave back out to sea. I leap after it like a bear leaping after a salmon and pounce! It slips away again, but again I pounce. This time I manage to get a finger in one of its gills and pull it flapping out of the pool. I wade back onto dry rock and examine my prize. It looks healthy and tasty enough, apart from two puncture marks on its back which are seeping blood. I stand looking at it. Has it been poisoned? Will I die if I eat it? Two young local blokes have walked up. They’re standing in the pool, looking at me, looking at the fish.
“What you going to do with that?” One of them asks.
“Eat it?” I answer. It’s quite normal to answer a question with a question here.
“Good man”, the other bloke says.
Now that I’ve got their approval I feel better. I show them the two seeping puncture marks. One of them pokes the fish. The fish wriggles. Neither of them says anything about deadly poisons. I nod decisively, thank the blokes and stalk off, holding my pray before me like a prize marrow. I’m not sure what to do with myself now though. My plan was to set up camp on my favourite cliff ledge and read some more. The fish changes everything. As I pass an older, blonde, crazy-looking surf bum, he accosts me loudly:
“What you going to do with that?”
“Eat it”, I tell him confidently.
“Good”, he says. Maybe he’s a bit deaf. I’m about to move on when I have an idea.
“What is it?” I ask him.
“Taylor”, he says.
“Good eating?” I ask.
“Good enough. Bloody fish though. Have to bleed him first.”
“Hmm”, I say, “got a knife?”
“No”.
I shrug and start to walk away again.
“Wait!” He bellows after me.
I walk back to him. He’s rummaging frantically in his bag. Triumphantly he produces a red plastic surfboard fin. “Use this”.
His eyes widen as I take it from him. I lay my fish on the rock and examine the fin, find the sharpest edge and make a test cut in the air above the fish’s head.
“Not that way!” He yells at me, “Underneath!”
“You think so?” I ask meekly. I turn the fish over and do another little test cut in the air.
“Not near me clothes!” The surf bum roars, sun-bleached eyes protruding.
I turn my back on him and jam the fin into the fish’s throat. It thrashes and squirms, but I cut it good. Blood runs through my fingers. The surf bum is standing really close to me, breathing in my ear. As I sever the spine he whispers: “bloody good”. His voice is full of awe and admiration. We stand, very close together, watching the fish die.
“Now you’ve got to clean him!” He shouts. I jump at the inappropriate volume of his voice. He motions towards the sea and mouths the word: ‘go’.
Still wincing I dutifully take fish and fin down to the sea to wash them off. The man watches me from his rock, his blonde hair buffeting and twitching in the wind. Other people watch me too, tourists, dog-walkers, the parents of toddlers. Proudly I clean my kill and my weapon, then I limp back across the barnacles to the surf bum. He starts to ask me how I caught it but then his phone rings.
“Hello!” He screams. I stand for a minute, still holding my dripping fish, listening as he bellows into his phone. I’m not sure why I’m still here. Maybe I want to discuss my victory against the sea, my prowess with leap and blade. I start feeling a bit silly though, so I gather my possessions and walk off. He yells after me: “Bloody good one mate!”
I wave without turning and hop from rock to rock back to the cliff path. On the path there are so many people gawking at sculptures I can hardly move. I hold my fish like a battering ram and charge through them to one of the plastic bag dispensers meant for picking up dog shit. I pull out four bags and wrap the fish. A Chinese couple stop and gawk at me, as if I too was art work. I smile at them.
“Fish”, I explain, nodding encouragingly.
“Yes. Fish”, they agree, smiling and nodding also.
I spend the rest of the morning on my ledge above the bay, reading, puffing on a little pure one and watching the surf. Occasionally I lean over, open my bag and touch my fish, just to check that it’s still there. It is cold and firm, sometimes it twitches slightly or its muscles ripple; just a little life left in its nerves.
At lunch time I take my fish home, steam some veggies, boil some rice, make friends with Meg and cook it, with an orange, ginger and coriander sauce. Then I wait a while, and when I’m convinced I haven’t been poisoned, I rub my belly and thank the universe I don’t always have to write about the darkness.

