A difficult friend

I was eating in a restaurant in Darlinghurst. A cafe really. Actually, I was about to eat, having ordered a chicken salad with arugula lettuce, pine nuts and feta. Although 'about to eat' might have been an optimistic assessment of the situation because the kitchen staff seemed to have fallen into a malaise brought on by the end of the lunch rush. The kind of malaise that results in overlooking small details. Like the docket for my chicken salad which was still hanging on the metal rack in the pass. Not that it mattered. Not really. I had all afternoon. For me, it was more a case of switching out of a particular way of thinking. I am, what you might call, a professional schadenfreude. I write an opinion column for a newspaper here in Sydney (if you're a young person, they used to print the news on big bits of paper, fold them up and distribute them on a daily basis. Yep, one of those things. They still exist. Just). I've been doing it for fifteen years and at this point in my career I write about whatever I feel like. A running commentary on how our city has changed over time. Continues to change. Topical issues. Local issues. Observation pieces. I have an audience.

You have to understand that it takes a particular kind of pithy cynicism to pump out 500 hundred print worthy words five times a week. A cynicism that doesn't just switch off or go away when you submit your copy. It stays with you and it tends to eat into your enjoyment of life. It can corrode your sunny disposition. So the trick is to find a way to switch gears. To stop seeing the world through jaded eyes. To this end, I have discovered yoga. Yes, yoga, my new dirty little secret. My new drug. Shameful because in the past I have largely ridiculed yoga as being a time filler for self-indulgent hipsters and eastern suburb housewives. Vacuous types. But now, I too have seen the light. I have converted and becomes one of....them. No more alcohol and no more drugs. It was difficult. I had to get through the rehab and the therapy. But now I have found my inner smile through bodily contortions and deep breathing.

Yoga. God help me. You should hear me dribble on about it. Yoga-I have found-is the only way to stop my mind tearing everything apart in slow motion. I write all morning, my heart a distressed little dog in my chest, trapped and overstimulated by coffee. And then afterwards, I leave my apartment and attend my daily yoga session in the Cross. Five days a week. In other words, I have finally found 'balance'. Pithy, caustic me in the morning hammering away on my laptop. Followed by blissed out, enlightened me in the afternoon. No more afternoons of self-destruction in the pubs. No more gleeful sabotage of my marriages and other relationships. No more substance abuse and lies. God help me I've achieved balance.

Anyway, I was sitting there, my patience beginning to get thin, as I tried not to fixate on the order docket hanging unnoticed, swaying in the light breeze, ignored for the better part of 10 minutes when these two fellows sat down at the next table. They were urban types. Corporate. Healthy of body and white of teeth. They were some new evolutionary stage of metrosexuality, heavy reliance on social media, alternative economies and services, superfoods, hot room yoga, pedicures, Byron Bay weekend retreats, flexible sexual attitudes and all the rest of it. Both of them deeply, deeply cocooned in their own special existences.

One of these 'fellows' started talking. My immediate and lasting impression? The speaker was a dower 'fellow'. A bummer. A killjoy. In describing him, I certainly couldn't use the word 'guy'. No way jose. He wasn't relaxed enough to be a 'guy' or a 'dude'. Calling him a 'man' or a 'gentleman' was a stretch. He wasn't fully grown. These words denote a level of maturity he didn't possess. 'A bloke'? Nope. 'A boy'? 'A chap?' No and no. The 'C' word? Certainly as Australian as Vegemite and beach cricket. And multi-functional (Your worst enemy or your best friend could be described using this part of the female anatomy. Love and hate in one handy word....ah hell, I'll nip this in the bud right now. I was plagiarising the past again. Something I was exposed to long, long ago by an angry girlfriend who was perpetually fired up and enraged by university feminism. Even though she herself came from a stable background. Part of the price I paid for securing her favours was listening to her rant on about these inequalities.....the things we do for our feminist girlfriends eh?).

Anyway, this 'Fellow' had a completely ridiculous posture, like a dancer. Even when sitting down it was like someone had fused all his vertebra together. In all other regards, he was taunt and drawn. Comically constipated. He had a withered, exasperated expression on his face. As soon as they sat down, he began talking. He talked for 45 minutes straight, only taking a short break to order coffee and a kale salad. He talked exclusively about himself.

