28.1.07
Book | Part |\
Ferrí was back at home in the country town of Berridale – which was where she usually lived when she wasn’t in America or Canberra or flying in some other part of the world. Berridale was where her flying school was. The Campbell flat where Method had seen her before was a place for her mother to stay at when she worked at the uni. Ferrí was not thinking about that though, she was scared – petrified. She had a phobia of spiders; it was called arachnophobia, as most phobias of spiders are called. The particular spider that was causing her current sensation of arachnophobia was fast, white and evil. Well not evil, its evilness was just a prejudice applied by bigoted humans – not saying Ferrí was bigoted or prejudice, she was just terrified.
She was frozen on the spot – her breathing hard, her lungs like stone, tears rolled down her face. The time was late – she had stayed up to write a short story for school. Finished, she had left her bedroom and relieved herself in the bathroom, it was returning to her room that she saw the spider.
The spider crept under one of her tops that lay on the floor. Now that it was out of sight Ferrí’s trance was released – she slowly made her way to a shoe that was lying on the floor next to her bed. She never took her eyes away from the top. She picked up the shoe as slow as a sloth, fear pumping adrenalins through her body – the spider crept out. She gave a muffled scream/gulp and slammed her shoe into the ground – the spider fled faster than she could react. She tepidly chased it repeatedly trying to smoosh it with the shoe. Then within a blink of the eye it was gone. She jumped about the room as if the spider was underfoot, looking for it everywhere but never finding it. She got into bed shaking and pulled the covers tight – it will get me in my sleep, she thought. Her phone buzzed.
Last night was a blast, Method’s mind yelled while he was lying in his bed hearing the voices of his sister’s friends in the kitchen. Their mother had gone away for the weekend leaving Method and his sister with the house. So of course his sister, who was called Madrepore or Madre for short, organised a little gathering. Usually Method wouldn’t really socialise with Madre’s friends, usually they were ‘not his type of people’ but on this occasion he was needed – they couldn’t work out how to use the DVD player. So after wiring it properly and getting some music playing Method sat with them drank mixed drinks and monitored their activities – making sure they didn’t spill or break anything. Not too soon afterwards the time came when Method was needed again – they were bored and wanted to play a drinking game. Method, being the oldest and presumably most experienced – but later proven wrong in the game – taught them a game he had played with his friends on various party like occasions. The game was called never have I ever, or something along those lines, it was a good game to get to know people as you found out a lot of personal things. The rules were simple: the players take it in turns to say something they’ve never done and anyone in the group who has done that takes a drink.
One of Madre’s friends produced a bottle of vodka that he was willing to share with Method on the fact that he had gone to the same school as Method the year before – Method didn’t recognise him, he was in the year below. So Method got out the shot glasses and poured both of them shots – if he was going to drink spirits, he was going to drink ‘em straight.
“Like a real man,” Method said putting the bottle down on the middle of a coffee table that was inherited from his grandparents – they weren’t dead, they just wanted to get rid of some junk when they moved to the tropics.
Everyone soon knew that they had all had sex, except for Method and another guy who Method supported.
“Don’t worry I’m the oldest person in this room and I haven’t had sex,” Method said, trying to look comforting. The boy seemed even more embarrassed - I hope I have sex before I’m 19, he probably thought.
Also two had given head in public, one had had sex with someone nearly twice their age and one had swallowed cum. Unsurprisingly, Madre was involved in two of those accounts and surprisingly Method was involved in one – the later, which received a shocked look from everyone and a shrug from Method.
Time moved on and the group paired off into various bedrooms leaving Method with the guy he had shared the Vodka with. They watched some poker on television, then the guy whisked off to a bathroom and vomited, passing out on the heated tiles and newly regurgitated alcoholic beetroot.
Method, left alone, drunk and wishing he were getting some, did what all men do in this situation; contact the girl they love. For him it was Ferrí. She picked up the phone,
“There’s a spider!” she cried, making Method glance around nervously, looking for it – quickly realising that it was on her side of the phone. After some soothing words he calmed her down and they engaged in a fairly normal half drunken conversation until Method churned out this little question,
“Would you ever have sex with me?”
“I would,” she said it without even a second thought. Method’s heart jumped out of his chest into his throat and down his pants. He couldn’t speak.
“Holy shit!” he thought, “wow,” he said, “wow,” he repeated.
“What did you think I would say?” she asked, laughing to herself at his drunken surprise.
“I don’t know,” he stuttered, “I thought you would avoid the question or something.”
“How could I avoid such an important question,” she said, “a question like that needs to be answered.” She had completely forgotten the spider that had terrorised her earlier that night. Method’s voice soothed her and after a brief expulsion of the other virgin and his cherry picker from Method’s room, they were both lying with butterflies in their stomachs on their own beds nearly 130km apart but closer together than they had ever been before.
They whispered to each other sweet nothings and salty somethings. Ferrí wanted Method to tell her stories. As his deep, and what Ferrí found, thoroughly sexy voice spilt out of her receiver it pushed its way through her ears and into the part of her brain that controlled her fingers. She reached down and pushed them between her legs, closing her eyes and feeling his voice massaging her clitoris. Her back arched, Method could hear her soft breathing – he couldn’t resist. His door was closed and it seemed the other people in the house were preoccupied so he reached down and held his hard warm penis. He continued telling her a tale of a crocodile, that he had previously told his cousin, but he couldn’t remember the details as his mind blurred between the pleasure down his pants and her soft breathing. Ferrí gave a little gasp and a snap – Method lost control of talking completely as he ejaculated all over his boxers. There was silence from both ends – Method spoke first.
“What was that?”
“That was my underwear snapping,” she said, her voice was calm and even.
“woooh, you’re underwear hey,” Method said teasing. Now standing and wiping away the creamy lost children from his groin with a handkerchief.
“You’ve always got to eroticise everything don’t you,” she said playfully, “it wasn’t anything like that.”
Method believed her. They talked until the phone batteries died - neither of them knowing that they had both got off on each other’s voice.
One hour bent into the next as Method slid the produce of mass consumerism past the red laser at his checkout bench. It was quite fascinating watching the supermarket dynamics, seeing the type of people who went to each checkout, what they bought, how they behaved. Mainly Method served elderly people or mothers if he were on one of the mass volume checkouts. Mostly they were nice, but sometimes Method would get the ones, who want to take over the job and do the packing themselves, which was reasonable, as especially at the beginning of his shift Method needed to get into the packing groove. The self-packers were fine; the worse ones were the ones who wouldn’t take over the job, but demand that the bags are packed in a certain way. Double wrapped with three cans of cat-food and a toothbrush in four of them and the rest holding the twelve three litre bottles of milk that I need for my fourteen cats,
“But I want them to weigh less than two kilos each,” said a particularly good looking but arrogant mother. Her two and a half year old son was sitting in the trolley trying to reach one of the already packed cans of cat-food standing on the checkout bench.
“Sure,” said Method, hardly looking at the customer as the packing was ‘all consuming’. It would be hard packing the milk that way seeing as they were all over three kilograms each – he would have to pour some out. Method wondered if the checkout lasers could give him cancer of the hand.
“Hmm if I was a chick I’d want to use those tampons,” Method thought packing a particularly nice looking box of tampons.
“They’re the same condoms that I have – ha that reminds me of Ferrí,” Method thought also as the mother opened her purse to pay. Method remained in two different worlds when at work. The world of the supermarket and the world of his mind – anything could happen in either.
“Hello sir – woah that’s a woman!”
“Who on earth needs thirty jars of mustard?”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“I’m sure I’ve slept with you in another life.” Went Method’s mind as the customers filed by.
And his voice;
“Hello. That’ll be twenty-seven dollars and five cents. Two dollars and ninety-five cents change. Have a good day.”
“Hello. That’ll be ninety-four dollars exactly. Any cash out? Have a nice day.”
“Hello. That’ll be…”
“My guy friend wants to know if he can have your number.”
“Um…?”
“Oh you’re not gay?”
“Um sorry no.”
“Fine.”
“I have a girlfriend too,” Method said thinking of Ferrí as the girl ran out of the store and to her ‘guy friend’.
On the ‘twelve items or less’ checkouts Method would mainly serve children and businessmen. That’s where he got asked out – checkout number one – twelve items or less. Too bad it was a guy, rather than a girl who wanted his number and that Method was also more in love with Ferrí than even.
What a first shift – straight in the deep end – lucky he could doggy paddle. What unnerved Method the most was that just about everybody bought bananas – what was with that?
WISH YOU WERE HERE read the badge that Method pinned to his light grey jumper. It had a picture of two robotic hands shaking one made of a dark metal the other a light. The background was broken up into quadrants one side was a desert with a large yellow sun, the other side was an ocean with wispy clouds a small orange sun high in the sky. The small barely legible writing was next to the large sun. The badge was from the album of the same name that housed Method’s favourite Pink Floyd song, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. He did conceit though that he liked the extended version on their best of album more than the version on the original album.
The badge was sufficient - it served its purpose - to remind him of Ferrí – not that he needed much reminding. She remained in his mind constantly. It was as if he was her father and his mind was a playground. She would run from one piece of equipment to the next, and with each new piece of equipment Method’s heart would jump – will she be safe – but after a second or two he would realise she was perfectly safe – she knew how to play. But it was more than that, Method realised that it was not as if he were a father but a brother – he cared for her safety oh yes - but the emotion that was most prevalent was longing, a longing to join her on the slides and swings and seesaws. There was a height restriction though - he was too tall.
Eight of Diamonds – the dealer read. It was poker night – Mach 2. Method was flippant about winning. His new job had given him an overt sense of flippancy towards money - it had always been in him but now it was exposing itself due to a rise in his bank account balance. Method bet on every hand even if he only had a pair of twos – of course he lost more than he won.
They had organised the game so that the winners would receive a fixed sum of money rather than what they had won. So even though the difference between the winner and loser could be quite large – they would only win $30 of a $10 bet – the loser would lose $10. Already the winner was clear. Amongst the group was an avid poker player and he had already doubled everyone else’s winnings – he played to win – Method played to play.
The chips sat in great heaps across the table – some in the humus dip that they had ordered. They had called up every Turkish place in town, (they had a hankering for some felafel) trying to find one that did takeaway and pizzas, fortunately there was one – it took two hours to arrive by which time they were all famished. With the words “open sesame” they opened their banquet and divided the food. Method had piled his plate – he knew from previous experience that he wouldn’t be able to eat it all, but bad habits die old.
The fat dripped from the meat that filled their plates. Putting down their cards, their conversations during this fuelling respite were centred towards relationships. Somehow they had started talking about Di and Laurel, who weren’t there at the time but whose three-month anniversary was due. The conversation broke into different subsections and Method told his news of him and Ferrí – he announced that he had a girlfriend – Ferrí – to one of his friends. As the words girl and friend slipped from his lips the whole party’s interests where concentrated towards him.