Fire

There was a fire in the abandoned building across the street last night. It was about 1 am but I was up anyway, working late. "Hey, there's a fire!" my housemate yelled. It was big, a real one, flames and all. As we ran out to our fire escape to watch, the first fire trucks were already arriving. They broke through the windows and brick on the ground floor with their pressurized hoses, and a big plane of orange flame rushed out.

More and more trucks arrived, ten or more parked down the street and around the corner. The fire fighters seemed in competition to break shit down. Dozens of them swarmed the front, like a mob pillaging a store. They piled into the building and up the building and onto the roof and down into the building. They broke through the brick, sawed through the metal shutters, even broke into the building next door and then broke through the wall. They got up on ladders and shattered all the windows on the front of the building. They got up on the roof and broke through all of the skylights and trapdoors and vents.

All the while great clouds of sooty smoke billowed out the gashes in the brick, an upside down goth crinoline. Through the thick gray veil, the orange of the fire and red of the sirens and yellow of the streetlights mixed took on an alien look, or an ancient look. Something out of movie anyway.

The scene was dramatic and visceral. Stuff got damaged, a mark was made, it felt like something was happening. Our view was perfect.

The next day the whole area smelled of smoke. "Did you see the fire last night?" I asked the morning guy at the cafe downstairs.

"No," he said. He handed me my coffee.

I felt like it should have been more important. But it wasn't. I took my coffee, mixed in plenty of half and half, and got back to work.

Spanish Moss

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
instead of this workhorse, workman, working stiff.
Working nights now, asleep through the day, waddling off to work when everyone else is waddling home, or drinking beer, when everyone else is asleep.
My steel toe caps pad the floors of labyrinthine department stores, behind the scenes, back where no customer can see, under and above, creeping like a rat, with the rats. Hours of dust and guardless grinders, face powdered ghost-white, sitting on the midnight pavement, eating lunch from a greasy pot with Chinese painters squatting all around and Scottish carpenters discussing the price of Iron Bru. And me no longer smoking so, tense and intense, I keep my eyes flashing bloody murder in my goggles, my ears in muffs against the whine and mimi-mimi nonsense of the radio, my nose and mouth porotected, filtered, bearded in sweat.
Cavelike and cavernous the building. 6th floor: Toys. Rows and rows of gender specific colour coordination, pink unicorns and pastel Barbies, grey, black, red warriors Action! Robot! Doom! Collision! Smash!
I left dusty footprints on the 6th, and opened the secret door and scratched a teddy bear under his chin. 5th floor lingerie: I would have stopped to perv the models and scratch a couple of chins, but the cameras are everywhere. 3rd floor 4th floor building site.
“Keep this door closed. The customers don’t need to see our mess!”
The customers don’t need to see that behind the scenes glamour is shamefully held together with masking tape, and all along the walls and secret passageways there are mocking signs, partial paw prints in the mud, bones in paper bags, magpies crying: ‘The customer is always wrong! The customer must never see the mess they’re in, the dirt and rats and dusty working stiffs!’
…
I have no time to write pretty things dressed in friendly structures. I’ve slept through most of my weekend, and have no stories to tell which can’t be compressed, flattened and discarded. Most of what I have can fit in two dimensions on a city wall, over a corporate sponsored piece of graffiti, McDonalds packets, cups and wrappers whirling in the wind: THE CUSTOMERS DO NEED TO SEE THIS MESS! IT IS OUR MESS! IT IS THEIRS!
The beach on Saturdays and Sundays is enough to make me want to cry; McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut packaging sown roughly in the sand, bodies brought up by the tide, the water boiling red, immigrant wars, water shortages, uprisings, downturns, revolutions, starvation, corporate sponsored fucking graffiti, Nike shoes a meter high, ‘In Yo Hood’. The death of the planet, rib cages like bleached roots in the sand, flesh like Spanish moss:
The customers don’t need to see our mess.
…
What words of hope and solace to finish this one off?
None. Let it hang until it is limp, then gently let it fall, face first into a hole, and sleep.
…
No. That’s not right:
Be kind. Be gentle.
Be fierce and tough and as angry as you like.
Don’t take no shit, but give none either.
And clean up after yourself
In such a way that
Others will see you and say:
“Wow that person looks like they’ve got their shit together,
Maybe I’d like to be like that some day.”
Smile, enjoy life and keep your eyes open
And don’t ignore the mess!

