nelipot

tonight i watched this rather strange, romantic portrayal of an otherwise quite tragic story. despite his rash, heady decisions and immature attitude, i couldn't help (ok, i didn't try) but feel some affiliation with Chris's need to escape his society and the (albeit minor) constraints in his life. to be rid of everything that is so fake and nauseating.

we spend so much time (who's we? pretentious twat.) I spend so much time choosing what to do with the options I am given- I have been given so much, I no longer know what it is to receive. My values have instinctively started to seek the trivial gifts- smiles, thank yous, doors being held open, someone calling just because, simple raw music, newspaper articles being emailed over, someone looking in my eyes and telling me a genuine statement. the truth, trust, and companionship.

or, what chris wants. to want to find out what you are when you have nothing. it's not much experience, but a few years ago i spent some months on my own in australia, carrying not much more than 3 changes of clothes and one pair of shoes. i say it's not much, because i copped out and went to a country where i speak their language, and travelled in or close to the major cities and towns along the coast, so it was hardly rural backpacking, but i had to get my parents to agree somehow. all that said though, i was alone. for eyes as introverted as mine, a few months won't quite cut it for 'finding yourself' or whatever bullshit excuse i had for going out there, but in time it certainly started to nibble at something under the surface.

i'm not a particularly social person, so i spent a lot of time alone. 98%. i began to get small joys from the conversations with shop assistants, or telling the lady at the visitor's information centre that she was the first person i'd spoken to all week. you'd think it would be hard to avoid conversation, but it isn't. every night a different person in a different hostel room. receptionists issuing keys and stamping sheets without a word, one eye on the clock so they can get out of their 14 hour shift. other travellers there for other reasons- to get drunk, laid, have an ozzie adventure. i wasn't there to fit in with that, i was there to get away from what i'd left behind, but that adventure didn't fit with where i'd gone and the people i'd cross.

i'm not blaming anyone, i had as much a part to play in that. but the silence awakens this predator inside, i became a watchful hunter, protecting myself, talking to myself, writing endlessly, silently communicating to something. i left bits of writing and poetry in books in the hostels a few times. it was useless drivel, but i felt a need to leave a trail for some reason. maybe i just liked the idea of having touched someone, the romantic anonymous writer.

but through all this dramatic fantasty, there were two occasions when i felt that animal instinct in me rise the most:

1. i was staying in melbourne, and had been in australia for 2 months. i'd gotten into the habit of going into the cinema in the evening as a way to kill time. hostels would kick you out at 10 am, so by 6 pm i'd already walked about as much as i could take. besides, films were cheap and i could sit in the quiet and sometimes, if i needed to, cry and let off some steam. what can't you do without privacy? cry, wank, and poop. but poop only lasts a week or so, and then you get over it. and wanking isn't for cinemas, unless you're the weird guy we used to throw popcorn at.

so. the film had ended and i was walking back to the hostel. it was late, around midnight, and i was enjoying the calm balmy evening. i was complacent about walking around the city, because i had been back at home, and i had been at my university city, and i still am now. i consider myself unattackable, although i can't explain why.

nevertheless, something spooked me. and it was nothing. i was suddenly scared of my own shadow, and looking around i wanted to be anywhere but on those streets and in that city. there was no-one around, and the streetlights were on, but i ran. i ran for the remaining mile, pounding the streets, terrified. and i got back to the hostel and let myself in, and went to bed, my heart racing beneath my sheets.

2. i wanted to go to ayer's rock, but mostly i wanted to go into the outback. i'd heard a bit, and seen as i flew into australia, but (and particularly coming from a country like england) the sheer amount of space fascinated me. so i paid to take a week long bus ride to ayer's rock. and fuck me, it was mesmerising. it wasn't so much the views (the rock/ shrub/ sand combo repeated every thirty seconds) but the sheer enormity of it. this land that was so difficult to live in, grow in, where it could be so damn easy to just...disappear.

i thought a lot about that peter falconio mystery during that week, not just because of my morbid mind, but because i never realised what an impossible story that would be to solve. that poor man, and whatever happened, could be anywhere. on the assumption he is actually dead, the odds of finding him are so remote that maybe his family will never see any justice. it occured to me at the time how important those bones were, and not the reason they ended up there.

on the second day of the trip i noticed that one of the other guys on my bus was unusually chatty. i'd noticed the first day, but forgave it for a nervousness. by the second day though, i was nervous. again, this spooked feeling. i sat a couple of rows behind him, and felt myself watching him and his behaviour, trying to build a picture of his background, and why he was there. i remember that he was australian, and had just fancied a trip, but some of his phrases didn't make sense. it was probably incidental, but he changed his answers to the same questions, and i started to think what would happen if this man suddenly hijacked the bus. it would have been quite easy, no-one checked the bags as we came in, for all i knew he was loaded with a gun and a machete. there were 18 of us on the bus, and a driver, with 12 women and 9 men. let's say half would have been rigid with fear should he attack. that leaves 9 have a go heros. that isn't many, and even if we did restrain him, what would stop him killing the driver first? we'd be screwed, in the middle of nowhere, no phone signal and no-one knowing we've gone for another 5 days. and so i watched him, and calculated.

by the third day i had written down a number of options. i sat up the front with the driver and feigned to change the music for a bit, but actually worked out that there was a map in the footwell, and asked stupid questions to the driver so as to assertain where the petrol was stored, how far we were from any form of civilisation, how often he did these journeys, people he had met along the way, people he worked with back at his office. if he understood, he didn't let on.

that night i took a bit of rope from the outbuilding we stayed in, and kept it in my bag on the bus. i'm not strong, but there's a lot you can do with rope, and i dare say if i needed to, i could kill someone. i mused on every possible option this man had for attacking us, i mentally picked people off as to who would go first. i thought about how i could attack or disarm him (eyeballs maybe), how worst comes to worst i could knock him out and throw him off the bus and then take over from where the dying bus driver lay.

on the sixth day he left us in uluru, said he wanted to hang out in the town a bit longer. our flights were all scheduled for the next day. i watched him walking away, wondering which one of us was crazier.

so without anything what was i? a mad woman? a have a go hero? a survivor? an animal?
i wonder where the line is where the true identity begins, and ends. when it becomes absorbed into everything else- the girlfriend, the daughter, the manager, and you cease to be your true self. and i wonder, if you find that balance, what its worth.