While this was happening, the friend, who was more predominately in my line of sight, listened with varying degrees of attentiveness. At first, I tried to blocked it out. The speaker's voice. The listeners perky reactions. The problem was this fellow just kept on going. On and on he talked. Me, me, me, me. Eventually, my food arrived and I ate it while this fellow droned on about his mother, his lover, his therapist, the lady who he worked for, his proctologist, his personal trainer....etc. etc. All these people who were merely the bit players in his central drama. As I said, the sympathetic friend listened dutifully, tilting his head to one side, nodding, lacing his fingers together, raising an eyebrow in a concerned way, as I forked springy lettuce and chicken into my face. I began looking for a crack in his demeanour. An indication that he was on empathetic autopilot. Then, after fifteen minutes, I began to think, what is your deal? Your problem? Are you into sadomasochism? Is this how you get off? Absorbing this guys woes?

Anyway, I ate my meal and listened. You really couldn't really avoid it. Their table was directly next to mine. The speaker reminded me of a guy I knew once. Justin. A good friend of mine who, at the time, was incapable of casting himself as the villain or the asshole in any of the stories he'd tell. He was always the tragic hero. Everyone else? They were out to get him. Everyone else was wrong. Don't misunderstand me, Julian was very entertaining. He would tell me about all the usual run-ins a person that age has with drinking, drugs, sex, carousing and crazy jobs. All that. And the whole time he was talking, telling me all about his misadventures, I'd be seeing things from the other person's point of view. So for example, maybe Justin would have an argument with someone on a bus and things would get out of hand. He'd tell me about it and I'd reflexively side with the antagonist of the bus tale because I knew exactly what Justin was like. I couldn't help it. It was interesting at the time because Justin managed to get himself into a lot of fucked up situations. But like I say, I knew what he was like. Justin just naturally got under other people's skin. He did it without even trying. And it wasn't just that he identified with the incorrect characters in his stories. He incorrectly identified the genre as well. In Justin's mind, everything was always cranked up to high melodrama. As such, he would tell me everything with Rasputin's eyes. Eyes like two burning coals. And he would tell me these stories with exasperated hand gestures like he was playing an invisible piano. It was operatic. It was rock and roll. But the problem was....it always seemed like comedy to me. Unintentional comedy. In this way, he was a serious thespian unaware he was actually stuck in a farce.

I finished my chicken salad and I paid the bill. I got up, made my way through the clutter of tables and chairs to the front entrance. The waitress thanked me and I said, no problems. There was a little tip jar by the register but I felt no compulsion to leave any money. The service had been friendly but basically incompetent. I left those fellows-the talker and the listener-as they continued to sludge through the problems of the speaker's life. What has happened to us? That we all need all this attention? Why do we feel our voice need to be heard above all the other voices? Does it really matter? Why do we think our experiences, every single one of them, are worthy of an audience?

I went down the stairs of the subway station. People were knotted around the barriers, swiping their cards, consulting the timetables and checking their phones. A few minutes later I was sitting on a train, watching the sunny eastern suburbs slide past as I headed back towards the beach. And sitting there, I thought about you. I mean, I really got swamped by memories. I thought about the way things ended between us and some of the unfortunate things that were said. I imagined myself telling a stranger about our relationship....only this time I would try to explain things from your perspective.

I took some notes on my phone. Later on that afternoon, I fleshed these notes out into a short first person narrative. All explained from your perspective. It was an....interesting exercise. And now I want to use a word I don't think I have actually spoken aloud or written down in perhaps 30 years.

That word is sorry.

I'm sorry. That is basically what I want to say to you. Take it or leave it but just know this is a sincere apology.

I am truely sorry.

For everything.

All ears

(The distant sound of traffic, a door being closed, a chair scraping across a floor....) 

Okay....I'm ready....(clears throat)...I'll just start...I mean, I should know the drill by now right?....(laughs). Jesus....Here we go...

....okay, I've met a lot of people in my life, that's the truth of it. Many, many people. From an early age, I found myself always in the position of the 'listener'...um....I'd sit there and listen while people talked. And that was always the way it went. I have been told I have that kind of face....the kind that says, "Go ahead...tell me all about it. No really...I'm all ears."

I take my seat on a plane....buckle up, flip through the magazine to see what movies I'm gonna watch and I'm telling you....9 times out of 10....the person next to me will start talking...and I don't mean a conversation. I mean they will start talking...you know?....telling me about their day....their year...their life. And like I say, it's been this way since...since before I can remember....when I was a little kid in Canada, living with my mother, I clearly remember adults talking to me, telling me about their messed up, chain smoking, baby boomer lives. Things I was probably too young to really understand.... 