Method told of how she went to flying school in America and then returned – for him – his story of the development of their relationship was all very romantic until Method mentioned her age – 15. This was not suitable. His friends, concerned, forbade him from having sex with her – statutory rape they said it would be. How was it their place to say what he could or couldn’t do? Method thought as they started pleading for his abstinence. He knew it was illegal, and he already knew what he had already done with her meant he was eligible for prison - but the drilling he received from his friends hurt. He didn’t need that. It was fine at first – Method had been prepared for it - he moved away from the ‘rape’ discussion and said that he counted their anniversary from the first time they ‘made out’ but for his friends this didn’t count as she had been in America for so long. With one foul swoop his heart died when one of them remarked,
“And when she goes back to America,” for she surely was due to (the flying season was far from over) “you’ll have been together even longer.”
Here he was a man, who felt like a boy – in love – but not allowed to be, and they were mocking his long distance commitment.
“Well fuck you!” The night ended at twelve – Method had lost. He left the poker game in pain, walking towards home in the dark companionless air. Fuck you, he thought.
“Fuck you!” he said out loud, his voice bouncing around the back walls of the National War Memorial. The city remained silent, heaviness loading the streets. As Method reached home and turned the key, the circular indent of a long unused condom hidden in his wallet, shined in the silver light and reverberated the words “fuck you too” from a crying man lying in a grave.
Rest and then… the pogrom. It was not a pogrom of people but of consumer things - the storm ripped through Canberra like dragons through a medieval village. Trees toppled, glass smashed and the tops of roofs burned with a thermoluminescence like white ice. Method’s mind was dark – the outside environment emulated his inner feelings. He was cleansing the city of the vile filth that had composted itself throughout. This was all pure sub-subconscious thought on Method’s behalf – he didn’t realise what he was doing, and he wouldn’t have cared. All he knew was that as usual he felt like the weather looked.
It had been bright – it had been sunny – and then it was dark and monstrous. People ran to find shelter, their feet slipping from under them in the blasts of wind and rain. The white tops of the businessmen and women stained on the dirt muddied ground. Cars crushed under fallen trees and red umbrellas rained from the sky. An indiscernible morose pain hung heavy in the air, it blew like a phantom howling.
Method’s eyes lulled over the scene outside – chaos. He was at work and it was inundated with was-be passers by floundering for shelter in the hollow cavern that was the now blacked out supermarket. There was an eerie stillness and then the lights flicked back on, Method returned to the graceful movement of produce exodus.
The throats of the customers tightened as they beeped their minutes away with the ‘chick’ that’s name was written in black on a digital white screen. He was the one they called Method and in the apocalyptic storm he preached.
So it would seem that McDonalds is the new Christianity. Muslim extremists - terrorists are not fighting against western traditional ‘religious’ views, they are fighting against what is becoming a new religion, consumerism and consumer choice. These people, the ancestors of the cradle of our modern-day nations, are the ones trying to prevent the homogenisation and cultural regression washing over and leaving our lives unwarrantedly unified. Yes they are doing it in an all to aggressively hurtful way but it has come to this and it will not stop at this – the terror battle will not end for at least another fifty years.
Method doesn’t eat McDonalds – but McDonalds is no longer something you don’t eat – it’s something you don’t believe in. And from this Method is ostracised from the McDonalds eaters as the pagan heretics of years past said they didn’t believe in the Christian god – which Method didn’t to boot.
What ‘Supersize Me’ and other films of little note but of great importance, created was not an expulsion of a corporation but a completely new branch of a religion – the New Testament. McDonalds is in the processes of writing the New Testament for the modern age – the new choice – as it is called. Yes the corporation itself a vehicle will rust and be forgotten but its reformation will be preached for generations to come.
2000AD is 0AD all over again – officially it never happened but in another two thousand years humans will once again be arguing over whether the models of religion now consumerism, are still relevant and what the exact year their 4th millennium anniversary is.
We will not know whom the second Messiah is just like all but a select few of the people of Jesus’ time didn’t know the importance that he would play. But one thing is for sure – a new day has come upon us that will wipe out the beliefs of old and in their place leave new but no less superficial beliefs. Be grateful for the age you live in, as it is grateful for you but do not take it for granted, as your age is not the only age.
Ice slid over her nipples, leaving a tear like snail trail. He massaged the liquid into her skin; her eyes were intent on his as they quivered at her beauty. He let his tongue take over the caressing - little pools of water were now mixing with her sweat and his saliva – he let the pools rest and made his way from her chest to her stomach. He found his tongue falling into her belly button – it tasted like salt mixed with moisturiser. She giggled as his tongue played with the smooth indent – the point of separation from one human with another. Her hands moved down to stroke his cheeks and tussle his hair. She had her tongue resting against her top lip, her eyes gazing over the peripheral view of her nose down to his head, which was gliding over her short dark hairs to the gap between her legs. He paused and looked at her face.
“I’m just going to have a little explore.” He said as she turned from his face to the ceiling – closing her eyes.
“That’s it.” She said, half moaning the “it.”
His tongue stroked and with each stroke she motioned, with sound, movement and breath for him to continue. He continued, letting her warm and arch and moisten. She tightened and pushed her hips tight into his shoulders, repeating the action until he stopped, his lips wet and tongue aching. She opened her eyes and looked down at him, he got his fingers and gave her clit a rub – instantly her eyes closed again and she gasped. He smiled broadly and gave a little laugh - continuing the play, whilst watching her hairs drip.
They lay on the bed; heads on the pillows enchanted by each other’s eyes - both sets an indefinable colour of blue. His head traced from her lips to her neck – kissing all the way. Her chocolate hair tangled in his lips he sucked it then moved his hands towards her hips and stroking them, she laughed and squirmed pleading him to stop. With a quick sweep of her hair across his face and a vampire plunge towards his neck she kissed and he was defeated. She travelled from his neck down towards his shoulder and then stopped, with her hand placed near his groin and her gaze upon her hand.
“May I?” she said siting up, her hands making their way onto his black boxer shorts. She slipped them down his legs and he kicked them off. His penis was erect; it had a little puddle of clear, soft liquid resting above the small slit. He touched the puddle with his index finger and was waving it about – ET style. She grabbed his hand and stuck his finger in her mouth – her lips sucking off the dew. She then let his finger fall across her bottom lip and to the sheets. With the quiet sound of a clock ticking, she moved her head down to his penis, licking it at first and then putting it in her mouth. She was scared and unsure of what to do but at the same time aroused. He watched as she made an up and down motion with her head and he could feel her doing little circles around the head of his penis with her tongue. But she couldn’t keep it up – it didn’t fit and her teeth brushed along the spine of his penis – for all the effort, it was slightly uncomfortable for both.
She gave up upset.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking her hand, making circle motions with his finger in her palm “there are other ways.”
He took her hand and let it grasp his penis; she started jerking him off. He stopped her and said, “hold it like this,” putting his hand around hers “and don’t go down so far – try not to stretch the skin too much.” He let go of her hand; she did as he instructed slowly starting again. He lay back gazing at the ceiling. It wasn’t long until he was writhen in pleasure – but not coming.
“I can’t believe I’m not coming!” he almost shouted.
“You just don’t want to come,” she said – her arm tiring but remaining consistent.
After a minute or two: “Let’s have a break,” he said – not at all wanting to but considerate to her tired arm.
They stopped and she lay next to him they both kissed and kissed and kissed, until he announced it was time to try again.
“What if I move into a different position,” she said, getting on top of him. She had put her underwear – her grey Kelvin Klein’s - back on. She moved on top of him again grasping his penis how she was told to.
“This feels better for me too,” she said smiling and moving down to kiss him while they rubbed against each other. In no time at all he was coming, and boy did he come. Sucking his stomach in and grabbing hold of the bed sheets, losing thought of how he was kissing… she kept going until she felt the warm semen on her stomach. She stopped - they both lay there for a second.
“There’s so much of it!” she said, getting off him, standing next to the bed, “do you have anything to clean it with?” She asked looking around. He got up and ran to the bathroom; his penis now sticky and flaccid flopping from side to side. With her entail, they both wiped each other down with some tissues. He playfully put his fingers in his semen and rubbed it on her breast,
“Stop it,” she laughed her nipples erecting. They kissed again, and got cleaned off.
They stood clothed next to Bé’s BMW, the motor running and Bé waiting inside.
“I love you,” Ferrí said, Method’s body was close, his nose was softly touching hers like a butterfly,
“I love you too,” he said, kissing her lightly. They stood still, Bé watching them through the rear vision mirror, from the air fluttered a butterfly – a jade green butterfly - it landed on Ferrí’s shoulder with a small pat. Method watched it, its wings slowly rising and falling and his eyes glistening an imperfect twist of emerald. Ferrí’s eyes were intent on his, he smiled and then like a breath of astonishment from a child, the butterfly flew up into the air.
Night fell on the Australian Portrait gallery. A golden hue etched the ultramarine blue clouds as the stars twinkled into crystal existence. Method breathed in the air – there was a slight breeze but his all black attire remained motionless. Ferrí stood next to him her hand holding his. They both watched as the moon, the silent orb of wonder, ever so slowly began its rotation back to the light side.
Method was the most serene he had ever felt – he was comfortable with this girl. The serenity was broken by Ferrí’s voice,
“I’m going back to America in a couple of days,” she said.
With those words galvanised the fact that he didn’t want her to leave again, not now, not ever. She let go of his hand and walked into the white silk marquee that stood behind them. He watched for a few moments, gazing at the gap in the curtains and listening to the laughter that emanated from inside. The curtains rustled and parted, Ferrí looked through, giving him a wink and a wave. He took a few quick steps forward and then with a spin followed her back inside. He took hold of both her hands drawing them behind her back. Into the noise of drunken bohemians and aristocrats the couple braved.
The next day she was gone. They had kissed their goodbyes the pervious night and she had been driven back to Berridale that morning. In a few days time she would be heading up north to Sydney, and after a night in Sydney, there was a plane to LA and then another across to Vermont where she would remain until the flying season was over. Method pondered this whilst the waiter poured a burgundy coloured wine into his glass. He picked up the glass and sniffed the wine, lightly spinning it like brandy. As he took his first sip, Madre came into the restaurant with their stepmother; she held a plastic 1.25 litre bottle of a sulfur and purple soft drink. They both sat down, the chairs scrapping as they moved across the tiled floor.
For a minute there was silence, allowing for the small bubbles of the fizzing soft syrups to capture all those who were present – Method, Madre, their stepmother, Thi and their biological father - Brim. A ringing from a phone somewhere at the back of the restaurant broke the lull. And as the hushed words of a waitress made to answer, a soft snow fell from the sky melting on contact with all it touched, bar the wisps of pollen that flew through the air. The sight was that of oleic sensation, numbness creeping through the sinuses and distorting the eyes – it was as if looking through a frosted window splattered with opaque cream. As Method’s father wiped his glasses his throat cleared and he spoke.
