Love and War

Djibarh’s note: For those unfamiliar with the saga so far, Audrey’s first letter and second letter are available to read by clicking the links in this sentence. I sincerely hope you enjoy.

My Love

I am sorry it has been so long since I last wrote you a letter. I have somewhat grave news for you, but to that in a moment.

First off; I got your radio message. That morse code class I took in 1895 really seems to be coming in handy. It was a clever idea of the Venusians to locate the Starship Jefferson and bounce messages to me from it. I fear, though, that this practice may disturb Ellis- she is somewhere inside it, probably still alive but very unwell in the head.

A person like Ellis might be very clever; but she is scarcely equipped for a life spanning hundreds of thousands of years. For you and I, the passage of time is just something that happens, and it doesn’t matter overmuch. It slips by, like a silk curtain on skin. But for unfortunates like Ellis, who break out of thier natural lifecycles, time slips by them less like silk and more like sandpaper; rasping away at the mind forever. For them, the only consolation is routine. By routine a thousand years can pass inflicting the misery of only a day.

So, leave Ellis her routine. Radio signals, tiny rumblings, will only shake her out of it. For such people, waking life is the nightmare.

~

Anyway, it seems that I got your message a mere 500 years after you sent it, so perhaps my responses will arrive in time to be helpful:

I understand it’s not easy being married to an eternal intergalactic explorer with a different perception of time and a tendency to act on a whim. I know you waited thousands of years for me to come home, only to have me leave again. I know that that would have taken a lot of dedication or some other human quality I don’t quite have the capacity to understand. But it means a lot to me. I love you.

And it’s because I love you that I understand where you’re coming from. Everyone (especially a person as deserving as you)  needs…closeness. To converse with a loved one; to lie in a warm, safe pair of arms. However deep and constant my love for you is, I can provide you with none of this while I am lightyears away.

So the answer to your question is yes, of course. I’m glad you’ve settled in on Venus (the alps are very nice, congratulations), glad you’ve found a Venusian girlfriend. You treat her right, ok? The rest of the planet might make trouble if you didn’t! All silliness aside, I never want to be like a ball and chain. I miss you, but I think it will be a while before we meet again.

Now, I would ordinarily refrain from mentioning sex in a letter which might be read by anyone- but you’re in for a treat. The Venusians are fantastic lovers; It’s what they do instead of watching TV.

~

On to my grave news. Please copy the next section of this letter and forward it to the Venusian Department of  Science and Exploration (VDSEx), along with my request that the Jefferson no longer be used as a radio relay.

After parting ways with the Starship Jefferson, I followed the trail of micro-debris left behind by the drifting hulk. I reasoned it would lead me to the system the colonists had settled in before gutting their starship and casting it away. I kept thinking that Ellis must have really been a huge threat to them for them to waste so much good metal disposing of her.

The trail ran more or less dead just by a small star visible from the Sol system. The Venusian name for it is ‘Taf-Kaa 14′ (14th distant star of the north). It was such a relief just to see light again. The star had a few planets around it; so in I went to investigate.

Already I seem to be getting into a bad habit of hitting or being hit by spacecraft. In space, you can’t hear anything coming. I was passing a dusty, rocky moon when three small craft zipped out from behind it. It was too late for me to change direction (Inertia is a real party-killer in space) so onto the windshield I went. Smack.

Mildly stunned, I sat like that for a few moments, just peering inside. Humanoid. Huge helmet. Eyes looking at me in utter bafflement. After shaking his or her head a bit, the pilot regained composure and began to buck the little craft wildly, Shaking me off. I was flung free and felt myself pulled towards the moon. I kicked out and rallied all of my energies to escaping and following the three mysterious craft.

Whatever engines those things were packing, they were a lot faster than anything I’d seen before. They had a distinctive red livery and were unmistakably fighters of some description; gun barrels everywhere.  I continued to follow them.

Something shimmered out of the corner of my eye. Distorted outlines, following us. The red fighters seemed to sense that something was amiss- suddenly breaking formation and flitting around in random directions, like poisoned insects.

