Skydekkerix

I am not the man I used to be. Years have changed me. I have drug juggled, had numerous nervous breakdowns. I have loved, lost, seen death and put a man in jail for most of his natural life. I’ve seen families fall apart, friendships suffer slow heat death, and watched as my body slowly becomes the husk it is destined to be. The falcon is long gone and the falconer is considering buying a cage and a hamster. Also I have forgotten how to piss.

It happened a little while ago. I stood up, walked to my throne. I did my usual thing where I unbuckle my belt and undo the button on my jeans because I don’t like the teeth of my zipper biting into my hog. Then something broke in my mind. I stood wide-eyed as my flesh hose shot out three streams at high velocity, one going straight down onto my faded blue cons, one circling the seat and backspraying onto my grey jeans, and one going straight into the backboard and seeping down into the hinge of the seat where it is impossible to clean.

It just got worse. I put off emptying the waterskin until the last possible moment now. I can’t use urinals, nobody can see what has become of me. Even using cubicles I spend an uncomfortable amount of time cleaning up after myself. Everyone goes quiet when I step out like I have been doing a public danger fap surrounded by forty year old men who know how to use the damn thing they were born with.

How do you fix something this broken? Is it psychological? Do I have to sit in front of the lady that tells me to think positive thoughts and ask her to help me use my own damn birth sword? Is something wrong with my dick? Should I ask my fifty year old becker-style gp to give me a pill so I can do something that every fucking living organism on the planet seems to have no trouble with? Do I have to carry around a length of hose just so I can get my coffee ghosts in the bowl instead of the floor? When a man can’t trust himself to urinate who can he rely on?

Life gives us the lessons we need but sometimes life is a dick that can’t piss straight.

I spent the last two days angry. I didn’t take the important half of my meds and I hadn’t slept much. Woke with crazy brain and headaches. I don’t have the fun bipolar where you spend half your time drunk and singing and making bad business deals. I just hulk out and shoot electricity from my ears and get strange notions about the wind.

Eventually I wore myself out and took my large white pill. I spent this morning lying face down on the couch, bitter as the beer my brother tried to home brew that tasted like soda water and asparagus piss. When it got to the point that I couldn’t breathe because my airholes were cut off  by the leather couch seats I turned my head and swore for a little while. After my fit subsided I heard a ticking noise.

I looked on the floor and saw a brown beetle on its back with its legs waving in the air. I stared at it for a little while, trying to will its tiny soul out of its body. I felt bad for thinking that and decided to help it. Not moving from my position, I got a remote and tried to flick it over. I just ended up pushing it violently around the floor. I felt even more guilty. There were a broken pair of scissors next to the remote. I opened them slightly and tried to use them as a spatula to flip it over. It didn’t work. There was a thick celebrity magazine on the floor so I pushed the beetle up next to it and tried to use it as leverage to flip it over. I got it up onto its side and got excited. I tried to flick it up over the edge with the end of the scissors and pushed the points right through its poor little body.

I got up after that. Made some coffee and had a shower. Cleaned my room. Apologised to as many people as I could. There are deeper, darker things in the world than my brain. Other people have better problems.

Somebody cleaned my town up for me.

I am in hell.

The air here used to be as thick as the people. Bloated. Swollen. Filled with energy. Now it is thin and filtered. It goes down quiet and easy and I hate that. My room is clean. My house is clean. The street doesn’t have any cigarette butts or crushed rum cans. The animals are gone. The magpies don’t swoop anymore. The crows have picked this place clean and have moved on to somewhere with fresh flesh. I haven’t seen a cane toad yet. There are no cracks in the ground for them to crawl out of. Someone filled all the holes with concrete.

Nobody demands cigarettes anymore. They offer money. They don’t beg or get angry or spit or yell or throw things out of cars. Their music is quieter and has less swearing in it. Their cars don’t roar or make gunshot noises. Their houses are closed and no pungent pot smell wafts from their barely hidden back verandahs. Walkers hurry by with their heads down instead of strutting with freezing, fear spawning, rage laser eyes.

Bell street has turned from Mos Eisley to a lego ghost town. The aliens are gone. The wizards and the daemons and the rogues and the warriors all vacated, sweeping up their tracks after them. They rounded of the sharp murder corners and put up cameras and coffee shops that serve brown milk piss and breakfast.

I dream about high school now. And not the secret high school with impossible hills and secret teleporting doors and field trips to steep mountain cliffs. I dream about student teachers and uni assignments and missing buses and nobody gets fucking hurt. No poltergeists, no pus lakes, no juggernaut dick worms with teeth. I can remember the last dream I had where I felt more than alive. Where I felt deeper than flesh. Where I felt electric, solid. You know you’re in hell when you can’t see hell on the horizon anymore.

Other than that things have been going pretty good. I might get a job.