(An indistinct, muffled voice) 

Yeah....some people will talk. I mean on tape....others aren't interested...maybe they get weirded out by the offer? I would say on average it runs at 40 percent who say 'yes'...and the remaining 60 percent who say 'no thanks'. And look....I never push it. Not anymore....if you want to talk then fine....if you don't want to talk, well I respect that as well. Talking is one thing....but.....um.....when the tape recorder comes out...that's a different story....and I have learnt that the hard sell won't work...the harder you try, the more suspicious people become...

(An indistinct, muffled voice)  

....um...what I do is I interview people. Pretty straightforward....I mean, I get them talking...about their lives. I will ask questions....to get the ball rolling, but mainly what I do is, I try to get out of the way and let them speak for themselves....I like hearing about other people's lives. I like the....I like being on the edge of some else's subjective experience....if that makes sense?....you listen and it's like you're briefly on the same ride with them....you know?...because everyone is on a different ride. Okay? All of us....We're all locked into our own little existences. Even those of us with high levels of empathy...at the end of the day....our individuality is our final, hidden agenda...that's what I'm saying here. When all is said and done, you can only be you. And I can only be me. That's the truth, isn't it? We can try to bridge the gap in many ways...talk, fall in love, become business partners, friends, enemies...whatever....at the end of the day....can you ever really know what goes on inside another man's mind? Another woman's mind? I mean, you may know a great deal but you can never know everything....

(The sound of a glass or a ceramic cup being set down heavily on a table top)  

....sorry....there is pollen in the air today...stuffs me up.....(coughs). These tapes of mine...in some situations, they allow people to be about as honest as a person can be...it's that confessional-therapy thing....you'd be surprised how many people are out there, dying to unload. 

(Pause. An indistinct voice....) 

....the bigger picture?...um...I tell people it's a hobby-art-project thing but really it's not...I don't plan to make something out of it. A book or whatever...(short pause)....or maybe I do? Honestly, I haven't thought that far ahead...about what I intend to do with all these recordings. Maybe the true purpose of this project will become apparent once....once the time feels right? I mean once I have enough recordings....which...well, I'm not sure when that will be...

(Coughs. The traffic noise in the distance continues)

The problem is...I can't tell you when this will happen because...for me, it's still about the act of recording. It is about capturing these people on tape. Being there in the moment when they finally drop their defences and tell the fucking truth....the moment they purge....you can clearly see the relief in their eyes....

(The indistinct muffled voice....)

The original idea? Apart from recognising my innate listening abilities?...(laughs)....I had this book by a guy named Studs Turkel. He travelled around the United States interviewing people....like that...only he was a print journalist....At first, but then, later on, he started recording people....I'm pretty sure he did....although I've never listened to the recordings. Anyway, that book was on my parent's bookshelf when I was growing up, along with all the other writers of the day...reading it was like opening a secret door into people's secret lives...amazing. And over the years, I have always been drawn to interviews on the radio...people talking...the intimacy of their voices....just talking about whatever. It was like hearing someone's thoughts....

So yeah....after college, I got myself some equipment and I started interviewed people...It's been that way ever since. Last year I interviewed about 95 people.....give or take...I don't put any pressure on myself and I don't set myself a quota. When the opportunity arises, I'll take it. Like I say, I know how to approach people and put them at ease. And I know how to get them to talk...um...I just have that..."thing"....what ever that thing is.... 

(Indistinct, muffled voice)

....yeah....so the situation is...what you do....is you explain to them that the little cassette tapes...the ones I use...have a maximum recording time of 60 minutes...thirty minutes on each side...and that is it...60 minutes to say whatever you want to say. Now you don't have to fill up the tape but you can't go over time because the tape will just stop...and it's strictly one tape per customer....and the reason for that is....time constraints or limitations are good to keep people on point...otherwise...well, it could go on all day...you know? 

(Pause, clears throat)

Yeah....as I said, I have lots of stories. I listen to them once or twice before I archive them. I have a few favourites, which might sound a bit weird....I know....but it's not. No, at all...I'm not sitting there... jacking off while I listen to these people talk....um....It's not like that in that James Spader movie where the guy...and the video tapes and...he's all....Anyway, to date, I have hundreds of lives on tape. Hundreds of stories. People in rooms talking away. Dull stories, true stories...once and awhile a truly fascinating story....and everything in between. I have travelled a lot, lived briefly in many places...many cities...listened to many people's lives.  

