You think we're dancing? ... That's all we've ever done.

 

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(diaryland) November 15, 2010 - 10:44 a.m.

Interlogue

OK. Heh. Right.

Bryn is in Melbourne now. His personal Life Graph thing has much to be still quantified with the needle.

I don�t know why the needle doesn�t just map it out before you are born.

In a few days� time, there will be something else on the Graph, on that long, long kilometric piece of paper.

Yes, it�s pretty much unheard of. Not 100% unheard of, but it�s a rare case here.

There will be another line on the Graph, being plotted with the same needle, but in red and in a dotted line, and so, so thin and delicate.

It�s possible because it�s in another dimension, this Graph. Otherwise, it would be annoying because someone would always have to change the ink manually, because there�s only one needle.

This line will be a very smooth line, not like the line Bryn had been plotting out for the last thirty-three years (including gestation period). That was jagged and pointy, wiggly and hesitant if you looked at it closely.

And this line would start off exactly where Bryn was, but it would go flat, and then rise up a little bit, and then slightly more steeply, then gathering more and more momentum exponentially, it would either go all the way off the top end of the kilometres long piece of paper, or just sort of stay up high until the conclusion of this story. I will decide later.

But, let it be known that this dotted red line will go up pretty fucking high on that doomed piece of paper; that finite piece of paper.

Yeah. Take that. Yeah.

What was the cause of this line?

It was something Bryn had breathed in while he was writhing in the desert. It was his moment. It was just before he looked up and saw that the humanoid cactus that might or might not have been the same was there again.

He had not breathed in dung beetles or scorpions along with the dust like he had thought. No. Wrong continent, buster.

He had breathed in a seed.

He didn�t know this, but that was why a sniffer dog barked at his tummy a little bit in the airport, but its boss didn�t seem to care.

This seed only existed in the Sonoran Desert. It was a mystical seed, from a plant not found in the world.

I haven�t decided whether it�s a physical seed, or a metaphysical seed yet. Metaphysical seeds might be more handy, because it has far more capability of growing in people�s tummies.

Whatever physical or non-physical properties this seed had, it was a seed that could lead you to the Flower World. It would lead Bryn to the Flower World.

It was hard for the Flower World to reach Bryn all the way over in Melbourne. It was more used to reaching the one person every hundred years or so pretty much locally.

It would have to pull out some stops to catch up with Bryn. Eventually, it would.

The seed would break open and start to sprout precisely during the Costume Party.

And So It Is Written.

AND NOW, PART THE SECOND. THE TIME OF THE SEED.

Chapter Four

when the fresh night comes
o night hawk
you fly up
o night hawk
out there
in the flower world
under the dawn
the light beyond us
you fly up
o night hawk
from a branch of mesquite
you fly up
o night hawk

- Yaqui

15 Flower World Variations

Laden with backpacks and novelty keyrings, Bryn squeaked open the front door.

It was 8:30 on a Sunday, in Elwood, in a 4-year-old generously proportioned apartment on the third floor, the top floor. Glass with a green tint, steel and light grey plasterboard. Things on slight angles. A big terrace that conveniently transitioned from the living/dining space for awesome parties.

I just wanted to say that, so you knew what to imagine. A lot of stuff is going to happen in this apartment, so I don�t want you to fuck up in your imagining of it.

There wasn�t as much a sea of discarded Big Ms as Bryn had thought there might have been, but there were a lot.

The main problem with this place was � well, there were two main problems, actually, was that Feng was too familiar with Bryn, and the other problem was that Feng�s parents owned this flat.

Bryn wasn�t the neatest guy ever, except when it came to his bed. Yeah, the bed was very, very neat, with special exorbitant count pure cotton sheets, and a good doona, and always tucked in, hospital, crease-free style with the pillows matching. The rest of his room was a tangle of gaming systems and a dusty plasma TV. Dust really loved to cling to that motherfucker and obscure his view of distant aliens he was trying to shoot.

But the thing was, Bryn knew how to throw things into a bin. And he didn�t consume Big Ms every second of the day like it was the lifeforce equivalent of someone trapped in an iron lung.

Bryn couldn�t say much about cleanliness because Feng always said, �Bro, my parents don�t care.�

Bryn would say, �I care. I don�t like getting soggy socks as I traipse through the TV pit.�

And then Feng would give him a noogie, which rendered Bryn�s argument invalid.

Bryn had at one time made a fairly hefty investment in an army of bins (very modern and slick looking, because Feng was surprisingly thingy about d�cor for a person who left behind a trail of Big Ms and frequently rumpled the Barcelona daybed somehow), and left them in strategic places. He had done studies of Feng and the paths he took throughout the house, and all the most likely spots where he threw Big Ms. There was a pattern in it. A distinct pattern. There was one place where Feng always threw Big Ms over his right shoulder at 9PM in the evenings, and Bryn had so, so carefully placed a bin there, at the end of the trajectory.

Most of those bins remained empty. They were probably the least cluttered things in the house.

Oh, well, at least he had tried.

The curtains were all open in the lounge. The early morning sun was flooding in, lighting up all the Big M cartons like big, square pearls, being all glary, and it didn�t feel right. Glare was for nine or ten hours from now. He had to go to bed. It should have been midnight.

There were piles of DVDs in the TV pit. Feng had probably had some friends over. Every night.

He hefted all his stuff to the bedroom. The sweet, pristine bedroom. Well, at least the bed.