You may remember my pal Simon. He is a rad artist and  animator and we are RP buddies together. We share a passion for fantasy and have started up a new website together. It is called Beast Chorus. Basically the idea is we make up some new fantasy monsters or redo some classic ones for use in Pen and Paper role playing games. They are pretty much the most fun to write and Simon’s artwork is amazing. It is one of those things where our creative visions perfectly match and it is beautiful. It is also very different to my normal style and voice so it is refreshing. I have never really wanted to be  a fantasy writer, but now I cannot  see why.

I maybe have to think about  some things. Like embracing the fact that I am a big ol’ nerd. All my nerdy stuff has been pretty secret before this but now it is way out in the open. In one way it is great; I get to  share my passion for sword and sorcery and beasties with the world. But now I will never be Prime Minister.

The Australian public hates nerds to hell, which is stupid because nerds are just like any other group  of people. There are nerds who  get along  fine socially and some that don’t, but their interests are equal. Sports, guns, music and RPG’s are all equal interests. Coolness is in the  eye of  the beholder and such.

I kind of like the purity and innocence of pen and paper roleplaying. Many other interests seem to be a means to an end. The end being sex. Role playing is about forgetting worldly things. You can forget about people judging your music tastes, or your clothes or  your physique. You can be anyone you want. You just sit down with a group of friends and use your imagination. Just brains and dreams, nothing else.

You can beat me up now.

http://beastchorus.com/

Hey my beautiful baby daemons my friend Erin (http://erinmichelleward.blogspot.com.au/) drew an absolutely amazing picture of me as a wizard. I cannot express how happy this makes me.  It brings my collection up to four! My brother is drawing me another one but it is just going to kill my inner child like the last time he tried to.

You can see the picture at her art page on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/erinmichellewardart).

Stay magical people.

I walk into the RSL and it is empty and cold. The pokie machines sing their songs like ghosts are playing them, tortured souls rooted in place for the crime of gambling in their past lives. A cartoon Cleopatra winks at me and I wink back. I am smug in my own little joke with the universe. I know I will hate myself a little later for it so I wink again with extra sauce.

I see my grandfather at the drinking area. He is sitting alone with the dregs of a beer, watching the summer sun bake the empty bowls lawns. I sit down next to him. He stands up and leaves. He returns with two pots of xxxx.

“Hi Grandad.”

“Hey mate.”

“How you holding up?”

“I’m alright.”

I sip the cool beer and force it down through the phlegm in my throat. A ragged crow lands on the lawn, looks around, caws and then promptly dies. My grandfather chuckles. I take another drink.

“So I invited my ex around last night.”

My grandfather raises his eyebrows.

“Why would you go and do that?”

“I really, really, really wanted to sleep with her.”

“Sex or actually sleep with her?”

I laugh into my beer.

“Yeah yeah, ok.”

“Because I can never tell with you.”

“Ok, shutup now. Yes to have sex with her.”

“I am glad we got that cleared up early.”

“Me too.”

“It could have ruined your story.”

I take another drink. My grandfather raises his glass a bit and swirls it around until the froth comes back up. His skin looks thin and stretched, breaking in some places. Like meat and tattoos in old glad wrap. He drinks a bit more. I speak up again.

“Normally I don’t do this kind of thing. Like, one night stands and shit.”

My grandfather snorts.

“Oh yeah I forgot.” He mimics my voice. “I ain’t need sex. Sex is not important. It is just a thing boring people do.”

“Yeah…”

“You are so bloody in love with yourself.”

“Yeah…”

“I think the only reason you don’t try and get sex is because it will get crowded in the bedroom.”

“You done?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I tell my story?”

“Yeah, sorry, fuck.”

“So I brought her round for drinks, just me and her.”

“Wait, which ex is this?”

“Shutup.”

He smiles, revealing his broken teeth. I can’t help but smile back.

“So I bought her a six pack of rums because I am an idiot.”

“Rookie error.”

“I know this. Girls don’t respect you if you buy them alcohol. I don’t understand it. I would have sex with someone if they bought me drinks.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah I guess not. So anyway, my brother gets home and decides to drink with us. He starts asking her all these questions about me. Starts getting her to compare my penis size to all her ex-boyfriends.”

My grandfather is halfway through drinking when I say this and he sprays beer all over his face.

“Ha! What did she say?”

“She said mine was definitely bigger than my brothers. She had heard from one of her friends that he slept with.”

“Ha! Perfect!”

“Anyway so my friend calls me at some point and says he wants to hang out. So I invite him over to drinks as well.”

“I can see where this is headed. Hold on.”

He gets up and returns with fresh beers. More crows have landed and are picking apart the dead one. I drain my beer and start on the next one. My grandfather speaks.

“So which friend is this? The one that swooped in when you broke up?”

“Yes, that one.”

“What was it? About two weeks later?”

“A couple of months.”

“Didn’t they hook up at one of your parties?”