There was a dizzyingly intense flash of light. The shimmering outlines vanished, replaced by five more fighters. Larger, and blue.

In an instant, I was caught in the crossfire. Something hit me that I can’t identify; plasma, lightning or a high-powered laser, maybe all three. It was hot and bright, burning through my clothes where it hit me. Something exploded nearby and the wave of debris hit me while I was still blinded. I let the space junk carry me along, powerless to do much else.

My vision returned, blurry at first. I felt something tug at my arm. Dazed, I looked around, seeing only floating bits of twisted metal. The tugging became more urgent. I looked down, found the source. The same pilot, in red uniform, strapped to an ejector seat with a tiny oxygen bottle.

I floated around to grab onto his other arm. I looked intently through the visor and found a pair of watery-blue eyes staring wildly out at mine. Inside his helmet, he was screaming, hyperventilating, trying to tell me something, then breaking eye contact completely to thrash and flail in an orgy of pure distress.

I gripped his arm tighter and pulled myself closer, touching the side of my head to the helmet.

…I couldn’t make out his language. I don’t know why I was expecting to. I experienced a strange sinking feeling as I heard the pilot repeating something to me, like a question or a prayer I couldn’t answer. I began to scream myself, vocal chords useless in the vacuum:

‘What is this? Is this war? Why is this happening!?’

I could feel my throat move, but hear only silence.

Suddenly the pilot let out a yelp and tightened his grip, nodding at an approaching blue fighter. It swooped nearby, dropped something, cloaked and vanished. My companion and I looked around; space had gone still again. Nothing was left except for us and three fighter’s worth of space junk, floating in silence.

And of course the smooth blue sphere, dropped by the outgoing fighter. The pilot seemed to know what it was, drawing me closer and shutting his eyes tightly. I watched the sphere hang in space for the longest time. Nothing changed. Just dead space and a doomed astronaut and I locked in an embrace somewhere in it.  Time passed. His grip on my arm weakened slightly as he began to run out of air.

A floating piece of a shattered hull drifted closer to the blue sphere. Touched.

Space filled with fire. I felt the grip on my arm simply evaporate and I was falling towards the surface of the moon, ears ringing, head about to split apart from pain.

At this point, it’s important to mention that anything destructive enough to harm me even temporarily must be, by necessity, very destructive indeed.

I came to in a thick bed of dust, on the dark side of the little moon. After coughing up some of the dust, I took a look at myself. The remains of my clothes were spackled with a fine mist of blood, some of which had gotten into my nostrils.

I felt a new sensation. I think it’s nausea, but I’m not sure, having only ever read about it previously. I decided to permit myself a further nap, the day having been quite the sensory overload already. I am pleased to report that afterwards, and since, I am entirely recovered.

Something is deeply amiss here at Taf-Kaa 14. Perhaps the humans have encountered a hostile spacefaring species (the blue fighters) and are trying to repel them. It seems so desperately unlikely, but I can’t think of any other way to explain what happened.

In accordance with my natural curiosity and my established role as an explorer, I will proceed further into the Taf-Kaa 14 system, with the objective of discovering what the matter is.

~End communication to VDSEx~

So, my love, it looks as though I have once again made only brief contact; but this is promising. I will find the descendants of those colonists; and ask them what that horrible business was all about. I’m sure a solution will be forthcoming.

Just between you and I, I admit to having a nasty feeling, in my chest somewhere, worsening slightly all the time.

Always thinking of you, please don’t forget me

-Audrey

PS. I realise this arrangement might become complicated in future, but don’t worry. We can cross any bridges when we come to them. And never forget that whatever the circumstances, I will be absolutely fine. That’s what makes me me. So take care of yourself, my dear.

Crisis Deepens

I am.

I will pull through, with perhaps only anger and feelings of profound insult propelling me.

