Update to train announcement #8

Passengers, we apologise for the congestion. The train that hit the woman is understandably upset and has gone on stress leave. We assure you that we are doing all we can to manage the chaos. Please do not panic. Please do not run. Please stop screaming. Do direct judgmental stares at the woman in the red feathered hat — her son was swept along by the crowd into the next carriage whilst she was searching for her soul in a handheld mirror. Do close your eyes and sway to the rhythm of the train tracks, but please do not press your body against the passenger next to you. The man in the green polka dot trousers — please take your hand off the lady’s back. She claims she has never met you. Please maintain a respectable level of personal space, and passengers, please stop flexing your toes.

I have been in the commuting business far too long to be surprised by this. The trespass I mean, not the chaos. That cop and I, we’ve seen them all — the broken men, the hollow men: men in need, men in debt, men so desperate they are in need of debt, for the drugs, for the drag, for the rehab, then for the drugs again. We’ve seen them disappear under the tracks.

But I must confess — that cop, he looked like he had seen a ghost. I would have asked him what was wrong, if not for the blue pinstripes in carriage three who kept pulling on the rope just to annoy me.

Normal service should resume shortly. We thank you for your patience.

The label-maker I

The first time Bob affixed something to Doris, he was five. From a sheet of stickers his mother had given him for obediently observing bedtime for the last three days, he decided on a circle, medium size, because his mind could not handle corners. And even as he did not understand, the circle happened to be green because he had seen the way Doris laughed with the other boy.

Bob approached Doris on short unsteady legs, adjusting the underpants he was not yet accustomed to wearing. Acutely unaware of the boundaries of acceptable personal space, and openly ignorant of the inappropriateness of interrupting a schoolyard tête-à-tête, Bob stepped between the boy and Doris to attach the green circle to her shoulder. Doris shrieked, pushed him to the ground, and sped off on her three-wheel pushbike.

Bob dragged his feet all the way home. He found no solace in his mother's enveloping embrace. He refused to be comforted by the promise of chocolate ice-cream. Despite going to bed even earlier than usual, he cried well into the night.

What he did not know, and never subsequently found out, was that Doris rushed home for her favourite doll. She carefully lifted its dress hemmed by disproportionate lace to reveal its flawless plastic, and gently moved the green circle from her shoulder to the middle of the doll’s back. By the time Bob could no longer see the painted clouds on his bedroom ceiling through his tears, Doris had clasped her doll in both hands and squeezed her eyes shut, momentously marking the first acquisition in her collection of Bob’s sticker-thoughts over the next thirty years.

Supplement to train announcement #8

Concerned passengers, I had a quick peek at the note before the cop waved me through the police tape with a languid hand. It wasn’t much of a note, not the usual farewell, not a jumble of scribbled despair, and not typed out instructions indicative of any will or intention, or of any testament of an unordered mind. It was a rather cryptic strip of plastic tape printed on an old label-maker stuck to the palm of her hand. It read,

Correction to train annoucement #8

Passengers please be advised that the trespass has been reclassified as non-accidental. The person left a note.

Lunar eclipse

One night half a full moon ago, I peered into other people's houses under cover of darkness as I was walking home. Each house had its unique sounds of loud argument, equally loud lovemaking, and even louder plasma screen television. In all three cases, profanities blasted through thin weatherboard walls and lifted off rooftops into the night.

But it was my carousing neighbours six doors down who moved their entire loungeroom onto the front lawn, complete with a case of beer serving as a lamp table. An extension cord snaked out of their front window for the mini bar fridge. Instead of watching hormonal teenagers screech their way towards some dubious title of the next biggest idol, they put their faith in the nightsky to keep them entertained for the evening. They had a quiet (drunken) confidence that surprised me—a lunar eclipse only lasts as long as a shadow moving across the moon.

I stopped at their gate for just a moment to observe alfresco suburbia, but Schrödinger's cat sauntered across my field of vision and wrapped itself around my leg. My neighbours asked me to join them instead so I sat down on the saggy couch, even put my feet up against the low brick wall surrounding a patch of dead grass. A man in a flannel shirt and holes in his jeans sat down next to me, smiled and slurred, "Ahhh isn't it awesome?" He pointed, and I looked up at the reddening full moon. It resembled the face of a girl competing with a boy for the rush of blood to their virgin faces—a type of involuntary natural glow stirred by the transitory attention of strangers, but which doesn't stay forever.

