After work today

After work today. With 8 tedious hours behind a smiling mask. Went out for drinks. Wore cords. Which was a mistake. With every step they made rubbery sighs. Who wants to be reminded that they are wearing cords? Who wants to suggest that they might have fat thighs?

I smoked, and I hardly ever smoke, except when I'm uncomfortable, or clutching for some sort of glamour. Smoke and rain, what the fucking hell is cooler than smoke and rain?
Jack was there. And he's cooler than me - smokes more casual. And he'd nodded over his beer, over the balcony and at the distant hill.

"You ever been up there at night?"

I shake my head. Getting up there means effort. The road's gone bad, there's no public transport out that way, and the city's growth is all directed somewhere else these days.

"Fucking know what you mean. But if you ever do. I've heard things. There's a cave and it goes for a while, a long while, and then there's a door and it leads somewhere."

Where does it lead?

"Just somewhere."

And I'm interested. Piqued and all.

But he just laughs.

"They say you can hear music, beyond it. They say, but I've never known anyone who has."

Talk moves to other things then and I forget about that odd place, exchange its memories for another couple of pints of beer and the various bullshits it pulls out of us. Jack knows how to talk, I smoke until my guts churn and then I walk home, because I cannot afford the fare.

It's spring and the cranes loom, then drift into the distance and the inner suburbs parade their old buildings crammed at base or pinnacle of undulations between units. In the dark, or the half-light, they look like mausoleums, and along the powerlines possums scurry, swift, running to war or to root, or whatever the sky drives them to.

This is my city and my lament, but it is the only city I have ever known and I do not seek to rage against it with words like some old writers who feel their youth an Arcadia. Mine was all heat, in a middle of nowhere town, behind mountains, the earth cracked, the roads straight as sin. The city was always bones and ruin. That's what cities are, they can't help it, because that's what we are.

Gotta get up early.

When I pass the cemetery, I see her. A camera in hand, snatching the city out of light and the air. She doesn't see me. But I see her there, and she burns the insides of my eyes like a photograph. She burns the insides of my eyes so that I know I will not forget her. She burns the insides of my eyes and I know it's important.

And I'd be brave and speak to her, but all my mouth can say is - Wo-
- Wo-
- Wo-

What halfwit thing is that?

Jack went home with someone. Pretty. A crooked smile and a wry laugh.

I went home to vomit and to dry retch.

I crawl into my spinning bed, arms wrapped around a bucket like it is an old lover, arms wrapped around a bucket like it will carry me to safety or pleasant dreams.
And it does neither. Just stinks of my spew like an accusation.

I have to get up early.

I don't, because I don't sleep. I get up early alright. Because I am already up.

Dress in my work uniform, knot the tie against my vomit-agitated Adam's apple, pull my crumpled trousers up over spotty legs and stale underpants, tuck in my shirt, curse the morning for the night before, curse the night before because it never promised this.