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

 

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(diaryland) December 01, 2010 - 1:07 p.m.

Chapter Nine - Basic Space

(where is the rotted stick that screeches lying?)
the screeching rotted stick is lying over there
(where is the rotted stick that screeches lying?)
the screeching rotted stick is lying over there
there in the flower world
beyond us
in the tree world
the screeching rotted stick
is lying
over there the screeching
rotted stick is lying
over there

- Yaqui

15 Flower World Variations

Finally, he floated up to a higher state of consciousness. It took some time, and it happened quietly.

Bryn opened his eyes. Or did he not open his eyes?

He fought against the dark feeling. The feeling of pitch black. His eyes scrambled to open, yet they felt gaping wide. He blinked, and scrunched his eyes shut. He opened them again.

Oh, it was because the place he was in was dark.

His head ached. His stomach ached. He felt woozy, yet he was experiencing terrific lumbar support. Well, at least he had that going for him.

He figured that he was in his bed. The lumbar support thing was a dead giveaway. He started to calm down a little bit.

He tuned his other senses as best he could. His ears were obscured by ringing from the short-lived live music. He could hear the vague, muffled bass of a Dr. Dre or a Warren G through the door. West Coast. The party must still be going, he figured, just in a permutated state.

His eyes tried again. But, no. There wasn�t even light coming in from under the door.

The air felt cloying.

He tried to sit up a little bit, but that turned out to be a fucking terrible idea. His head stung with prohibitiveness. He wasn�t going to get it much more than a tiny bunch of centimetres off the pillow. He put it back down again, on the side. Bad idea, too. There was a big, big bump there.

�Owies owies owies,� Bryn croaked.

�Oh,� said a disembodied voice.

�Woah, shit,� said Bryn. �Woah.� The adrenalin made yet another quick dash through his body. It had been a lot of action this night.

�Sorry,� said the voice.

�OK,� said Bryn. He put the doona over himself a little bit more. Obviously, someone had put him in the bed, because they didn�t do it quite right. He felt like he�d been laid out like a corpse. He wriggled a bit, slowly, carefully, to feel more like himself.

Then, he lay still. He could hear the other person breathe. They seemed to be about two metres away. It was fucking creepy, actually.

�Are you OK?� The voice finally said, softly.

�Dunno,� said Bryn, all small sounding. �I think I really, really just need to sleep. Is Feng out there? Is my brother out there?�

�I don�t know if your brother is out there. Feng�s out there now, though.�

�OK,� said Bryn. �Thanks, I guess.�

He lay there again in the near silence for a while. He had less questions about the events of the night and who this dark character was than he might have.

He didn�t want to know anything.

�Hey, I want to ask you something,� said the voice, still calmly like they were a trained hypnotist or marriage counsellor or something.

�OK,� said Bryn.

�What is your poison and what is your honey?�

�The future and the past,� he said, and he buried himself deeper in the bed.

His brand new sunglasses were probably wrecked, and this person was weird.

�How�s your head?�

�Bad, real bad. I need Panadol,� said Bryn.

�Reach over to your bedside table. I put some tablet there, and a glass of water.�

�Thanks,� he said.

He lifted his head again and reached his hand out to grab the relevant items. �Oh, god. Oh, god,� he hissed through his teeth. This was a Herculean effort.

His throat was like the inside of a toilet paper roll. I heard they�re pretty dry. He washed the tablets down as best he could and the water went into his throat like phantom rain.

Mercifully, he put his head down again. The pain went down to just-about bearable levels again.

He stretched out. The other person didn�t say anything. They didn�t rustle, or fidget in their seat. It was too eerie.

�Hmmmmmp,� Bryn sobbed.

That was about it. He could feel himself slipping back into unconsciousness. It felt bad, like he was going under a general anaesthetic and there was no choice in the matter. He�d only ever been under general anaesthetic once, when he was about thirteen and he had appendicitis. Nobody had believed him when he�d said it. His parents had thought that Rhys had just practiced his taekwondo moves on the right hand side of Bryn�s abdomen again. By the time his mum had driven him to the hospital and they�d observed him doubled over in the waiting room thing near a man with a slight axe wound, it was nearly bursting. They had to rush him into the operating theatre, shaking, and that�s where his battle with going under had happened.

He felt nauseous in the same way as on that early morning, years ago. Fighting unconsciousness.

Doubled over and about to vomit. That seemed to be a pattern pervading his life, now that he thought about it. Bryn Mossman, second son of a second son, hopeless, vomiter.

That was when the disembodied voice chose to speak again.

�I should tell you something. I have to tell you something.�

This quickly brought him round. Oh, god, he hoped that this person was not about to say what he thought they were about to say.

