(diaryland) November 15, 2009 - 10:07 p.m.

Man. These cliffhanger endings make me feel like I'm writing eposides of Lost here.

Chapter the Twelfth

Nothing happened for the next four days. Nothing. OK, well, I did watch a lot of The View while sitting in front of the computer, its light hum always in the background. I did go out and buy a couple of groceries. I ate some stuff. I may have bathed. I checked my e-mail obsessively, but to no avail. I nearly got a heart attack when I actually got an e-mail from a penis enlargement service, but when I realised what it was, I deleted immediately for two reasons: one, I did not have a penis, and two, it pissed me off.

I watched the statue from inside, but not too much, just in case it got too real.

Nothing did anything. The only thing that anything did was the weather, which did something. It got warmer, and I felt more tense, so I guess you could say that I was doing something, too. There was an unseasonal streak of over thirty degree temperatures which was making my butt too warm and was giving me the added feature of coming complete with bonus slight headache. I was dreading the real heat to unleash itself over the state of Victoria. The more warm it got, the more I watched the news, and the more I got more of a headache.

Finally, Tuesday rolled around so that meant I had an actual appointment. Tuesday night was the Acephalus Support Group meeting. God, it felt like an eternity, those last six days. I had come to the conclusion that Dave had never passed on my e-mails, nor did he possibly even comprehend their contents, which I had tried to make fairly simple, but not overly simple so as to avoid being patronising.

Maybe I should have just been patronising.

After checking my e-mail for the last time, and not getting anything, I grabbed my sunnies and left the house. In the front yard, I paused and faced the statue. A cool breeze went past my face. That was all. There was no sign of life.

The sun drooped in the sky. The statue was displaying a severe and rather lovely case of chiaroscuro, kind of like a Caravaggio painting.

I leapt in the truck.

It was as if the support group had been in suspended animation all week, except with a change of clothes. The A4 sign was still there, just slightly more weathered and rumpled. The �I ♥ MELISSA� guy was now wearing a t-shirt that said, �OF COURSE I�M IN LOVE WITH YOU, DARLING� on it. I wondered where he went clothes shopping. The clown-shaped Michael Bolton was still there, in his suit (different tie, though) and with his insignificant problems. The small grey lady who had been thankfully abducted by aliens was there, still small and grey. Interestingly, I had gotten there slightly late and the Jesus guy hadn�t turned up at all. Maybe he�d finally been crucified or something.

Doctor Andr� was leaning on a table as he liked to do, looking none the wiser about the e-mails I�d tried to get to him. The dolphin lamp was back. Dave was nowhere to be seen. Probably at his sister�s house.

The little beeping noise which was Doctor Andr�s preferred method of letting him know that it was 7:30 went off. He pressed his left wrist and said, �Hello again, everyone. Great to see you all gathered here. I just want to say, our friend who goes under the name of Jesus H. Christ won�t be joining us tonight. He has e-mailed us saying that he happens to have conflicting rehearsals for a nativity play he will be performing in around the twenty-fifth of December. He informs me that he will be playing the part of the baby. He says you�re all welcome.�

There was interested and impressed supportive murmuring from the group.

�Now, I have noticed there�s another person missing from the group. The young man in the wheelchair. What�s happened to him, I wonder?� said Doctor Andr�, directing the question part of what he said towards me.

Fuck Dave, man. How come he passed on Jesus� e-mails and not mine?

�He�s not coming today,� I said.

�Oh, is that so?� asked Doctor Andr� in the way that is not really a question, like I�d turned Vaughn against him just so he wouldn�t spend twelve bucks coming to these unhelpful meetings.

�Yes,� I said, weary at the thought of explaining it all again; weary at the thought of reliving it all. �I sent you two e-mails. Don�t you get them? Why do you have to get Dave to do all your computer stuff? Why do you even have him around? Let�s face it, right here, right now. He�s a bit shit.�

�Alright now, Anastasia. Perhaps we should avoid the use of loaded words such as �shit�, shall we? If you don�t mind, would you be able to briefly explain what happened to your partner?�

�Yeah, OK,� I said. �Basically, I invited Vaughn over to look at my fountain, which is not a euphemism, and he didn�t, but then he came back in the middle of the night and he got sucked in. And no, it wasn�t a dream. And yes, I think he�s dead. Mostly.�

�Oh, that reminds me of my story,� piped up the �I ♥ MELISSA� guy who was now the �OF COURSE I�M IN LOVE WITH YOU, DARLING� guy.

�Well, go on,� invited Doctor Andr�, sounding ever so slightly impatient.

�I ran over a clown at Moomba,� he said.

Someone cleared their throat in the way you do when you�re suppressing laughter.

�Was that in 2005, by any chance?� queried Michael Bolton.

�Yep,� said the �I ♥ MELISSA� guy. �How the hell did you now that? It was bad in one way, because I had to get a suspended sentence and everything. On the plus side, I killed a clown. I hate clowns.�

Michael Bolton stood up, bristling. It was incredibly striking how much this middle aged man, this unfortunately named, business suit wearing man, had the carriage and aura of a clown himself.

�That, sir, was my brother!� He yelled dramatically.

�Holy shit,� said the �I ♥ MELISSA� guy.