....um.....for example....I lived in a residential hotel for twelve months in the United States. Little rooms all the same with the same crap furniture, the same leaky basins. All those people stuck in there being admirably optimistic. Or crazy optimistic....What did Steinbeck say? Something about the poor in America considering themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires?...It's true. Totally true....I came across a lot of that. Don't get me wrong...I think Americans are great because they like to talk about themselves so much...and they....generally speaking....they have interesting lives. Or at least they think they do....and sometimes that's all that counts.... 

...so....I did that for about five years....living in hotels.....working here and there when I needed to...and once I got tired of hearing Americans talking, I moved on....tried different countries. South America. Then Europe....where I met a lot of freaks....then down into Northern Africa. Cape Town. Australia. New Zealand. Up into South-East Asia....I had money...if that's what you were wondering...enough to keep going for a while. 

Yeah so...I approached these people and some of them would take me up on the offer. That being the case...we find a quite place and I hit the record button....and once it's done...once they have finished....I offer to send them a copy of the tape...by mail...if that's what they want. 

Finding these tapes over the past couple of years has become a bit of a challenge because....as you can imagine....digital technology has taken over. So...um....the company stopped manufacturing these cassettes, a while ago. Before they did, I stockpiled a supply....I have enough to keep me going for a few more years at which point I'm going to have to go down the digital road I guess. I'm not sure why the cassettes are important....they just are. Maybe it's the tactility? Or the time limit thing I mentioned? I don't know....

The upside of all this is I get to meet new people all the time. The downside is....I get to meet new people all the time. Look.....I try to stay objective about it....I came to understand....a long time ago I came to understand that you can't like everyone in the world....

....as you can imagine, it has taxed my ability to sustain friendships and relationships over a long period of time....It has damaged my existing ones....because, well...because I put most of my energy into finding new, temporary relationships. I can't help it. For me...people are like crack. I'm always chasing that new high, that new personality who will reveal something I haven't heard before. That unknown entity...

....um....look, I don't know....the drug analogy is a bit misleading....I don't believe in altered states of consciousness. I never have....You know something? It just occurred to me....all these things I've been talking about? You're actually quite good at it....at getting people to open up. You must be. I don't usually go into this much personal detail with people.... 

(Coughs)

...anyway...I guess that's all I need to say about this. I mean that's all there really is to it. It isn't complicated. 

Shit....(laughs)....did I even make it to the end of side one?.....really? No?

(End of recording)

The Action Dynamo Swing Set with Monkey Bars and Slide

This man in Beijing was once standing on an assembly line in an enormous factory. Picture it. A vast space lit by dangling fluoro lighting strips. He is a normal Chinese factory worker...or what I imagine a normal Chinese factory worker to look like....and he is doing his job.

And thinking about this man's life makes me feel a little guilty because he most certainly earns less money than I do. Maybe he is separated from his family who live out in the sticks somewhere and he sends his wages back to them regularly. And each night he goes to sleep thinking of them. His wife and his daughter who beckon him in his dreams to come home. Forget about the big city papa and come home, they call. But he can't because there is no work in the country. My Hollywood conditioned mind sees this scene quite clearly. Perhaps before he goes to sleep each night he looks longingly at a beaten up photo of his family. My imagination could have used a voiceover in this scene to explain the anguish this man feels but any scriptwriter worth his salt will tell you 'show....don't tell'.

Anyway, this factory worker is counting silver wing nut bolts that go into a small plastic bag for the Action Dynamo Swing Set with Monkey Bars and Slide. And on the day I am referring to, the factory worker must have spaced out and accidentally put fifteen of these galvanised bolts into the plastic bag instead of the required sixteen. An insignificant mistake, correct? Look, we all have our off days, right? I can't even imagine what it must be like to work in a factory like that. The tedium! My god! Can you imagine? This man has real world problems and here I am, banging on about this missing wing nut bolt. This poor bastard has to live in an over-industrialised, filthy-ass-air, substandard medicine-and-education, injustice-in-the-form-of-an-ineffectual-lingering-communist-regime-county.

And me? I have Australia problems. Which is to say, no real problems. Not really. Not by comparison. A patchy internet connection. A parking ticket now and then. A co-worker who talks a little too much at work. Other than these small complaints, it is clean air and sunshine all the way. So all things considered, my life is pretty good.

