i am in collaboration with a friend who wants to write. she is obsessed by crime and like a lot of australian girls seem to read a lot of true crime books. 
i suggest two characters  her and me, the female is a hard drinking, hard fighting, hard talking aggressive alpha female who possesses all the qualities of a male whereas i am the quiet bookish introspective loner. more female. 
the inversion of roles goers against every modern drive in fiction, especially as the female is a husband basher.
my writing partner will write the crime scene. i will add some flourish and conversation to introduce the main characters. 
let's see how we progress.

not quite the soft focus not quite the hard, things slip in and out of some points in time and space, flickering existence, fluttering life. i don't know anymore, i want to let it all go, just exit stage left and take another part in a new play but the script says i have  more lines to speak so i will have to complete the performance.

north korea is shooting missiles across the islands off japan, it is a reckless act of defiance by a mad dictator. with capability to launch anywhere and strike the american heartland i imagine there will be some kind of retaliation, there has to be, it's the right action to so much provocation. japan has no army, no war machine, it is dependant upon it's allies and in many ways it is the front line along with the south who do have a military and capacity to strike back. 
complex games in the sea of japan. butterfly wings ripple cause that may effect australia but will certainly provoke an american move. 
hang on to your self.  

up before the dawn, i slept deeply in a soft night of vermillion dreams. the episodes all fall from my head like strange foam bubbles, filling up the void. when i walk down it's still dark even birds are not awake. 
i drive down to the ocean, watch the sunrise. i sip on a coffee and feel the stillness, the gentle splash of tide, the wind circulates, my heart beating strong. 
life without pan.

the days of night, the september country, the forgotten memory, the ironic state. the mental catastrophe of variations in inertia. spring heeled mission, the limehouse captain, captain tripper, the cockney reject, the prodigal sun.
walking along the beach with my friend who is wrapped in salvation i look out at the water, still and gentle, calmness tranquility waves caress my skin like the warm kisses after sex with an ocean nymph.
the dying winter sunlight on the cusp of spring, crisp surface tension stretches out to the horizon, in the distance a shoreline north. 
we have walked a long way, up the strange place they call skillion, to the lookout where the wrecks of many ships are detailed in stone. sunken treasure, like all good rewards awaiting discovery. 
     

twelve hour flight, a marathon jaunt from the nasty technological security systems where my prized mint sauce was taken by a fucking robot in uniform to kuala lumpur where they steal a tiny tube of tooth paste from me. but it's not 100mg i protest. rules he says. but i already had it approved by the uk customs and you guys when i checked in. rules, he says. i hand him the 100mg and mutter stick the toothpaste and your rules.
the second leg of the flight was empty, i nab four seats and sleep the entire way arriving fresh. e tickets rule, efficient and stress free. my driver waiting for me.
mission control looks lonely. 
in the morning i head dow to the beach for my routine swim and coffee. it's brilliant, clean, fresh and sunny. the birds natter away, colour fills the skies, everything back to paradise. but i miss people, family i hung out with, jakob. it's a strange feeling.
i have a few days before i get back to work. a few days to work out what comes next. 

wandering back from hackney, i see fragments of a london left behind, drunk girls falling out of cars clutching their cans of special brew but letting go of any dignity, shrill broken cries of desperate attention, lost souls almost ghosts. jake and i avoid the drama, we dance on peripheral, he goes off to work while i follow my nose down brick lane to the bagel shop. brick lane, half of it traditionally trendy and cool, the other a dump, derelict weary buildings cold and damp penetrating the fabric of culture, curry houses ad infinitum, dodgy looking taxi companies fronting for the some bangladeshi cult. the massive city looming over my head reminds me london is a saudi city. economics always wins, govts always sell their soul, it's the devils business, politicians sell their soul and then your country. a global problem far to late to unravel.
in rough trade i hear some music played loud, it's got something familiar about it, something interesting. i ask the man who tells me it's an australian compilation of electronica. ironic, can't escape the place. although i consider myself english i cannot vote here, neither can i vote in australia, yet i have now lived over half my life in australia and feel less connected to the uk than ever.
later i find myself in soho, my old haunts, wadour street, brewer street, all cleaned up and looking spiff, nice niche shops, trendy well dressed individualistic types, jazz man, it's like watching jazz sprawling out in three dimensional space, i like it. this tiny area will always be my london. 

it's tricky, being back here a city i never really liked or thought of as home. certainly not much to keep me here, and in my final week i actually look forwards to returning to sydney.  
the uk is pretty much the same as it was when i left, class structures more intact than ever, the peasants lorded over by their masters. people here respect doctors, lawyers, people who own four wheel drives, it's a city ruled by old gods, dark ones, their impulses radiate through the bones and nervous system of anyone unable to defend against these entities. magick is strong here but it's corrupted, it's violent and stupid, manipulative and weighted by history and it's possessive ego.
I've exhausted it, it bores me. i have picked up various books i needed, done my duty as a son and felt somewhat done with it all.
family life here is different, i am grateful to have spent some time with my father, he's grasping for reason in an unreasonable world, he's open to the other world and invites it in but dogma makes a sabotaging guardian at the gates.
for an old man he's sharp, not agile or mobile as i would have liked but his mind is lubricated with good stuff.
still ever apocalyptic dad watches the news, wondering if he will witness the inevitable come to pass.

No News from Nowhere

Nothing happened between the days, just the family circumstances of old age parents going through their dramas and filling their days with tea, food and supermarkets. Banal conversation about things I no longer cared about, strange neurotic babbling and reversions, routines and fear.

Everyone seemed trapped in their time space co ordinates, it was not liberating and that was obviously why I stood out from every part of the experience. It started in an argument when I arrived.

For some strange reason my legs from knee down had turned bright crimson, in a pattern that was similar to a giraffe. My mother came with me to the Doctor who referred me to emergency at the local hospital.

They quarantined me. I sat outside a doorway while the Doctor put his tight elastic surgical gloves on. He had left the door slightly ajar and I couldn’t help but notice the disapproving look he gave me when he saw us. I guess he was not used to wild unkempt hair with feathers dangling down. He was not used to seeing people in psychedelic tee shirts with the sleeves cut off and reading a book called ‘cryptonomicon.’

He invited me inside and my mother joined me. He asked me a list of questions which my mother answered. I interrupted and said to my mother I was capable of answering questions about my health history better than she would as she had no knowledge of me from after age 16.

The Dr. Continued with his questions.

He requested I lay down and started inspecting my legs. He seemed baffled and asked if it hurt. I shook my head, ‘No, not at all.’

Then he nodded and asked if I took drugs.

Now I do smoke a lot off weed but I was never going to confess so I said, ‘No.’

He asked me later if I took hard drugs. I repeated my answer and wondered if he was serious.

After taking a few basic tests he informed me that I was on drugs. I corrected him that he was wrong, and I do not take drugs. He said he had never seen anything like the marks on my legs and that I should take antibiotics. He wrote the script and charged me.

As I walked out my mother said to me, in all seriousness, ‘You look like you take drugs, everyone thinks you do.’

Now I should have let this pass but my mother is an impossible woman to deal with, her irrational mouth often emits the most bizarre and ridiculous comments.

‘Everyone looks at you when we walk down the street and thinks you are on drugs. You dress like you are on drugs, your hair is like a drug addicts and you talk like one.’

The barriers are broken and it floods out from my mouth a barrage of self defence against anti logic, I should have known better.

Later at home mum and dad break out their medication box and show me the horde of prescription drugs they have, literally hundreds of blister packs, tubes, and foils. Lotions, creams and tinctures. They even have the antibiotics I have been prescribed.

And I am the drug addict!