But Always In The Light

I’m working on a renovation up in Longueville, smashing up old floors and laying new ones. It’s hot, dusty and bright. Cockatoos and kookaburras screeching and cackling in the gum trees, spiders and lizards in the overgrown garden, these leafy suburbs are straight out of the Australian soap operas.
It’s Friday, the boss and a couple of the other lads have gone up the coast for a long weekend, there are only three of us left on site. Me, Ashley, a half-Malay carpenter, and Digger, a dodgy hammer-hand with red hair and a tattoo of a fish hook on his right bicep.
We’ve been working together for a couple of days now and our system runs like clockwork. I cut the boards with the drop saw and glue the joists, Digger lays the boards and calls out measurements to me, and Ashley works the secret nailer, a big air powered staple gun attached to a compressor. It’s hot, splintery work but we’re making it fun, laughing and telling stories.
“-Finished school in tenth grade,” Digger tells us, lighting another Styverson, “Me teacher said to me: ‘Trouble is, mate, you never bloody turn up. Either you re-do the tenth grade or,’” He leans towards us, winking conspiratorially, “‘I could get you a job on the boats if you’re keen. Me cousin owns the biggest fishing company on the East Coast.’ That was on a Monday, by Friday I shipped out of Melbourne and never looked back.”
I grin. Ashley rolls his eyes. He’s been telling stories like this all morning; how he catches goats with his bare hands and spears sharks in the nature reserve. We both like him well enough, but he’s one of those mildly dangerous characters you have to laugh at, if only to keep him at arm’s length.
We break for lunch and sit on the section of floor we’ve just finished, chewing in silence, smoking or pulling splinters from our hands.
“Let’s get this done and bugger off down the pub,” Ashley says.
“Uh-huh,” Digger nods.
“Good,” Says me.
We finish our ciggies and get back into it, bust arse for another hour, then clean up, lock up and pile into Ashley’s battered Ute.