You know how they talk about the butterfly effect? How a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere in the world and this causes a chain of events which, following an intricate pattern of cause and effect, result is a hurricane on the other side of the planet?

well....

Anyway, the bolts and all the other parts of the Action Dynamo Swing Set with Monkey Bars and Slide are put into the cardboard packaging. This flat pack unit trundles along the assembling line, with the other flatpacks, moving through the echoing space of the factory, before being loaded into a shipping container which is shipped to Australia where it is eventually stacked on a shelf in a large retail shop. Another vast space lit by artificial lighting. And this is where I entered the picture with my shopping cart. I selected the swing set up and heave it onto my cart assuming all of this boxed swing sets would be identical. I paid at the self-serve register and go outside, where I find the sky is covered with dark clouds and I notice fat summer rain drops are just beginning to slap down on the warm pavement. By the time I'd reached the car, it was raining heavily and the first thunder clap cracked the air open, sending people scurrying for cover.

I bought this swing set because we had been telling our daughter Jessica all summer to go outside and play. And her response? Basically, our daughter reached for her iPad to google how to play outside. When she did this we knew we'd let things get too far with the screens and the devices. We were understandably concerned that we were creating another fat little screen zombie. You should see her cousins.

Anyway, I loaded up the swing and drove home feeling victorious. And once the storm had passed, my wife and I went outside and set to work. We decided on a suitable spot, near but not under the jacaranda tree. We pulled all the parts and components out of the packaging, at my insistence because when it comes to assembling items like this, I'm always methodical in my approach. I laying all the parts out, making sure they are easily accessible. After this, I skimmed through the instruction book getting a sense of the overall steps involved before starting properly. Melissa, my wife, started getting impatient. This speaks to the kind of person she is. My wife Melissa will jump right into a venture feet first whereas I will take my time and gather the information I need to complete it properly. This has been an ongoing bone of contention between us since the second year of our marriage when these personality quirks came to light. Mel is of the opinion that too much caution impedes life. That it sucks the very life out of…..life. This from a woman who has had (last time I counted) 11 car accidents in her short driving career. Most of them minor scrapes granted but still….A person who seems allergic to any kind of preparation or forethought.

Anyway, the instructions were easy enough to follow. You taking your time, work step-by-step through the entire process and you will be fine. (As I say, I am the kind of man who believes in taking things step-by-step. Melissa….not so much). At various points, I would look up to find her walking around aimlessly, holding a random part with no idea where the bloody thing goes. Not a clue. In other words, being counter productive.

Despite all this, we got this swing set about three-quarters of the way complete but then...then we reached the point where we needed that crucial sixteenth wing-nut bolt and it wasn't there, was it?

This necessitated a return trip to the store which wasn’t at all successful because, even though I’d remembered the receipt, the manager decided he wasn't going to play ball. He stood by some ridiculous store policy that required the swing set to be returned in the exact same condition it had left the store. That is, it should be ready for resale which, in his mind, it wasn't because the cardboard packaging had been compromised and would probably need to be bound up with tape with a little sign attached which read, 'sold as is'. It didn’t matter that his company had sold me a swing set which was missing a part. No. This knucklehead couldn’t get past the fact that either he or one of his underpaid staff members would have to deal with the headache of returned item. As such, he stood by this petty police which everyone knows is usually sidestepped to keep the customer (me) happy. I made the usual threats to write a letter of complaint to his supervisor. In response to this, the manager (A blindingly bald man, hence the nickname ‘knucklehead’. It was like his head was a large stubby thumb with eyes and a mouth) smiled and said, go ahead. Be my guest. And that was the end of that.  
So I drove out of the useless chain store parking lot, cursing and composing the letter of complaint in my head, with the faulty swing set still jammed in the boot of my car. Still minus the crucial part. I decided to find a similar screw at the local hardware shop. I spent another hour wandering around the isles, consulting with staff members (ask me a question! I’m an expert!). At the end of my search, it was determined, there was no comparable bolt. For some reason, the Action Dynamo Swing Set with Monkey Bars and Slide had highly specific parts. What I am saying is a generic part would not do the job. The homeware assistant rattled on, providing me with a solution which sounded like committing to further complications....something about widening the hole with a drill so I could jam another bolt in there, after bending it with pliers to follow the curved shape of the metal support tubing but being careful not to…..blah blah blah. I began to wonder if the smarter move mightn't be to buy a ticket to Beijing that night. How long would that take from Sydney? 9 hours? Anyway, I could fly there and go straight to the factory by taxi where I could pick up the part. And maybe have a word with the Chinese factory worker. Something like 'I appreciate you're under duress but maybe you could pick up your game a little.....' Actually no. That is just the anger and frustration talking. I am not that guy. What I really should do is talk to the factory Manager and say, Mate! where was the quality control in all this? Eh?  

