They come at night, the monsters made of midnight. They say they're my friend as they whisper warnings to me. With shaking of walls and footsteps up the hall, at 12 tonight they come. Before my time is done, they come collect on a devil's debt, they come to reset time and take me back to my beginning. Many lifespans I've relived and now here I am telling you this again and again, and again.
Hollow, cheap and shallow, a faded fecal yellow: where once was God, now there’s not. The world without is a world of want for the next fix of fast food, infotainment and packaged deals with holiday, home, phone, loan and... If Hell is the state of being without God, then here in anhedonia I wait without. I wish I could believe again but I can't uneat that apple.
So far — and yet, like moth to flame: that alien world of drought and indifference; where days are so bleached with light, they're burnt in closed eyes by night.
An abrasive scrubland of parching wind and ultraviolet radiation; A tinderbox of accelerant and scent of phantom smoke. Where fire sired eucalypt wilt in thermal haze; and browning leaves keep falling like a foreign Autumn calling.
Out there the red-stripe snake and spider eat each other, while ten-foot flying shadows prey on six-foot rat. Out there meat ants strip bodies to bone, while blowflies plague the shade and cicadas sound the siren.
But out there is peace, for people are nowhere. And so like vampire I hide in lair, until the haunting ghost of day I stare. They say Hell is a place on Earth and in that summer for sin beware... the Devil down there.
I threw a dead kangaroo on an ants nest and heard the sudden sound of rain, but it was not rain. The kangaroo was being swarmed by a black mass of 'meat ants', and it sounded like rain.
The 'Eastern Brown snake' is the world's second-most venomous land snake, responsible for most Australian deaths by snake. I remember circling one to move it away but I mistakenly walked on the path between a mating pair.
A huge shadow flew overhead, I looked up but couldn't see anything. I heard barking and turned to see a large 'wedge-tailed eagle' hovering over my dog with talons out.
A large male 'Eastern Grey Kangaroo' started hopping beside my car. They usually flee, but this buck rammed my door. They resemble man-sized rats when standing upright.
Sliding the garage roller door up the wall, I saw small stones floating below it like a hanging nursery mobile. The stones get stuck to the webs of the 'Redback spider'. Their strong webs can also catch small young snakes.
This species of 'Australian cicada' is one of the world's loudest insects. As children, my uncle's friends used to keep them as pets to the annoyance of teachers.
In the 2019-20 drought and fires, we were miles from the fires, but the sky was orange, the trees looked dead and the smoke in air, made the fires seem closer.
Last night while you were sleeping, I came and took ya tooth but not the tooth intended. Instead I took your flashy front teeth to pimp out me gob. You see, there are times I take the wrong tooth and times I take several, for Terry be my name and tooth fairy me game but I'm no one's facken fairy. I don't do carrots, milk or cookies but I is plenty partial to Fire-Bomb Cinamon Schnapps.
As a child, I thought my soul the son of two fathers: but where the Devil gave us hedonism, God offered hope and it was living, thrilling, fun and... false. False hope and hedonism were the gods I knew but they're not confined to past, for they are my DNA. And so like Sisyphus, I roll rocks of hope uphill only to have them roll down again.
They tell me I'm wrong. They don't shut up and won't. I see them on the street and every day they follow me home, but still I am alone. They're in my head and under your bed, whispering my wrongs and chanting their songs. They tell me to tap: 3 times, 2 times, 3 times 4, lest something bad befall. I've long since learnt to ignore or do the opposite of your play, I just wish you'd stay away.
Welcome to the world of "fuck you!", this world that does not care. Disenfranchised and deconstructed, and cancelled for their crimes. They laugh at loyalty and tell me I am wrong. They won't shut up. So light it all on fire and let judges be judged, for they cross and cross, and cross, the Rubicon.