Friends have always been a blessing, especially in crazy times. Stay with me and I promise not to lose my sense of humour. <3

Self-Portrait on a Thursday

My life on the bike of ghosts

I used to ride my bike all the time. Just about every night, after dark, I would put on my black helmet and a fleecy jacket, and I would ride for at least an hour. I cultivated haunts, parks I would rest in, hilly roads I would race down, playgrounds where I would park the bike and climb to the top of the fort. I liked the night, with the stars and the quiet suburban streets. I loved slipping in and out of the house without announcing where I was going or why. Handy too, because I was almost always going nowhere in particular. These rides were always coloured by my still childish imagination- I would imagine wings emerging from my back, just out of my field of vision, sure that one day they’d grow big enough to for me to fly on sheer mind-power.

I remember one night the folks were away on some camp and I went on an odyssey of sorts- I must have covered something like 5km in each direction. I got back home at 23:30.

Thursday night was trespassing night- but I never did anything exciting like the reservoir, or a power station. Just raced through some primary schools, trying to avoid triggering sensor lights. That’s fun- comparable to an invisible obstacle course.

One night I was riding uphill, with very tired legs, and heard singing, just a faint voice from some way away. I kept on struggling up the street and came to a stop in front of the house where a recording was playing:

‘…tell me when will you be mine
tell me Quando Quando Quando…’

There was no other sound, except distant traffic and crickets chirping. And then suddenly, when the song finished, something like ten people broke out into hearty applause in the backyard.

I was something of an oddity, for a Fourteen year old anyway, at the time. I have a self portrait that I drew of myself on the bike at that time, but I can’t get to the place where it’s stored. Never Mind.

I miss having a bike. I’d like to obtain myself another one at some point.

The life and times of a beleaguered sandwich artist

I didn’t blog for a little while, and during this time, a few autobiography-worthy things happened- or just one?

In any case:

I got a job. But before you break out the ‘Congratulations, I knew you could do it’, the story doesn’t end there. We’ll start on the night of the eleventh of may, where a young bard ( I was only a few days past my nineteenth birthday) signed an employment contract. I sat through a very boring slide show, got issued with a uniform, and told the date and time at which I was to report for my first training shift.

The restaurant I trained at was a lot different to the one at which I ended up working- it was small but there were loads of staff- up to seven during the day. There was certainly no want of anyone to talk to or to help a confused beginner. The customers were also people I recognised; if you know what I mean. Kids coming home from sport with thier parents, bus drivers, weekend workers, gaggles of cocky twelve year olds getting a thrill from ordering for themselves, with real money. Although the job was not easy- your feet and back tend to get sore and there is a lot of work to be done behind the scenes in between customers, I never had any doubt as to whether I’d be able to master it, eventually.

At the end of my last training shift, I bade farewell to the sympathetic trainer, the scores of friendly co-workers and the customers who at least looked like the people I had grown up around.

It was time to go a little bit further north, and start work for real.

It was beyond a shock to the system, it was horrendous. I arrived for my first shift to find the other person there drawing up a to-do list, and leaving it for me before going home. It wasn’t very long, but I just stood there recovering from my surprise at being the only staff member in the restaurant. This is where my feelings are mixed. The other sandwich artists and the people working at the bakery and the mini-mart (this was all one complex, that also sold petrol) were very kind and helpful- they would sometimes leave thier own posts to help me when I was snowed under with customers, and there was always a friendly face to speak with.

Unfortunately, the work itself, and the roster, were nowhere near as kind to me. Therein lay the problem. Very quickly I began to have trouble sleeping after work. I would wake up every five minutes, to strangely nightmarish thoughts about pans of salami, gooey cheese dissolving in dishwater, and pissed-off managers. On my second shift, which was a friday night with a weirdly busy dinner period, a huge queue backed up, and when I finally got to serve one particular woman, she verbally abused me for a full minute (remember it was just me working there, although someone from the bakery counter was giving me a hand) and then suddenly went quiet again. I wish I could forget it, but I can’t. From then on, I was even more nervous around customers, and even more frantic to finish thier food and get them out as soon as possible.