�Uhhh,� he murmured, partially in protest, partially as a weak gesture of courtesy, all he could muster at this point.

�I have to say, first of all, that I cannot stress enough that the party tonight, in your house, was a costume party.�

�Yes,� said Bryn, softly. He didn�t want the voice to say the worst thing that could be said, yet the voice was pretty calming.

Before the voice went on, he heard it shift just a little bit in a chair, and there was a creak. Goddamn, it was probably the chair that was covered in all his undies, albeit clean. Well, it had to be. It was the only chair in the room. The undies chair. Well, with the shifting, at least he could now say that they weren�t disembodied. At least it was dark.

�I was in a costume. I don�t want to frighten you, but I am still in that costume, because I wasn�t wearing much else underneath. It�s really hot inside it. I just can�t take it off. I am the cactus.�

�Oh, shit,� said Bryn, yet calmly in spite of himself. It was just that the voice was so calming sounding, and the story was reasonable. It was the voice of a teacher who sounded so relaxing, they sent you into a daydream so you couldn�t concentrate so when they asked you a question you had no idea what the answer was because you weren�t listening so they were always grumpy at you which wasn�t air because it was their own fault for sounding so relaxing. It was a voice that could cast spells.

Yes, despite himself, and despite having a dreaded cactus in his room, he cold feel himself slipping away again.

�I�m so sorry,� the voice said. �I didn�t mean to scare you. It�s just that�.. fear of cacti isn�t a very common phobia.�

Bryn did not answer.

�I feel bad.�

He still couldn�t answer. He felt like he�d sound like a knife cutting watercolour.

�I just hope you feel better by the morning. Can I get you anything else?�

Bryn cleared his throat partially like he was letting the air ripple to test its surface tension. His fear had subsided as the tablets began to work. Fast acting, they were. Probably full of codeine.

�Just talk for a little bit more, please. I�m fading.�

�OK.�

The voice considered what to say next.

�I wonder if you can see the background radiation in your eyes. There is a green fuzz there. You can control the fuzz. Your eyes are closed.�

Somehow, Bryn�s head sank further into the pillow. Hi temples unfurled.

�You can control the fuzz. It can turn into a pinpoint from which continuous colours emerge in the dark.�

It was happening.

�First, there�s blue, and as it dissolves into the periphery, it turns to dark purple. Then, red. It appears as a dense blob, and it grows and the edges become ragged, like a drop of blood.�

Shit, this was actually happening. These were real colours.

�Then, orange, which becomes pierced with bright yellow.�

He was disappearing into the colours. Fuck, this was trippy. This voice, hard to believe it was a cactus, was such a strange individual. He couldn�t think about anything else. Frankly, the fear of the cactus no longer had room to enter his mind. It was just a costume anyway. Yeah, a costume. Nobody was in his mind anymore. Just the voice, and the colours, and after a while, not even the voice anymore. It had faded away on a tide of colours in black.

Reality came closer for a few moments, because the voice said something. Something which, in some ways, was less weird, but in others, more disturbing. It didn�t sound 100% calm anymore, but it was trying.

�Oh, shit. Uh, sorry about this, but I think I�m about to have an episode. I freaked out so hard when I saw you faint, I think it did something in my brain, and it�s going to result in something very unpleasant. Shit. This hasn�t happened in over two years. Fuck. Uh, excuse me. I require medicine.�

He did not notice the cactus rustling over to the door, opening it, letting the Nate Dogg bassline (technically a Michael MacDonald bassline, but let�s not quibble here) and the chill out light waft in gently for a few moments, and then nothing. Just, nothing.

The codeine had gravity. Bryn sank further down. There was always still a little bit of pain. It couldn�t disappear completely or he wouldn�t exist anymore.

The black kept being painted and it was symmetrical, like a slowly unfurling Rorschach, or a blossom. There was no sound outside the bed anymore.

Whichever position he was in when he slipped away was the exact same position in which he would remain until it came to the time to emerge into the world again.

But, he would no longer be entirely part of the world anymore. He wouldn�t notice it at first.

Chapter Ten � For the Trees

ah brother
look at you
a deer with flowers
brother
shake your antlers
little brother
shake your antlers
deer with flowers
why not let your belt
your deer hoofs
shake? why not vibrate
cocoons
strapped to your ankles
brother
shake them
little brother

- Yaqui

15 Flower World Variations

He woke up again. It was still the same Nate Dogg song, but twelve hours later. It was still the same headache, but it was bearable.

He got up, and went out into the lounge.

There were still a couple of people lying around in their costumes, the midday sun covering them in a blanket of heat and light. He didn�t understand how anybody could sleep like that. Unless it was the result of mild alcohol poisoning.