They threw down. I was rather surprised about that because the �I ♥ MELISSA� guy had drawn a huge gun at the drop of a hat last week, and also because those two were supposed to be partners. But, they worked strictly with their fists and their wits today, trying not to trip over chairs in this tiny confined space. Clearly, neither of them knew kung fu.

Things came to a head when Michael Bolton punched the �I ♥ MELISSA� guy in the hair.

I was sick of this shit. I had also forgotten to bring my workbook today.

�Could you please fucking stop it?� I yelled, and rolled my eyes. Doctor Andr� wasn�t doing anything. His expression before I spoke was something along the lines of, �Fantastic � these two are really getting in touch with their raw emotions.�

They stopped their pathetic fisticuffs and looked at me. Everybody looked at me. Finally.

�Could someone please help me with my problem?� I asked, not nicely.

�Which problem?� Asked Doctor Andr�.

�Oh, my god. The fountain destroying my Acephalus Support Group partner problem, that�s what!�

�Now, Anastasia, I don�t think that�s why you�re really here. Do you?�

�Well, it is now!�

�Anastasia. You seem like a very nice and generous person, but you can�t expect us all to believe you have a magical fountain, do you?�

�This is insane!� I screeched. �We�ve got a guy here who ran over a clown, that chick over there said that an alien dressed as a bikie rescued her from the Holocaust, and you�re inviting people to Jesus� nativity play, for fuck�s sake!�

�Now Anastasia,� said Doctor Andre with infinite calm, �Even you should know that it is well within the realms of possibility to run over a clown.�

I took a very deep breath and rolled my head back, blinking into the very dark ceiling. The strained light from the dolphin lamp did not venture up there. Also, I was still wearing my giant sunglasses.

I was so mad I couldn�t say anything. The words rushing through my brain in blood were staying locked in there in frustration My throat was furiously closed. . Finally, I brought myself to say quietly, through teeth, �Whatever.�

�Look, I�ll have a little talk with you after our session today, Anastasia, and you can tell me anything you want to, I promise,� said Doctor Andr�.

I didn�t like his tone. I think I wouldn�t have liked any of his tones at this point. I crossed my arms. �Whatever,� I said again, in exactly the same way.

Doctor Andr� cleared his throat and was clearly trying to regather his thoughts. �Uhm, OK, everybody. For those of you who remembered to bring your workbooks, we will begin working through page sixty-two, which is really page four, in a moment. But right now, I think just to get us back into the routine, we should listen to the story of one person who is willing to inspire and share with us.�

A completely normal looking man put his hand up. �Ooh, me! Me!� He piped up.

This has better be good, I thought.

�Yes, fantastic � go for it,� said Doctor Andr�, regaining his insubstantial confidence.

�Alright. My name is Thomas Bumbelby. You may have heard of me or seen me on the news, about eight years ago. I was the first person to marry myself and have a child with myself. It was groundbreaking science at the time. Not only that, I had to campaign to allow people to marry themselves, and it�s hard to do with all the prejudice around, and at least doubly hard when you�re the only person campaigning for it, standing outside state parliament all day with a big sign and a megaphone. Your arms get very tired. I�m so glad of what I did, though. I wake up to myself every morning, thinking, how could I ever get sick of this? The only thing is, I�m having trouble bringing up my child, Thomas junior. I��. I don�t think I like him.�

I uncrossed my arms. I stood up.

�Fuck this shit,� I said, and stormed out.

I was never going back there again. They were a bunch of hopeless lunatics. As I revved the truck in that stupid undersized alley as I had never revved it before, and as I was hoping that the revving might bounce off all the concrete of the arse ends of all the shops on the one side and the pilons and overpass on the other and create a sonic explosion which would shatter the teeth of all the occupants of that pathetic bridge club shack lit by the sole energy saving bulb of the dolphin lamp, I decided that everything I had experienced in the last week was real. The Atmospheric Skull, the red silk, the statue, the overly made-up lady, the brutal slaying of my friend by portal-slash-fountain, it was all real. I hadn�t made any of it up to justify things I may have done. Far worse things had happened to me last year in those steaming hot last days of the year, and I hadn�t made up magical fairy things just as an excuse. I some ways, I felt better about this decision I had made.

I roared down the alley and roared home. I parked in the drive badly, my fence more busted than before.

I jumped out of the rolled-down window. I knew it. I was thinking on the way home that there was magic again in my yard. I was right. I could sense it. It was a feeling like sparkles all throughout the air that you couldn�t see. I guess I�d gotten used to the vibe of my fountain.

I closed my eyes and breathed it in. It didn�t smell like anything, but I breathed it in anyway. I could feel the statue thinking about me. I could feel it breathing as well. I looked at it but I had to look away because it was too much.

Also, I saw that the very top of the fountain was bleeding, ever so slightly. A drop of blood rolled down the tip like a tear.

I ran inside, slammed the door, and went on the net. I�d left my e-mail on.

Yep, I knew it. A watched pot never boils, and all that.

This was the message from the unknown sender this time:

hey are you there i need to ask you a favour. like seriously right now.

I wrote,

I�m here now. What is it?

It was fourteen agonising, clammy hours until I received a reply.