So you can probably see where this is heading. The swing set never was never properly completed. I had another attempt using a substandard part. Jump forward four, five months, the metal supports will have sagged, collapsed and will eventually be claimed by weeds. The plastic swings and the bright decals on the slide of the swing will become faded in the harsh UV light that assaults Australia all summer long.

But before all this, my inability to erect the swing set, to take care of the situation, resulted in series of arguments with my wife, each on getting progressively worse. Essentially, these were the same argument over and over again with slight variations. And of course, these arguments weren't really about the fucking swing set. They were about the reservoir of minor resentments and tensions and bullshit that build up in any relationship. The swing was only the catalyst. And I'm not saying I blame the Chinese guy in the factory. Maybe this humble worker doesn't even exist? Maybe they have a machine that spits those screws into the plastic bag? I don’t know.

In any case, the Action Dynamo Swing Set with Monkey Bars and Slide would make an appeared in most of Mel's future accusations and diatribes against me. And predictably I would take the bait. Time and time again I would take it, rising from the peaceful depths to bite down on the sharp hook of our mutual unhappiness. The swing was emblematic of the fact that, despite all my planning and caution, I had failed to make my life work. Failed to make my wife happy. Failed to keep my kid from becoming fat. I had failed.

Eventually, Mel and I separated. A trial separation which turned into a longer separation. Our lives became a series of angry encounters in doorways and through car windows. The cracks would become fissures that would run through our lives. The damage was too vast to describe in detail (Although having said all that, one day, years later, I was stuck in a hotel room in Malaysia during a monsoon with a half bottle of duty-free Bushmills and I did attempt to make a flow chart on a napkin.  A flow chart to show how all the cracks formed and connected and eventually separated us. I used a heavy felt tip pen which bled ink directly into the thin napkin as if were a vein had been opened up and black blood was flowing out of my hand. And there was no way to stem the flow).

Note to self

My mentor, a man named David Kreel, told me that periodically I should write a letter to myself. Do it yearly, he said. Or monthly. Whatever you want. The point is, do it regularly. These letters will serve as a marker. A personal contract. You can set yourself goals. You become accountable to yourself. Write down what you are currently doing and what you want to accomplish during the coming weeks and months. What you need to change to accomplish these goals. If it's in black and white, dated, signed...well, it's difficult to make excuses around something like that. This is one way to take more responsibility for your life, said David.

My mentor was in his late 50s when he gave me this advice. He was sitting at a large wooden desk, dressed in a pair of tennis shorts and a shirt with the Adidas logo splashed across the chest. David told me he kept his letters in a lock box in a bank. That he would go to the bank and read them from time to time. To remind himself what he had done. What he needed to do. For him, it was the act of writing it down that counted. As long as he had put these his thoughts down on paper, that's all that mattered.

For me, it was different. As David had suggested, every couple of months I would feed a clean piece of paper into an electric typewriter and knock out a short letter to myself.  I felt foolish addressing these letters to myself so I would start them with a generic 'Note to self'. As soon as I got these words down I'd have no problems filling up one side of an A4 sheet. Single spaced. I stuck to my typewriter for a long time, a large IBM. The kind you might have found in an office building during the '70's. I only began to change with the times when it became difficult to purchase ink ribbons. Then, slowly, hesitantly, I began working my way through a range of different laptops, each one growing lighter, faster, sleeker in design and more powerful. Laptops I mainly inherited for other people. I still kept the typewriter. Out of a sense of nostalgia.

The point was, I always printed these letters out because...because I need to mail them to myself. It wasn't good enough just to get the words down on paper. I needed the letter to leave my possession. There was something gratifying about dropping it in the mail slot. Feeling the letter slip out of my fingers and drop into the dark belly of the post box. And there was something equally as exciting receiving it three or four days later, complete with a postmark. Even though it had only been out of my possession for a short period of time, it had been handled by someone else. It had been sorted. It had moved through the Australian postal system. And like a boomerang, it had been returned to me.

