Skydekkerix

Sorry about the wait guys. Here is some stuff I wrote about living in my favourite city. I hope that you think this is an okay thing.

I have seen more of Brisbane by the eerie half-light ofstreet lamps than I have by the suns benevolent rays. I have seen tree-trolls, and void-houses and daemons, lots of daemons.

I moved out of home when I was seventeen. I left the country and moved back to the silver city with nothing but the promise of adventure and
a job at the Subway at Indooroopilly shopping centre. The promise of adventure could go fuck itself, all I wanted to do was play videogames and listen to My Chemical Romance.

I moved into an apartment complex in Taringa. It was more like a concrete shelf than a house. I had no bed. The only furniture I had was
an old cupboard with a door that didn’t shut the full way. I spent most of the year scared that a dog would come out of it and eat me in my sleep. I was scared of a lot of things, being raised in the middle of nowhere with no troubles at all except the rats in my shed/room stealing and collecting my underwear. I was scared of being hit by cars, I was scared of being knifed by homeless people, I was scared of girls.

I spent most of my waking life in the small storefront of the Subway. Forty hours a week in the same three by five metre strip. The
weekends were saved for drinking with work friends and videogames. I would walk along Moggill road to get home, usually at about twelve at night after a closing shift.

One particular night I had walked up the long hill and reached the bottle shop in Taringa. I crossed the road and something strange
happened. Fear solidified in my subconscious and took physical form. Ectoplasm shot out of my left ear, unnoticed by me, and took the shape of something just crossing the road behind me. Some dude was following me.

I heard his footsteps behind me on the deserted streets. I chanced a look around. He was tall, with messy blonde hair in a mushroom shape
sitting on top of his head. He had a wide smile, a maw filled with shark teeth. His eyes were like tiny exploding babies burning in his eye sockets. He wore a white polo shirt and jeans.

I walked down a steep street to the train station. He was still following me. I thought “He’s probably just catching the train. Nothing
to worry about.” I climbed the stairs and crossed the train line. Walking down the side street next to the empty parking lot I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I heard the steady clunk of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs towards me. I knew it then. The daemons had finally come. They were here.

I started power walking. The rapid sound of my heartbeat drowned out everything else. I walked up another hill. I stopped and looked
back. Down the bottom of the hill, half lit by a street lamp, was the man. He was smiling. I think.

I ran the rest of the way home; down another hill, almost being hit by an angry man driving a woman’s car.  Past a construction site that started up at six in the morning every morning. I ran to the front of the apartment block, avoiding all the dark areas of the garage and the laundry. I fumbled with my keys, the lock jammed. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. I balled my fists. I summoned up all the grim resolution I could. I turned to face him.

It was just a fat man in his underwear carrying a load of washing to his apartment. I turned back slowly, unlocked the door and went
inside. I turned on all the lights in the apartment and sat down and played videogames until my morning, trying not to look at the windows. The sun roseslowly and I thought to myself. I love Brisbane, because everywhere else scares the shit out of me.