From then on, when I was out back preparing, cleaning or washing up, and I saw a customer, I would feel angry at them for coming. I would dash out with a big smile and serve them, but what I really wanted was for them to go away. This is not a very good thing for a service employee to be thinking, I realised at the time.

Then came the weekend before last. Holy shit.

THIS PICTURE SIGNIFIES MELODRAMA

‘Perhaps a ten-hour shift won’t be so bad,’ said my thirteen year old voice, coaxing me awake on saturday morning. My nineteen year old voice had already been reduced to jelly. Anyway, I was rostered on to work from midday that day until ten at night. I did that, and then some. The strange thing is that for the first eight hours I was fine, firing on all cylinders, doing prep work, serving the customers that trickled in. At 8pm, this all imploded as two families (with obese parents and four dirty children apiece) arrived and demanded that eight subs be made at once, one after another. Then some hungry druggies, then a couple of cops. I was only new, and a few things hadn’t been done- I ran out of several sauces, I ran out of bread.

A subway restaurant without bread, and me in the middle of it.

And then 10pm rolled around, and no-one came to releive me. I was stressed now, and sore as hell. I rang the manager, who said she’d ‘ring around to see what was going on‘. Meanwhile, I was to stay, or risk being fired ‘by head office, mate. nothing I can do‘. It culminated in her arriving at 11pm (because no-one was actually rostered on to releive me),  and asking me to start baking some more bread. At that point I ought to have told her to shove it, but instead I just said ‘Please…‘ in this pathetic pleading tone and went out back, disoriented, to try and prepare some bread. I was so tired (I was also extremely thirsty) I put the trays the wrong way up. I ended up bursting into tears of frustration and finally she let me leave, after 11.5 hours on the job. Remembering it just makes me feel embarrased. And get this:

I was rostered on for the same shift the next day. I didn’t sleep- I tried to drink water but I couldn’t get rid of the thirst. Dry mouth, sleepless night. I just felt sick in the morning. Butterflies. My mother had left, and given me only money for a taxi. So, in what must have appeared strange to an outsider, I had to book a taxi to drive me to a petrol station. The taxi driver commented that it was very far from my house. I nodded weakly, feeling rather alone and far from friendly territory.

Another manager was inside. Before we continue, I should mention that I suffer from anxiety- it is rather mild, but it can get to me at inconvenient moments. Like 1pm on a sunday, when I am trying to put cookies on a tray and instead have a not-entirely-unexpected panic attack. I hyperventilated and ran for the nearest chair, my head doing that thing where it threatens to faint but never actually does. Clearly this job wasn’t difficult or painful enough already; or maybe it was just my subconscious urge to embarrass myself at least once in front of each manager. She was fairly good about it, but that didn’t cheer me up much. I felt useless, incapable and a total wimp.

That evening, there weren’t many customers, I got all my work done and kept the place clean by the time the night-shift person arrived (on time). I was feeling strangely good about it all.

The following tuesday, I rang up and resigned.

My one week’s notice was daunting, to say the least. I still had to contend with the awful food smells and flash-flooding of customers. The customers were 95% polite, normal people (or at least polite bogans), but there are always smelly ones, rude ones or that guy who SPAT ON MY FOREHEAD while he was talking. Added to that was my new workmates’ questioning about why I was leaving. I didn’t want to offend people who had been so kind and helpful to me, so I just mumbled something like ‘…Erm, I’m not suited to this job, that’s all…’

Also, the manager agonised about all the extra hours she and everyone else was going to have to work. I felt guilty, but knew I had to get out. They have probably forgotten me already, at least I hope so.

At the end of my last shift, my stepsister and her boyfriend came to pick me up from work. They waved at me from the convenience store and I was pleased to see them.

‘You smell like subway.’ said Paul, hoon-driving us home in the Starlet.
‘Yeah I know, I’m gonna wash it all off when we get home.’ I replied.

I took a shower and that was the end of that.

So, In conclusion, the next time you see a cashier, or a fast food employee, have a think. They are a real person. They probably have quite a difficult job, contrary to what you might imagine. They deserve respect, politeness and  most certainly are not yours to abuse.

