(diaryland) November 11, 2009 - 8:58 p.m.

Here we go, guys. And by guys, I actually mean Rosie, who is the sole audience for my November Novel. So, Rosie, enjoy.

Chapter the Eighth

I must admit, I did drive really slowly, especially around corners. But it really wasn�t that far to Balwyn. It was kind of odd driving a guy strapped into the back of my shipping crate around in order to view a fountain that I may or may not be imagining as alternately spewing out just about anything, or taking the hat I needed for work. I was far more used to spending my time driving around large quantities of hot pink nuclear aquatic tricycles. I didn�t think too much abut how Vaughn was back there. I was thinking more about what was immediately coming up ahead. I was always trying to think like that. Three centimetres or three seconds ahead.

When I finally pulled into my driveway, things were a bit worse than I expected.

All that was left of the groaning purple mushrooms were round patches of rumpled grass. Nothing had yet appeared to replace them. Bums, I thought.

The thought did cross my mind that the fountain at least wasn�t attempting to ruin my life further just for attention, or else surely it would have put on a light show if it knew I�d brought a guest. That is, if the fountain knew what I was doing when I wasn�t at home. But couldn�t it just give me a little sugar right now?

I breathed shallowly so I wouldn�t vibrate, squinting, willing for something to move just one millimetre���.

��..the fountain wasn�t moving a muscle. But maybe I could feel magic hanging in the air like dew.

I scratched my groin and opened up the door to the shipping crate. That was a classic truck driver sequence. Always scratch groin first, then open door. The other way around is just weird, plus it was an instant fail in the driving test.

Because the moon had sprayed everything in my yard with silver, it took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the inside of the shipping crate and to spot Vaughn, especially because he was no longer where I�d put him. Vaughn had not only fallen out of his chair, but had also rolled all the way to the front of the crate and was lying in the front corner in a foetal position.

All the euphoria I had experienced about thirty minutes before as I�d roped this near stranger into the back of my shipping crate drained out of me and the lump in my throat returned.

�Are you OK?� I said, timidly.

�No,� he said in a way that made it sound like he was going to throw up.

�Can I help you get your chair?� I asked, even more timidly.

�No. Just take me home,� he said. I couldn�t see his face.

�You haven�t seen my fountain,� I said, toeing the ground.

�I�ve seen enough,� he said, weakly.

I breathed shallowly. I was rooted to the spot, the bottom of my cheeks bright red. Any words I might have wanted to say right then, which incidentally amounted to zero, were stuck in my throat. So, technically, nothing was stuck in my throat.

I faced the fountain. The whole front yard was defiantly still. I held my breath.

A breeze touched my face and got behind my sunglasses, stinging my eyes. The night became sharper. The very highest tip of the fountain began to move, ever so slightly, like a mouth murmuring in its sleep. I saw something ghostly oscillate at the top of it, where the Atmospheric Skull and the red silk had come out, just barely at first, but then more obviously, like a time-lapse film of maggots on a corpse. Slowly, a white flower squeezed from the top of the fountain like an obstinate parched shit, then fell to the ground and dissolved like phantom rain before it hit the ground.

Yeah, a lot of similes in that last paragraph, I know.

I turned to Vaughn. His face was no longer buried in his arms.

�Did you see that?� I whispered.

�Just take me home,� he said, again.

He wasn�t wearing his glasses. I didn�t know how bad his eyesight was. Did he see what I just saw? Did it look like just a blurry falling leaf to him? Was he one of those people who wore glasses just for the hell of it so he saw it all, as clear as day? I dared not ask. I couldn�t even bring myself to ask him whether he was going to be OK rolling around for the second time in the thirty odd square metres of shipping crate I had going on there.

I did, however have to ask him one unavoidable question. Which was where he lived. The question came out like the last reluctant bit of toothpaste coming out of a tube.

He said with finality, �Just drop me at St Kilda Junction,� this time, through his arms.

OK. The lump in my throat was getting so big I couldn�t swallow properly.

I shut the door again on the unmoving figure of Vaughn Bourbon, quietly, and went around to the driver�s door. I did it on tiptoe because I couldn�t bear to have Vaughn hear my footsteps. It was all too embarrassing. I even flipped through the Melway quietly. Then off I went again, into the night where as the moon went up, it got whiter and more motionless.

I parked illegally, all over tram tracks, where I thought Vaughn had meant for me to release him, and then I opened his door. I hid behind it and waited for him to go free as a tagged animal recovering from a dart of anaesthetic. I didn�t want to see him again.

