2010 #4: Daniel.

"Write what you know".

Daniel

Today I learned of something that would change me for the rest of my life. Today I learned that my best friend died.

I sat idly amongst a crowd, staring at my glowing phone screen, upon which read a message that struck me numbly at first. I was fifteen, a youth, on an excursion with my school to a place called The Reach Foundation, in Collingwood, where they would educate us about the years to come, and about how we would change and develop throughout our teenage lives. Tears were shed as they stirred us to feel saddening emotions about who we were as people, and about our fragility as human beings. We were inspired to look into our pasts, piecing together what shards of innocence we had lost, and were allowed to get up on stage in front of a collective crowd of several hundred students, and apologize to people we had hurt, as well as forgive ourselves for hurting those we had apologized to. Gazing down at my phone screen, speaking the message to myself over and over, I did what they had asked – I delved deep into my past, and ran over the events that had been a prelude to this day.

Some had called me a fool, a child, for ever allowing myself to place my trust in someone so decrepit, yet it was not his befouled moral centre that struck me as so curiously intense – rather, it was his will to go on despite all obstacles and shortcomings that drove me to love him. This person was my best friend. I knew I was not much else but a child, yet every bone in my body that had the sense to recognise right from wrong told me that this man, though scarred and corrupt he may have been, was not a bad man. Evil may take many forms, but no form as beautiful and fine as his could possibly have been shaped by the Devil. This was something I had been taught many times over, to trust nobody whom tempts you to try or take anything that alters your perception, as like the wind they may surely turn harsh, ferocious and transient, til you are left with nothing else but what plague those demons brought upon you. So there I was, a fool, and a child, knowing all of what he did and the implications behind it, yet still I gave him my trust, and my heart – and never did he spoil it.

When we met, I was of no greater age than thirteen, although I professed many times to the dismay of many people that I possessed wits far beyond my years. He was fifteen years old, tall and brooding, and anyone else like him I would have run from for fear they may steal my wallet, yet from him I did not run. Greeting me with a smile one day, from a step outside Flinders Street station, I found myself speaking to him, with not a fear in the world. He was not frightening as many of my friends had depicted him, nor was he aggressive or challenging to speak to. He humoured me, in fact, was kind and impassioned to learn of my name and who I was, and I found myself wishing to speak to him for even longer when the time came that he had to depart. He told me he to go somewhere, to get something that he needed. I never asked him where he was going, instead left him to his own devices, and took off on my own way – hoping that we would meet again. In retrospect, if I had challenged him that day, and told him to stay with me regardless of whatever matter he had to attend to, be it a superficial plight or something of great importance, maybe I could have prevented his death.

Fortunately, we would meet again, the following weekend and every weekend thereafter. We spoke many times, about all manner of things in his life and mine, and I learned many things about his life. He was an only child, with a father and a mother both stern and cold that had him under an iron hand, a steely grip that rendered him unable to communicate with them lest they suspect him of engaging in illegal activities. In contrary to my own parents, who at the time had me placed under a similarly strong hand, he had chosen to abandon his education as well as what little contact he had with his parents, making way for a life lived mainly on the streets where he had nobody to rely on but himself. It was when he was at the start of the path he had chosen that our paths begun to intertwine, and throughout what rare contact we had each weekend that followed I slowly came to identify a suppressed longing within him – an innate desire bound only by a pathos, a sorrow, which not until years later I could unravel the meaning of. Curiously I took after him many a time when I saw him, following him as a new friend does to wherever he sets out to go. Through being with him in those many strange places, so many that today I can only recall several; I was led by his hand into a world I now wish I never could have seen - down the rabbit hole and on the other side of the looking glass.

One of these days he took me to a park in the middle of the city – a park that these days still bears negative meaning for me. He sat me down in the middle of this park, and proceeded to pull out a tacky-looking vaporiser from his backpack. At the time I knew little of what these devices were made for, however today I am familiar with the implications behind their use; implications that have lead me to hate them, even inanimate and soulless as they are. He pulled out a tin which he revealed to be full of something green and leafy – a drug, what I should have recognised instantly to be marijuana; however I was young and little-knowing of the ways of the world. “If you want to try this, you can,” He said to me, stuffing bits of the drug into the smaller of two protruding tips of the vaporiser, “However, I wouldn’t like you to.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a lighter, put his mouth to the larger tip of the vaporiser, a gaping hole exposing the insides of the chamber within the device, placed his thumb on a tiny hole on the rear of the device, and placed the lighter near the other protruding tip. A flick of his finger, and the flame was ignited. He pulled deeply with his mouth, and the chamber began to fill up with smog, as though like a vacuum he drew the smoke out from within. Several more moments of this pulling technique and he released his finger from the small hole. The smog inside of the chamber frantically escaped into his waiting mouth. Several moments later, and he exhaled the substance into the air around us, with a sigh.

That was my first experience observing his illicit behaviour, my first sample of the drug-taking that slowly claimed his life. It would be a lie to say that I did not witness him doing this again and again many times after that day, and an even greater lie still to say that I was not at all curious about the acts themselves. For him, however, I denied myself the opportunity, a decision that I knew was for my own good. I went home after many of these awkward and frequently intense occasions, to my parents and my sister who knew little of who I was engaging with, nor what antics I was engaging in. They often spoke of how little they valued drug-takers, about how they barely considered them human, as well as educated me on how much they loathed to the core many of the people

whom they knew partook in the acts I had previously witnessed. To them, drug takers were scum. I looked at them with confusion when they told me this – that word, ‘scum’, still echoes in my ears today – and I didn’t even think for a second that they might have had experiences with drugs in the past to begin with, nor whether or not they had lost anyone in their life to the ghostly hold of the substances. Instead, I sat in my bedroom and had a long, hard think, about the things I was doing, and the people I was associating with – and made a decision. For him, I would tell my parents nothing, I would tell them nothing of my ‘friend’. I would hide that part of me from them. Little did I know back then that this decision would seal a part of me away forever – perhaps this part was my innocence? For him, however, I would hide it all away in a dark corner of my mind. Fortunately I knew even at such a young age that this part of me – the child – we all suppress eventually.