“We are having a child,” he said in a straightforward, friendly but hesitant voice. Thi patted her stomach – glistening with expectant joy. In the supermarket two doors down Di and Laurel mounted a backroom shelf of nappies and made love into fructuous liquid pleasure.
Head first – pain, stretching through and up and everywhere. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!!! I hate you! I love you! Go away! Come here! Hold me! Let go of me! Squeeze, love-hate-romance-room-tired-thirsty-black-blue-white-slippery-sad-elated-dead-alive-longing-dad-house-leave-lost-mum-more-lust-neither here nor there nor. Get OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OOOOOOWWWWEEEEEEETTTTT!!!…
Gone…
Peace – quite – calm – love.
Eggnog for Christmas, chocolate for Easter, cake for birthday, and nothing for all – constructs and conceptions heaving, lunging for more.
Ending something is easy. All could stop right now.
The End.
But satisfaction, satisfaction in an ending can only come from what has come before it – an ending isn’t tangible – it is infinitesimal and only points to the line of ‘no more’. It just signifies what is conceived as ‘no more after’.
Surreal – Method’s thoughts swam in his head like oceans, torrents of water crashing in and out of each other – through each other – blue, black, green masses engulfing expulsing force – turning things off, turning things on. Quantum binary, quadrated systems – words - hard, tangible black words, written and read and re-read and then – what then?
Expelled – for others – for them… Enjoy
Knowledge gained, knowledge lost, lessons learned and lessons forgot. Wasted time? Inspired finds? Own beliefs, own subscriptions, own choice – that is what it’s all about - own control. Throw it all away – prejudice and pre and this.
You float, you walk, you exit by your own means. Leaving this world, this reality, this non-reality. Leaving these words to ponder themselves, leaving these pages to muster, leaving these memories to linger for dust. As you leave feel free to take these records with you, or if you so desire, leave them behind for someone else to discover – it’s your prerogative. I’m just here to remind you.
She was frozen on the spot – her breathing hard, her lungs like stone, tears rolled down her face. The time was late – she had stayed up to write a short story for school. Finished, she had left her bedroom and relieved herself in the bathroom, it was returning to her room that she saw the spider.
The spider crept under one of her tops that lay on the floor. Now that it was out of sight Ferrí’s trance was released – she slowly made her way to a shoe that was lying on the floor next to her bed. She never took her eyes away from the top. She picked up the shoe as slow as a sloth, fear pumping adrenalins through her body – the spider crept out. She gave a muffled scream/gulp and slammed her shoe into the ground – the spider fled faster than she could react. She tepidly chased it repeatedly trying to smoosh it with the shoe. Then within a blink of the eye it was gone. She jumped about the room as if the spider was underfoot, looking for it everywhere but never finding it. She got into bed shaking and pulled the covers tight – it will get me in my sleep, she thought. Her phone buzzed.
φ
Last night was a blast, Method’s mind yelled while he was lying in his bed hearing the voices of his sister’s friends in the kitchen. Their mother had gone away for the weekend leaving Method and his sister with the house. So of course his sister, who was called Madrepore or Madre for short, organised a little gathering. Usually Method wouldn’t really socialise with Madre’s friends, usually they were ‘not his type of people’ but on this occasion he was needed – they couldn’t work out how to use the DVD player. So after wiring it properly and getting some music playing Method sat with them drank mixed drinks and monitored their activities – making sure they didn’t spill or break anything. Not too soon afterwards the time came when Method was needed again – they were bored and wanted to play a drinking game. Method, being the oldest and presumably most experienced – but later proven wrong in the game – taught them a game he had played with his friends on various party like occasions. The game was called never have I ever, or something along those lines, it was a good game to get to know people as you found out a lot of personal things. The rules were simple: the players take it in turns to say something they’ve never done and anyone in the group who has done that takes a drink.
One of Madre’s friends produced a bottle of vodka that he was willing to share with Method on the fact that he had gone to the same school as Method the year before – Method didn’t recognise him, he was in the year below. So Method got out the shot glasses and poured both of them shots – if he was going to drink spirits, he was going to drink ‘em straight.
“Like a real man,” Method said putting the bottle down on the middle of a coffee table that was inherited from his grandparents – they weren’t dead, they just wanted to get rid of some junk when they moved to the tropics.
Everyone soon knew that they had all had sex, except for Method and another guy who Method supported.
“Don’t worry I’m the oldest person in this room and I haven’t had sex,” Method said, trying to look comforting. The boy seemed even more embarrassed - I hope I have sex before I’m 19, he probably thought.
Also two had given head in public, one had had sex with someone nearly twice their age and one had swallowed cum. Unsurprisingly, Madre was involved in two of those accounts and surprisingly Method was involved in one – the later, which received a shocked look from everyone and a shrug from Method.
Time moved on and the group paired off into various bedrooms leaving Method with the guy he had shared the Vodka with. They watched some poker on television, then the guy whisked off to a bathroom and vomited, passing out on the heated tiles and newly regurgitated alcoholic beetroot.
Method, left alone, drunk and wishing he were getting some, did what all men do in this situation; contact the girl they love. For him it was Ferrí. She picked up the phone,
“There’s a spider!” she cried, making Method glance around nervously, looking for it – quickly realising that it was on her side of the phone. After some soothing words he calmed her down and they engaged in a fairly normal half drunken conversation until Method churned out this little question,
“Would you ever have sex with me?”
“I would,” she said it without even a second thought. Method’s heart jumped out of his chest into his throat and down his pants. He couldn’t speak.
“Holy shit!” he thought, “wow,” he said, “wow,” he repeated.
“What did you think I would say?” she asked, laughing to herself at his drunken surprise.
“I don’t know,” he stuttered, “I thought you would avoid the question or something.”
“How could I avoid such an important question,” she said, “a question like that needs to be answered.” She had completely forgotten the spider that had terrorised her earlier that night. Method’s voice soothed her and after a brief expulsion of the other virgin and his cherry picker from Method’s room, they were both lying with butterflies in their stomachs on their own beds nearly 130km apart but closer together than they had ever been before.
They whispered to each other sweet nothings and salty somethings. Ferrí wanted Method to tell her stories. As his deep, and what Ferrí found, thoroughly sexy voice spilt out of her receiver it pushed its way through her ears and into the part of her brain that controlled her fingers. She reached down and pushed them between her legs, closing her eyes and feeling his voice massaging her clitoris. Her back arched, Method could hear her soft breathing – he couldn’t resist. His door was closed and it seemed the other people in the house were preoccupied so he reached down and held his hard warm penis. He continued telling her a tale of a crocodile, that he had previously told his cousin, but he couldn’t remember the details as his mind blurred between the pleasure down his pants and her soft breathing. Ferrí gave a little gasp and a snap – Method lost control of talking completely as he ejaculated all over his boxers. There was silence from both ends – Method spoke first.
“What was that?”
“That was my underwear snapping,” she said, her voice was calm and even.
“woooh, you’re underwear hey,” Method said teasing. Now standing and wiping away the creamy lost children from his groin with a handkerchief.
“You’ve always got to eroticise everything don’t you,” she said playfully, “it wasn’t anything like that.”
Method believed her. They talked until the phone batteries died - neither of them knowing that they had both got off on each other’s voice.
φ
One hour bent into the next as Method slid the produce of mass consumerism past the red laser at his checkout bench. It was quite fascinating watching the supermarket dynamics, seeing the type of people who went to each checkout, what they bought, how they behaved. Mainly Method served elderly people or mothers if he were on one of the mass volume checkouts. Mostly they were nice, but sometimes Method would get the ones, who want to take over the job and do the packing themselves, which was reasonable, as especially at the beginning of his shift Method needed to get into the packing groove. The self-packers were fine; the worse ones were the ones who wouldn’t take over the job, but demand that the bags are packed in a certain way. Double wrapped with three cans of cat-food and a toothbrush in four of them and the rest holding the twelve three litre bottles of milk that I need for my fourteen cats,
“But I want them to weigh less than two kilos each,” said a particularly good looking but arrogant mother. Her two and a half year old son was sitting in the trolley trying to reach one of the already packed cans of cat-food standing on the checkout bench.
“Sure,” said Method, hardly looking at the customer as the packing was ‘all consuming’. It would be hard packing the milk that way seeing as they were all over three kilograms each – he would have to pour some out. Method wondered if the checkout lasers could give him cancer of the hand.
“Hmm if I was a chick I’d want to use those tampons,” Method thought packing a particularly nice looking box of tampons.
“They’re the same condoms that I have – ha that reminds me of Ferrí,” Method thought also as the mother opened her purse to pay. Method remained in two different worlds when at work. The world of the supermarket and the world of his mind – anything could happen in either.
“Hello sir – woah that’s a woman!”
“Who on earth needs thirty jars of mustard?”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“I’m sure I’ve slept with you in another life.” Went Method’s mind as the customers filed by.
And his voice;
“Hello. That’ll be twenty-seven dollars and five cents. Two dollars and ninety-five cents change. Have a good day.”
“Hello. That’ll be ninety-four dollars exactly. Any cash out? Have a nice day.”
“Hello. That’ll be…”
“My guy friend wants to know if he can have your number.”
“Um…?”
“Oh you’re not gay?”
“Um sorry no.”
“Fine.”
“I have a girlfriend too,” Method said thinking of Ferrí as the girl ran out of the store and to her ‘guy friend’.
On the ‘twelve items or less’ checkouts Method would mainly serve children and businessmen. That’s where he got asked out – checkout number one – twelve items or less. Too bad it was a guy, rather than a girl who wanted his number and that Method was also more in love with Ferrí than even.
What a first shift – straight in the deep end – lucky he could doggy paddle. What unnerved Method the most was that just about everybody bought bananas – what was with that?
φ
WISH YOU WERE HERE read the badge that Method pinned to his light grey jumper. It had a picture of two robotic hands shaking one made of a dark metal the other a light. The background was broken up into quadrants one side was a desert with a large yellow sun, the other side was an ocean with wispy clouds a small orange sun high in the sky. The small barely legible writing was next to the large sun. The badge was from the album of the same name that housed Method’s favourite Pink Floyd song, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. He did conceit though that he liked the extended version on their best of album more than the version on the original album.
The badge was sufficient - it served its purpose - to remind him of Ferrí – not that he needed much reminding. She remained in his mind constantly. It was as if he was her father and his mind was a playground. She would run from one piece of equipment to the next, and with each new piece of equipment Method’s heart would jump – will she be safe – but after a second or two he would realise she was perfectly safe – she knew how to play. But it was more than that, Method realised that it was not as if he were a father but a brother – he cared for her safety oh yes - but the emotion that was most prevalent was longing, a longing to join her on the slides and swings and seesaws. There was a height restriction though - he was too tall.