"Only haaalf the earth is privileged to witness this beew-tiful sight, mate," the man said with mock ceremony. I was bitter and angry at the moon, and I was not inclined to agree. Sharing with half the earth was as much privilege as sharing a communal pool with a class of thirty urinating toddlers. And what privilege attached if it was the other half of the earth that was bathed in warming sunlight? I said so.

"Ahhh, but not everyone bothers to move out their couch, you see, and, and, not everyone knows where to look," he said, eager to meet what he perceived was an intellectual challenge on my part. "Don't you want to just reach up and grab it, catch it, or take a picture?" He jumped up and made to grab the moon three times before his energy was exhausted.

"Nah mate," I said, without looking down, "With my cheapo camera you would only get a dot in the frame. I've tried before. You can't capture something beautiful in transit. You had better just remember it."

He grinned, finally satisfied by my answer, and we both looked up and tried to burn the image of the red moon into the back of our eyes forever.

Train announcement #8

Passengers please be advised that this train is running approximately sixteen minutes late due to an accidental trespass on the train tracks. We apologise for the delay and kindly offer to put on a series of syncopated sounds that could pass for hardcore elevator music under appropriate lighting. Thank you for your patience.

Wide awake

It is manageable, to a point, to occupy your mind with texts, with images, with pixels, with numbers, with lines, with shapes, with shapes of locks, in order to avoid having to deal with the rubbish churning in your head. You can do this until you are exhausted, until you can no longer keep your eyes open, until you think you are safe from your thoughts enough to turn in, but once your head hits the pillow you are wide awake inescapable, trapped in a frame of a film. You find yourself staring at the ceiling unblinking, until your tears start to flow, until you find yourself crying, or until you can’t tell one from the next.

So you lie with your arms crossed over your chest to stop your heart hyperventilating; you lie with your arms crossed over your face to vary the shade of darkness, to stop the sound of your thoughts moving, the sound of your blanket adjusting, the sound of skin on skin, the sound of your frown forming, the sound of your mother’s scent moulding, the sound of your wits departing, the sound of your deep breaths jerking against the pillow, the sound of your hair pricking, the sound of cotton sheets flapping in the breeze, the sound of the Hills Hoist turning right outside your window screeching and spinning in a ghastly wind – all magnified, multiplied, you are terrified of being alone with all this.

It is not multiple voices you hear, because there is only one, which in the daytime you try to drown out with heavy metal, death metal, loud mechanical sounds, anything you get my hands on, but at night you fall through the safety net as it haunts you reciting the same words over and over above the burning in the yearning pits of hell deep in your guts. A saving grace, if any, lies in its singularity – the only thing multiple is the faces. When you close your eyes all you see are faces changing, shifting with your every thought—it is tormented, then it is petrified, then laughing, then weeping, then teasing, then abusing, then mocking; sometimes ugly, sometimes silly, sometimes merciless, sometimes blank, sometimes full of meaning, sometimes malicious, sometimes vomiting over your shoes, sometimes bleeding from the eyes, sometimes sandpapered raw and breathing through the pores.

And behind the faces are words and senses, false ad-lib words real pulsing senses seeping through the gaps in your teeth. You need to put pen to paper until you are rid of them. But you are afraid to get up because once you do you are back doing time, sitting out your sentence until you are exhausted again, until you can rely only on your eyes to make your decision for when to turn, to turn in, turnpiking at a tollgate. You can’t, you can’t afford it, you can’t afford to do it anymore, you need a ground, a grounding force, some measure of stabilising resoluteness, but lately the only way you make a well-reasoned decision is by the fluidity of the numbers on the clock – choose life only if the number goes from 3.18 to 3.19 in the next 10 seconds.

So she said: Solace

Serose. Songbird. Soothful sense. Rebreathe. Think out centuries of restless sleep. To sooth. To lose. To choose to lose. To choose youthful release. To choose songful heartbeat.

Sepose. Soulsong. Sensual unseen.