So what now?

Exams. specifically, Biology in nine days, Chemistry a week after that, and Food Science just after. At least Geology doesn’t have an exam.

I’ll see you on the other side…

Not pictured: Paul's car

Chagrin is best enjoyed at home

I have all these horrid wrinkles around my eyes, from the sheer exhausting force of not sleeping at night, of feeling out of place wherever I might happen to be.

You hate me, don’t you?

A life plagued with comical disarray

I think the title explains my feelings quite well.

This is my tribute to the film Dogs in Space:

It came apart as a result of me mishearing ‘Dogs in space’ as ‘Dogs in steak’.

I occasionally dress like this:

…but haven’t styled my hair that way.

I haven’t ever dyed my hair, I like my natural hair colour. I maintain that it’s the colour of wombat fur, which sounds pretty nasty but it suits. Although, I don’t like the way my hair behaves. It is unruly in an unbecoming way, but I can’t complain.

The process of learning to drive…

…is one I have found very disheartening.

Trying to find a job is a similar feeling.

It’s a funny thing about people that they sometimes get the inclination to wear helmets and armour when they feel unsafe, because it makes them feel better, whether it will protect them properly or not. I read a book about the Iraq war in 2003- rumour had it that some soldiers were equipped with handgun-grade bulletproof vests (which would not be very useful, because in Baghdad at the time, automatic rifles were by far the most common firearm in use by both sides), but I imagine they’d wear the vests anyway.

Closer to home, I see people riding bicycles with helmets resting on thier heads, but not clipped on. The chin strap just dangles. They have to be clipped on to work, otherwise it will simply fall off when the bike tips over or on contact with something. Surely no-one is that dumb?

Maybe the clip is just jammed??

My thoughts exactly.

for the love of fuck

I’m done

I’ll write more another time

I’m not fat (you are!)

oh no, not real life again

My alternate title today was ‘Racists on a train’ but it technically didn’t happen on the train.

Neighborhood goings-on this morning. I was up in my room looking at the streets below when an ambulance and a police car pulled up across the street. They come pretty often, for nothing more sordid than our neighbor having diabetic episodes, leaving it too late and requiring urgent treatment while being restrained.  Heh, It’s a cops life.

Anyway, today I decided to go and see my mum. On the way, I found myself on a crowded O-Bahn bus rattling it’s way down the track between Tea tree plaza and Paradise interchange. In front of me, on the flip-up seats sat an old man, I couldn’t see past him.  I was just gazing out the window when a shrill voice sliced through my thoughts:

‘What are you looking at!?’ Shreiked a portly woman sitting opposite the old man, ‘Is it because I have white skin?!’
Sitting opposite her was a black kid, a boy of somewhere between ten and thirteen. I thought that the woman was a bit silly to say that, since there were plenty of other white people on the bus he could have been staring at, if that was what he found interesting. The dispute continued.
‘Look around you.’ He said.

she looked like this

The bus rumbled on, everyone now feeling a tad uncomfortable. The kid and his friends were whispering to one another. Just short of Paradise interchange:
‘I’m not a bitch, you know!’ She shrills again, ‘You just called me a bitch, didn’t you!’
It was turning into a very old debate indeed;  flustered grown-up vs.  kids giving her cheek on the bus. It’s as old as buses themselves. More murmuring.
‘I am not fat!’
Murmuring.
‘Go back to your country!’
Murmuring.
‘This is my country!’
Murmuring.
‘I am not fat, you’re fat! I’m not fat like you are! Why don’t you just get off, get off!’
‘As if you’re crying!’ Said the kid, finally audible, with a laugh.

We all rode the bus to the city. After the silly woman got off, the kids started to tease the old guy sitting in front of me and make fun of a blind man. I realised that it was the middle of the day, on Thursday during school term, and these kids probably never even bothered to go to school- they had casual clothes and bright sneakers on, on their way to town.