φ
Eight of Diamonds – the dealer read. It was poker night – Mach 2. Method was flippant about winning. His new job had given him an overt sense of flippancy towards money - it had always been in him but now it was exposing itself due to a rise in his bank account balance. Method bet on every hand even if he only had a pair of twos – of course he lost more than he won.
They had organised the game so that the winners would receive a fixed sum of money rather than what they had won. So even though the difference between the winner and loser could be quite large – they would only win $30 of a $10 bet – the loser would lose $10. Already the winner was clear. Amongst the group was an avid poker player and he had already doubled everyone else’s winnings – he played to win – Method played to play.
The chips sat in great heaps across the table – some in the humus dip that they had ordered. They had called up every Turkish place in town, (they had a hankering for some felafel) trying to find one that did takeaway and pizzas, fortunately there was one – it took two hours to arrive by which time they were all famished. With the words “open sesame” they opened their banquet and divided the food. Method had piled his plate – he knew from previous experience that he wouldn’t be able to eat it all, but bad habits die old.
The fat dripped from the meat that filled their plates. Putting down their cards, their conversations during this fuelling respite were centred towards relationships. Somehow they had started talking about Di and Laurel, who weren’t there at the time but whose three-month anniversary was due. The conversation broke into different subsections and Method told his news of him and Ferrí – he announced that he had a girlfriend – Ferrí – to one of his friends. As the words girl and friend slipped from his lips the whole party’s interests where concentrated towards him.
Method told of how she went to flying school in America and then returned – for him – his story of the development of their relationship was all very romantic until Method mentioned her age – 15. This was not suitable. His friends, concerned, forbade him from having sex with her – statutory rape they said it would be. How was it their place to say what he could or couldn’t do? Method thought as they started pleading for his abstinence. He knew it was illegal, and he already knew what he had already done with her meant he was eligible for prison - but the drilling he received from his friends hurt. He didn’t need that. It was fine at first – Method had been prepared for it - he moved away from the ‘rape’ discussion and said that he counted their anniversary from the first time they ‘made out’ but for his friends this didn’t count as she had been in America for so long. With one foul swoop his heart died when one of them remarked,
“And when she goes back to America,” for she surely was due to (the flying season was far from over) “you’ll have been together even longer.”
Here he was a man, who felt like a boy – in love – but not allowed to be, and they were mocking his long distance commitment.
“Well fuck you!” The night ended at twelve – Method had lost. He left the poker game in pain, walking towards home in the dark companionless air. Fuck you, he thought.
“Fuck you!” he said out loud, his voice bouncing around the back walls of the National War Memorial. The city remained silent, heaviness loading the streets. As Method reached home and turned the key, the circular indent of a long unused condom hidden in his wallet, shined in the silver light and reverberated the words “fuck you too” from a crying man lying in a grave.
φ
Rest and then… the pogrom. It was not a pogrom of people but of consumer things - the storm ripped through Canberra like dragons through a medieval village. Trees toppled, glass smashed and the tops of roofs burned with a thermoluminescence like white ice. Method’s mind was dark – the outside environment emulated his inner feelings. He was cleansing the city of the vile filth that had composted itself throughout. This was all pure sub-subconscious thought on Method’s behalf – he didn’t realise what he was doing, and he wouldn’t have cared. All he knew was that as usual he felt like the weather looked.
It had been bright – it had been sunny – and then it was dark and monstrous. People ran to find shelter, their feet slipping from under them in the blasts of wind and rain. The white tops of the businessmen and women stained on the dirt muddied ground. Cars crushed under fallen trees and red umbrellas rained from the sky. An indiscernible morose pain hung heavy in the air, it blew like a phantom howling.
Method’s eyes lulled over the scene outside – chaos. He was at work and it was inundated with was-be passers by floundering for shelter in the hollow cavern that was the now blacked out supermarket. There was an eerie stillness and then the lights flicked back on, Method returned to the graceful movement of produce exodus.
The throats of the customers tightened as they beeped their minutes away with the ‘chick’ that’s name was written in black on a digital white screen. He was the one they called Method and in the apocalyptic storm he preached.
φ
So it would seem that McDonalds is the new Christianity. Muslim extremists - terrorists are not fighting against western traditional ‘religious’ views, they are fighting against what is becoming a new religion, consumerism and consumer choice. These people, the ancestors of the cradle of our modern-day nations, are the ones trying to prevent the homogenisation and cultural regression washing over and leaving our lives unwarrantedly unified. Yes they are doing it in an all to aggressively hurtful way but it has come to this and it will not stop at this – the terror battle will not end for at least another fifty years.
Method doesn’t eat McDonalds – but McDonalds is no longer something you don’t eat – it’s something you don’t believe in. And from this Method is ostracised from the McDonalds eaters as the pagan heretics of years past said they didn’t believe in the Christian god – which Method didn’t to boot.
What ‘Supersize Me’ and other films of little note but of great importance, created was not an expulsion of a corporation but a completely new branch of a religion – the New Testament. McDonalds is in the processes of writing the New Testament for the modern age – the new choice – as it is called. Yes the corporation itself a vehicle will rust and be forgotten but its reformation will be preached for generations to come.
2000AD is 0AD all over again – officially it never happened but in another two thousand years humans will once again be arguing over whether the models of religion now consumerism, are still relevant and what the exact year their 4th millennium anniversary is.
We will not know whom the second Messiah is just like all but a select few of the people of Jesus’ time didn’t know the importance that he would play. But one thing is for sure – a new day has come upon us that will wipe out the beliefs of old and in their place leave new but no less superficial beliefs. Be grateful for the age you live in, as it is grateful for you but do not take it for granted, as your age is not the only age.
φ
Ice slid over her nipples, leaving a tear like snail trail. He massaged the liquid into her skin; her eyes were intent on his as they quivered at her beauty. He let his tongue take over the caressing - little pools of water were now mixing with her sweat and his saliva – he let the pools rest and made his way from her chest to her stomach. He found his tongue falling into her belly button – it tasted like salt mixed with moisturiser. She giggled as his tongue played with the smooth indent – the point of separation from one human with another. Her hands moved down to stroke his cheeks and tussle his hair. She had her tongue resting against her top lip, her eyes gazing over the peripheral view of her nose down to his head, which was gliding over her short dark hairs to the gap between her legs. He paused and looked at her face.
“I’m just going to have a little explore.” He said as she turned from his face to the ceiling – closing her eyes.
“That’s it.” She said, half moaning the “it.”
His tongue stroked and with each stroke she motioned, with sound, movement and breath for him to continue. He continued, letting her warm and arch and moisten. She tightened and pushed her hips tight into his shoulders, repeating the action until he stopped, his lips wet and tongue aching. She opened her eyes and looked down at him, he got his fingers and gave her clit a rub – instantly her eyes closed again and she gasped. He smiled broadly and gave a little laugh - continuing the play, whilst watching her hairs drip.
They lay on the bed; heads on the pillows enchanted by each other’s eyes - both sets an indefinable colour of blue. His head traced from her lips to her neck – kissing all the way. Her chocolate hair tangled in his lips he sucked it then moved his hands towards her hips and stroking them, she laughed and squirmed pleading him to stop. With a quick sweep of her hair across his face and a vampire plunge towards his neck she kissed and he was defeated. She travelled from his neck down towards his shoulder and then stopped, with her hand placed near his groin and her gaze upon her hand.
“May I?” she said siting up, her hands making their way onto his black boxer shorts. She slipped them down his legs and he kicked them off. His penis was erect; it had a little puddle of clear, soft liquid resting above the small slit. He touched the puddle with his index finger and was waving it about – ET style. She grabbed his hand and stuck his finger in her mouth – her lips sucking off the dew. She then let his finger fall across her bottom lip and to the sheets. With the quiet sound of a clock ticking, she moved her head down to his penis, licking it at first and then putting it in her mouth. She was scared and unsure of what to do but at the same time aroused. He watched as she made an up and down motion with her head and he could feel her doing little circles around the head of his penis with her tongue. But she couldn’t keep it up – it didn’t fit and her teeth brushed along the spine of his penis – for all the effort, it was slightly uncomfortable for both.
She gave up upset.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking her hand, making circle motions with his finger in her palm “there are other ways.”
He took her hand and let it grasp his penis; she started jerking him off. He stopped her and said, “hold it like this,” putting his hand around hers “and don’t go down so far – try not to stretch the skin too much.” He let go of her hand; she did as he instructed slowly starting again. He lay back gazing at the ceiling. It wasn’t long until he was writhen in pleasure – but not coming.
“I can’t believe I’m not coming!” he almost shouted.
“You just don’t want to come,” she said – her arm tiring but remaining consistent.
After a minute or two: “Let’s have a break,” he said – not at all wanting to but considerate to her tired arm.
They stopped and she lay next to him they both kissed and kissed and kissed, until he announced it was time to try again.
“What if I move into a different position,” she said, getting on top of him. She had put her underwear – her grey Kelvin Klein’s - back on. She moved on top of him again grasping his penis how she was told to.
“This feels better for me too,” she said smiling and moving down to kiss him while they rubbed against each other. In no time at all he was coming, and boy did he come. Sucking his stomach in and grabbing hold of the bed sheets, losing thought of how he was kissing… she kept going until she felt the warm semen on her stomach. She stopped - they both lay there for a second.
“There’s so much of it!” she said, getting off him, standing next to the bed, “do you have anything to clean it with?” She asked looking around. He got up and ran to the bathroom; his penis now sticky and flaccid flopping from side to side. With her entail, they both wiped each other down with some tissues. He playfully put his fingers in his semen and rubbed it on her breast,
“Stop it,” she laughed her nipples erecting. They kissed again, and got cleaned off.
They stood clothed next to Bé’s BMW, the motor running and Bé waiting inside.
“I love you,” Ferrí said, Method’s body was close, his nose was softly touching hers like a butterfly,
“I love you too,” he said, kissing her lightly. They stood still, Bé watching them through the rear vision mirror, from the air fluttered a butterfly – a jade green butterfly - it landed on Ferrí’s shoulder with a small pat. Method watched it, its wings slowly rising and falling and his eyes glistening an imperfect twist of emerald. Ferrí’s eyes were intent on his, he smiled and then like a breath of astonishment from a child, the butterfly flew up into the air.
φ
Night fell on the Australian Portrait gallery. A golden hue etched the ultramarine blue clouds as the stars twinkled into crystal existence. Method breathed in the air – there was a slight breeze but his all black attire remained motionless. Ferrí stood next to him her hand holding his. They both watched as the moon, the silent orb of wonder, ever so slowly began its rotation back to the light side.