From that day, I could safely call this man a friend of mine, without lying through my teeth or exaggerating the facts. Every weekend I saw him, and talked to him chirpily without the curiosity and sensibility that I had adapted before. Often some weekdays I would sneak away from school and allocate time to him, venturing to eerie locations with him to do not much at all, standing in school attire as a cruel irony to the rules and laws that governed my world – the world with him I had come to associate as my ‘other world’; where anything was possible, and I felt true freedom, light as a feather.

“You’re an odd one, you are,” He said to me one day, while we dallied around in a park, six months from the birth of our friendship, “You try to pretend you’re so mature, and sophisticated, yet I’m fairly sure you’re more of a child than all of the people you pretend to be better than.” He said this while dangling from a tree by the knees, so I laughed it off.

“You’re one to talk,” I stated sternly, yet the smile on my lips would not fade, “I don’t suppose your ego has gone to your head along with all your blood, what with you hanging upside down like that?”

I gave him a quizzical look, and he leapt off the tree with a questionable display of grace. He grinned and ruffled my hair, before taking off some yards in front of me to do a handstand. We went to the city that day, where we bought coffee – something at the time I had not yet acclimated to the taste of, so when my face expressed my disgust he laughed outrageously - before escaping down to the park that day so that he could do what he did all too often – take drugs.

One day I asked him where he got all of his money from, for him to be able to buy me food and purchase himself drugs. He replied in a far too matter of fact fashion, that he stole all of his money from his parents. I thought, judging from the way he spoke of the act so casually, that this was normal for someone such as him, and even more normal for teenagers. Little did I know that it was not normal, and the thievery he conducted soon led to the disassembly of his already-crippled relations with his family, eventually leading to their feelings of disgust for their son. One day, I came to him with a smile on my face, meeting him at Flinders Street Station, our choice location to see each other, and he confessed to something that truly struck me as awful. His parents, he said, had kicked him out onto the street the day before. He had slept in a park that night, yet even in the dire situation he found himself in, he still made the effort to come and see me. I then

began to realise the severity of the situation with his parents. They hated him with a passion, as though they deemed him not even a blood relation, and this was something I could never understand, what with my parents being so loving and protective of me. I looked upon his frail form, and saw the loss in his eyes. His pathos was shining through that day. With that, I helped him to his full height. I lit up a cigarette for him to smoke, which he did, and instead of him caring for me that day, I cared for him. I bought him food and water, and smothered him in my dearest affections. It was then that I began to realise that this man needed my help.

Many days passed, until days became months. I was long since fourteen, he long since sixteen, yet the contrast between our lives was far too great to think common. His state of homelessness persisted, and he found himself being kicked out of shared houses and refuges alike, usually due to the violent denizens within accusing him of doing troublesome things he truly did not do. Yet nobody listened to him, as he had nobody to support him. He grew weaker and steadily weaker, until his state was so diminished that several times I was forced to take him to the hospital for treatment, or to somewhere that he may find food. His urges for food by that point, however, had been outweighed by the urge for something else, and as much as he tried to hide these pressing urges from me, in the end they unravelled him, and he could do nothing to hide these cruel desires from me. As the rain pressed down upon our heads one day, in another park as the first day – a cruel motif – he pulled out a syringe from his pocket, and a bottle full of a substance that I learned was heroin. The events of that day were too sickening to properly envision, as I am sure my mind has repressed the thoughts of what things he did and subjected me to, and yet I was forced by my nurturing conscience to relive each and every one of those days for the next few months afterwards.

By that time we were an inseparable team - yet this was no team I wanted to be a part of. Tried he did, to convince me that the things he was doing to himself were appropriate for the crisis he was going through, yet never could he convince me that the things he said were true. I begged him, over and over, time and time again; to stop harming himself for the trouble his parents had put him through... yet he would not listen to reason, and instead resorted to abusing me for daring to trespass with my words onto his personal life. His impassioned self was lead to ruin, and with each twitch of his eye and scarred look on his face, his pathos shone through with merciless ferocity. It was one day down the line, when I was fifteen and he was seventeen, which changed us forever.

We stood outside Flinders Street Station, where I asked him yet again to heed my words to seek help for his troubles, and his addiction. I pleaded with him, as he was insistent that we “take off” and I knew where he meant to go. Then something hit me – a part of me spoke out against his leadership. I spoke the words calmly; if he did not come with me to get help, I would walk away and never see him again. He flipped around at that, and pierced my soul with his tormenting gaze. “Turn around and walk away, then,” He shouted at me, “ If you want to go, then you can just walk away. Just leave. You’re never going to see me again.” His words were harsh and fierce, and I found myself unable to respond with words. I did then what I thought I would regret doing forever – I turned on my heels, and walked away. I ignored everything that reminded me of him,

which by that stage was mostly everything, including all of the text messages he sent me begging for my forgiveness, for the next three days – until after that time, it came time for my school and I to attend The Reach Foundation in Collingwood, and I did so with a guilty resting atop my heart - a heart that was about to be torn apart.

This is his mother. We’re sorry, the message read. Daniel has died of an overdose.

I sat there, surrounded by many saddened faces, all mimicking each other, with their inspired emotions of sorrow and realization. The whole thing was a stark frenzy, a fit of tears and emotions. Yet I felt nothing. No emotion, no rationality to take the pain away. The only thing I knew at that time was the message glistening silently on the phone screen in front of me. With that message, I felt my world break away before me.

Today I learned of something that would change me for the rest of my life. Today I learned that my best friend died.

I am the fool, and the child, that knew all of what he did and the implications behind it, that walks the path of righteousness now with bitter memory pressing hard upon my back; yet still I gave him my trust, and my heart – and he gave me his.

2010 #3: The Escape

When I was 17 I used to write larger stories, too, silly little fantasies.