I guess that they had been staring at the woman before she started snapping at them, probably trying to get a rise out of her. My argument would be that that’s what delinquents of all colours do, and that’s no reason to turn it into a half-assed insecure racist diatribe (see ‘I’m not fat’, shortly followed by ‘go back to your own country’). In fact, one should really think hard before even speaking to rude kids, because they will really start being rude once you acknowledge them. They’re just having fun at your expense.

Official moral of the story:

Most children are jerks, most adults are stupid, and racism is bad.

Seconday moral of the story:

Going to school can help remedy the above situation.

Needless to say, I don’t believe in Angels

Don’t call a halt! (just for the cretins)

I talked about my thinking-voice last year. It was speaking to me, or I was speaking to myself using it this morning.

On my bedside table my mobile phone started to rattle and chime at me at 7 in the morning, and I, having stayed up until 12:10 the previous night felt pretty terrible. That it was Job-seeking time might have had something to do with it too.

I think I could handle being employed fine, but looking for work is like a trainwreck of embarassment, hopelessness and tired legs. I took the express bus into town and once I met up with my trusty pal Alex, we walked absolutely everywhere. I made dalliances into various restaurants, bars and flea motels to try and charm some pants off and offload copies of my resume. None of these attempts saw pants coming off, but at least I got a smile or two as I passed off the resume.

One of the worst things is when I walk into a place, and you ask to speak to a manager. If the person you ask is actually the manager, it’s fine, but if they happen to be a deskbot, barbitch, platestacker or some such, they tend to visibly cringe at  me and grimace. Sometimes they even swear under thier breath. The upside is I can already tell I will be better at thier job than they are, because however twisted and hateful I might be, I am never that rude.

Under such circumstances, I feel pretty akward sometimes, which brings me to bars.

For some weird reason, especially for someone with a rather tortured relationship with alcohol (liking the taste but not the sensation of drunkedness), I feel really comfortable in bars. It must be the bottles. Wherever I go, those same bottles are lined up behind the bar- Voddy, Frangelico, Gin, all of them. I may not be able to drink much at all, but I am trained to tidy up and clean those bottles. Like colourful treasures.

So I always keep one eye on the booze and one on the manager, and that, children, is how I keep my pulse down.

Oh yes-

Say no more, babycakes

Djibarh about town

Today I went on my morning wander around the neighbourhood where my father and I live. pretty interesting place, I reckon.

In a city that was mostly farmland in, say, 1940, we live in the old town. Our house is about 120 years old; I think it’s the kind of house a middle-class family might have lived in during the week, but had a bigger place in the hills somewhere perhaps. It’s got a fancy archway, so I assume they were moneyed. The house was last renovated in the 1960’s when it was owned by a Greek or Italian family (the landlord couldn’t remember). As a result, we also have a 60’s archway and I have a very ugly brown and yellow carpet pattern in my room.

It’s a strange sensation, going to sleep at night in a room that people have been living in for more than a century. I often wonder whether any of them were like me.

Anyway, to my travels:

This is me, calling someone who cares.

Pagoda restaurant cares about your health, even if you don’t

But it looks like nothing is cooking inside the restaurant

Fresh posters covering long-closed shops

Look carefully…there’s a matress in there! Oh dear.

Over the road, the Arkaba and the attached shopping plaza do a steady trade

This billboard draws business with the power of melon

*chuckle*

SEA FOOD!

I got to school after my extended wander and I wondered why some of the younger students were jeering at me and wolf-whistling tunelessly. Then I realised I had my huge green sun hat on. That happens to me a lot- I didn’t bother to take it off. Bah to all of them, soon I won’t have to see them again.

I should mention that the Pagoda restaurant is still open, and makes passable Broccoli with garlic sauce. They’ve moved up the road, and the premises I photographed was thier old one, which has been allowed to fall into disrepair, like all the shops on that strip.

Anyway, life is good. More drawing posts are coming up, as usual, plus maybe some scans of retro things and an opus on chemsitry

speed kills, as they say, especially if it’s your pulse that’s going too fast