Carousing into the dawning morning with musician mates in the ninety laties.

The Paradise Club. Kings Cross. Sydney. Australia.

It’s early. Perhaps late. Point of view type of thing.

Out of my smoky, hazy reverie I realized that the garrulous stranger was still talking at  me. Shrugging off another tax-dodge anecdote, he turned up the volume and languidly spinning back into the lotus position, began to pack another bong.

“Of course the problem in the long term is not having anywhere permanent to live. Ever. Yours, I believe my man?”

I prepared to renew my acquaintance with the bamboo spirit. Scratch. Suck. Gurgle. Pause. Whoooooooosh of exhaled smoke. Gut-wrenching cough for two agonizing minutes. Still his voice droned on, through the sound of blood stampeding from my peripheries to the rescue of my organs and other mysterious untrustworthy inner workings.

“Mind you, its pretty good being on the move a lot. I mean, it doesn’t much matter where you are, most places you can bludge a cuppa tea and a place to lay your head.”

“Yech, what a creep!” slipped through my mind … then away in a flurry of swallows as I escaped the tangent that his ego was dangling for my attention. It was elsewhere. Very elsewhere. On questions of innocence that bring me undone in the starfall hours of night. Nightclub time of illusion and heightened intensity of nonsense.

Sydney Saturday nightclub daze. Paradise winding down as the Sabbath unfolds, oh yeah, revealing furry dreams untold in painful stages of alcoholic hell.

Dawnlight taxi scrabble for salvation, wondering about my piano playing friend who didn’t say goodbye. Just disappeared into the rock’n’roll night, leaving me with the drunken Fijian prince and his awkward pickup lines. Ah well, see you next year, eastern summer time.

Onward to the junction of towers, the windy Babylon of the urban eastern seaboard. Where shoppers bargained and welfare was grudgingly dispensed. 

There they all were.

Sherry geriatrics hobbling home from Housie.

Desiccated Double Bay dowagers double-parked outside David Jones.

Varicosed veterans of the battle of the sexes, all secure in an icy truce, or widowhood. Sisters in spinsterhood, united by age and anger.

Everything looks better in the morning. Embrace the confusion, ride the chaos, let the uncertainty principle be your guide.

Spread the word … there’s always more than two options on offer.
Disregard Descartes.

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