The Escape 

Foreword: This piece is actually a passage taken from a novel I’ve been attempting to write for many years – an extract that I found particularly beautiful in terms of language, the way it flows, and in terms of the imagery evoked through the use of words throughout.

--

At one point in Lucas’ life, he too had thought he had seen Sierra’s radiant visage. But her image, for Lucas, did not fill him with alarm, as it had with Ryan, but instead filled him with curiosity. And as it turned out, this visage – that at once, became less of a thought, and more of an experience - would be one of the last earthly things he would ever see.

He was out on patrol one night, on the edge of a country torn to shreds by a war, in a land forsaken by all other governments. He wore what soldiers would have worn in his time, covered from his head to his toes in a form of dress that was almost invisible to the naked eye. Camouflage, it seemed, although Lucas was sure that in the swamp he found himself him, you could hardly see figures in front of your eyes through the mist floating off the water, let alone spy anyone in camouflage. And as he trekked through the grime of one such swampy region, he saw her, as much as he could have – should have – missed her.

Often Lucas found himself crawling around through the sludge and the wet of the swampy forest regions he monitored, repeating a hopeful mantra in his mind, over and over, that he would not be just another statistic.

Another name crossed off of a list; another number. Another soldiers’ life thrown away due to a blow brought about by war. Whether it happened on the field of battle from a blade piercing the chest, or from a gun, a man shot down from afar by enemies sneaking through the solemn woods, such a death proved only a nuisance to Lucas’ superiors. Lucas promised himself that even if he were to be gassed to death, captured and tortured, or bled out from the throat like a pig dangling by an iron hook in a slaughterhouse, he would not be – he refused to be – just another death.

He had promised his mother this, on the day that he went away to war, and had prayed for the same on top of his fathers’ grave. His younger sister, her husband, and all of their children, wept for him on the day he went away, and continued to shed tears in the hope of his survival, and Lucas would not forget nor dismiss the tears they had shed for him. His mother, however, did not cry nor speak when Lucas told her – she simply stared at him through old and near-catatonic eyes, almost knowing of the perils he would face, until he was forced to look away, for what now has been a very long time. Every day and every night he prayed, to whatever god there was that all things pray to, that some poor bastard did not run screaming into his cabin, explosives strapped to his chest. He prayed for the concept of ‘rations’ to disappear, and for all the soldiers to be fed to full and blissful contentment. 

Some nights he prayed for all of the friends and fellow soldiers that had been captured or killed, to be returned to him, alive and healthy. He often remembered their smiling faces, some faces grinning days or even hours before being blown to pieces, or worse, captured and taken as prisoners of war.

He found war a cruel and sickening process – but at the same time, he felt it to be completely necessary, if any country were to ever find a level of peace for long. Like any other healthy soldier, he harbored a secret pacifism, a desire to spread peace - but too often, he thought, people must fight so that others can live at peace. It was the unfortunate and ever-lingering truth. So there he was, trekking through mud that sank him to his knees, murmuring to himself the wish not to have holes shot through his chest or legs, nor for him to be captured and taken prisoner, like so many of his comrades before him. The trees around him seemed to reach out to him, wanting to wrap and tangle around his legs and arms, and trap him there – but Lucas fought on, tearing and hacking at the branches and vines obstructing his path, and often constricting him. He could not see the sky, or any way out of this thick forest, his vision obscured by plant life, and often he felt that he would slip, fall and drown, in the swampy muck and grime he seemed to be wading through constantly. He could not hear any enemy approaching, for his ears were deafened by the noises of the wild creatures no doubt completely surrounding him. This was his day-to-day life away at war, and as much as he knew from previous experience that he would soon find an exit from the hellish maze surrounding him - stretching, tangled and twisted up, and often beneath, him - the escape seemed to never come. So he fought on, praying again to whatever god there was that all things pray to, that he would find sunlight, and leave the trapping vines and ominous swamp-like depths behind him.

As he trekked, he thought that he saw things in the forest, like many other soldiers had before him. Grotesque shapes that, once examined, turn out to be nothing but the contorted fake figures made by vines and swamp trees, and every subtle noise near him, thought to be the whispers of enemy soldiers and spies, turned out to be nothing more than the croaks and chirps of frogs and birds in the forests and swamps. Around him, there was nothing but complete mystery and death, and the fear that once consumed him was now numbed after days and days of fatigue and exhaustion, and Lucas was so used to the far-off sounds of gunfire, and so used to diving in any dizzying direction after hearing the horrifying cry of a fellow man not even feet away being blasted by the explosion caused by a grenade, that he no longer felt anxiety. He did not wish for death, but he was completely and utterly ready for the day when it would approach, scythe raised and the tail of his black cloak whipping in the air behind him. Still, he prayed for its visit to be delayed, by an hour, a day, or even a mere minute, so that he could find a way to try and escape.

Somewhere in the numbness he thought he heard a noise – a noise not quite as loud as the hacking of his machete that he used to tear the vines in front of him from his way. It was hardly even a noise, he felt, for a noise is a sound that probably was not meant to disturb someone such as Lucas, but does so by accident. This slight sound was completely and utterly with intention, for no soldier in a place such as this would be so idiotic and thoughtless as to forcefully pry his way towards, or away from, someone as armed and as dangerous as Lucas. He would do it with secrecy and sneak, if the fool possessed any logic whatsoever, creeping all the way back to wherever he came from, being sure at all times that Lucas did not follow.

The sounds he heard were footsteps, and he swore he heard whispers, and if Lucas did not know better of the world, he would have thought the whispers were coming from the trees themselves. Once he had heard them, he followed them - traced them, trying to see through the hanging trees to locate whatever fool the noises were coming from. Steady as a knife-thrower in a circus troupe aiming a blade at an apple atop the head of their partner, knowing full well the consequences should their blade fly a little lower than the apple, Lucas crept to find the source of the sounds. As soon as he had picked up his own pace, however, he heard the footsteps becoming louder, and more rushed – it became clear that whoever this fool of a man was, he was alerted to Lucas’ presence, and had taken off in a run. At that, Lucas tore after him, abandoning his poise, breaking through the hanging vines with his own body, and darting through the thick swamp, the foul muck splashing around up to his waistline.

