we were in a van driving around north sydney in ever expanding circles, fifi at the wheel while i stared out the window of the wondering when lunchtime would come around. 
the task was simple, to inhabit the mind of a sex offender while  looking for high risk areas in our local community, red spots, which fifi called out with enthusiasm while the rest of us just wrestled with the idea of finding our inner sex offender. 
it's true i have a great imagination, i enjoy sex and like to be creative and adventurous but this was something alien and very difficult for me. to allow the imagination to consider relinquishing this type of restriction is a fucking hard call. one can argue that it's imagination only and that authors and film makers sometimes have to enter these dark places to tell a narrative but believe me, this was terribly confronting and totally against my nature. i could have probably done anything else but the task was torturous and most of us found it very difficult. method acting is one thing but this was real, not something you could turn off at the end of the day, it stuck in your head along with all the other information that we were infected with. the mind has certain parameters, these can be changed but fundamentally there are boundaries that are there to keep you healthy and safe, these had been tampered with. we were all fucked and there was no going back. this is the nature of what we were dealing with and there were no kids yet, it was all information that had lodged between our synapses until every thought was poisoned. 
the condition is well known, it's called 'going toxic' and there are a number of strategies we had been taught to combat this but at the end of the day it's like telling someone not to think of an elephant. 
i had isolated myself, moved to bronte, living alone, i had no life other than work and no friends i could talk with, i had nothing save my sleep and sanctuary of dreams, the only people who shared my experience were my colleagues and we were all so paranoid of one another that we kept our distance and private thoughts to ourselves. it was like an enchantment.
it was caroline that broke the spell, 'this is absolutely fucked.'
fiona continued yelling out danger areas, while we whispered in the back of the van.
'i hate this already,' gary said as he recorded fifi's pronouncements.
'it makes me sick,' someone said.
'pre school on the left.'
i shook my head.
again gary scribbled the location down.
'kindy,' fifi said and then added, 'public playground over there.'
'jesus'
'is a church a danger zone?'
'only if it's catholic.'
'there's another school.'
'jesus christ, the hot spots are everywhere.'
'well that's it, we have to stay indoors,' i suggested.
it had been a long week, i was exhausted, any spare time i had was spend wading through the books on our compulsory reading list, and let me just briefly mention this was not light reading.
'whens lunch?' i asked no one specifically.
'yeah i'm starving' a guy called tom agreed.
so tom and i started talking about lunch and left caroline, mike, gary and fifi to work out the danger spots, i had had enough.


the weeks passed and the group found its own kind of equilibrium, a strange one, it was compounded with fifi's need to be in control and our collective paranoia, plus our toxic minds attempting to remain sane under the barrage of violence and ugly information that we had no choice but to absorb. however i can adjust to situations and i have always been a resilient character, so somehow i managed to stay true to myself through this and process information by compartmentalising it, yet the walls were not really there at all, the mind can't work if it's untrained undisciplined and in a state of anxiety, i knew this and yet very quickly i found myself at the weekends looking for the obliteration of sex drugs and alcohol.
if i am honest i confess to be ashamed at my weakness here, i should have understood the response would be my own destructive impulse but in retrospect i did the best i could under the conditions i was in.
one evening i caught a train ride into the city with mike and as we stood at the platform amongst the citizens as i came to call the public, in an awkward silence when he asked me quite out the blue what i thought of the training.
'it's very difficult for me to be honest mike, i'm a bit nervous about how much i want to know. there's no going back is there?'
'no mission, there's no going back.'
we stood there a moment and then he said, 'what do you tell people when they ask what you do?'
'i told my friends i work as a telephone marketing person but it's a bit like being the men in black. i feel like i want to talk to people about my day but i can't, so i moved away and live alone.'
'yes yes that's me to, i feel exactly the same, it's really uncomfortable.'
'what do you make of it all mike?'
'it's amazing, it's an incredible program.'
'yeah well it's unusual, that's for sure.'
'what do you think about the team?'
i wanted to say that i thought we were all a bunch of fucking nuts to be doing this job but instead i was very complimentary and diplomatic except i added, 'i'm sure lydia thinks i'm a pedophile.'
he laughed, 'no way, i think she thinks it's me?'
i left it like that changed the subject. it was the first real conversation i had had with anyone in weeks.


that same night lydia climbed into bed with her husband.
'Oh it's so good to see you my lovely wife. do you think we can have breakfast together in the morning?'
'don't tease baby, it's been a hell of a day.'
'how is it going, are the team coming together?'
'well let's put it this way, i know who i will have the problem with.'
oh yeah.'
'yeah a narcissist personality, big trouble, fifi! what a stupid name. she thinks she knows everything on everything and the way she flirts ivan is outrageous, i see us clashing down the track, she's the one i'm worried about. i'm gonna have to keep my eye on her, she's one big red spot.'
but ivan was already asleep.