Method was the most serene he had ever felt – he was comfortable with this girl. The serenity was broken by Ferrí’s voice,
“I’m going back to America in a couple of days,” she said.
With those words galvanised the fact that he didn’t want her to leave again, not now, not ever. She let go of his hand and walked into the white silk marquee that stood behind them. He watched for a few moments, gazing at the gap in the curtains and listening to the laughter that emanated from inside. The curtains rustled and parted, Ferrí looked through, giving him a wink and a wave. He took a few quick steps forward and then with a spin followed her back inside. He took hold of both her hands drawing them behind her back. Into the noise of drunken bohemians and aristocrats the couple braved.
φ
The next day she was gone. They had kissed their goodbyes the pervious night and she had been driven back to Berridale that morning. In a few days time she would be heading up north to Sydney, and after a night in Sydney, there was a plane to LA and then another across to Vermont where she would remain until the flying season was over. Method pondered this whilst the waiter poured a burgundy coloured wine into his glass. He picked up the glass and sniffed the wine, lightly spinning it like brandy. As he took his first sip, Madre came into the restaurant with their stepmother; she held a plastic 1.25 litre bottle of a sulfur and purple soft drink. They both sat down, the chairs scrapping as they moved across the tiled floor.
For a minute there was silence, allowing for the small bubbles of the fizzing soft syrups to capture all those who were present – Method, Madre, their stepmother, Thi and their biological father - Brim. A ringing from a phone somewhere at the back of the restaurant broke the lull. And as the hushed words of a waitress made to answer, a soft snow fell from the sky melting on contact with all it touched, bar the wisps of pollen that flew through the air. The sight was that of oleic sensation, numbness creeping through the sinuses and distorting the eyes – it was as if looking through a frosted window splattered with opaque cream. As Method’s father wiped his glasses his throat cleared and he spoke.
“We are having a child,” he said in a straightforward, friendly but hesitant voice. Thi patted her stomach – glistening with expectant joy. In the supermarket two doors down Di and Laurel mounted a backroom shelf of nappies and made love into fructuous liquid pleasure.
φ
Head first – pain, stretching through and up and everywhere. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!!! I hate you! I love you! Go away! Come here! Hold me! Let go of me! Squeeze, love-hate-romance-room-tired-thirsty-black-blue-white-slippery-sad-elated-dead-alive-longing-dad-house-leave-lost-mum-more-lust-neither here nor there nor. Get OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OOOOOOWWWWEEEEEEETTTTT!!!…
Gone…
Peace – quite – calm – love.
φ
Eggnog for Christmas, chocolate for Easter, cake for birthday, and nothing for all – constructs and conceptions heaving, lunging for more.
Ending something is easy. All could stop right now.
The End.
But satisfaction, satisfaction in an ending can only come from what has come before it – an ending isn’t tangible – it is infinitesimal and only points to the line of ‘no more’. It just signifies what is conceived as ‘no more after’.
φ
Surreal – Method’s thoughts swam in his head like oceans, torrents of water crashing in and out of each other – through each other – blue, black, green masses engulfing expulsing force – turning things off, turning things on. Quantum binary, quadrated systems – words - hard, tangible black words, written and read and re-read and then – what then?
Expelled – for others – for them… Enjoy
φ
Knowledge gained, knowledge lost, lessons learned and lessons forgot. Wasted time? Inspired finds? Own beliefs, own subscriptions, own choice – that is what it’s all about - own control. Throw it all away – prejudice and pre and this.
φ
You float, you walk, you exit by your own means. Leaving this world, this reality, this non-reality. Leaving these words to ponder themselves, leaving these pages to muster, leaving these memories to linger for dust. As you leave feel free to take these records with you, or if you so desire, leave them behind for someone else to discover – it’s your prerogative. I’m just here to remind you.
15.1.07
Method: Book | Part |/
It was a Wednesday and Method couldn’t decide on which shirt to wear. Shirts need to say something - he didn’t know what he wanted to say.
There are five degrees of shirt meanings - black, white, red, blue and yellow. Black shirts give a sense of control; white shirts - business; red shirts – looking for action; blue shirts – looking for calm; yellow shirts – looking to be remembered. So for instance if you’re a male wearing a pink shirt – in between red and white – it means you’re a tosser to the straight guys but a player to the girls; you want to mean business but you also want to get some action (sex or trouble). Of course any slogans or multiple colours could change the meaning and shirts are only for first impressions – once a person actually talks to you their impression could completely change – you need the aura to back a shirt up.
Method picked a green shirt – a nice guy shirt (calm but remembered). He had a job interview at another supermarket – this one wasn’t as rude – they didn’t ring him up at inappropriate times – he liked them for that and they liked him.
φ
When Ferrí had landed in Method’s backyard he initially thought she was an angel fallen from heaven. He then realised this thought was corny and attended to her – she clearly needed medical attention. He took her inside and lay her down on his bed – she had passed out and was covered in mud and water deterrent, which hadn’t worked that well as she was soaked. He was at home alone and the only thing he could think to do was to run over to Bé’s house - after all Bé was her mother. He ran out of his room and slipped on the wooden floorboards hitting his knee.
“Fuck, OW!” this was not a conditioned ow.
“Harr… light elf me soon…” Ferrí called from the bed.
“What?” Method got up and went back into the room; Ferrí’s arms were thrashing wildly. Her eyes opened and her arms calmed down when he touched her on the shoulder. Then her arms slipped to her sides and she began to pull down her top – she was clearly fevering, yet he stood and stared as she revealed her breasts. They were smooth and her nipples perky it was beautiful – NO he had to get help. He went back in the hall and grabbed a blanket – it was coarse and grey but it would have to do - he covered her with it.
Bé was startled when Method thrashed at her door. His knuckles bruised on the metal. After a brief stammered expulsion of words that in some way asked for help, Bé grabbed a red umbrella and they both ran to Ferrí. When they arrived, Ferrí was coughing; it didn’t look or sound good. She had thrown off the blankets from Method’s bed, his sheets were a deep blue and the doona cover was also blue but had white stars too. He understood why she threw off the grey blanket but why would she throw off the doona and sheets - they were nice sheets! That was trivial - Bé just wanted to help her daughter. She ran back to the street and got in her 1989 BMW, reversing it off the street and straight into Method’s driveway – knocking the bin over on the way. Method still thinking about the sheets heard the bin crashing out in the street and ran to his mother’s bedroom window to see what was happening. Method ran outside – slipping again in the hall. Bé told him to help carry Ferrí into the car. They both carried her to the passenger’s seat of the car – doona blankets sheets and all – and shoved everything in. Bé sped off down the street – dodging the wheelie-bin – leaving Method to ponder just what the hell had just happened.
φ
All they wanted at the interview was some information on who he was and what hours he could work – he got the job in a snap - partly because his t-shirt had Wallace and Grommet on it (the interviewer was a big fan) and partly because his sister worked there. The interview had taken place on a bench outside the front of the store – the bench he always sat on when waiting to pick his sister up from work. Somehow it felt like ‘his’ bench. He left the supermarket – it was in Manuka – and walked down the shopping arcade towards Greater Union.
There were three lots of cinemas in Canberra: Greater Union, Hoyts and Electric Shadows. Greater Union was in two areas – Civic and Manuka – it was the middle range cinema not overly big and not too small but it screened the blockbusters and some lesser known films but it still charged the same price as Hoyts, which was the ‘super-cinema’. Hoyts was located in three areas – all commercial metropolises in the suburbs. The Hoyts cinemas were your intimidatingly large cinemas they held about twelve or so individual theatres that all screened American blockbusters. Hoyts cinemas were the preferred cinema experience of most – they had good seats, good sound, and average projectors the only problem was they were all in the middle of the three holes of Canberra – Belconnen, Tuggranong and Woden. You didn’t want to be seen in these areas, as they were the areas that all the high school kids liked to ‘hang’. Lifeless and bland – these areas were the Mecca’s of shopping and the anti-Mecca’s of culture and aesthetics but they did have the best cinemas. That leaves Electric Shadows, which is where anyone who wants to see a quality film goes. It is underground/art/foreign film heaven. Based in Civic it has two elongated theatres – red and blue. Both fitted with old-school seats, 1940’s style lights and a piano to boot they make the best choc-tops you’ve ever had. Sadly this theatre was closing up. Not for lack of patronage but because a larger independent-film company, Dendy was installing a large theatre complex in Civic – this would swallow Electric Shadows like the sun.
φ
Now, standing outside Greater Union Method noticed how out of his element he felt. He recognised no one. People passed, chatting to each other and with a swish of the eyes glancing at him then quickly looking away. It felt like he was a beggar who had once been the inventor of something that everyone used, like the paperclip, but was now left in the gutter moaning for change, the people passing by thinking that he just wanted it for alcohol – the stupid derelict. Why they hell was he getting that feeling – he was well dressed, not doing anything unusual and had money (though very little). His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his name somewhere to his right. He looked over and there was Kith standing, smiling and looking as high on life as always. They walked over to each other and hugged. Method melted – this was the best hug he’d ever had – it had come out of nowhere without any pretensions or awkwardness and it lasted for a perfect amount of time – neither of them starting to feel uncomfortable… Wow!
Kith had gone to high school with Method and was now going to university with him too – she was also in his ‘My Generation’ class. In year ten when Method had come back from overseas she was the only girl who had seemed to take any interest in where he had been and what he had seen. He had a crush on her ever since. She was so fun and lively - eccentric would be the obvious word to describe her but not in a bad sense. It was just that she made connections to the most random things and burst out laughing even when she was the only one who understood what was funny. She hadn’t gone to the same college as him but at the end of year twelve her and him and a few friends had gone on a coast trip together. It was on this particular trip lying next to each other in the dark that he was going to tell her how he felt. It just so happened that another guy was in the room too. The other guy was asleep but Method was unsure of the relationship between her and the other guy. They were good friends he knew that, but he didn’t know at the time that that’s all they were. It ended up a wasted opportunity and Method had regretted not telling her ever since.
“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Method said.
“I know! I’ve been so busy. I have like ten assignments to do this week so I haven’t been going to the lectures.”
“What on earth are you doing on this side of town?”
“What on earth are you doing on this side of town?” she retorted.
“I just had a job interview here and I was heading home”
“Oh really,” she said in a sarcastic unbelieving tone.
They found a seat – a bench – the sun shone down it was beautiful. They talked for a while – Kith was meeting up with some friends who Method also knew. She asked him about how he felt about one of her girlfriends who was also in the ‘My Generation’ class. He had had a little thing for her previously but that was all it was – a passing lust – he liked her now as a friend and he told Kith this.
“But you liked her right?” she said.
“Yeah I did… what about you? Got any guys I should know about?”