His ears were focused on the mystery man, who was at a run now, and he found himself getting closer and closer to the source of the noises until it seemed that he was right behind him, wherever this man was, so close in the forest. He felt himself breaking through the shapes in front of him, feeling this man’s presence before him, nearly upon this escaping soldier.

That was when Lucas heard her voice.

He ground to a complete and utter halt. The swampy waters he had forcefully interrupted restored to their meditative state. The mist that cloaked his eyes and left him unable to see slowly began to lift, as though answering to the strange voices’ call. The voice whispered to Lucas from somewhere different than the way the footsteps had been coming from – in fact, the opposite direction entirely.

“Are you trying to find me, sir?” The being vocalized, forming words, and Lucas knew it was human then – or something near to it. Lucas was shocked at the sudden disturbance. He flailed his arms in the muck, hacking at the soaked shrubs surrounding him with his machete, gasping in fear while reaching blindly for the voices source.

“That’s funny, really…” It almost giggled then, without fear or loathing. “It’s almost convenient…”

Lucas turned around and around, spinning like a dancer, looking in every direction for the source of this mysterious voice. The being seemed to see him – to see him through all of the trees and the growth that he couldn’t see through himself.

“Because, Lucas…” He heard the vines and the trees start to part, and suddenly, all the wildlife around him went completely silent. All that he could hear was the movement of the trees, their rustling that the wind caused, and with that no footsteps at all. “I have been looking for you…”

Before his very eyes, the creepers dangling from the swamp roof parted completely to form an archway, the mist blanketing the bog disappearing completely, almost being repelled by the arch of vines. And through the archway; moving like the wind itself with the grace of a fine breeze; came a girl - a girl with long silver hair, and with eyes sleepy and aged. Her eyes seemed to have seen so much and too many difficult years, yet she possessed a pale face that seemed eternally youthful, so much so that Ryan felt the concept of her being elderly impossible. She had eyes that were ancient, yet possessed the face and the body of a young woman.

“I have been looking for you for a very long time, Lucas.”

The woman spoke, and Lucas pulled back in awe. The voice was soft, lulling and soothing, and almost willed Lucas into a relaxed daze. He could not fear her, regardless of the supernatural intensity of her entrance. He gazed upon her, paying no notice to the robe she wore, and the silver cape that covered most of her, almost sheathing her from the world and the eyes of all human life. He did not even pay notice to the fact that the grimy waters were unmoving at her feet, perfectly still as though she could pass through solid objects like air, and the creepers that had parted to form a mysterious archway had sunk back down into their original dangling forms.

“My name is Sierra, and I must tell you something important, Lucas. You need not speak, only listen to what I have to say. There is a pestilence coming, to take this world, and all those who breathe within it. It will not come now, but in many years, and you must help us rid the world of it, cleanse all those affected by it. The plague is not an infection, in that it does not spread from person to person – but a sway, an authority, and an influence. This plague is the oldest thing to trouble man, and without you, it may be the last thing, too.”

“Woman...” Lucas began, stuttering slightly in awe and disbelief. “You better explain to me exactly what you’re doing here – and exactly what you are, or else…” He pulled out a rifle, and pointed the firing end at Sierra’s face. He was not frightened by Sierra, but was not taking any precautions. She could have been the spy – or perhaps the invention – of the enemy force he fought against. “I’m going to shoot you. You’re not supposed to be here – hell, no normal person is supposed to be here. Tell me why you’re here, or I’ll fire, I swear to God.”

Sierra smiled something gentle then. “Why, I’ve come to take you, Lucas.”

Lucas was not a killer, nor a murderer, or any other word to describe what a man becomes when he intentionally takes the life of another human being– he was simply acting out his duties as a soldier in a war. He would not have ever imagined performing the act of shooting a person, especially a woman, under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances.

Lucas aligned the rifle between Sierra’s eyes, closed his own, before pulling the trigger, and letting the gun he held call out to the bayou. When he opened his eyes, however, Sierra was not where she had once stood.

He heard the threatening whine of shells flying at unseen enemies from a place not too far away, and the loud cracks and explosions that followed their cries, before realizing that the real enemy – the men with the real guns that could kill him, not the strange woman adrift in the bog – were closing in on him.

“That will do you no good, Lucas.” A voice whispered from behind him, “Not if you want to live.” The voice was irritated now.

Lucas flipped around, and found himself face-to-face with Sierra.

“You… What on earth…” He murmured, his eyes wide and frozen with fear. “How did you get around me so fast?”

Sierra suddenly grabbed Lucas’ arm at an alarming speed, her limbs moving swifter than the shots fired around them – and at once, Lucas was filled with a spine-chilling cold. It flowed from the spot Sierra had touched him, coursing all through his body, distracting his thoughts until he had no more drifting through his head. Lucas realized then that he felt dizzy, and Sierra had to hold him up with support if he were to continue standing. He looked deep into her age-old eyes, feeling faint, his vision slightly blurred. He only had time to think of his family – and his mother. Sierra’s eyes reminded him of her mothers’ – wise, as if she had seen many a terrible thing. He suddenly felt calmed. 

Sierra knelt down to meet his face, then reached behind his left ear with her head. “You will understand in time, Lucas.”

Lucas, despite his promise to his mother, and the sacred promise he made to himself, never emerged from the quagmire he waded within. In fact, despite the calls of his fellow troopers for days on end, and the seeking searchlights of his comrades searching for him throughout the bog, he was never seen again.

2010 #2: Blind Juliet.

When I was 17 I used to write little stories, too.

Blind Juliet.

            Where are you, Susan?

