War/Peace. Matthew Vandenberg
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wink at the camera: ‘Perhaps I could describe Coniston as the mirror image of Point Clare in every respect, and Coalcliff as the mirror image of Terrigal, but the mirror’s foggy, wet, and cracked so that it has white veins that look like the froth that frames ocean waves. But then instead of talking to these girls I would have to be merely staring at their reflections, instead of studying their pupils merely studying the freckles on their shoulders, instead of standing on a footpath merely sitting on a seat in a tired, moaning train, and instead of offering one outstretched palm to one girl, merely bending one palm until it’s the shape of a branch of such a plant – and the shape of the single, small pen resting between my fingers -, and bending it some more so that my fingers can grip the pen better, and then writing.
‘You have?’
‘You’ll see us there. One day. Just promise us all eyes will be on us. Can you give us your word?’
I nod.
‘Bye then.’
I sprint to Wollongong station, watching the fields roll by, like soft, green cars strolling down a highway lost in thought, bored, tired, hungry, depressed, in a suburb south of Central.
‘I never thought I’d ever need to place a large writer’s block in a field at the center of a suburb, but I have no idea just what these people are thinking and I need to know, so I really have no choice.’ – I shrug – ‘Fuck it! I’m heading back north.’
Then sitting on the bench at Wollongong station, waiting, wishing, I’m watching the people, the girls, as they slink by like cats: curious felines with bodies like film stars, poster girls for the south side. Two more wander towards me: one so bright just behind the other. Since they say you should not gaze at an eclipse I resist the temptation to look. In fact I focus my gaze on my cell, on the text: “i98FM”, and listen intently to the song playing on the popular south-side station, staring at the screen of my phone as though it’s a 98th edition iPhone and I’m the first to get one so I’m showing it off, directing others’ attention towards it with my gaze.
Under the influence of an advertising spell, on this overcast day, sitting on a platform that’s practically a stage where girls have been over cast, my life far too perfect, I decide I truly am bored. I decide that I need to create a problem so that I can offer up a solution, one as ripe and raw, perhaps, as a beach house: a juicy apple dangling from a tree which Sydney-siders can bite into with lust and vigor, a delicacy pristine, a forbidden fruit, a fruit that grows on a tree situated inside a demilitarized zone – one where lovers from opposite sides of warring factions gather to frolic at risk of death or humiliation.
I decide to pretend that a DMZ lies not between North and South Korea, nor between Northern and Southern Ireland but, rather, between North and South Sydney. However, perhaps this separation is not necessary. Perhaps cross-Central relationships are the solution – such as those which might develop in a beach house situated in the Central Sydney area.
‘It’s time to go to war,’ I say, a glint in my eye. ‘The world needs another Romeo and Juliet.’
‘Train fares are gonna rise,’ a girl says. ‘This is so annoying.’
‘For you guys they’re rising,’ I say with a shrug.
‘Hey: you’re that north-side writer aren’t you?’
‘Jackson. Nice to meet you,’ I say. ‘But I gotta tell you: the fares are risin’ for you guys because you’ll be payin’ a percentage of the fares for north-siders. You see: there are more north-siders and hence more voters in the north. The state politicians in power know that if they can keep fares low for the majority of Sydney-siders then they’ll still get the majority of votes come the next state election. We north-siders just have it better it seems. Cleaner air too.’
‘You know what!’ an elderly lady shouts. ‘You north-siders bug me. Why do you even come to the south-side if the south-side is so bad?’
‘Gotta let you guys know how bad you got it. So maybe you’ll all move to Hobart so that the state Government can spend more money on Northern Sydney.’
‘Little prick! We ain’t movin’! You north-siders should piss off to the Northern Territory!’
‘Oh! We ain’t goin’ nowhere! North-siders outnumber south-siders 5 to 1!’
‘Go back to the north then. Get on the train already. We don’t wanna see your type down this way again.’
‘South-side suckers!’ I yell. ‘Fine. But it’s on. It’s so on!’
******
References
1 When I Come Around – Green Day
2 White Knuckle Ride – Jamiroquai
3 Empire State Of Mind – Jay Z and Alicia Keys
JACKSON CURTIS - 5:05pm - December 15 - 2011
Never before has it looked so large, massive, and alive. Never before has it looked like a fallen grey cloud, sharp, jagged and scary, hideous and frightening like an angry monster rising from the depths of a deep blue sea. It fills my field of vision as though it is a noxious gas, stealing air from my lungs with tentacles that stretch through the stale air and down deep into my esophagus.
I catch my breath as I try hard to take in the view, the shimmering picture of devastation before me, metal teeth like large braces floating in the sea as though they hang from a broken jaw. Then I focus on a single metallic pole, so jagged and frayed, torn and tarnished, and my spine – once so nimble – freezes. Salt water accumulates in my eye ducts as though falling from above in the way seagulls swoop down onto a wharf in anticipation of a feast. And my vision becomes blurred.
The sun still sits in the sky but it's hard to see it behind the salt water in my eyes and the thick, grey smoke that runs like lava the length of the city skyline, and above and beyond. I can still breath but this is so hard. I could be at the top of the highest mountain, caught in a snowstorm on a ridge of Everest, I could be an astronaut stepping onto the moon's surface, I could be an underwater explorer stepping onto an underwater surface just as expansive as the moon's, but I'm a healthy young man standing on a new shore on the south side of the Sydney harbor. It's new because a promenade once ran the stretch on which I now stand: it ran a healthy marathon along the waterfront, and now this run is nothing but rubble, frozen, still and dead.
I sit down. There is little more I can do now. I see few signs of life, no animals and no humans, no kookaburras, blue-tongue lizards, wombats, or echidnas, no possums, red-backs, funnel-webs, or platypuses, and certainly no other humans. Not right here. Not right now. I'm in the heart of Sydney and it's just after five and still the entire area is deserted. I stare at a stretch of Sydney's major artery, now comfortably numb, half-submerged in the chilly harbor water. Indeed the Harbour Bridge, the famous Coathanger, no longer links the north shore to the south shore. No links exist anymore. None whatsoever.
I place my head in my hands. They slide along my wet cheeks before my forehead comes to rest in the palms, like a frog settling down on a lily pad for the night, lost and alone. To say that I'm lost is an understatement. I'm stranded now, imprisoned in the south. There's simply no way I can make it back to the north. Lying like logs, lining the stretch of harbor in front of me are the largest crocodiles I have ever seen, so large I can make out the scales on their backs: gigantic nails the color army green. On my wrist I can see the letter N. One single letter, one strange anagram also which can be read up, down, left, or right. This mark, a thick tattoo, identifies me as a north-sider, and also a nightwalker, or nightrunner as the case may now be, for I must now lie low for fear of what south-siders might do to me if they catch me here. Which is fine, I guess, if you don't mind roaming the streets every night and hiding every day, walking freely only in places no one else will go, places so dangerous, so gloomy, and so rank that you cannot help but be overwhelmed by fear the moment you venture into such an area. Before the war began I was treated like a third class citizen. But this was before the war began, before the south turned on the north, and before Central became a war zone.