“No,” she sighed, “I just don’t have the time to find a guy”
The light was so perfect – the white clouds were no longer white they glowed pink like fairy floss. The people on the street and cafes had subdued to an idle flow and the grass near a church that his sister’s preschool teacher had got married at waved and glistened in the lazy breeze. Method knew this was the time to tell Kith about how he felt. Method opened his mouth.
“Hello!”
The friends had arrived.
φ
Turns out that Ferrí had only bruised her arm – it wasn’t broken - but she did have a nasty cough. It had been about a week so Method decided to visit her while her mother was at uni. He brought flowers that he had picked from his garden – pink and white – yum they smelled nice.
The wooden door shuddered under his knocks – they had left the security door open. Ferrí had told him not to come over – she said she was too sick. Method didn’t listen, he had to see her, and he felt he was at least partially to blame for her sickness. There was no answer at the door – he sent a text message to her phone – he couldn’t hear it buzzing from inside. Maybe she was out? He left the flowers there and walked down the steps, passing by the letterbox. As he passed, something about the letterbox caught his eye - there was one main hole but next to it were also other holes for the mail. He turned around. There was another driveway that led behind the house – he followed it and found an apartment block. Where the hell had it come from, he’d never seen it from the street. Surely it was against zoning codes to build a medium-level residential property in a low-level area. He looked up at the windows of the building, there were four sets of double windows.
“Which one would Ferrí be in?” Method thought, mumbling “if any” out loud. He gazed at them then noticed a jacket hanging inside of one of the windows it had FERRÍ written in big golden letters and below it The Australian Flying Team in smaller white letters. He laughed.
Method went inside and went up the steps finding the door that corresponded to the window the jacket was in. He knocked on it and heard a waspy voice call out “I’m coming” from inside. For some reason the movie ‘American Pie’ came to mind. Ferrí opened the door. She didn’t seem too phased to see him and she also didn’t look that sick at all, until she gave a dry sore cough.
“Sorry, I was in the shower,” she said thought she was fully clothed and her hair wasn’t at all wet.
“Just wait a second I brought some flowers but left them at the wrong door!” Method stammered running back to the front house and the flowers that had now fallen over and were about to be attacked by ants.
“Aww how sweet,” she said when he returned with them. Her voice was as sugary as the flowers. They hugged and she offered him a seat on her bed while she found a vase for the flowers. The room was small; two beds a kitchen and a door to what Method assumed was a bathroom, it was also a mess – clothes and art everywhere.
“You should get some air in here its stuffy,” Method said, he got up and went to the windows reaching through the Venetian blinds and unwinding the windows he brushed past the jacket whilst unwinding. “I noticed your jacket in the window – that’s how I found you – I thought you lived in the front house.”
“No that’s the communal area – it has like a rhombus room with a fireplace and it’s where we do our laundry and stuff. It’s connected to the flats via an undercover passage way – we usually come in that way,” she explained.
“How come your mum was in there when I came to find her when you crash landed in my backyard?” Method asked.
“I don’t know – she was probably working on her laptop or something – we don’t have any chairs up here.”
Method noticed this – there was no place to sit and eat, which kind of made the kitchen a bit redundant.
“So where do you eat – is there like a table or something downstairs?”
“No we usually eat take out.”
“You know I could cook you guys some dinner at my place if you want,” he offered.
“Nah my mum likes getting take out.”
There was a pause and Method looked down at a teen girl magazine – Dolly – that lay on the floor.
“I know, how embarrassing,” Ferrí said, picking it up, “Mum got it for me I read it in like ten minutes – it’s all ads – but at least it’s something to do. I’d prefer it if she got me Cleo or Cosmo though, they have better articles.”
Method nodded, “Are you healing up? You’re looking a lot better from when you landed.”
“My arm’s still sore and I have the worst cough but I am feeling a lot better. They gave me morphine in the hospital – it felt so good – wish I had some now.” She gave a short giggle, which turned him on.
“You know heroin was invented to get people off morphine but it ended up the other way round,” Method said expelling some of his unsourced knowledge.
They talked like this for about an hour before Method said he had to head off to uni. She escorted him downstairs to the front door and they stood at the steps both waiting for something.
“Believe me you don’t want to kiss me with the cough I have,” Ferrí said.
It had honestly not crossed Method’s mind to kiss her, but now that she mentioned it he was disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said, straight away thinking that that might sound like he didn’t want to.
They hugged again and both went their separate ways.
“Oh wait!” Ferrí yelled running down the steps to Method, “My mums part of this thing called CAPO and they have this auction every year and I was wondering if you wanted to volunteer with me. Cause I thought I might as well do it seeing as I’m in Australia and all and it would be cool to do it with someone. We would be setting up things before the auction, doing odd jobs and stuff like that. It’s on in a couple of weeks, do you want to do it?”
“Ha,” Method laughed, “my mums a part of that too - I’ve already volunteered.”
“Ok great I’ll see you there then.”
“Ok.”
“See ya,” she waved turning around.
“Bye.”
And off they went again.
φ
Two days straight of working. It was going to be tight. The year was almost over and everything was due. All-nighter after all-nighter, no sleep and a lolly and soft drink diet was taking its toll – Method was starting to see things. He got home from a 4am session of rendering a film, and for some unknown reason he thought that someone was sleeping in his bed – one of his sister’s friends or something - so he chose to sleep on the couch, unbeknownst to him his bed was quite empty.
It was 6am Method’s eyes went from murky to glazed to blurry as he tried to focus on the silhouette that was positioned in front of the large living room window. The silhouette expanded and contracted as if it was bent over - it was – it was tying its shoelace.
“Hello,” the silhouette said, as its features became less silhouette like and more distinguished.
What the hell are you doing here? Method thought, as the features finally came into view – it was Juxta.
“Hello,” Method said – he might as well be polite. Juxta continued to organise himself as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“How’s the film going?”
Method’s film involved the breaking up of a shot into tiles, which were moved around like a sliding puzzle finally forming an image. It was a fairly simple process to create but it was tedious.
“It’s going well, I’ve nearly finished.”
Juxter nodded, “Great.” He smiled and then stood up. He was wearing a white shirt and simple black pants - he looked good, healthy and happy.
“Bye,” Juxta said leaving as though he was off to work and he would be back in the afternoon.
“Bye,” Method said, dazed at the whole experience. The front door slammed and outside the sudden sound of rain assaulted the roof like screams from a dove.
φ
O’fortuna – the techno version - played over his headphones as Method trod the all too familiar path to university. His feet ambled along trying to keep up with his sporadically sugar-filled brain. Method had specifically picked techno to listen to so that he wouldn’t fall asleep – not because he found it enjoyable. It was working, slightly, as he still seemed to fall into a microsleep with each blink of his eyelids. The effect was like a strobe light in slow motion, suddenly he would appear in a different point of the walk, it was as if he was a child slowly drifting in and out of sleep who was being carried by their parent and only seeing brief snapshots of the journey.
What made the whole walking experience worse was that the trek into uni was his doing – he could have avoided it if he had thought ahead. Method had been disappointed with the marks for one of his essays, he had got a high pass which was practically a fail for him, so he had organised a time with the tutor to see if the marks could be rectified into something that Method would find more appropriate. They had organised to meet at a café on campus – Calypso – it reminded Method of an airport – dull and grey. It had a miserable interior but supposedly the coffee was good – Method didn’t know, he tried to avoid falling into the all too common student trap of coffee addiction.
The rain was pouring down; it was quite soothing, as it washed away all the irritable fluff that had been floating around campus over the last couple weeks. Method walked into Calypso and found a spot giving him a view of the whole cafe. He had arrived right at the appointed time. He waited.
Ten minutes later: he waited.
Twenty minutes later: he waited.
Thirty minutes later: he left.
His tutor didn’t come; Method just sat there staring at the generic red brick wall that made up the Manning Clarke building outside. It had stopped raining – the sun was shinning and everything was sweet. So he slowly trudged home every now and then spinning his umbrella like a military man.
He thought of Juxta – had Juxta really been there when Method had woken up that morning? No it couldn’t have been – it must have been a dream – he was really tired. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of screeching tires, a car – a silver Audi T – sped down the street towards him. Method was on the edge of the road – the street was empty, calm prepared for the maelstrom that was about to occur - it was just him and the car. It pulled to a halt in a driveway a couple houses up from where Method was standing. The roof went down, a man with a camera jumped out and a large busted woman lay back in the car. The man started saying things like “turn sideways darling” and “you’re looking good cutie,” the woman pulled her top down to reveal her breasts and the man started snapping away faster. She got out of the car and bent over as if she was getting mail out of the house’s letterbox revealing to the photographer that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She did a couple more poses like this, raising her leg onto the letterbox and such until the man finally said,
“That’s enough let’s move on baby.” They both jumped back into the car and sped off. Talk about flash floods this was a flash exhibitionist porn shoot – they came they left – leaving Method wet and scrambling for high ground.
Remedy was to come from further along Methods path. He sloshed along his head in a spin – he just wanted to get home and fall asleep. As he went past his old high school and came to the home straight a man all in black came walking towards him. He was a priest; he held a canteen and walked as if god himself was guiding his hand. Method smiled and the priest said hello as they passed each other. It was odd, a priest in such an unlikely location. Method’s eyes fell back to the footpath ahead – too weary to be raised. Shortly some black shoes met his gaze – Method looked up and to his astonishment what look like fifty or sixty priests stood before him – there must have been a convention – they wore exactly the same attire. Method couldn’t help but smile, where’s the camera, he thought. An aura of bliss like a mist swept into his lungs and he felt eternally grateful for everything that had ever had in his life. Some of the priests were barbequing sausages others were throwing frisbies they were having a jolly time. He thought of Ferrí – she was something special – just that thought made his stomach tingle with anticipation and what could best be described as the first physical sign of love. He got an erection, which felt odd as male priests surrounded him. He glided past them guided by this feeling but as Method floated out of the invisible mist his elation dropped.
“Fuck the world” he thought, “it will never work between us.”
He made his way home and crashed in bed. Method thought of killing himself.
“But why when he was having such amazing feelings about this person,” he continued to think, “What good would dieing do when you’ve come so far and achieved so little.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Method’s negative side said. Method rolled over.
“Dieing is the weak way out – it only causes more pain,” Method said out loud, as his thoughts slowly drifted away from him and his eyes grew moist. The clarity of darkness will cure me of this chaos.
6.1.07
Method: Book | Part ||
Dog-tired, Method had left his essay to the last minute yet again. Every time he had a thought and started writing it died within a few words. The words that were written up on his computer screen looked more like a collection of short quotes by drugged monkeys than a nice fat essay.