The door was ajar.

That in itself was a bad sign.

Nope, the bed was not the way he had left it. No, no, no. The most disturbing thing was probably not the fact that it was completely covered in various flying V guitars, basses, cords, leads, not-properly-folded-away microphone stands, effects pedals and even a practice amp tucked away on the left-hand side like it was a child, but more the fact that it had a different doona cover and no longer matching pillowcases and sheets on it. They were probably polyester blend ones, not cotton, which really riled him up.

The room had an air of sweatiness to it. Some remnants of a dismantled drum kit sat in front of the TV. There was a token effort at soundproofing � three open egg cartons were hanging from the light in the ceiling, and a mattress of unknown origin was sagging against his wardrobe door.

He hated it when Feng had band practice in his room when he was away.

Bryn chucked his stuff down on the floor and stormed into Feng�s room.

He wasn�t even in there.

You could tell why band practice hadn�t happened in Feng�s room. Feng�s room was full of everything he had ever touched academically since Prep. Feng�s room was a giant, claustrophobic pile of paper. Forget about opening the window. Forget about even seeing the window. Just put that out of your mind, man. It was hard for Bryn to even tell that Feng wasn�t in there.

It was a tinder box. They should have really installed a sprinkler in there.

Feng had always said that maybe one day he�d need an obscure piece of paper from first year uni. You could never tell what nearly unused piece of info might crop up at a meeting or something. You couldn�t count on it. True, it would have been impossible to find it, but it was there.

So getting Feng to get all those instruments and throw them into his room wasn�t an option, for two reasons.

The thing about Feng was, he was an intense hair band rocker trapped in an ultra-nerd�s body. He was an accountant. He worked in a skyscraper that sat next to Bryn and Trevor�s work. He was always there on time, ears popping as he shot up the lift at 8:59AM. He was efficient. He was obsessed with Big Ms. No matter what he did to it, his hairstyle always made him look like a Chinese gymnast. He didn�t wear anything leopard print. He was think, and weak. He couldn�t move an empty bookshelf forty centimetres.

On the other hand, he went to bed at 4AM every night except Monday and Tuesday (no real reason why those days were a bit earlier), and played bass in a band called The Majesty of Footscray. They had done one gig, two years ago.

They played a style which Feng described as Butt Rock. It sounded like a made-up term for stuff that was cock rock, except on an intensely lower level. Bryn had never graced it by looking it up on the net. They played covers of Whitesnake�s I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight up to fourteen times in a row to warm up for band practice and got Bryn to take photos of them miming playing their instruments on the top of a small hill down the street. There was talk about being the next Nickelback. Bryn couldn�t tell if Feng was serious. The last two things Bryn had heard, just before he left for overseas, was that they were attempting to cover When I See You Smile by Bad English, and that they were trying to get a record deal.

They�d obviously been doing something, on Bryn�s bed.

He went back into his room and wondered how to fall asleep. He surveyed the mess of pointy instruments more closely. There was paper shoved in the mix. He pulled one random piece out.

It was a new song, scrawled in Feng�s felt-tipped accountant writing, entitled �Bryn�s Bins�.

Am E Am E C

(lead solo intro bit)

Wooah, I love your bins.

They�re so modern.

I don�t wanna fuck with them.

Am E C C

It was a work in progress, obviously.

Feng was the lead singer.

Bryn put the page back on the bed and took it as a tribute to himself, rather than the other way around. He sighed, and leaned against the doorway.

This was all just way too fucking hard. He was going to have to sleep in the DVD-riddled TV pit.

Bryn walked up the corridor, and kicked a Big M carton, its leftover stale milk splashing onto his left pant in an act of karmic retribution.

Marcelle would have been there to put a wet paper towel on his leg to try and suck out the milk. But she wasn�t there. Ever. Again.

Hmph.

God, even getting all the party stuff off the couch just so he could lie down was going to be a big deal.

He wanted to procrastinate. Just a little bit.

His tummy rumbled conveniently. Oh, yeah. All he�d had was crazy plane food that had made him flatulent and disinterested, and that was hours and hours ago. Why did they put so many beans in their food?

He went to the fridge, and he never got around to opening it, because there, right in the middle of it, held on by a local real Estate Agent�s Calendar magnet, was the Far Away Cactus.

Yes. The Far Away Human Cactus. It was There. On A Postcard. On The Fridge. Right In The Middle of it. Spookily standing on that same infernal hill, in a nondescript part of the desert.

Bryn�s stomach growled. Not in a friendly, �I�m hungry,� kind of way. Not this time. It was more like a pang of gut pain but higher up, probably something to do with shock. Probably something to do with feeling like he was being chased, by post, by an evil cactus. It was like a ransom note. He doubled over, pushing his tummy in with his hands, hoping the pain could get better somehow. He tumbled back onto the kitchen floor, crushing several Big Ms, their discarded shells crinkling unpleasantly and firmly against his body. Bryn lay like that for a while.

It could have been jetlag. It could have been the weird plane food. It could have been all the last month�s alcohol, catching up with him again.

It could have been, but it wasn�t. That�s all I�m saying.

The Cactus was chasing him across the world. He didn�t know what he�d done to ever deserve this. He had never tried to kill a plant on purpose.

He�d heard their spines were pretty goddamn sharp.

This Cactus was on a mission.

But why, for God�s sakes, why?




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