look up from your screen and see I’m surrounded by real estate agents - comparing numbers, photos, someone elses sense of humour – the he-said/she-said world of strangers –the advice of strangers will surely disappoint more often than not, unless the hype of a popular-cool tantalises, entices, and robs your soul for the chance of feeling as though you were actually a part of something important – how did all of this food become anything worthwhile in the first place?
and i see my friends dying beside me – I try and imagine the words I can conjure up that will give me the most amount of sympathy from a world of anonymous cowards and a world of endless opportunity – how can I use this awful experience to paint myself in a cool, hip, blood? – in-touch and exclusive, and i see a room full of people out for personal gain – are you useful to me? – who are you? – nice pants – can you help me reach my distorted, materialistic, soulless view of success? – yes? – great here are my details, contact me sometime – no? – ok, how are you going and nice to meet you – I see a competition of arseholes – I see a race run by heartless people sending text messages to their friends – carrying flowers for no reason – carrying flowers to their partners despite the fact they haven’t yet stopped to smell the roses… motherfucker – I see a world in trouble – but I see a world of problems that can all be solved instantly by looking at your phone for guidance – want to go to a restaurant? want to find a bar? want to go to the movies? want to find your way around? – want to take all the life and joy out of this city by narrowing it down to an electronic replica you follow like a god and stash in your pocket with the rest of your loose change and shit? by filtering this city through a what’s hot / what’s not list? – do you know about the fantastic joys of getting lost and finding something new, and digging it because you found it alone - yourself - not because an anonymous stranger said it was cool – I see the wasted minds of my generation taking the advice of anyone willing to give it to them - i see the wasted minds of my generation taking the advice of soulless-arseholes, and paying them for it - I see a demand for organic, healthy food and fun, but a complacency with synthetic, soulless, electronic relationships– I see a demand for enlarged studio quality headphones, but a complacency with synthetic, soulless, marketed music –I see the ignored graffiti and street artists and i envy the unemployed – I see the authorities watching, taking notes, finding ways to make my life safer – finding ways to expose artists and bring them to the unprepared masses – I see a dumb and happy world where everything is made to be easy – where someone’s making money out of making a fool out of you
***
the night had split somewhere between love and saturation – we both started to calm down, right about the same time as the rain – she sat on the couch, with a blanket over her legs reading the track-listing on the back of a mazzy star album – I poured her another glass of red and nursed the bottle in my lap
-good album, huh?
-I thought this was the one with still cold on it
-yeah…. nah… it’s not
I took a deep swig of the bottle, and watched the warmth of the candles awaken the dark paintings that hung on the walls – the wind and rain lashed in bouts outside, while the candles flickered delicately inside – the room floated as though we were dangling from an antique hot-air balloon, high above a strange and mythical medieval land – despite this, she rose to her feet in a beautiful mellow motion, the blanket falling off her slowly – she moved down to turn the music up, and we both drifted further into our soft, careless, shared dreams
***
one large empty house - one tiny little soul, trying his/her best to become even smaller, even more insignificant - it always seems so much smaller on a monday night - the soul that is - the house, well, it feels all so much more bigger on a monday night - it's so dark outside - it's so dark inside too - it's time to put out the washing - three pairs of denim jeans - nothing else - nothing else has been worn in this house for the last six weeks - no shirts - no jackets - no socks - no underwear - no bras - no hats - no gloves - no shoes - full service - just pants - you can see them swinging in the night's breese from the old kitchen window - outside, the possums crawl around on fences and in branches - they mind their own business, like good little souls of the night - pegging the jeans on the line doesn't take a very long time, but if you spend some time look at the suburban stars, it can take an eternity - look at them just hang there, like peeking children playing hide-and-seek - back inside, it is cold and dark, and only one chair to sit in - here, he/she sits, and thinks about their life so far, their life right now, and their beautiful inevitiable death - they look at their bodies in the reflection of the glass from the paintings on the wall - they are in good shape, eating only garden vegeables and scotch-whiskey - the monday night echos like no other night - it's hollow and empty, like a beautiful suburban industrial street corner - the echos of the factory machinery drift away - drifting off to the stars, like fathers returning home from work - the head lights of a singular passing car light up the lounge room wall in one gentle moving sweep - and this is the last thing the tiny little gentle soul sees, before he/she falls asleeps in the chair - one slow nod, and they're gone