            I’m pondering all the possible beginnings that could have led me to this place. It’s freezing here, the rain pounding hard against the farmhouse roof from outside. The sound is muffled due to the hay it was constructed from, and I wonder how many horrors would await me dare I choose to exit into the outside world. I am at a loss. That world is not for me. The world I stumbled into..

            Susan, my darling, if only you could see me now, at the time where I crave your company the most. The warmth of your flesh upon my flesh would give me enough reason to not only stay in this horrid place, but to remain here for a long time.  Therein lies my pain – you are not here. I don’t know where you are. My company and I, we lost you, lost you to the outside world, although I wouldn’t call it a world. I’d call it a hell. Now, I’m alone here, in this hell. Devon is most likely dead by now, and Rita, if anything, the troublesome woman that she is, would be fighting for her life against the violent denizens that we had never thought would threaten us.

            The township seemed so kind to us, and caring to one another, yet never would I have imagined that they would turn on us the way that they did. One short moment of realization, and the plates on top of which these men had served good food and satisfying nourishment were used to bombard us. I could still feel the cut upon my head where the plate with the remnants of lamb had been thrown and made contact, a means to sate us turned to what would hurt us horribly, and if the knife I used to slice portions of the lamb away from the stock corpse had pierced any deeper into my arm by the rough and burly man to my side at the dinner table, in that brick house full of welcoming men, the arm would probably have lost function, if I had not instead bled to death.

            I heard a noise, and that noise I thought to be the footsteps of angry men, readying to charge into the makeshift den I have crafted for myself, their pitchforks spearing into the sky, their sharpened machetes pointed at me, almost as though they direct the spirit of Death itself to fall upon me. If that were the noise, I would be nothing – yet it is naught but a mere scratching, caused by what could have been an animal. If that is how far my paranoia has stretched my sanity, then said sanity should surely snap in due time, the air knife-thin with tension. Usually I would take comfort in the rains, but I cursed them for not allowing me to hear any strangers choosing to enter from the outside world. Instead I took solace in the comforts I have made for myself, in the form of the bales of hay I had untangled from their shapely and compact for, scattered about the floor and crafted into a nest for me to nestle within, in my seemingly futile attempts to hide myself away, a temporary escape from Hell.

            I catch a scent like rotting meat, and I prayed it was naught but the smell of decayed livestock, or just the scent wafting from beneath my bandaged arms and legs. I had been there so long that I could near lose notice of the scent. I couldn’t see a thing – nothing over ten inches from my nose – but for the light that pierced the wall of the barn in columns every time lightning chose to strike, allowing me for a moment the chance to examine my surroundings. Each time, I prayed nothing had changed nor moved. Similarly, Susan, we shared a night like this, long ago. I remember your face as it would illuminate before my eyes with every clap of the sky; blushing and shy, taken aback by my presence on top of you. Your body was weak within my arms, although not due to any form of malnourishment, but quivering with the love I pray you felt for me. Your one blue eye gazed upon me with cute curiosity, whereas the other, one green, looked at me knowingly. At the time, it seemed, we were an unstoppable force, and despite the contempt your father felt for me and my presence in your home, nothing would distract from our blossoming romance – you cared little for his antics, and almost in acceptance of this it seemed at dinner there was always a place set for me, so long as I told you prior that I was coming around, which you insisted was his doing and not your own. How far it feels I have come from that serenity into this catastrophe. It is a shame, too, that your father insisted he come along when we all chose to venture to this place, together. A father bears a love for his daughter that forever remains unrivalled, but I fear that no love in this world could stop the horrible people living in this village from doing worse than what they could do to me to your father.

            At a grim hour such as this I am reminded of the day I met you. Lost to my own world, I made an adventure into the world outside, in order to find some kind of peace within myself that would grant clarity to my gloomed-over mind. Somewhere between setting foot into new countries and journeying home a new man, I stumbled upon you. Transfixed, I followed you to your home villa, and watched from a distance as you suddenly appeared from the door of your second storey balcony, facing the front of your house. You wore a flowing white dress, loose and wavering like a nightgown, and when you came to rest your weary arms upon a ledge – how I wished I could carry you then – with your deep brown hair hanging over the edge like a curtain, I felt myself move forward until I was so obviously within your sight that you would have been a fool not to notice me, and when our eyes met with the most pure of knowing glances, I found myself devoted to your every movement, following you with my eyes – never speaking. Surely enough, we never spoke that night, not until the morning. Not even while you were in my arms.

            When we awoke, tousle-haired nude messes that we were, you seemed so insistent of me making my leave of your place that I bore no thought to the fact that you might have another lover, or even a child to which the sight of my naked form would have screamed in appall. Needless to say, I bode you farewell, but it would not have been for long, and my heart remained cold and steely in your absence until you returned to warm it. And needless to say again, I climbed your balcony every night, the love stung Romeo that I was, yearning with each insistent gallop to your home to cradle your warm body. It wasn’t enough that you stole into my mind with your luminous beautify, but by then you had captured my heart, too. Had you not caught my eye that day then I may have died a lonely man a long time ago. Instead, it seems, I will die a lonely man within this cruel and strange abyss, your deep and calming blue and green eyes lost to all but my memory.

One eye was blue like sapphires, the other green as emeralds.

            There was a crackling, something that sounded like a cough, and I was pulled from my feverish hallucinations of your eyes in an instant, despite the fact that from across the room I swore that with every clap of lightning I could detect your eyes from somewhere in front of me. No eyes of any color comparable could glint like yours do in the light. I was up in a heartbeat, and still I felt as though I could see you staring back at me from across the room. I felt a movement beside me, and my senses were alight even more – something fell, and collapsed beside me, and I was too afraid to move for fear it might attack. It didn’t. It was still, like stone, beside me. I’ve brought about death, I thought to myself. If I hadn’t moved in reaction, I would have gone unnoticed, but instead I vied to jump to attention at the smallest crackle of sound. I sat in my sorrows for a moment, until the next thunderclap illuminated the entity to my right.