"I could skip my first class tomorrow, then I would have a few more hours to write," Method thought, knowing that if he left it he would just find another excuse to put it off. He’d had all holidays - fourteen days - to do it, but he kept ‘catching up’ on other things. Why not start that book I always wanted to read – he did and never finished it. Why not see if I can make an album in two days – he could and Ferrí loved it. Why not see what's happening on the Internet - I hear Paris Hilton has made a new porno, or has she had a baby? Who cared – she was a stupid pseudo-celebrity anyway …back to this essay, it was for Bé’s class too – he couldn’t disappoint her – he had to endure.
By three in the morning he had finished it – he had class in six hours. He shutdown his computer, it protested with a buzzing noise and spasm form the A drive, then finally lay to rest – the little orange light of the monitor flickered. He got in bed and slept. He dreamt of Ompaloompas.
φ
Oceans away Ferrí dreamt of Australia and the beach - more specifically the southeastern coast town of Broulee. She was with Method and they were on a coast trip with two other people, Di and Laurel, but she didn’t know who they were because she’d never met them. Di and Laurel often went on walks together, disappearing for several hours before returning flushed and giggling. This left Ferrí alone with Method. She was in love with him but he kept ignoring her, he was more interested in the crabs that crawled on the beach. Every day the crabs got larger, and furrier and Method became more engaged with them. Until one day when Ferrí was about to get Method’s attention by making love to him, they reached their final form - giant spider crabs – Method’s favourite animal and a mutilated incarnation of Ferrí’s most feared.
Ferrí woke with a scream - her hands were between her legs and she was covered in sweat. One of her roommates asked if she was ok.
"What a cliché awakening," she said, and fell back to sleep.
φ
Younger than yesterday, Method woke, got dressed, had breakfast, set his essay to print, got undressed, had a shower, got dressed again and picked his essay from the printer’s tray.
"You’ve got to be joking!" Method cried.
The print out was a garbled bunch of black code. He swore at the printer – it said there was no paper. He was patient with the printer – it said there was no ink. He gave the printer sensitive loving strokes – it printed out an acceptable bunch of words, which seemed to resemble what he had written.
Method selected a CD from his ever-growing collection and popped it in his discman – doof boocha doof-doof boocha d-doof boocha doof-doof boocha. Method strutted outside his feet hitting the ground in time with the beat.
The street – the beat – the street – the beat - the street – the beat and the red-hot heat. The people of the city moved in time under the big bright yellow sun. Two girls swung on poles and a man with an umbrella opened and closed it trying to fix it. The traffic lights danced - green to orange to red then green again - Method crossed the streets the lights flickering to the colour of his whim. Cars, confused, sped over and around each other like a plague of mice hunting for grain. Method walked over them as if they were parked sets of stairs. A man – painted silver – danced as people threw money at his feet – his arms stretching and wiggling with the frequencies of the music. Methods feet kept in time with the music all the way to the arts office.
φ
Ogling a magazine advertisement of a semi-naked child, Bé was standing in the centre of her office. Above her head on the wall behind was a gaudy coloured and lacquered crustacean.
"What on earth is that?" Method asked.
Bé was cutting the picture out with some scissors, "Its something I picked up at the old bus depo markets."
"You? At the bus depo markets?" he chuckled, "I didn’t think you were the kitsch type."
"It’s not kitsch its art. Anyway I quite like it. Its by an artist from Broom, it’s an exploration of how little knowledge humans have about the creatures of the sea." She looked directly at Method and said in a self-mocking romantic way, "Who knows – maybe a creature like this exists at the bottom of the Marians Trench."
"Ahh.. No. For one the crustaceans down there have no colours. And two this is just a horribly painted giant spider crab - they’re found off the coast of Japan, which I know is near the Marians Trench, but it’s still way too far away to find one there."
"I know, I know, I just wanted to annoy the head of the department - It’s so ugly huh."
"Sure is – hey I handed in the essay. So what will it be, super high distinction?"
"You do know you were meant to e-mail the essay."
"What?"
"Oh it should be fine – it’s still accepted – but you were meant to e-mail it."
"Damn I spent all that time trying to get the printer to work when I could of just e-mailed it in. That always happens."
It was then that Method noticed the picture pinned to Bé’s small wooden bookshelf.
"Oh my god! Hey I know her, that’s Ferrí!"
"How do you know Ferrí?"
"She lives just near me, well she’s in America now, but I got to know her like the day before she left. Why do you have a picture of her?"
"She’s my daughter." Her voice was kind of dry.
Method gulped.
φ
Under normal circumstances Bé would have been fairly ok with Ferrí ‘befriending’ a guy. But Method was three years seven months and eleven days older than she was, and clearly horny. She didn’t want her fifteen-year-old daughter having sex just yet. Bé hid her feelings from Method, after all Ferrí was safe at flying school in America, there may be boys there but at least they were her age.
There is an unspoken rule about the acceptable age difference of a couple. To work out if the age difference is acceptable, half the age of the older person and then add seven. If the younger person is equal to or older than this age then it is socially acceptable. Otherwise, tough luck kiddo, you’re gonna have to wait till you both grow up!
φ
Rrrrrrrrrchhhhhhhh crunch! The car sped off the road into a sign marked stop. And that it did. Method and his mother froze as they watched the car materialise in front of them – it was like something out of back to the future – one second the was no traffic for miles, the next… boom! Except there was no boom – there was no sound – it was serene and beautiful, the site of metal bending and contorting in the hands of an invisible man, or woman - it was impossible to tell, as they were invisible.
Mother got out of the car. This was after much nervous discussion with Method over where the right place to pull over was – they weren’t moving, but the mounting traffic was making it difficult to manoeuvre the car off the road – eventually they parked on the median strip.
The driver of the other car was androgynous but looked remarkably familiar to Method. They looked about twenty but had bags under their eyes - it gave the impression that the eyes were set deep within their head. They had black hair, pale skin and discrete clothes. Their appearance was of a person who would go to a death metal concert with their friends and at the same time have a secret love of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
To the police the androgynous being made this statement: They were going to work when Method and his mother pulled out forcing the crash into the sign – they said their name was Id. They walked away after the documentation was made – leaving the car to an unknown fate.
φ
Ecstatic to the point of insanity, Method’s mother had inherited a large sum of money from Juxta. This is what she had told Method. In truth the money was not inherited but won through the combined cognitive power of her and Juxta. In her dream state in hospital she was more accepting of the ‘impossible’ and so it was a simple matter for Juxta to coerce the state of reality to his and her desire – a quick escape from a financial rut, but a plunge into an emotional rut.
Whilst living Juxta had already had a powerful grip on controlling ‘his world’. It was his consciousness of this ‘power’ over his world that caused him to lapse into depression. He had tried too forcefully to control others – something that is very hard to do willingly and almost always ends in self-loathing and suicide.
Juxta was enjoying a state of ‘life reliving’. Even though he hadn’t actually been alive during this part in time he was still an important part of it. He watched the local happenings from the background, coming at odd intermission to meddle. He had become one of those people you see in the street who could - in another life - have had a profound affect on you but who you just pass by and never see again. He was a ‘Man in Black’ for gods.
φ
Another book started but never finished. Method’s near-death-experience lent him an eye for reflections on life. He started a book about his experiences with girls, death, love, hate (he didn’t hate anyone yet) and anything else that was in life. It wasn’t particularly good but it started another universe that would cause a paradoxical battle like no other.
φ
Lost.
"Where the hell am I?" Method thought.
It was dark, dank and dirty - an un-likeable combination for anything but a mole. Method felt like a mole, he could feel the dirt underneath him – it was cold and smelt musty. He lifted his head up and hit it on something wooden.
"Ow."
His ow was one of those ows that one says just because they are conditioned to. After a moment of stunned thought the sound of a whispered whistle came from somewhere in the darkness. Method froze, he wasn’t moving prior to this but at the recognition of the sound his brain decided that any future movement was not advisable until further notice.
Further notice came with the iridescent illumination of two eyes. The site of the two circles of light scared the shit out of him. The sound of a guttural language scared the fuck out of him. And the touch of a hairy leathery hand scared the life out of him.
φ
I’m not ready for this yet - rewind and replay.
φ
Zealous people go to extremes for their beliefs. Being zealous is not necessarily good or bad - stubbornness and determination walk hand in hand. But you can be zealous for all the wrong reasons and at this point the universe was getting ahead of itself in trying to make things right. Of course ‘right’ is totally subjective so trying to make things ‘right’ is a bit problematic in itself. Nothing can be ‘right’ for everyone and everything – which the universe found out the hard way. It let too many Conun Drums™ (multi-dimensional collections of possibilities and antibillities) - a product of Fantasy® – slide. From this lapse in control all manor of antibillities arose causing chaos in the minds of the beholders. The universe had to let things flow and not be so interventional – chill out and enjoy the view!
φ
Entire cities have collapsed for love, most commonly through the imposition of rules of a loved faith for the appeasement of a deity or deities. To Method Ferrí was like a deity. She whisked in and out of his life like an intervening omniscient being tweaking its creation to perfection. She wanted to mould him to perfection. She saw him as a fine clay that could only be imagined but never materialised as its materialisation would cause complete destruction of anything that was graced by its presence – its sheer beauty too much to comprehend…
Maybe not quite that extreme – but she loved him.
She flew back from America. This time she didn’t take a plane but made the trip herself – it was long and gruelling but she was determined and stubborn. It took a week to fly and it was pretty much non-stop as there were only a few islands between America and Australia.
She had grown quite fond of Method in America and he had told her that he was not in the position to allow anything form between them so she should go to Method in Australia instead.
"What about my training?" she said.
"Tell your coach you want to take your alveolus extremities test now," he said, "the trip there and back is equivalent to one of the things you would be tested on – endurance in a foreign sky. I’m sure your coach would think it’s a good idea seeing as at the moment your in-air-performance is leagues ahead of anyone else you age."
She agreed and it was all organised – her flight over would count towards her alveolus extremities test. She wouldn’t tell her mother, she would turn up on Method’s doorstep and make passionate love to him there and then – it would be great.
φ
?-0
She fell – supersaturated with lead like water. Something like a baseball bat hit her, her arm snapped and she screamed in agony crashing into a corrugated shed roof. She rolled off landing in damp muddy grass – her knee jarred on a slab of concrete. She was shaking from the shock and the cold and the pain – it was all hell. Her throat was clenched and her head was thumping, then a slow wave of bliss like a warm blanket covered her – the rain turned to bath water. She moaned and vomited and all of a sudden everything was cold again then something clammy touched her and called her name it was muffled in the rain, which soon became engulfed in the rush of white noise.
φ
? Before awakening you must remember this…
Karma kills hopes and dreams – it is not for the good to receive just rewards but for the guilty to receive just punishment. One’s own perception of good and bad is its only reference: do what you believe is right and you will succeed, do what you believe is wrong and you will falter.
To your own self be true.
