My Life in the Slow Lane

eBaying, intransitive verb.

The process in which someone searches eBay for something that falls into one of the following categories:

• Something small and cheap that the person needs but they don’t have time to buy
• Something that is not needed, but the person wants it anyway
• Something large, like a new laptop or a tumble dryer

After finding an item that fits one of these categories, however,

• The person can only find bulk lots, and they really only need one night light, not a dozen
• The person lusts after the item, but ultimately they know they cannot afford it
• The person becomes so depressed at the lack of affordable laptops or tumble dryers, given their current budget constraints.

Ultimately un unfulfilling exercise, yet a popular pass time, particularly among university students.

Between going -to-bed and getting-to-bed I’ve had to deal with the following:

a) A cat who is busting to go
b) A weak plastic bag
c) 2kg of litter-and-cat-poo
d) Cleaning all of the above from my balcony floor.

I’ll leave you all to fill in the dots. Awesome way to wind down before sleep.

Sitting on the concrete, a kind of amphitheatre, an altar to the Sea and to the tanned, hard bodies of its priests, I drink in all that is around me. I hope for some kind of moment of clarity—some moment of realisation to make sense of this dismal world—but find none.

What is this strange feeling? Is it loss, regret, fear, desolation? I sit, vainly willing the neurons in my addled brain to fire and show me what I am looking for, if only to know what that unreachable thing is, if not to be able to find it.

I watch the waves crash and break in front of me. Bronzed swimmers and their children, the high priests of the Pacific and their faithful acolytes, frolic and play. The water crashes around them, unaware even of the presence of these invading bodies. I long to be in the waves’ midst, to feel their powerful energy engulf me. I long to surrender control, to let the salty water mingle with my streaming tears, like water unto sacrificial wine at the table of the God of the Sea.

The salty air fills my nostrils with sweet nostalgia, pure and unabated, of childhood pilgrimages to the Sea, to this altar, now neglected to the plastic back rooms of my memory. I don’t know for sure what is real and what a romantic reworking of long summer afternoons at Ettalong with my grandparents and cousins. Such innocence, I realise suddenly, is truly a gift—too soon revoked by the passage of time. The sacred innocence of childhood, like the salty air, disappears, replaced instead by the false virtues of Maturity and Success.

The choir of seagulls practice their discordant hymns behind me as the faithful gather for worship in their sandy pews. Children call out to their parents, running gleefully after large, iridescent beach balls. Their parents watch, kneeling in silent prayer to the God of the Sea, sipping their lattes. I want to call out to them—“Hey, you, little boy!” I would shout. “Don’t you see? This is all that matters. Right here, right now. Do not sacrifice your innocence for success; don’t exchange it for maturity! Don’t let it go without a fight!”

As the wind licks my face, I feel the remnants a muscle spasm pull my arm taut against the flimsy material of my shirt, vying for my attention, dragging me from the subjunctive wanderings of my mind, back to the beach. This body is like a wrecked building, a temple ravaged by fire and dereliction, scaffolded only a will to survive that, I can’t argue, I possess even if I possess nothing else. The hardened fibres of my muscles pull and pinch so that I can’t get comfortable, despite cushions, drugs, even laughter, the best medicine of all.

I stand, slowly, and traipse the sand searching for something I can’t verbalise nor conceive of. I wait for it to materialise as the priests and acolytes of this bizarre Church of Skin move around me, unaware of my yearning. I turn and wander back to the bus that will take me home—unfulfilled, unsatisfied, but alive.

I sat there on the lounge, fidgeting. I couldn’t move and couldn’t sit still at the same time; the adrenaline rushed through my veins and made my skin elastic as it seeped in.

“Ok Dan, in you come,” the woman said.

I got up, hands trembling, and walked into the back room of the studio. She sat me down across from her, a stool between us. All the paraphernalia sat in place on a shelf to her right: Alcohol wipes, sorboline, tissues, the gun.

She wiped my arm with alcohol and wiped it dry. Then she picked up a piece of paper with writing on it and placed it on my arm. She saturated it in alcohol and quickly whipped it off. The words remained, printed in purple on my arm:

“So what does it mean anyway?” Ben asked. We sat outside on my veranda, smoking most likely, one quiet evening a few weeks or months ago. I don’t remember the exact date or time of this conversation, only its contents.