I would open my returned letter, read it and be genuinely surprised at encountering my own words again. Just that little bit of distant made the words resonate with me all the more. I am not entirely sure why but there you have it. I would read the words aloud and think, I have to at least attempt to do what I've written. It was like receiving a direct command from the best, most virtuous, most optimistic version of myself. And so, after absorbing these"command", I would put the letter in my filing cabinet, the one in my office, and forget about it until some later day when I may of may not read it again. The point was I knew this promise to myself was out there. And as such, I was obliged to get off my ass and do something with my life. And this was fine for awhile. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I actually followed through on the promises I made to myself. And sure i could have emailed this same document to myself but it wouldn't have been the same.

Then something disconcerting happened. One of my letters came back altered. Changed. I was standing in my hallway, wearing a dressing gown, having just received the little jolt of pleasure I usually felt when I heard the mail slot flapping and the postman's footsteps receding along the path. And I sliced open the envelope and started reading it, as I always did. It began the way they all began. Note to self.....etc. etc. But by the time I got about two or three sentences in, I realised something was different.

You're not happy, said the letter. You cannot sustain the life you are leading because it is a sham. You can fool yourself only so long with these tiny, insignificant so-called-goals but eventually, you will need to make a real change. I hadn't written these words. I examined the letter back and front. The envelope it had come in. It looked like the one I'd mailed only three days before in the city but it wasn't. Clearly, it wasn't. In that letter, I'd mailed out I'd resolved myself to cleaning the rain gutters and visiting my father at the home.

I didn't need this. I mean….I really didn't need some kind of batshit crazy fracturing of my psyche. If that’s what, god forbid, this was. I didn't have a bad life. I had a wife, child, career (job), house (money suck), car (oil spot on the driveway. See house.), dog (vet bills. Exploding piles of sun hardened faeces when I mowed the lawn), a fridge full of food, garage for tinkering, small group of school mates for the occasional catch up (Erroneous social connections. Tiresome competition. Nicknames from a different life), gym membership (bouncy eye-candy on next treadmill over. Look but don't touch. And don't get caught looking), walks around the local park (see dog), peace (arguments with wife all but abated as a result of correctional relationship therapy. Or as Gerald would crow, “The inevitable acceptance of being pussy whipped my son”. See small group of schoolmates for……etc, etc), the latest phone (until the next one comes out), a music (Vinyl. Yeah, I know how that sounds) and a wine (a monthly delivery in styrofoam and cardboard) collection, annual holidays (Vietnam this year. Next year talk about a beach house in Queensland. Shoot me now), a bedside Kindle (Intimacy avoidance tactic), online streamed television series (vicarious living through the lives of edgy fictional characters. Something to talk about. Filling in the gathering silence. Banging on about the masterful character development and gratifyingly sustained narrative arks. See wife and small group of school mates for……etc.), online pornography (closed loop gratification. A monkey with electrodes attached to its genitals and head), medication (yes please), up-to-date dental work (keep smiling sunshine), a middle bulge I couldn't quite get rid of (see gym, fridge and wine), work colleagues (I could just about stomach on a daily basis. See career. See filling in the silence with catch up conversations about edgy tv characters), an extended family (kept at arms length. Are you kidding?), over-priced ballet lessons (see daughter), insomnia (see medication), mild depression (see medication and a crushing sense of nostalgia and the feeling that time is passing too quickly. See LP's and wine collection), an espresso machine, steady neighbours (freaks), fourth high school reunion (Seriously. Shoot me now. In the face.), daydreams (pipe dreams more like), media-stoked fears of global environmental and socioeconomic collapse. And all the rest of it.

Okay, I wasn't entirely happy. Sure. But who is at this age? I certainly wasn't ready for some kind of mental collapse. It did occur to me that I was exactly the same age as David when I knew him. It also occurred to me that those five years I knew David was very important to me. Formative. My parents….in fact, my entire family were background figures during that time. But David? David was clear and present. He was in focus because what came out of his mouth seemed real. He had been through the Vietnam war. He had real stories.

Anyway, this letter…..I knew what I'd written and it wasn't this. At first, I assumed it was a joke. Someone had found out what I was doing and they were having me on. Fine. And please don't worry: I do not intend to become the unreliable narrator of my own life. There is no raving loon in the wings of my subconscious mind playing cheap mental/story games with A. me and B. you. So fear not. Besides, hasn’t all that silliness already been thoroughly explored in our culture? You know, how at the end of the story, the main character reveals he had some hip form of schizophrenia or some other neurological malfunction all along? How it subverted the telling of the story? I get it. Everyone wants a Mr. Hyde for their Dr Jekell.