The William Wallace is an old, two-storey building on the corner of two narrow lanes with a wraparound terrace and an aging dog tied to a lamppost. It’s as dilapidated as the rest of the suburb, but homely too.
People smile as we walk in. Ashley and Digger seem to know everyone. I buy the first round and drain a good quarter of my beer before walking over to where the others are sitting, the condensation-frosted glasses cold in my hands. I sit back and look around: pool table, open fire, dirty carpet, old men at the bar, a peeling mural on the wall depicting the pub almost as it is now, but with a leopard skin carpet and a tiger skin by the pool table.
“When did they get rid of the leopard skin?” I ask.
“-Never had one.” Ashley tells me.
“It’s a tiger skin.” Digger says.
I start to protest that the carpet is actually leopard skin but a group of Northern Irish guys join us and I shut my gob. They’ve been rendering on the Longueville house, five Irish guys: beer bellies, football shirts and the kind of eyes that smile because they know you but look granite at anyone else, big lads with heavy paws and even heavier pasts, brown and happy here. Their leader nods and winks at me and I grin, the others smile too. As soon as they’re settled Digger turns to one of them, a smaller, shyer man of about forty, with dark, curly hair.
“Hey there John,” he says, then turns to me. “You know John don’t you, Wil?”
I nod, keeping it cagey though, Digger’s up to something.
“John’s what I call a Sex Liar. He told us about this Welsh girl he shagged- snorted coke off her tits and rooted her in the arse and stuff.”
John grins sheepishly, the others go quiet and watch, smiling too. Digger goes on:
“Well, it turns out she never bloody existed- Turns out it was just the same old tart he’s been rooting for years.”
We laugh and John laughs too.
“There’s nothing I hate more than a Sex Liar.”
He’s enjoying himself now, there’s a nastiness coming into his eyes.
“-Almost worse than a rapist. Imagine if that poor girl walked in here and we were all looking at her, thinking that he’d done all those things he said. It’d be almost like she’d been abused without having the fun actually being abuse.”
Our laughter’s a bit halfhearted now, and John’s beginning to look uncomfortable.
“That’ll do now.” The big Irish leader says, the twinkle still in his eyes.
Ashley gets up to go to the bar and I walk outside for a ciggie. The pub’s fuller, mostly tradies now, all with that same smiling granite look. Even in my six feet of bone and muscle I feel a bit small, but I keep my eyes smiling and my shoulders back, any fear I have tucked well out of sight.
I stand on the pavement next to the tethered dog and watch the landlady watering her flowers. Digger and a few of the Irish lads join me, a couple of Aussies I haven’t met yet. We’re introduced and we talk about work and the weather. Then Digger starts again, this time on me. His attitude is softer though, as if he hasn’t quite worked me out yet.
“Imagine, Wil,” he says, “If you woke up in the middle of nowhere with a condom full of spunk hanging out of your arse. Would you tell anyone?”
I smile at him and keep quiet, looking from one eye to the other. The others giggle. He shrugs and says:
“You’re supposed to say ‘no’, then I say: ‘Do you want to come camping with me this weekend?’ or, if you say ‘yes’ I say: ‘I’m not taking you camping then.’”
“Very good,” I say, laughing along with the others, feeling like I’ve passed my stupid test.
We troop back inside after that and the beer flows steadily, the laughter grows in volume and Digger’s nastiness does likewise. Eventually, when someone turns up with a bag of coke and John the Irishman’s nearly crying, I swill the last of my beer, smile, nod to the men and leave.
As soon as I’m back in the sunshine and out of sight of the pub I feel better. I love a few beers after work and I love the company of dodgy characters, but that kind of nastiness, that bullying banter makes my skin crawl.
I ride the bus back to Town Hall, then catch a train to Bondi Junction, feeling tipsy and still a little dark inside. Meg calls when I’m still on the train.
“Where are you?”
The sound of her voice makes me feel even darker, almost as if I’d been cheating on her lightness, her clearness of spirit. I try to keep my tone upbeat:
“Nearly in Bondage. Where’s you?”
“I’m in Woolworth.”
“Hang on five minutes. I’ll come and find you.”
I hang up and crowd off the train with the rest of the rush hour traffic. I have to almost force myself not to barge through them all. I feel aggressive and disdainful of these sheep, these homogeneous clones. On the escalator I have a word with myself.
‘Be nice, Willy, don’t be a prick. Be kind and gentle.’
I’m drunk though and I can feel the battle slipping out of control.
In the massive, five storey mall I walk fast and swagger a little, in my steel toecaps and work clothes. Then I manage a full five minutes of upbeat, hyper chit-chat with Meg before the cracks start to show.
We’re walking past the pet shop on the third floor, surrounded by shiny things and heavily made-up salespeople, tinny mall-music and nauseating perfume, and puppies in glass boxes in the window.
“I can’t stand this fucking pet shop,” Meg says, frowning with righteous anger, “They leave them in there at night. I heard them crying once when they were closing the mall.”
“They do it on purpose,” I say grimly, “So you feel sorry for them and get your wallet out.”
“It makes me want to cry.”
Instead of empathy, blackness comes out of my mouth:
“You can’t let it upset you Meg. What about all the poor buggers who made all this worthless crap for us to spend our money on? What about the millions of dying kids and AIDS victims and war zones? If you start feeling sorry for one thing you have to feel sorry for everything. You might as well just shut up and consume like the rest of ‘em.”
I bite my tongue and force the other 99 per cent of my rant back down, scowling at a dollybird in hot pants who tries to hand me a flyer. Then I catch Meg’s sad look and I sigh.
“Sorry Meggie” I say, softening, “I don’t mean to be a nutter. These places…”
She’s pissed off, angry at me for yelling. I shut my gob and follow dutifully, occupying myself with an imaginary assault rifle and a bag of dynamite, blowing up coffee shops and banks, picking off business men and senseless shoppers. I know I’m being a twat, but I can’t stop myself. The calm voice has been crowded out by advertising and special offers, only the militant remains. At least he has the good sense to keep quiet and push the trolley, instead of taking it all out on Meg.
On the way to the bus stop I try another apology. This time Meg forgives me. Then, on the bus, I try to explain:
“I just hate all this braindead consumption, these zombies shuffling from one array of worthless crap to the next. It’s all just so…”
“Are you going to be like this all night?”
That shuts me up. For the sake of both our sanities I go into sulk mode and press my face against the bus window. The calm voice is battling its way back in:
‘What the fuck are you doing, Wil? You know she hates that crap almost as much as we do. It’s not her fault. Stop being such a prick.’
The bus stops and we get off. Meg ignores me. I hang back and let her stalk off. Then I call her phone and tell her I’ve got to get some Tally-Hos from the bottlo. On the way home I breathe and relax, and the darkness seeps away.
Then we sit on our bedroom floor and argue for a minute.
Then we cling to each other and cry.
“It’s not your fault Meggie,” I tell her, “I’m just tired and nasty and full of stored-up work crap. I know you don’t need this shit from me, you work so bloody hard s well.”
“Oh Willy,” She whispers and strokes my head. “It’s not your fault either. I know you’re a weirdo. That’s why I love you.”
“I may be a weirdo,” I tell her, laughing now, “but when the shit hits the fan, this weirdo is going to take care of you no matter what.”
“What if it never does?” She’s laughing now too.
I think for a second.
“Well I’ll just have to take care of you anyway.”