“It’s a quote from Santa Teresa de Avila,” I explained. “The translation is ‘It is love alone that gives value to all things’.”

“Awesome, man!”

“I mean, I guess after the last few months in particular, I’ve been thinking about love a lot, right.”

Ben nodded.

“I realised something recently that has got me to the point where I wanted it tattooed on my body. I guess after everything with John, right, that I realised that although I was kinda pissed off at ‘love’, like it’s a person or something, I still believe in it. Because, ultimately, after everything that happened between us, everything he did to hurt me, everything I regret about the break-up, none of that shit negates the love I felt. None of it disproves love’s existence. And none of negates or will negate the love I will experience in the future.

“That’s just love of a partner, anyway,” I continued, taking a long drag from the mostly unsmoked cigarette in my hand. “There’s love of God. There’s love of your mother and father. Your family. Your friends. Yourself. That’s the thing, man. Love is everywhere, in all our relationships, and it makes them valuable. It gives them meaning. Without love it’s not a relationship, I think, it’s an acquaintance.

“And, yeah, love hurts when it’s abused, but it’s the value of the relationship, which is borne of the love you share or shared, that makes it hurts so much.

“Even in heartbreak, this quote stands true.”

“You ready?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Cool. Let’s begin.”

She dipped the gun in the small thimble of ink and hovered it above my skin. She looked me in the eye for a split second, then returned her concentration to my arm.

The needle went in. And out. And in. And out.

At first, I didn’t dare look at my arm. I was petrified that if I saw the needle going in, saw the words being imprinted into my skin, that I would have get faint and have trouble staying upright. I couldn’t resist—I was too excited—so I took a peek. I watched as she slowly moved the needle around, carefully tracing the purple pattern and the black writing took shape.

Only at that point did I realise it was permanent. Not like permanent-texta-permanent, but actually indelible; no amount of metho could get this out.

Now it’s etched into my skin, on my arm where I can always see it, to remind me when I start to forget that “it is love alone that gives value to all things.”

–Sydney, 31 July 2010. A five year old remote control, whose identity is only known to the media as “DVD”, was reunited with his parents, “TV” and “VCR”, today after being abducted by a giant alien creature. The boy was taken away from his backyard on the Table Top three weeks ago.

“I’m so relieved,” said Mrs Remote. “I thought I would be the next to be abducted every time the sky got a little cloudy. And of course, I was just sick with worry for DVD every time I thought of him.”

His mother reported to police three weeks ago that she was watching her son play on the Table Top when suddenly the sky was filled with a giant cloudy shadow. “I thought it was an eclipse or something,” she said. “Then all of a sudden, and I still can’t believe this, a giant alien craft appeared in the sky. This giant thing came down, grabbed DVD around his whole body and lifted him up into the clouds!”

Artist impression of The "Hand" in the Sky and the ground cover of the Bed as described by DVD Remote.

The giant creature, reported to police by several other Table Top citizens, has since been named The “Hand” in the Sky by scientists.

After three weeks of anguish, the boy was suddenly returned to the Table Top by The “Hand” in the Sky. “It was so strange,” Mr Remote told reporters, “because I was standing in exactly the same spot as VCR was when she saw DVD taken when I saw the giant alien put DVD back on the Table Top.”

Police and child psychologists have spoken to the boy to ascertain what happened to him. Not all details are clear as the boy was very shaken after his ordeal and has been admitted to hospital in intensive care for monitoring for any effects from being in the alien craft.

“We can confirm that the boy was taken to a strange land call a Bed on 15 July.” Police Constable Robitussin told reporters at a crowded press conference this afternoon. “The boy described The Bed as so vast that he could not see the edge, only the white and green striped ground, which felt like linen.

“He told us he was soon picked up by a large, brown monster that only said one word: ‘miaow’. The monster tortured the boy and left him for dead in a dark crevice at the edge of The Bed. The boy was trapped in a crevice barely wider than himself, with green and white striped linen-like walls for three weeks, without any food and water.

“Scientists have told us that the monster is called a ‘Cat’. This particular type, a ‘Midnight Cat’, is believed to be particularly dangerous and clever. It kept poking the boy with a giant paw as big as the boy’s head and making its war-cry sound. Soon the boy would have been delirious from dehydration and eventually he would have passed out into a kind of dreamless sleep from the shock.