The letters kept arriving. One after the next. It was like being my own pen pal. Now each time the mailbox flipped open and I heard the postman, I felt a sliding sense of dread. I didn't want to be unhinged. I didn't want this paradox existing in my life. I started to see these letters were all basically external observations, descriptions of my life from distance. As if written by someone watching my daily routine unfold through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

Creepy right?

You bet it was.

The fifth letter was different. It was a detailed plan, with clearly laid out steps, each one numbered and in neatly formatted paragraphs. I read it twice. It explained how to set up an online account under a different name. How to falsify the documents I would need. The names of the people who would help me in the coming weeks. How to prepare myself physically for the swim. How they would find nothing other than my wallet and some clothes on a beach up north. My car keys.

It was ridiculous. I had no intention of following this plan. There was no way. Not in a million years. I folded the letter....the plan...up into a tight wad, shoved it inside an empty tomato can I found in the recycling, took the can outside and put it in the bin.

I fell asleep that night with the light on, my wife snoring lightly from her side of the bed. When I woke up, the sky was just beginning to lighten. Morning birds were chirping from the trees. My wife hadn't moved, or so it seemed. She was still snoring away, her hair spilt across the pillow, her back to me.

I lay there for quite awhile and then I heard the garbage truck moving along the block, getting closer. I slipped out of bed, wrestled with the lock on the front door for a few moments, then ran outside, catching the garbage man just as he was about to wheel my bin over to the compactor scoop.

Knees

Hey Chucklehead,

I understand what you were saying before about ageing...You get older and it seems like the laws of physics change. You stand directly over a plastic bin at work (just as I just was this morning) and you drop an ordinary, balled up sheet of A4 paper (the first hopeless attempt at the quarterly report) into the bin. The bin in the corner of the room, by the photocopier. And somehow you manage to miss!

What happened? Your fingers opened, releasing the ball of paper. It fell as it should, straight down, pulled by gravity towards the centre of the earth yet somehow it bounced off the rim of the bin or swerved off to one side at the last second, its path altered by some unforeseen office draft perhaps? Or some aerodynamic anomaly which could be attributed to the object itself? Anyway, it ended up on the floor. On the carpet. In other words, disposing of this wretched piece of paper has turned into a two-step operation. A. The first failed attempt and then B. the bending over, the retrieving, joints creaking because elasticity has faded, grunting in an unseemly way, to pick up this defiant ball of paper and place it back in the bin.

It now seems like 4 out 5 times I miss the target. I am talking about dead drops as mentioned above, casual tosses, victory spikes, rebounds, deep three-pointers...in short, every way there is to dispose of waste paper, used teabags, scrunched up receipts, screwed up Post-It notes, orange peels, apple cores, cellophane packaging from food products I have just eaten, stickers, folded up envelopes, empty paper coffee cups, banana skins, dental floss, used condoms (not at work of course), instruction manuals, snot clotted tissues during the cold season, old magazines, used up prescription drugs packaging, shopping lists, old airline boarding passes.....all of these items and more. 4 out 5 times they end up on the floor next to the intended target-the garbage receptacle.

And if they don't swerve off at the last minute, their trajectories mysteriously altered by god knows what, then they will happily bounce out of the bin, ricocheting off some other item, even when thrown directly and decisively down into the bin. The point is, this simple task now inevitably involves extra bending, stooping and lifting. Meaning there is extra strain put on my joints. Extra twinges in the lower back, displacement of blood from the torso as it suddenly rushes down into my head. Black diamonds spinning in the corners of my vision when I straighten up. Ligaments stretched in unpleasant ways. Bones grinding. You get the picture.

Now I seem to spend half my time bent over my own gut, trying to touch the floor as I pick things up. After sixty-three these kinds of callisthenics are demeaning and like I said before....unseemly. What I don't understand is....why? Why do these malicious pieces of garbage refuse to cooperate? Refuse to make their way to the landfill? This is the reason I have decided to become an unapologetic litterbug. If you will excuse the pun, I have given the proper disposal of these items my best shot but now, in the name of preserving my knees and my dignity, I must littler.

Andrew Myers.