            I stifled a cry. A pockmarked corpse, naked and battered by all kinds of pain bringing devices imaginable, had fallen from its hideaway above me. Its eyes were sewn shut, and it was almost as though children had scrawled faces of merriment beside the places on its body where it had been violently pierced. This could not be the corpse of a human, but a disfigured mutant – a terrifying distortion, a Dali. Once I had seen it, the image of it imprinted itself on my mind, and I felt the need to vomit as my head spun to the point where I was forced to get up and run across the room in shock. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. This man must have been beaten to death by a thousand clubs, all the while being stabbed in every soft bit of flesh upon his body by knives – his manhood itself beaten to a pulp. Dry blood coated his chest, and I was almost afraid to believe my luck, that I should take shelter beneath the corpse of a mutilated human being. It was with that fierce movement I so thoughtlessly partook in that the barn-house door burst open with light.

            The sudden blaze of light and sound left me in shock for a few moments, as I fell to the floor, almost landing upon the corpse spread out in a star not an inch from me. When I regained my sight and hearing, I was confronted with a flame, a blazing torch burning inches away from my face. The two intruders, whoever they were, attempted to identify me, waving the torches they carried around the room and near to me, eyes piercing mine… scanning me. When I saw the faces of those that had invaded my temporary space, however, I was filled with confusion. I realized they were scanning me with recognition – searching my eyes with disbelief. A gasp escaped my mouth as I discovered something that filled me with hope; I recognized their dirtied features.

            The woman of the two dropped her possessions with a yelp and leapt into my arms – Rita, with her feline features and cat-like eyes, had survived.

            “Brad…” She whimpered, her voice muffled as she pressed herself against my chest, “I... I can’t believe it. You’re actually alive.”

            “I kind of can’t believe it either.” I murmured, holding her close to me. With that, she was reduced to a bundle of sobs, gripping me so tightly that I stifled a gasp.

            The second male figure brought the flame he carried close to his face to reveal himself – Devon, it seemed, was alive too.

            “It’s good to see you’re still kickin’.” He grunted with a half-smile. He approached me and hit me hard on the back so roughly that it hurt – an action of endearment when it came from Devon. They were wet, bloodied and their faces were smeared with dirt. Both of them looked exhausted and unwell.

            “Good to see you too, buddy.” I returned his smile, releasing a teary Rita from my grasp. “How’s everything outside?”

            “Dreadful,” Rita replied, returning to her usual fierce and foxy demeanor and tone of voice. “We’ve killed ten of those things already. They’re reasonably intelligent, but can be moved quite easily. It feels like they’re everywhere.”

            “What do we know about them?” I asked.

            “They’re fast. They move in packs, and speak in tongues I’ve never heard of… like some twisted form of Spanish…” Rita spoke again, “They’re well organized, their tribes are reasonably cultures – which means, at least they live in houses and know how to cook.” Se explained. “Having said that, they haven’t quite grasped the concept of long-range weaponry, which means instead they take to slashing and stabbing at us with knives.” Bitterly, her face twisted into a scowl.

            “There’s something wrong with them, though…” Devon spoke up. Rita and I turned, and found he was standing by the door exiting the farmhouse, looking out into the rain. “I hit one of them – straight in the kneecap, with a mallet I stole from one of their homes. He saw me leaving the building after hiding away when they were still a pack. His kneecap shattered, and he fell straight to the ground… except he got up again and again, crying out from the pain. It was like the pain didn’t matter to him at all, so he kept coming, lunging at me from the ground he crawled upon.”

            Rita stared at him for a while, processing what he had just said, before sinking to her knees and sighing deeply. “They have to be human. They just have to be. They look it, they speak a language that I’m sure we could come to understand – and they’re warm like we are.”

            “Still,” Devon replied, “It was as though that man, if I had let him lie, would have kept coming at me until his end and final breath.”

            With that revelation, another figure burst through the open door., slamming it shut as they did. The rain from outside went from muffled to deathly in force, sweeping the ground outside in torrents, drowning everything it crashed down upon. We stood to attention, Rita and Devon raising their torches above their heads, ready to strike with flame and club alike. When I looked upon the intruder’s wet face and hair, clothes torn to shreds and dangling threads,  I was again filled with the sweet sigh of relief. The figure that had charged through was no beast, no assailant, but Susan’s father. I looked him over several times, and was relieved to see that he was uninjured – however judging from what fear I could read from his eyes, he had clearly seen things in his time outside that we dared not ask him about.

            “You… all of you…” His eyes darted across the room, lingering on each of us, “Where is my daughter?” He saw something behind me that caused his jaw to drop, and charged through me with force, coming down to crouch beneath the corpse by my feet. Realizing it was not Susan, he stood up and sighed. “It’s not her… I’m so glad.” I stepped forward and placed my hand upon his shoulder. He moved into me, eyes shut, mouth uttering a near-inaudible prayer of thanks.

            “She’s not here, Ralph. We don’t know where she is.”

            “They took her. I saw them take her. It feels like so long ago now, but I know she’s out there somewhere. I’ve looked everywhere, scoped every building and hovel in this godforsaken place, and this is the last…. There’s nothing.”

            I winced upon hearing this. “… I understand.” I replied. I felt myself give way at the knees slightly, and a sinking feeling descended upon me. Susan was nowhere to be found, so judging from that, she must be somewhere else – with them.

            “We have to leave.” Ralph said in a panic. “We can’t stay here. They’re everywhere. I tried to outrun them, I did, but they were everywhere. You don’t understand how horrible they are… I’ve never seen anything like this… The things they do, they’re unimaginable horrors – unspeakable abominations.”

            Rita mumbled something unintelligible, and then slowly began to cry. Devon reached forward to hold her – then, like a child echoing her mothers’ ways, Devon began to cry, too. Ralph, at long last, sank to his knees, reduced to a mess without his child. He wailed – slow, high-pitched cries to the farmhouse ceiling above us, louder than the rain pounding from outside. It was with these heartbreaking sounds that I heard something more horrid than any collapse of a corpse, any thunderclap or rending of flesh. I heard the sounds of one hundred footsteps, stampeding towards us. I saw the door open with light once more, saw bodies fill the room, pouring in from outside. One hundred torches gathered around us, surrounding us in a circle, and I knew we were dead then.