“One day, he woke from his delirious sleep because The Hand in The Sky had slithered down the crevice, grabbed him in the same way as the day he was abducted, and returned the boy to the Table Top.”

“We’re just so glad to have him back, but we’re extremely worried about the hand coming back again for one of us!” his parents told reporters. “And of course, we’re worried because we don’t know what damage the Hand or the monster have done to him, psychologically, I mean.”

Hospital staff labelled the boy’s condition as serious, but they are hopeful for a full recovery.

Photograph provided to the media by astronomers from the Table Top Observatory.

RELATED NEWS AND IMAGES

• Twenty youths are alive after attempting to have themselves abducted by The “Hand”. Police believe the youths are connected with a group calling itself “The Church of The Hand in the Sky”.
• Verbal slanging match between members of “The Church of The Hand in the Sky” and angry mothers at a local primary school.
• Newly founded “Church of The Hand in the Sky” denied church tax exemption by the Australian Tax Office.
• Family advocacy groups have condemned The Church of The Hand in the Sky as a cult.
• Astronomers allege they have photographic proof of The “Midnight Cat” attacking The “Hand” (see related photo).

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt the urge to yawn. I stretched my arms like a small child does when they are totally overtaken by the yawn, letting it ripple through my body. The spasm hit while my right arm was stretched in front of me, slightly twisted to the left. The muscle connecting my chest to my underarm contracted so tightly it felt like stone. I sat up, took of my shirt, and brought my left hand up to try to work the knot out when the second spasm hit, this time in the same place on the other side of my body. I fell to the bed, quivering, totally at a loss as what to do. I couldn’t call out, I couldn’t use my hands to work the phone to call anyone because they were so contorted with the barrage of spasms the swept over my body like ripples in an eddy pool. The pain was worse than anything I’ve ever experienced as every muscle in my body—from my toes, to my knees, to my butt, to my stomach, to my elbows, to my hands, to my neck—contracted and loosened like an invisible power source rippled through me with thousands of volts.

Then, suddenly, everything stopped.

My muscles loosened. I lay in bed, naked, sweaty and panting, and prayed a prayer of thanks for the sweet relief of feeling numb all over. I called Ben. He came up, calmed me down, reassured me that it would all be ok, and left me to sleep.

Then it happened again. This time, not as strong, but it lasted for at least ten minutes, in slow, steady waves, leaving me shivering. There was nothing I could do because I couldn’t manipulate my hands to massage myself, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have known where to start. Slowly, as Ben talked me out the mounting panic that was beginning to surface, I relaxed enough for the spasms to subside, and eventually I fell asleep.

This morning, I woke to feeling so comprehensively achey. I haven’t felt this kind of sensation—the weak muscles, the aches from muscles pulverised by the spasms, the occasional aftershocks—for many years. The first five hours of my day were spent lying in bed, trying to get comfortable, while everything hurt.

As I lay half asleep, it occurred to me that the whole episode could be seen as a cleansing of sorts. For the last few weeks I’ve been sick with a sinus infection and a cough, I’ve been stressed out working two jobs and barely making ends meet, one of the jobs’ final report is due this week, and I have a new semester starting next week. Today, as I try to remain as sedentary as possible in the wake of the weird events last night, I saw that perhaps this is the new leaf that everyone talks about?

Could it be, perhaps, that the purgatory last night was the culmination of four months’ worth of stress, depression and overwork catching up with me? It hurt like hell, but I got it out of my system. Tomorrow, when I wake and go to work in the morning, I will fresh and new, ready to fight the world and keep going. I’ll be so well rested tomorrow, simply by virtue of being so comprehensively exhausted today.

After the purge I feel very tired and achey, but I know that in a few days, by the time next week comes around, I’ll feel refreshed and ready to tackle the new semester and the new job with a smile.

As I lay in bed, curled up snug and warm, I drifted in and out of sleep. Every muscle was relaxed. I was aware of The Midnight Cat as she jumped up on to the bed, miaowed once and sat down. At length she stalked the length of my body, purring loudly yet silent. When she reached my chest she stopped, waited, then lay down the length of my chest. She continued purring and I continued to drift in and out of sleep. I became aware of a strange sensation on my chin, like the feeling icing sugar would make it landed gently on your skin. It got stronger and stronger until I woke up a little more and realised that The Midnight Cat was licking the aftershave off my face. Shamelessly.