“It was my brother’s party.”

I frown at my beer. My grandfather gives me a friendly punch on the arm.

“Alright sorry go on.”

“So my friend and my ex had been broken up for a couple of weeks. As soon as he gets there she asks if she could talk to him in private and they go up into the house.”

“Oh no.”

“They are up there for a while. My brother decides to go up and order pizza on my computer and walks in on them making out on my bed.”

“Jesus.”

“My friend leaves right away and my brother and my ex start arguing. They ask me if I could go for a walk for a little while so they can hash it out. So I go and sit on the side of the road.”

“You must have been pretty broken up.”

I look into my beer and see my reflection in the amber liquid. My skin has a golden sheen and there are two bubbles where my eyes should be. I shake my head and look up.

“The funny thing is, I wasn’t. I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time I was sitting by the road. I laughed straight for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Could have been longer. Eventually she comes out and sits down next to me and says that she is sure I will find someone and all that. It is the awkward break up talk all over again but this time I am trying as hard as I can not to laugh in her face.

I drain this beer.

“I think I may have gone crazy.”

My grandfather drains his beer. He speaks.

“You know it has been exactly one year since your grandmother died.”

“Shit. Sorry Grandad.”

He shakes his head and waves his hand. He gets up and returns with fresh beers.

“Every day I have come to this place. I am the only one. Everyone else is gone.”

I look around at the empty bar. I can see the ghosts of veterans sitting and drinking their cheap piss. Some of them are old and some of them are just kids. They are dressed in uniforms or railway shirts or just plain naked. They drink and they laugh and they fight and they can’t see us. My eyes come to rest of the mess that was the dead crow. The other birds are gone and there is just a pile of feathers and a smear of blood.

I give my grandfather a sympathetic look.

“You must get lonely.”

“I’ll tell you a secret. I. Don’t. Care. I don’t like people. People are shit. Everyone thinks we are all in this life together but we are not. Nobody cares about each other’s stupid shit. You know what I planned to do when I retired?”

I shake my head.

“I planned to sit alone and quietly drink myself to death.”

I give my grandfather a worried look. Then I come to the realisation that this is also exactly what I want to do. My grandfather looks me in the eye and smiles and nods, as if he can see what I am thinking. Like it is scrolling down my face. The credits of my movie are rolling, I have gotten the point.

We both drain our glasses. It is nearly closing time but the bartender doesn’t seem to care if we stay or not. My grandfather gets a look on his face and he calls out to the bartender.

“You got insurance on this place?”

The bartender looks up from cleaning a glass.

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“More than it is worth.”

My grandfather looks at the bartender. The bartender looks at me. I look at my grandfather. My grandfather looks at me. The ghosts sing navy songs in the background. The pokie machines play music. A line of crows caw on the back fence and an old bar burns to death quietly.

Sistah I got troubles. Troubles beyond counting. So many troubles I can’t keep up with them and they hide until the right time to jump up and bite me on the brain hole. Sometimes life just gives you lemons and sometimes those lemons have flies in them or are unripe or all squished and split and you gotta just drink a cup of tap water and get on with.

Seeing a shrink ain’t help none because you spend the whole time avoiding eye contact because when you lock eyes they water up and you are sure they can see right into your soul. Then you walk outside, take a deep breath and the little adult sitting in your head that you keep around to say nice things to you comes out and says:

“You’re on your own kiddo.”

Being a twisted man mental is a full time job that pays maybe medium-good. Your brain is a car accelerating down a hill and you can’t steer or stop. The only thing you can really do is choose the soundtrack.

THE SKYDEKKERIX OST

Where Everybody Knows Your Name – Cheers: “Man I do want to go to a place where everyone knows my name, jesus, exactly that.”

Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In – The 5th Dimension: “Why can’t everyone just love each other? Or at least me?”

Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey: “Keep at it big guy, you gonna be alright.”

The Kid – Ben Nichols: “Drink up sums up my thoughts exactly. This guy GETS me.”

The City Surf – Ink: “Maybe if I walk really slowly someone will ask me how I am feeling or at least buy me a drink.”

Compass – Jamie Lidell: “If life was a western I would probably be dead by now.”

Boot Camp – Soundgarden: “New life goal: become a drifter instead of just looking like one.”

With a Little Help From My Friends – Joe Cocker version: “All I really need right now is a montage of all my friends laughing and drinking beer is that okay?”

More Than a Feeling – Boston: “I do not give two fucks if people see me singing right now even though I cannot afford any kind of music player.”

Carry on My Wayward Son – Kansas: “If I could drive the car that I own I would go on a road trip.”

Brain Damage – Pink Floyd: “Hallucinating is actually kind of fun when you think about it medium-hard.”

Remember to cycle these songs in your head. Playing the same one over and over will give you a nervous tick and make you forget how to make human language. Having a brain thing is not that bad, it is much better than being stupid or ugly.