Buffalo Cartwright

I’m sitting by the back door, feet up on a pile of old surfboards and wetsuits, a dusty TV and a rocking horse with strangely realistic hair. 10:30 and it’s already a scorcher. All I want to do is put on my boardies, grab a towel and head off down to the beach. But first I have to write. First I have to collect all these barely connected thoughts and lump them into some kind of order, drag these warm buffalo carcasses into a clearing and somehow pile them into a neat pyramid, alone, by myself.
Meg stands in the doorway with an armful of recycling, hair wet from the shower. I have to stand up and get out of the way while she squeezes past me. I roll my eyes and sigh, getting frustrated.
“Sorry” she says. Immediately I feel guilty.
“It’s ok. I just want to get this done.”
I sit back down and read through what I’ve written.
‘There’s something there’, I think. ‘It’s a start at least.’
I’ve started seven times already. There’s a pile of screwed-up paper under my chair. I know what I want to say, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Sometimes it’s much easier to write about nothing instead of sweating over these lumps of flesh, these big ideas.
I want to write more about The Kindness; about the idea of promoting altruism, making it cool. I also want to talk about the idea of using the media as a tool for change, starting a web of propaganda to counteract the dumbed-down, ‘come and play, forget about the movement’ culture. I want to write loftily about our responsibility to future generations and the urgent need for change. But, to be honest, all I really want to do is go and play.
Neighbours pass and say hello. A warm wind from the sea rustles in the banana trees. The dogs stand in the doorway, looking out at the sunlight.
“Sit down or piss off.” I tell them. It’s not a command they understand entirely, but they get the message and slope off looking sorry for themselves.
I groan, put down my pen and rub my eyes. Then I take my empty tea cup into the kitchen, flick on the kettle and wander into the living room where Meg’s writing an essay on human rights violations in Australia. I flop down next to her on the couch and rest my head near her feet. She reaches down and strokes my face. I groan again.
“What’s wrong?” She asks.
“Can’t write,” I say.
“Yes you can.”
“Not today. Not very well.”
“Aw,” she says; a sympathetic, distracted sound. “Maybe you should write about something else.”
“I am. I’m doing a short piece about not being able to do a short piece.”
That catchy one-liner perks me up, this trip to the living room has turned into a brilliant material gathering mission.
“It’s hot out there. Maybe you should go for a swim.”
“I just want to get a handle on this first.” I say, biting her toe.
“Maybe you should edit my essay instead.”
I take that as my cue and wander back into the kitchen, make tea and sit down again. Then I roll myself a cigarette.
‘Think lofty,’ I tell myself, ‘think high-brow.’
I light the cigarette. It jiggles in my mouth as I write. One of the dogs comes trotting up, wagging his tail.
“I’ve had a really good idea,” he says. “Let’s go outside!”
I ignore him. He sighs and trots back into the house, his claws clicking on the kitchen floor.
‘Maybe Meg will be more responsive.’ He thinks. Not bloody likely dog.
The sun’s getting really fierce now. The buffalo are starting to smell. Maybe I should get some help. There might be a friendly farmer with a tractor about. Maybe he’ll help me pile these grand ideas together into a tasteful mound of flesh.
I’m not even writing about nothing now. This is getting silly. Lofty, Wil, high-brow.
My friend Kate said: “Why is it that only Gucci and Calvin Klein have sexy advertising? Why can’t libraries and good causes be sexed up?”
“Why not indeed,” I said.
My friend Kate said: “Let’s make the revolution sexy.”
“Let’s,” I said.
I love that idea: Let’s make the revolution sexy. Let’s make kindness sexy. Let’s save the world by making it cool to be a kind, switched-on, conscious, caring, sharing, happy member of society. There’s gold in that. Let’s share it with the right people and together we’ll rid the world of apathetic, dumbed-down, distracted thinking and…
Another neighbour walks by.
“Hot out there,” she says.
“Bloody oath.” I say, engaging the natives in their own parlance. When she’s gone I put down my pen again and groan, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands. Look- I’ve moved another buffalo a full three feet into the clearing, but one of its horns is snagged in a root and I can’t seem to budge it. I stand up and wipe the sweat from my forehead. This isn’t working. I’ve been at it for an hour and I’ve achieved next to nothing. I sigh and sit down heavily on the beast’s rib cage. Through the trees I can see the water, dancing and glittering in the sunlight. It’s getting smelly around here. I could really use some help.
I’m a man of perseverance. I fully believe that no task is too great, as long as you’re willing to work your arse off. But I’m not stupid either. I know when I’m beaten. Sometimes the best thing to do is to wait till the heat of the day cools a little, spend a couple of hours chilling and thinking, get some help and tackle the problem later when you’re fresh.
Thus mollified, the gnawing hunger in my guts calms down a little. I strip off my sweaty t-shirt, peel off my blood-stained jeans, socks, pants, boots, and wander naked through the woods. Down by the water I stand, ankle deep, smiling as my toes sink into the mud. I give them a little wriggle, sigh contentedly.
Then I take a deep breath and dive.