There was recyclable stuff everywhere, all over the floor, particularly of the brown and green glass kind. Bryn was used to that, I guess you could say, but instead of Big M cartons as was per the norm, it was just about all empty cider bottles, some of them crushed into the carpet. What was with this recent craze with cider? All the yuppies were at it these days.

He avoided the unconscious Fireman Sam, whose placement on the floor at the end of the hall was a fire hazard, and rounded the apartment to the kitchen.

There was Feng, sitting on a stool, looking mad as a cut daisy.

�Dude, what the fuck?� he said.

�I�m sorry, man,� Bryn said. �I was just�. I forgot to pull up my pants after I went to the toilet and I just hit my head really hard. Surely other people did other more destructive things at the party. I mean, look at the floor. I�ll pay if my head dented the wall or hurt the doorknob or something.�

Feng shook his head. �You just don�t get it.�

Bryn was confused. �No?� he said with an upwards inflection.

He couldn�t help wondering how Feng could have been bothered sleeping in the daisy petals all night, and how they didn�t put little round creases all over his face.

Wait a sec. Maybe Feng hadn�t slept at all. Maybe he�d been lying in wait all that time. He did stuff like that. We�ve established that.

Oh, it was the Majesty of Footscray thing.

�Oh, that,� said Bryn. �I�m sorry. So, you had to stop playing after I fell victim to concussion.�

�Yeah,� said Feng. �We only got half a song done.� He sniffed. �Half a song.�

�What can I say? I didn�t mean it. The cactus spooked me.�

Who gets so scared of a goddamn cactus costume that they nearly die, man? What the fuck is with this cactus thing?�

�I know. It�s stupid. But I don�t think I�m scared anymore. Just a bit weirded out still.�

Was that time in the bedroom even real?

�Well, anyway, we put you in your bed and then we kept playing. But it was still fairly bothersome because we�d lost our momentum sightly.�

�You played after I collapsed? Man,� marvelled Bryn. He should have been the one mad. It was kind of callous.

�Woah,� said Feng. �I can�t believe I just said that. Yeah, sure you have an insane fear of cacti, and you can�t manage to pull your pants up after pissing, but I played a gig after you technically fell into a coma. When I verbalise it, it sounds bad. Shit. Sorry, bro.�

�It�s OK,� said Bryn, and they shook hands. Then they chuckled, together, there in the kitchen, a green bodystockinged daisy and a bloodshot guy with smudged pen all over his arms. Ah, how they laughed. They laughed for about one minute. It was like a fade out from a sitcom recorded in front of a live studio audience or something, with outlandish costumes.

Then they both sighed. �Ah,� they said.

�So, how did your playing go down after my little incident?� Bryn asked, moving on.

�Yeah, pretty good, actually. They seemed to like our new one, Rock Hamlet.�

�Cool. I haven�t heard that one. Is it about Shakespeare or something?�

�Na, like a really small village, with only about four houses, that rocks.�

�Oh.�

Just then, a Pink Power Ranger woke up near the bookshelves, and stumbled out the front door.

Well, at least that was one thing taken care of.

It broke the spell a little bit. Feng glanced up at the microwave clock. �Uh, shit. My parents and my sister are coming over in two hours,� he said.

�Oh, my God,� said Bryn.

�Meh,� said Feng. �Maybe they�ll clean up for us. I did it once yesterday already.�

�I don�t think it works like that,� said Bryn.

Feng shrugged, and took a sip of chocolate milk.

Bryn started to feel short of breath. Whether it was conveniently staged in order to get out of tidying, or still a leftover from the cactus-based near-death experience, he had to go back to bed.

�I have to go back to bed,� he said.

�OK,� said Feng, shrugging in his shiny green bodystocking. �See you on the flipside.�

Bryn trundled off to bed again, slipped away very quickly, and did not dream again.

When he woke up, it was five. God, another whole weekend up in a puff of smoke.

He wouldn�t have another weekend like this. I know this. He should have enjoyed it. Sleeping in, traffic humming away outside, Feng�s shenanigans and band practice, normalness, just about. Well, at least it was normal for him.

He traipsed back out into the lounge, feeling a bit disoriented. He�d only been living there for two and a half years, but when you sleep that long, and you�re not sure whether a cactus which has �episodes� lulled you off into sleepyland the time before last, you have to question fundamental things. Like where you are in your house.

Or maybe it had something to do with the miraculous transformation which had taken place. The whole apartment screamed clean.

Feng�s mum and sister were sitting at the kitchen bench, wearing rubber gloves. So they were the culprits.

�Hey Mrs. Bays. Hi Mary,� he said. �Don�t tell me Feng made you actually tidy the place.�

�Hi Bryn,� said Mary. She blushed.