            They were all around us, their narrowed eyes speaking of a long-blossomed hate. They ceased the cries of my friends, and the room was filled with silence, but for the ever-present rain still yearning to strike us, as the others were too. Baring at us, they flayed their torches like swords, scalding Rita, and clubbing Devon across the head, flames licking at his scalp. One of them kicked Ralph across the face, and I saw blood fall from his nose onto the muddy ground.

            In the warm bright light I looked again to the wall across the room, where I had sworn I had caught a glimpse of your warm view. Scanning the wall, I hoped to find an inch of hope that you were still here, with me, in this room, protecting me, watching over me. What I saw when I scanned that wall, was a pair of eyeballs, loosened from their sockets by delicate fingers, inserted into hollows cut out from the wood. I felt a growing numbness fill me from the inside, radiating out, penetrating every inch of my being.

            One eye was blue like sapphires, the other green as emeralds.

2010 #1: A Collection of Poems

When I was 17 I wanted to study Creative Writing at RMIT. To get in required folio submission and an interview. The folio submission required sending in up to 4 pieces of creative writing at 3,000 words each.

Whoops, no... that's... that's not right at all. The folio submission required sending in up to 4 pieces of creative writing at 3,000 words in total. I sent in 4 pieces at 3,000 words each.

Needless to say, I didn't get in. Heartbreaking, really.

I still have the pieces I submitted, though. I'm posting them here for the purpose of reminiscence. Especially since back then I was a blissed out teen and wrote every day, whereas these days I'm a burned out alcoholic 20-year-old with the cognitive functionality of a preteen with autism. 

There is a forth piece (or, in terms of chronology, a different first piece) but I'm hesitant to post it as the contents are far, far too personal. It is a piece of my life - a fragment of a memoir. Autobiographical. Then again, if you do see it here, it will be numbered under #4, and I guess I gained the confidence to post it after all.

Let's begin.

-

When I was 17 I used to write poems on leather-faced moleskines. 

I. Before

A change in the wind, I felt it like fire

What all-consuming tempest does make my bones brittle and weak; knees bashed with cold.

My hair is suddenly messy now.

The fire and wind does cauterize my old wounds

Piteous, perhaps, but such an inspiration.

This frenzied breeze does sting at first, however gentle on my arms and face. I like this.

The hope this one torrent brings is controversial, as I have been lectured many a time, and seen with bloody cruelty and unmistakable vision, most correct

How blazing fires do burn out to become razed and blackened pyres.

My hope anew, I ride this wind; to any port but for one where company is unfriendly

I pray you; press against my sails;

Do kick up again.

I start a new incision along an old and faded line; with uncertainty, pierce the seas along a choppy old way that time has never feigned to forget.

You seem to take to my presence on the ocean

Although my destined shores are too far for you to carry me, you stay.

I thought, ‘To commune with wind is futile,’

But this breeze whispers to I and itself, ‘Never die’.

II. After

The black bird hovers around my window now.

It speaks the truth; bats the lids of its eyes

Although I wish it would stop.

Like a kite it gently glides, trying with subtle beats of its wings to catch my eye, but I still see it regardless.

The kids, they touch each other, not knowing what’s real and what’s not.

I wonder if they ever will.

What I have seen, like my grey feathered friend,

Should inspire them to keep their hands firmly placed on the table in front of them.

For myself, in chastity, I depart my own requirements, laid like food left to someone else’s similarly starving stomach.

For myself, I think little, although a selfish masterpiece I’ve started.

A white dove I’ve begun to paint in my fevered daydreams.

The reality of my subject, however, is one of black eyes and black feathers, a testament to death - a lonely murder.

You cannot draw a dove that is not a dove at all; hopelessness invades.

My black-feathered friend will fly away soon.

But whether or not it is to a place or a person willing to paint it bright?

The port I’ve reached is full of fools, and the wind dies.

III. Now

You are no more a friend than the transient wind that finds warm comfort blowing through the open doors of self-degrading idiots

Than the wide ocean; to kick up the sails of those who need you most.

You are no more a change, a changer; a fiery new beginning; than that pathetic gust that does kick up the skirts of pretty girls, only to cease again and again.

That portrait I painted; I find is nothing resembling a dove when I reach sobriety.

The guilt I feel is so great, for throwing you—

What a dove or a great Arctic wind you could have been.

But I follow your lead; I fly away.

I set sail on a new wind, that when it whispers ‘Never die’, it follows its own advice.

—Into the fire to burn to ashen cinders.

The scent of smoldering paint and dying brush strokes does tickle my nostrils; it stings my eyes.

The incision I’ve made before is simply another lost hope.

The most promising and beautiful of paintings, if caught in a fire, will always choose to die for fear of not escaping its hot licks; resignation.

You are no more a lover than one who merrily sleeps with other men; cheats themselves.

No more a wind of change than one that feigns promise and then dies.

No more a dove that chooses to flock to the dead like a raven, and slips in and out of black ink like my brush.

What could have been; a waste of paint.

Do not come again, dear wind, unless it is with intent to carry me onwards -

When it is not the wide ocean you fear;

When you choose not to take up company with fools;

Until then I start a new canvas.

The incision heals; my sails are up again; I wait for the next big wind.

Love and loss

What love could do with love lost,

Return it unto love and let love share lusts most lusciously.

For love cannot share lust with a simple like,

But it parries and dodges the blows of a most tempestuous lust, for fear of love lost in lament.

So love loves love and finds faux-love in lust

But it cannot love lust.

For once mere lust is discovered in place of a once-thought love

Then love is left in loss.

Lust may be shared between love,

But love cannot love lust.