I guess it was not chivalrous. It took an agonising amount of time for any movement from within the shipping crate to occur, but there were no calls for help and no talking, so I guessed the feeling was mutual. Finally, there came a thud, and soft creaking which I could follow from the front of the crate to the back. Then, he agony of silence again. Then, the squeak of his stupid teenage wheelchair.

I saw his long, rag doll legs dangle over the edge of the crate from where I was, around the side. Oh, crap, I thought. I�d forgotten to make the ramp go down. The promise of watching the rest of the debacle as displayed under the door made me squeeze my eyes shut, moving my sunglasses way up my face.

I counted to three hundred and sixty-five because I was feeling symbolic.

Then, I dared to creep around to the open door, whispered hello into the box-shaped darkness for insurance, and shut it up.

I drove home. I did an especially bad job of parking. When I made a dent in the passenger side door on the fence so badly that nobody would be able to open that door again, some lights in the house next door came on. Dogs started to bark. The flow and the action-reaction of the world did not carry into my yard. My yard felt like petrified wood.

I jumped out the rolled-down window. This evening was too warm. I went up to the fountain; the statue, specifically. There were in fact four statues on this fountain, all probably representing different gods or corners of the ancient world or whatever. Gods I didn�t know about. Or ends of the world. But I went up to my statue; the one who had watched me. I took off my sunglasses. I really did. My statue had pupils that were bored into the marble. It was looking somewhere else. I touched it on the shoulder and it was as cold as the others.

I went inside, wandered down the hall and ate a can of wasabi peas. Then I watched an infomercial about an all-in-one exercise machine. There were so many ways of using it, the advertisement went for at least half and hour. Sometimes people would just stand near the bloody machine and put on hand on one of the thirteen squishy handles and do lunges. It was kind of fascinating.

Only in the ads within the larger ad did I remember the embarrassment of the evening past. I�d throw my head back, look at the ceiling momentarily, then shut my eyes. Finally, in this way, I dropped off to sleep.

I usually kept the sound on the TV down, unless there was a bit on the news about weather. I always turned up the TV when the weather was on, and I was so keen to hear Melbourne�s forecast that I�d always miss it because I was thinking too hard. But, no danger of that here. The volume was way down and by the time I remembered anything else, the weather they were talking about was somewhere in Kentucky. The TV�s function in the middle of the night was primarily to throw shadows anyway.

I think I was snoring. I could feel the Today show on NBC just dance on the perimeter of my consciousness. Matt Lauer was most probably in fact somewhere in the world, but I was in no state to guess right now.

A heavy object glided into the room. The light from the TV reflected off its round limbs and dazzled onto my eyelids.

It was my statue.

[I don�t remember there being any noise at the time.]

Who are you?

[Its lips parted.]

I am Apollo.

I can see the shadows of the veins on your hands.

They are just like yours.

You�re so tall when you stand up. I only ever see you crouching and lifting.

I am the Sun God.

I want to ask you a question.

This cannot be avoided.

Why didn�t you help me?

[It put its hand to its lips.]

You touched my shoulder.

[I could see a faint blush of colour.]

That was pretty much it. The curtains fell again on my consciousness and I slept like a log.

I woke up in broad daylight to Karl Stefanovic�s unmistakeable tone. My eyes felt like they were being grilled on a barbecue. I wondered where the hell I�d left my sunglasses last night. Most likely the fountain ate them. Give a ghostly flower, take protective eyewear. It seemed kind of fair.

The daytime wasn�t so bad. I mowed the back lawn with the cordless lawn mower I�d gotten for free with the house; I think it was solar powered and silent. I chucked a couple of capfuls of pool chemical stuff in the nearly empty, but severely leafy, dollar sign shaped pool. I got a rake and pulled a branch out. That was enough for the day. My head was splitting.

Night fell again and the temporary lifting of the increasing insular feeling I�d had for months had set in with a vengeance. I couldn�t even see myself ever going back to work. The more still I was, the more it made sense. I made a big red patch on the right hand side of my face by resting it in my hand, staring distantly into the telly. I rang some place on the sole brochure that had ever made it onto my fridge and got a pizza: Hawaiian. I brought myself to eat one slice. I left the rest about a metre away in the open box. It could be a dust catcher.

An hour later, a rock was thrown at my front door.

Two minutes later, another one.

I went to investigate. I hated to admit it to myself, but I hoped the fountain would have something to give me.

I opened the door a crack. There on the doorstep, like they had been especially laid there, were my huge sunglasses. I grabbed them and put them on.

Nothing was going on, though. I didn�t get it.

But then, I spotted a shadow in an uncomfortably small wheelchair, waving on the other side of the street.

It was Vaughn Bourbon.

That was pretty surprising.