She was the shyest person ever invented. Maybe if Bryn still hadn�t gotten married by the time he was forty-five, Mary could step in. He�d always thought that, ever since he hung out at Feng�s parents� house and they�d first met. Bryn was wearing happy pants, blonde highlights and a hypercolour t-shirt which revealed which parts of his torso were far too warm and she�d even blushed then when they�d shaken hands. They�d never actually said any more than hi to each other. She couldn�t cope with any more.

�Well, all of us here know Feng�s a bloody nightmare to live with,� said Feng�s dad, sprawled on the couch.

Bryn poked his head around the corner. �Oh, hi, Mr. Bays,� he said, as was the custom.

There was Feng, still a daisy but a bit worse for wear, sprawled even more impossibly spreadeagled on the couch, like a cartoon of an intensely relaxed person. The petals had wilted. �I told them that you fell down in the toilet and went unconscious so none of the mess was your fault. I also mentioned that I rocked the party.�

�Thankyou,� said Bryn. He wasn�t sure whether it had been a speech to be thankful for, but he tried it out anyway.

Feng�s dad shook his head.

�Well, at least you�re alright now,� said his mum. �No thanks to your housemate here.�

�God,� pouted Feng. �You love Bryn so bad. You always have.�

After the prerequisite uncomfortable silence, it was time for action.

Bryn cleared his throat, undecided as what to do next. He felt like he needed some light. He looked around.

�Dude, you need a shower,� said Feng, hypocritically. �The backwards Es are smudged all up and down your arm.�

Bryn looked. Indeed. �Indeed,� he said. �But not just yet. I think I need to go for a bit of a walk, you know?�

�Nuh,� said Feng. The only exercise Feng ever got was when they commuted, or when one of the giant piles of fossilised assignments in his bedroom fell onto his bed and he had to push it off.

�Whatever. OK, see you all later,� said Bryn, and he left the apartment.

Bryn hadn�t really been outside properly since he got back from his holiday. Sure, he�d seen the CBD, and the way to and from destinations, but that didn�t count. He hadn�t really been outside in Thailand, either. All he�d done was seek out the most cave-like edifices with Trevor and drunk himself silly in them.

He decided to walk to the roundabout up the road and walk back, and breathe in some fresh air. If a sea breeze had wafted this far in and decided to shoot up his nose, he wasn�t going to complain about it.

One small sea breeze did. He could tell. Fuck, what a glorious day. Fuck, fuck. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

That�s all Bryn could think of thinking.

The air was right. The trees were buzzing. The bark was geometric. He walked past a tree, trapped in the path, saying something to the ground.

Bryn didn�t notice that. I mean, he noticed that the tree was talking to the ground, but he didn�t notice himself noticing it if you know what I mean. Plus, he was noticing it more with his tummy than with his brain.

The light went through this tree and all the other trees on the way to the roundabout so that it spelt out dappled stuff on the path like red-green colour blindness tests. It was pretty cool. Bryn hummed and whistled (and beatboxed, where necessary) along to it.

I wouldn�t say at this point, Bryn was aware of anything being different. He wasn�t even feeling like he wanted to spend more time outside. It was just a thing that was happening.

He walked around the roundabout and back down the other side of the street. This was a pretty short walk, but at least it was something. To be brutally honest, Bryn wasn�t known for his excessive exercising, either. This was just about going to do it, this just-over-one-kilometre non-land-speed-record walk.

Things were held up slightly when he saw a tiny little clover plant trying to make its way in the world, growing through a little crack in the footpath. It made Bryn laugh.

�Silly little clover, growing all by yourself there, with only a little moss for company. Oh the things we do, hey?� he chucked.

An elderly man walked past quickly, looking uncomfortably at Bryn.

Oh, so Bryn was one of those guys now, was he?

�Can�t a man with backwards Es in four-colour pen smudged all the way down his arms laugh heartily at a fledgling clover plant on a Sunday without having the harshest of judgements pass upon him?� He boomed as the old man scuttled away.

Jesus, people were arseholes.

Bryn went home. Up, and to the right.

�You want to go out with us and get some Thai?� asked Feng, still a goddamn full daisy.

�Yeah,� said Bryn.

�Have a shower, then.�

�OK,� said Bryn. �You too.�

�Good idea,� said Feng�s dad.

�But can I wear my daisy costume to the restaurant?� asked Feng, pouting.

�Yes, OK,� said Feng�s dad, sounding tired.

�You know, I do want to, but I just don�t think I�ve got quite enough guts to actually go through with it,� said Feng.

�Good,� said everyone.

Oh, how they laughed, and how they showered.

Separate showers, though. I just want to make that clear. Feng�s room had an ensuite.




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