For lust feigning love is a lie.

Free

I knew a man who once told me

That my heart was free

Free

To roam the plains of Kenya

To prowl the deserts of Egypt

To laze in Parisian laneways of many an archaic design

To seek a sensual touch from gorgeous Swedes

To lament a boring life in Barcelona

To parry the precise pokes of fencers in fancy France

To write of beauty in most ravishing Rome

To be lost in Spanish serenades

To find lust in Greece and seek the beauty of Santorini

He said my heart was free

Until I found my way, and a place to stay

Until I found it in my heart

To be

And with all the grace and sorrow of a willow tree

He swayed on the shore and he waited for me.

The Lady of Shalott

Even the Lady of Shalott did sleep

While her boat did crawl and creep

Along the river which feigned the sea

To Sir Lancelot and keep

Her heart damp and cold

Dreaming of wealth she would never know

Her sir waiting by the shore in snow

But her creaky boat moves far too slow

Clutching straws of sanity she lies

She sees the sky through dried-up eyes

Patiently she rests for long

Serenades passing sailors with her song

And when all is but with fear

When a bore is her despair

She feels her death drawing near

Cloaked with long departed hope

Riding on the wind, it comes with horses’ trot

Tousles the unwashed hair of restless Sir Lancelot

To the doomed drifting maiden upon the rickety barge

It does not take her long to realize that Death itself is at large

A lonesome boat does crawl and creep

Remembers weighty presence with a creak

Along a journeyed frozen river it finds Sir Lancelot and keep

Within, forever, in embrace of fallen leaves

Damp with saddened skies and incessant snowing

With no sleepy song to match a young man’s longing

Lady Shalott does sleep

For one bitter purpose of this prose

And only death itself would know

Is that she would linger cold and lone

Until her dammed blood would turn to stone

Over and over, the cycle flows

When it will stop, burning pages let us know

For poor Lady Shallot lives and dies

Every time you read these lines

Meeting

Him:

I met you at the bar, and you smiled.

Was it the stark contrast between you and I that caused you to grin?

More than male and female - my pale white complexion to your warm olive skin

Skin I'd like to touch

Her:

Your bright blue eyes hover over me, and I almost feel contested

So much so that I can do nought but allow the smirk to break my face in half

The pairing would be scrutinized

A sin to my own kind

Blossoms

Him:

Your sisters treat our unity like blasphemy

And I cannot help but smile

When you tease them, "Sexual chemistry,

The most important connection you've denied."

I feel blessed that you allow me into your life and the sturdy walls of your family.

Your world is rife with music, dance, and passion - culture.

Yet you remain my finest muse

For my simple life with simple pleasures

Her:

The air is clouded with ambiguity

Escapism I've found

From a scandalous life of bloody affairs

You are my angel of change

I cannot dance upon tables as you do without fear of embarrassing my elders

For ostracism is a thing I know all too well

This isolation and comfort I find with you calms me

And I fear not the opinion of those with whom I share my flesh

Realizations

Him:

In your joyousness I suddenly detect sorrow

Although in jest you profess it's merely that monthly time again

But still you feign to hide that

Aching disruption at your side

Family initially found most amusing I find now amazing

I cannot begin to fathom why your family sticks so close, so protective and watchful over you

A most untouchable connection

I could never hope to unglue

Her:

I feel the sharp sting of regret

Detachment, I've discovered

Denying years of fruitful passion

Is no key to loving another

Baring my heart, my all, I take you to my home

The lies all washed away to reveal the reality of my identity, a surface most scarred and armoured with anguish

I open the door, lead you in, and rest my hand upon my guilt's shoulder

I gaze into your eyes as she once gazed within mine

Acceptance

Him:

A wraith, I think at first,

Yet 'tis only a woman in what looks to be a black shroud

Intimidated I feel, although her fragility is evident in her age

Until I see - her warm olive skin is not unlike yours

Her smile speaks ancient messages of cruel sacrifice, bludgeoning her innocence

I can feel her breathing on the air, a pulsating inferno of loss - yet love

She reaches forward, through her veil, her frail and veined hands outstretched, her eyes old, rampant with sad memory

And she gives me her heart.

Mother And Child

You’re like the child in that little book

Unknowing of all the time it took

Screaming, crying, wanting more

To lift you from that sterile floor

Looking into your mothers’ eyes

The fruit of all her sacrifice

They gave it all to give you life

Yet then it’s as though you yearn to die

Still like the child in that little book

Barely aware of how it makes your mother look

When you thrash out, crying, wanting more

For her to lift you from that unclean floor

Looking into your mothers’ eyes

To wail and yelp, to spill forth lies

What candy sweet she gave you not

You swear, t’would set your heart aloft

You are the child in that little book

Near-knowing of all the time it took

To relent to give, though you want more

To pry you from your bedroom door

How light you must have felt back then

When she dressed you in your first nice shirt

You prayed like hell she’d understand

The space you need, rather than take your hand

You were the child in that little book

Never learning of all the time it took

To pull you from your crafted cave

To suffer the fists, the claws, the tears, the shame

Your eyes murky hollows, a frail mess

Yet still she raised you from the abyss

She gave it all to give you life

Yet woe, alas, you yearn to die

Ethnic Parent

Pauses, blank stares and uncertain glances

I cannot speak to those I know, only strangers now

You look at me like I'm a floundering fish

I see it in your eyes - my money is no good here

Great sacrifice I made for my children

Replaced war ravaged lands with urban opportunity

But what the so-called community ensured was a lifetime of scorn

My treasures fight on their own for the right to belong

Short words

Elegantly floating with disregard

Solemnity in loss is a man’s best reward

For striking fervor into the heart of one

Whose utmost care departed, victoriously numb

Long words are words with the same meaning

As those that are short

Concise, elegant, no surrealism to vex their audiences

With blindly plucked chords

With stretched phrases all we do is fill pages

Without them we feel as though not all has been explained

If only more people knew

What the tiniest of words could do