"I could skip my first class tomorrow, then I would have a few more hours to write," Method thought, knowing that if he left it he would just find another excuse to put it off. He’d had all holidays - fourteen days - to do it, but he kept ‘catching up’ on other things. Why not start that book I always wanted to read – he did and never finished it. Why not see if I can make an album in two days – he could and Ferrí loved it. Why not see what's happening on the Internet - I hear Paris Hilton has made a new porno, or has she had a baby? Who cared – she was a stupid pseudo-celebrity anyway …back to this essay, it was for Bé’s class too – he couldn’t disappoint her – he had to endure.
By three in the morning he had finished it – he had class in six hours. He shutdown his computer, it protested with a buzzing noise and spasm form the A drive, then finally lay to rest – the little orange light of the monitor flickered. He got in bed and slept. He dreamt of Ompaloompas.
φ
Oceans away Ferrí dreamt of Australia and the beach - more specifically the southeastern coast town of Broulee. She was with Method and they were on a coast trip with two other people, Di and Laurel, but she didn’t know who they were because she’d never met them. Di and Laurel often went on walks together, disappearing for several hours before returning flushed and giggling. This left Ferrí alone with Method. She was in love with him but he kept ignoring her, he was more interested in the crabs that crawled on the beach. Every day the crabs got larger, and furrier and Method became more engaged with them. Until one day when Ferrí was about to get Method’s attention by making love to him, they reached their final form - giant spider crabs – Method’s favourite animal and a mutilated incarnation of Ferrí’s most feared.
Ferrí woke with a scream - her hands were between her legs and she was covered in sweat. One of her roommates asked if she was ok.
"What a cliché awakening," she said, and fell back to sleep.
φ
Younger than yesterday, Method woke, got dressed, had breakfast, set his essay to print, got undressed, had a shower, got dressed again and picked his essay from the printer’s tray.
"You’ve got to be joking!" Method cried.
The print out was a garbled bunch of black code. He swore at the printer – it said there was no paper. He was patient with the printer – it said there was no ink. He gave the printer sensitive loving strokes – it printed out an acceptable bunch of words, which seemed to resemble what he had written.
Method selected a CD from his ever-growing collection and popped it in his discman – doof boocha doof-doof boocha d-doof boocha doof-doof boocha. Method strutted outside his feet hitting the ground in time with the beat.
The street – the beat – the street – the beat - the street – the beat and the red-hot heat. The people of the city moved in time under the big bright yellow sun. Two girls swung on poles and a man with an umbrella opened and closed it trying to fix it. The traffic lights danced - green to orange to red then green again - Method crossed the streets the lights flickering to the colour of his whim. Cars, confused, sped over and around each other like a plague of mice hunting for grain. Method walked over them as if they were parked sets of stairs. A man – painted silver – danced as people threw money at his feet – his arms stretching and wiggling with the frequencies of the music. Methods feet kept in time with the music all the way to the arts office.
φ
Ogling a magazine advertisement of a semi-naked child, Bé was standing in the centre of her office. Above her head on the wall behind was a gaudy coloured and lacquered crustacean.
"What on earth is that?" Method asked.
Bé was cutting the picture out with some scissors, "Its something I picked up at the old bus depo markets."
"You? At the bus depo markets?" he chuckled, "I didn’t think you were the kitsch type."
"It’s not kitsch its art. Anyway I quite like it. Its by an artist from Broom, it’s an exploration of how little knowledge humans have about the creatures of the sea." She looked directly at Method and said in a self-mocking romantic way, "Who knows – maybe a creature like this exists at the bottom of the Marians Trench."
"Ahh.. No. For one the crustaceans down there have no colours. And two this is just a horribly painted giant spider crab - they’re found off the coast of Japan, which I know is near the Marians Trench, but it’s still way too far away to find one there."
"I know, I know, I just wanted to annoy the head of the department - It’s so ugly huh."
"Sure is – hey I handed in the essay. So what will it be, super high distinction?"
"You do know you were meant to e-mail the essay."
"What?"
"Oh it should be fine – it’s still accepted – but you were meant to e-mail it."
"Damn I spent all that time trying to get the printer to work when I could of just e-mailed it in. That always happens."
It was then that Method noticed the picture pinned to Bé’s small wooden bookshelf.
"Oh my god! Hey I know her, that’s Ferrí!"
"How do you know Ferrí?"
"She lives just near me, well she’s in America now, but I got to know her like the day before she left. Why do you have a picture of her?"
"She’s my daughter." Her voice was kind of dry.
Method gulped.
φ
Under normal circumstances Bé would have been fairly ok with Ferrí ‘befriending’ a guy. But Method was three years seven months and eleven days older than she was, and clearly horny. She didn’t want her fifteen-year-old daughter having sex just yet. Bé hid her feelings from Method, after all Ferrí was safe at flying school in America, there may be boys there but at least they were her age.
There is an unspoken rule about the acceptable age difference of a couple. To work out if the age difference is acceptable, half the age of the older person and then add seven. If the younger person is equal to or older than this age then it is socially acceptable. Otherwise, tough luck kiddo, you’re gonna have to wait till you both grow up!
φ
Rrrrrrrrrchhhhhhhh crunch! The car sped off the road into a sign marked stop. And that it did. Method and his mother froze as they watched the car materialise in front of them – it was like something out of back to the future – one second the was no traffic for miles, the next… boom! Except there was no boom – there was no sound – it was serene and beautiful, the site of metal bending and contorting in the hands of an invisible man, or woman - it was impossible to tell, as they were invisible.
Mother got out of the car. This was after much nervous discussion with Method over where the right place to pull over was – they weren’t moving, but the mounting traffic was making it difficult to manoeuvre the car off the road – eventually they parked on the median strip.
The driver of the other car was androgynous but looked remarkably familiar to Method. They looked about twenty but had bags under their eyes - it gave the impression that the eyes were set deep within their head. They had black hair, pale skin and discrete clothes. Their appearance was of a person who would go to a death metal concert with their friends and at the same time have a secret love of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
To the police the androgynous being made this statement: They were going to work when Method and his mother pulled out forcing the crash into the sign – they said their name was Id. They walked away after the documentation was made – leaving the car to an unknown fate.
φ
Ecstatic to the point of insanity, Method’s mother had inherited a large sum of money from Juxta. This is what she had told Method. In truth the money was not inherited but won through the combined cognitive power of her and Juxta. In her dream state in hospital she was more accepting of the ‘impossible’ and so it was a simple matter for Juxta to coerce the state of reality to his and her desire – a quick escape from a financial rut, but a plunge into an emotional rut.
Whilst living Juxta had already had a powerful grip on controlling ‘his world’. It was his consciousness of this ‘power’ over his world that caused him to lapse into depression. He had tried too forcefully to control others – something that is very hard to do willingly and almost always ends in self-loathing and suicide.
Juxta was enjoying a state of ‘life reliving’. Even though he hadn’t actually been alive during this part in time he was still an important part of it. He watched the local happenings from the background, coming at odd intermission to meddle. He had become one of those people you see in the street who could - in another life - have had a profound affect on you but who you just pass by and never see again. He was a ‘Man in Black’ for gods.
φ
Another book started but never finished. Method’s near-death-experience lent him an eye for reflections on life. He started a book about his experiences with girls, death, love, hate (he didn’t hate anyone yet) and anything else that was in life. It wasn’t particularly good but it started another universe that would cause a paradoxical battle like no other.
φ
Lost.
"Where the hell am I?" Method thought.
It was dark, dank and dirty - an un-likeable combination for anything but a mole. Method felt like a mole, he could feel the dirt underneath him – it was cold and smelt musty. He lifted his head up and hit it on something wooden.
"Ow."
His ow was one of those ows that one says just because they are conditioned to. After a moment of stunned thought the sound of a whispered whistle came from somewhere in the darkness. Method froze, he wasn’t moving prior to this but at the recognition of the sound his brain decided that any future movement was not advisable until further notice.
Further notice came with the iridescent illumination of two eyes. The site of the two circles of light scared the shit out of him. The sound of a guttural language scared the fuck out of him. And the touch of a hairy leathery hand scared the life out of him.
φ
I’m not ready for this yet - rewind and replay.
φ
Zealous people go to extremes for their beliefs. Being zealous is not necessarily good or bad - stubbornness and determination walk hand in hand. But you can be zealous for all the wrong reasons and at this point the universe was getting ahead of itself in trying to make things right. Of course ‘right’ is totally subjective so trying to make things ‘right’ is a bit problematic in itself. Nothing can be ‘right’ for everyone and everything – which the universe found out the hard way. It let too many Conun Drums™ (multi-dimensional collections of possibilities and antibillities) - a product of Fantasy® – slide. From this lapse in control all manor of antibillities arose causing chaos in the minds of the beholders. The universe had to let things flow and not be so interventional – chill out and enjoy the view!
φ
Entire cities have collapsed for love, most commonly through the imposition of rules of a loved faith for the appeasement of a deity or deities. To Method Ferrí was like a deity. She whisked in and out of his life like an intervening omniscient being tweaking its creation to perfection. She wanted to mould him to perfection. She saw him as a fine clay that could only be imagined but never materialised as its materialisation would cause complete destruction of anything that was graced by its presence – its sheer beauty too much to comprehend…
Maybe not quite that extreme – but she loved him.
She flew back from America. This time she didn’t take a plane but made the trip herself – it was long and gruelling but she was determined and stubborn. It took a week to fly and it was pretty much non-stop as there were only a few islands between America and Australia.
She had grown quite fond of Method in America and he had told her that he was not in the position to allow anything form between them so she should go to Method in Australia instead.
"What about my training?" she said.
"Tell your coach you want to take your alveolus extremities test now," he said, "the trip there and back is equivalent to one of the things you would be tested on – endurance in a foreign sky. I’m sure your coach would think it’s a good idea seeing as at the moment your in-air-performance is leagues ahead of anyone else you age."
She agreed and it was all organised – her flight over would count towards her alveolus extremities test. She wouldn’t tell her mother, she would turn up on Method’s doorstep and make passionate love to him there and then – it would be great.
φ
?-0
She fell – supersaturated with lead like water. Something like a baseball bat hit her, her arm snapped and she screamed in agony crashing into a corrugated shed roof. She rolled off landing in damp muddy grass – her knee jarred on a slab of concrete. She was shaking from the shock and the cold and the pain – it was all hell. Her throat was clenched and her head was thumping, then a slow wave of bliss like a warm blanket covered her – the rain turned to bath water. She moaned and vomited and all of a sudden everything was cold again then something clammy touched her and called her name it was muffled in the rain, which soon became engulfed in the rush of white noise.
φ
? Before awakening you must remember this…
Karma kills hopes and dreams – it is not for the good to receive just rewards but for the guilty to receive just punishment. One’s own perception of good and bad is its only reference: do what you believe is right and you will succeed, do what you believe is wrong and you will falter.
To your own self be true.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
