Light in a Bar in Krakow

I am sitting on the cobblestones, my head between my knees, drunk. The cold beats down on me from the vast sky which twinkles with a smattering of cold, hard diamonds. The sky is shimmering from the cold.

I stop for a moment to focus. I want to keep this moment. I want to remember the heavy pounding of my heart in my ears, the creaking eaves of old terrace houses lining the street, and the stubborn hum of cars that reminds us other people are alive. No, no, what I really want to remember is this blur to my vision.

I lean back and watch the stars swirl giddily. I reach out and take the hand of a girl wrapped in a tight black fur coat, swinging her around behind me and back. My shoes reflect the light of a thousand lamps, scattered by a thousand pieces of broken glass. The walls are black, or else there aren't any walls, but there are no mirrors. Our feet click on the shiny wood floor, and the noise is loud, in a giant vacuum.

I say to her: I met you, in a bar in Krakow, you were drawing, I was writing, there were candles that made us all feel like children in a dream, and you were drawing me, and I was writing about you, and we looked at each other like we knew how lonely it could be.

And she says: I've never been to Krakow. It wasn't me.

I pull her closer and lean forward, and her perfume fills my head and triggers strong memories of morning. I suddenly feel lonely and we leave, stamping on cigarette butts and pushing drunk and sweaty people aside, dashing for the door, flying down steps that smell of spray-paint and steel, by train to my house.

It is hidden behind tall, yawning elm trees, populated by squirrels and invisible birds, and there is a light glowing in my windows, and she's delighted by the carved pipe on my mantelpiece, and I fall asleep, forgetting to undress.

The Camera

I have just realised that no-one is documenting my life. Just me.

The Difference Between Childhood and Afterwards

I woke up and looked at the flickering red numbers on my bedside clock that read 4:00. Good.

The radio was on, and a glass dog with a tiny black pebble for a nose balanced on it. An old woman was talking with all the serenity in the world. Her voice made me swallow hard as images of a long life in stained yellow flicked through my mind.

I was already noticing things. The plant on my desk. Its leaves against the window, bending up and down in an invisible breeze even though the window was closed (I imagine it was the breeze of my breath colliding with the cold air). I noticed the spaces behind things, and the shadows. I saw an arm in the shape of my blanket, and moved my feet around until it was gone. My feet were warm. The tip of my nose was ice cold, and felt like a droplet of freezing water was hanging from it.

I rolled over and put my face in the pillow. I pulled the blanket over my head, and savoured the gush of cold air. Looking out from under the doona, I grabbed a lighter. There was a candle next to my bed. I lit it and stared straight at the flame for a long time.

I had a notepad next to my bed. It was black, beautiful, leather. I thought about my grandfather. I thought about my grandmother. I thought about strawberries for breakfast, and watching cartoons on saturday morning, and soggy weet bix, and small t-shirts, and scraping ice off the windshield of the car in the fog. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night, afraid.

A Room on th 25th Floor

I had just taken off my shirt, and was undoing my shoelaces and was surprised to realise, suddenly, that I was upside-down, stuck to the ceiling in a sealed box wedged between hundreds of other boxes, floating through a directionless universe.