Erosion

6:00 am, Australian Eastern Time.

In an instant I’m awake, no idea where I am, sitting bolt upright, eyes open. There’s someone sleeping next to me, long brown hair across the pillow, dim light filtered through the curtains.

“Who’s there?”

Somewhere inside me I’m aware of how childlike my voice sounds. The head stirs, turns towards me.

“It’s me Willy.”

A slender arm reaches out.

Of course. Of course it’s you. Of course I’m here.

I groan and fall back, rubbing my eyes. Then I turn and bury my head in warmth and soft skin.

“I didn’t know who you were…” I say to her left breast.

She makes sympathetic, cooing noises, still mostly asleep. I lie there and close my eyes again, my breathing slows, my brain relaxes. Then it begins a slow inventory, catching up with itself: flights, customs, airports, sunlight, heat, Meg in arrivals, Meg in the car… Then the whole hallucinated day plays out: wandering around, confused and sleep deprived, forcing myself to stay awake, to stay lucid, until Australian bedtime.

I’d slept a little on the couch when Meg went out for groceries. Then we lay together and watched TV. When Meg got up to shower I’d talked to Mum, then watched Leo’s short film about climate change.

Until now I’d watched impassively the slideshow of memories, enjoying Meg’s sleeping body next to me, her smell, her slow breathing, but now a darkness seeps in, a slow, engulfing panic. That ten minute movie, its volume too low, pixilated slightly on full screen, plays again inside my skull. The calm, softly spoken warning, the image of Earth perched on the hill, the little people marching towards the power station…

My brain is swamped. I lie cocooned in love and clean sheets, rigid with fear, my breath fast and shallow, shuddering as every new though hits me: We’re running out of time. I’m not doing enough. No one understands how close we are to the edge and I’m not doing enough! I understand what’s happening but all I do is write stupid stories. I should be doing more. I should be blowing up power stations, picking off the CEOs of multinationals. I shouldn’t be here, warm and loved. I should be holed up in a shed somewhere, making pipe bombs, wearing black clothes. The end is coming and all I do is laugh and play and fly in planes and…

“What’s the matter Willy?”

I’m so tense I can’t even answer. I shudder, fight for breath. She pushes herself away from me.

“What’s wrong?”

And I collapse: knees drawn up in foetal position, sucking air in quick gasps, not exhaling,

And then I start to sob.

“What’s wrong?” She sounds alarmed now, frightened.

“I…”, I still can’t even speak.

“I just can’t… I just… can’t.”

