CONVERSATION WITH THE SKY
“What’s your worst secret?” Jude asked Graham. “Tell me, don’t be shy.” “I have none.” “Tell me your secret!” Graham slumped to the side, trying to wave Jude away. “I steal! I steal!” “The hell you mean you steal?” Graham’s eyes were closed, but by the way he was raising his eyebrows you could tell he was trying to …
BUSTY WOMEN WHO SWALLOW SWORDS
Christie and I watched LIMBO UNHINGED, this burlesque show in the Spiegeltent during the Brisbane Festival. What I remember most was Heather Holliday: this beautiful, curvy lady with lots of tattoos who put all sorts of things in her throat and pulled them back out. One of the first things she put down her throat was a sword of some …
THE PURPOSE OF VAIL
The scene started off like this: Vail and I were on Jude’s balcony, and the sun had been down for a while and Vail, wearing something black, was humming something I didn’t recognise. “It’s so, so easy to do what’s easy,” she said. “That’s why it’s called easy.” Vail said nothing to that. She looked out, at the traffic. I …
A TERRORIST FILLING IN HIS ONLINE DATING PROFILE
JUDE’S GIRLFRIEND
“My girlfriend has a gut,” Jude told me in the car, “and the idiot, she doesn’t realise it. She keeps drinking, she keeps eating crap and putting photos of what she eats on Instagram. But she sleeps without her top on, so lately I’ve been videotaping her stomach as she sleeps, her gut just getting bigger and shrinking, getting bigger …
I’VE HAD IT WITH YOU MR SADNESS
I’ve had it with you, Mr Sadness, with your damp eyes and your bloody nose and your sad, sad acoustic soundtrack. I’ve had it with the sporadic loneliness, the dread and the anger. I’m over this. Tomorrow I’ll go online and find me a new lover. A lover with sunlight and cool winds and upbeat music. A lover who socialises …
CHRIS DESPERATELY WANTS TO CHEAT ON HIS WIFE
CRUMBLING APARTMENT WALLS
I wanted to tell her about a lot of things: how I wanted to kiss her in front of a zoo, how I hated the loneliness, how I wanted to face my fears yet flee for them – but I’d been told, repeatedly, that happiness could never be found by obsessing over oneself but that instead you had to give …
BILLY JAMES TRYING HIS BEST NOT TO TURN INTO A COMPLETE DICK
THOR THE GOD OF THUNDER
The world was being the world and I was being me, so I walked into the Cathedral of Saint Stephen and knelt down and watched some people rehearse some kind of choir song. I looked at Jesus at the altar, on the cross, and I told him that I was sorry for the garbage truck of horrors inside of me. …
BILLY COUNTING THE NUMBER OF HIS POOR LIFE CHOICES
GOODBYE TIME
There are times when there’s nothing I want to write about. When there’s nothing much I really want to say. Time is so limited. It arrives, then it goes, and it arrives, and it goes – does it ever leave you feeling at peace? I suppose it does. There are times when time itself leaves me alone: it says to …
CHRISTIE’S LETTER
… Have you ever been completely loved before? Not the romantic kind of love, not the parental kind of love. I’m talking about the kind of love that’s complete. I know you don’t understand what I mean, and I don’t expect you to. Actually I do expect you to know what I mean, because I want you to experience it …
TIM CAN’T WAIT TO GET IT ALL OUT
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M DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU
M doesn’t care about what people think of her physical appearance. She’s a round person with a solid gut and stocky arms and stocky legs, and when it comes to her hair, it was as if she found the angriest person in the street, gave that person scissors and said, “Cut my hair however the fuck you want.” Her moustache …
A MAN IN A SUIT, RIDING A GIANT BANANA
SUPER POWER MEDITATION
People try all sorts of things to get rid of their woes. Sometimes they try alcohol, sometimes they try meditation. “The worst form of meditation is masturbation meditation,” Jude told me. “You think that when you masturbate, you’ll be in a constant state of bliss, but you won’t be. Firstly you’ll always want to change the video you’re watching, …
FINDING THE PERFECT PEOPLE
“There aren’t many perfect people in this world.” This is what she said as she had some wine. “What do you consider as perfect?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Tall.” “Tall?” I inspected the bottle of wine that stood between us. I ran my finger around the label. “How tall?” “Seven foot.” “Seven feet tall?” “Yeah.” “Okay,” I said, putting …
KEVIN THE CRUSTY SOCK
Every teenager’s best friend and slave.
THE LONELINESS
My loneliness can be an unforgiving piece of shit sometimes. I don’t want it to be there, but it lures me out when I don’t want to come out. It kisses me with its sour breath and proceeds straight to my heart, and it lingers there, and it gets comfortable there, and it calls it home and refuses to leave. …
I MET HANNAH AT A SOCIAL GATHERING
Hannah momentarily entered my life while Christie and I were not in good terms. I met her at a social gathering. “You know I researched scientology for an assignment once,” I told her. “I wanted to be like one of those clever types who make fun of odd belief systems. So I went to one of their presentations so that …
A BUNCH OF PEOPLE CARING TOO MUCH ABOUT WHAT CELEBRITIES HAVE TO SAY ON TWITTER
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HAPPINESS, JOY, SMILES, LAUGHTER, WHATEVER
“What is happiness?” “Happiness is a BJ that never ends. Just constant swallowing.” “Happiness is being in bed.” “Happiness is having her back.” “Happiness is being with God.” “Happiness is being rich.” I was with about four people who were all discussing happiness. I remained quiet. Nothing I said or what anyone said mattered, really. To me, the definition of …
A LETTER TOO LATE
… I saw you there in between the music, and the people, and the nonsense. Remember what was playing? I don’t. I don’t even know whose house party it was, or what universe we were in, or what purse I had dangling pathetically from my index finger – all I could think of was this: I think about you more …
THE PROBABILITY OF YOU DYING ALONE
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BUSINESSMAN BOB AND HOMELESS HENRY
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YOU NEED MORE MONEY
Sometimes I see the earth as this tiny marble occupied by these even tinier dots called people, and all these people are looking up at a giant sun made of money, and they’re all bowing to it, talking about it night and day, thinking about it night and day, and when they’re not talking or thinking about money night and …