So he said: Imminence

It was the marde that festered. Anticipate so to mend it, fend it, tend to it. It locked tholifical dislain for dredom and might, burning all cages in quick succession. Quickness was never late. Ruin turnish of time, tick tick and tock, tick tick then tock, and the sky motioned drip gush nushling down the river main, prescripting hastened breaths on forewarned glass. Whenso disbotic? Whenso verge-docking? Whenso terminus?

I wake up each morning

I wake up each morning to champion a cause of which I have no deep conviction. Even before my eyelids reveal the world in the selfsame sordid state of being, I persuade myself to repeat, No, I won't do it today. No, I won't allow it! It will stop! Just this day! One! I carry on until the curtain moves and a solitary ray of sun cuts through to spotlight a corner of the bed; until my alarm clock manages a half-hearted shrill for the sound of the taxi rolling in through the mindless filter of the glassless window; or until I blink myself to sit cross-legged in the middle of a one-way dead-end street on top of freshly painted double white lines poisoning the concrete grass darkly. My dear, I can't, and it doesn't; except that I do, and I have – too much, too often.

So I tell myself that I should listen to the sound of the hole, catch the light of the void, and drink in the dolled-up artless melancholy. Prick off the flow with a toothpick sharpened against my skull. Disperse the broken pieces like a skilful magician. Flick off the face as if it only ever meant less than a cheap Venetian mask. Kiss the picket line. Make to let go. Make to disappear. Find the largest box before yet another day drowns in tears.

So it was said ...

Amass the minto sun. Toil the manuf braithe falling too fast for the silotin. They will frustam but do not mear, do not deripate, do not be mortaken. Freelight the thought by and by, only miss the sefiranti. Stop crave biss murtle muss, and scope mort streaming by and by.

Train announcement #7

Passengers, please be advised that this train is taking a detour to avoid the centre of the city due to the high steel fences, street-corner loudspeakers and moving eyes that fix you. This is not to say they have constructed high fences over the tracks – I am merely avoiding the area in protest. No one consulted me about the special event clearways and the call for everyone to catch public transport. I doubt they consulted you either. Clearly you would not have supported being fenced out of your own city to make way for the motorcade. They huddle and whisper about trade ties and their version of climate change while you're walled out along economic lines dreaming of empty plastic bags slow-dancing on carbon gas.

While we are at it, when did they change my voice? Where's my drawl? I don't care about sounding more professional – the nondescript accent makes me sound like the uppity twit you all despise. When there are guests they bring out the good china and banish us upstairs to our cold lightless rooms to shiver and cry. Bloody typical. Oh forget the whole thing. I'm done. Get off me now, all of you. I'm going to move earths to burrow into subterranean woods.

Train announcement #6

Passengers, in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will drop from the sky. Place the mask over your nose and mouth before screaming. Save yourself, before forgetting about the pleading child next to you. As you make your panicked escape, please do take a moment to fill out the Goal of Life Questionnaire and return it in the red box conveniently placed to the right of the inflatable emergency slide. Winners will be drawn every third Wednesday of the month. Good luck to all entrants! Have a pleasant journey.

Dust to dust

Sweep. Gather dust into heaps while you may. Hear the sound of bristles weeping. Sweep to hear the sound of horsehairs brushing. Sweep to nuzzle to tickle to bristle-me swristle. Sweep to say six-o-three and whistle. Sweep to drip into floating floors adrizzle afizzle. Six-o-six.

In the room where they sit, sweep to gather the sounds of papers before they crumble burning, crisping and sizzling, crackling in dazzling rumbling. Only the sound of clang, sound of strength, a broken paperclip nuzzles against the grain. Six-o-six.

In the kitchen where they sleep, sweep to gather the sounds of peels of onion, of flakes of cereal, of granules of salt, of crumbs of bread, of grains of oat. Only the sound of crisp, sound of crunch against the round of the dustpan. Six-o-six.

In the bathroom where they faint, sweep to gather their hair before it falls afrizzle, curling to dust to ash to dust. Turning from red to brown to grey. Dust clings to hair clings to dust tumbling into tumbleweed clinging to corners of rooms. Sweep to gather the rough scratched-off layers of skin to find bits of me falling, bits of me departing, bits of me dying. Six. Only there is no sound. Of six and hush. When bits of me are thrown against the bottom of the dustheap, they only land soft and silent against the plastic.