the humidity clouded my mind and my jeans clung to me like an itchy-sweat - when i thought i needed sleep, i actually needed water - and when i thought i needed to wake up, i in fact needed whiskey - i could hear the recovering alcoholic next door take his half-empty bins out to the street, which reminded me i had to do the same - i waited by the doorway, in the darkness of the doorway, for a while longer, until i heard he'd gone back inside his house
i moved some of my excess rubbish and bottles into his bins as quietly as possible - in doing so i noticed he had some porno magazines lying in his recycling bin - tattered and worn, but still good quality - i dropped some of my empty bottles on top of them and closed the lid - i wondered if they belonged to him, or if they once belonged to his son who had died a couple of months ago - back inside i poured myself another whiskey and thought of ways to keep myself occupied
a few months earlier - around the same time my next-door-neighbour's son died, my ex-wife dumped a pile of shit on my doorstep - a pile of fucking shit i had left at her place - our old home - i assume it was her anyway, it could've been anyone i guess - i came back from my hole and there was a whole pile of my stuff at my doorway - buckets, books, curtains, my old rusty bike - knowing it was an old bike meant i didn't care about the rust - in fact, in my cloudy mind rust somehow improved old bikes - i poured myself another whiskey and headed out into the back-courtyard, the place where i dry my rags - the old bike lay in a scattered mesh of shadow and street light on the weed infested bricks - my whiskey breath spiced the humid night air as i pulled it up with creaks and squeaks as i saddled for a night ride
i got honked and verbally abused by a few headlights and cars but before too long im out of sight and out of mind - less cars - less lights - less noise - full moon
there's this parkland - a parkland near where i live now - i remember visiting the parkland as a child maybe once or twice - running through long tall green grass, careless of the mud and wet that my childhood tracksuit pants obsorbed - now it's empty and feared - maybe it's the perverts - maybe it's the beastmen - maybe it's the nighttimes - maybe it's people like me - nevertheless, that night i knew i was alone, but i felt so far from it
my old bike creaks and squeaks like a little old lady on a mid-city-tram - my body sways slowly, side to side, in a steady rhymmn in synch with my peddling legs - creck and squeck, creak and squeak - the parklands deepen and soon im out of my depth in darkness, trees and shrubs and whiskey
i sing a song in my mind with no intent - the shrubs and their shadows, i cant tell the difference no more - a thin line of bush track, somehow lit by the moon under all those shadows and trees and skeletons and creaks and squeaks, tap into my god-fucked destiny and move all over in random twists and bends and curves - but with it, i need not focus on a thing - it's a gentle glide, a sway side-to-side, a push and a peddle, and my creaky ride through the deep shadows cures me of thought
hark! - and the night deepens and darkens - relaxed i see the moon - perhaps i'll see a movie, i think to myself - nothing more, nevermore, than the stark tall trees and the mennacing shrubs - i feel the bats and night birds around me - not see - not hear - but i feel them - i feel their wings push air as they invisibly swoop and follow and investigate me and my squeaking abscurity - it's a gentle relief from the humidity, but a realisation to my anxiety
karr! karr! - i scream in my madness as my wheels spin faster and faster beyond my control - i still steadily sway and row, push and peddle at a casual speed, but everything surrounding me is circling in a solid whirlpool of greys and black - karr! karr! - i make declarations to the heavens above me - i confess to the invisible bats and birds that flap and fluster my thoughts deeper into fear - "come and get me motherfuckers! haaaaaaaah-whoooooo!" - the trees are now everything and they're at war with the shrubs now - who will take me? - who will fight me?
i must conclude - a light shines somewhere, as always, but this particular light was moving it's way through the trees who were by now losing their battle with the shrubs - it was all now a spikey fuzz similtainiously torturing body and mind - the light was up and sideways - perhaps it was a beastman preparing it's lunch - i try and control my sways more to than fro to try and reach this fucking light - to, i thrust myself, to, to, to
and like a saggy baloon i fart out of the shrubs - my bike disintergrates below me and i fall hands, wrist and chin onto the paved road before me - warm blood feels cold on nights like this one - somewhat relieved, i now begin to imagine my way home, and the explanation my daughter will be asking for
smeared in blood and spit and sweat, i look up from the paved road and see a multitude of men and women - men and women dressed in tracksuit pants, some in novelty looney-tunes pyjamas, and most holding torches, and most with ridiculously sensible hairstyles - "oh, get him!" one woman screamed - mostly the men advanced and begun kicking my torso, saving themselves from potentially damaging my head and brain and causing themselves later trouble - they beat me soft, yelling at me in a way that only a married man can - telling me to get out of this place - that this place doesn't need people like me - telling me that im sick, a dog, a little pice of scum - arms and legs crashing down on my pulped body like lightening slicing the humid air apart - and in the clearing, i see the face of my neighbour - the recovering alcoholic - he's not the ringleader, but he's participating
i think of the porn in his rubbish bin and succumb into unconsciousness