“Shhh”. She says, good woman, drapes herself over me, holds my head and rocks. “Shhh now”.

After a while I cry properly, and that feels good.

And then I draw away slightly, just enough to breathe,

And lie there,

And tell her what went wrong.

I tell her how scared I am, how useless and impotent I feel, how the whole Earth’s going to hell in a shitstorm and no one understands. All my words are over-dramatic, my tone is bleak and black.

“It’s useless”, I conclude, “there’s nothing we can do.”

“Oh Willy,” she says, “you’re jet lagged. You know there’s always hope, you’re always saying that. Even if we do all die and kill as much as we can, it’ll all re-evolve”.

“Rats and flies and cockroaches”, I mumble, “I love this green planet. I want it”.

Again I hear myself, how child-like I sound.

“I’m not doing enough.”

“Maybe not,” she says, “but you will. Right now you talk about it, and you write about it. You tell people. You’re a good man and people listen to you. You throw stones and ripples spread out. You know they do.”

“But it’s still not enough.”

“So do more. Talk more, write more.”

“I should be getting involved. I should be acting.”

“So act. Get involved. But don’t get stuck in frustration, and don’t be scared. I know you’re not really scared, anyway. I know it’s just jet-lag. You’re calm and strong. You’re not a bad person. You’re not lazy either. You’re doing what you can and you will do more.”

And softly she strokes my head, and the fear dies away.

I know what I have to do, and she’s right, it doesn’t really scare me. There is hope. Re-evolution isn’t a real consolation, it’s just a back-stop, something to keep the panic at bay. Deep down I know that a change is happening: all the people aren’t all asleep any more. They’re waking up, lots of them, and in the dreamy morning light they’re sitting bolt upright in their beds, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and asking, in mumbled, childlike voices:

“Who else is here?”

And then they’ll rise like I did,

And cast a little stone,

And the ripples will reach others,

And together we’ll throw bigger stones

Until the ripples become waves

And the waves will peak and roar

And smash upon the granite cliffs

And loosen bigger stones…

www.wakeupfreakout.org/film/tipping.html

Road Trip

The waitress plops a crafted wooden object down on our table. "I'm expecting a phone call," she says. "Will you watch it for me?" She smiles and reveals a set of seriously rotted bottom teeth.

The thing she has put down consists of a couple of pieces of wood glued together - a half-round piece about 10 inches long, with two thin rounds glued at either end. Handwritten in marker on it are the words, "Hillbilly cell phone. Instructions: go to the top of the hill and holler. If nobody answers, holler again."

She is waiting to see our reaction. Nicola and I laugh at her joke, but I feel slightly uncomfortable. We are having breakfast in a Waffle House, somewhere off the highway in Arkansas. The yellow sign advertising the Waffle House from the highway turned out to be about as big as the actual restaurant. Any lack of auspiciousness of the venue, however, was made up for by the lovely smiles and warm greetings from all the waitresses as we walked in. They are all wearing t-shirts that proudly announce "Arkansas".

Is it just my insecurity, my self-consciousness of having more means and opportunity, that makes me imagine an edge in her voice, a challenge in her joke, "Go ahead, laugh at us hillbillies, you city slicker." I try extra hard to be friendly and appreciative to the Waffle House staff.

"Where are you kids from?" she asks, as she deposits our plates of eggs.

"New York," Nicola says. With a hint of apology?

As we leave Waffle House, one of the other waitresses opens the door for me. "So you're from New York?" she says. "That's nice." She has none of the edge of the other waitress. She is looking at me with admiration and perhaps a little wistfulness.

"It's ok," I say. "It very big, hectic. None of this nice nature you have down here," and I think what am I doing? "Its good, though," I add. "Lots of energy, lots going on."

"Expensive up there, huh? What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a graphic designer," I say.

"Oh, there's money in that," she says instantly as if that explains everything.

I am perplexed, never having thought of graphic design as something with money in it. "Not so much," I say. "I mean... I guess enough to get by." We smile at each other awkwardly.

"Thanks so much for breakfast," I say.

"Ok, have a good drive," she says.

I drive away from Waffle House contemplating the possibility of not being able to drive away from Waffle House - the invisible barriers of money and class that keep us so well in our place in the world.