War/Peace. Matthew Vandenberg
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sparks fly from my gaze as I scan with it the pavement and the people who pass by. I think I know why I’m here.’ – I take a sip of an EasyWay Kiwi ice tea and then place the container on a stone wall. The wall runs like the line of my gaze, dispersed like a line of coke, towards a small high school, stone walls as old as those of a canyon, grayish to a mystic degree, draped fully in the demeanor of Hogwarts. – ‘I’ve never seen this joint before. This place looks pretty awesome. Anyway, here’s the scoop: I’m in Sydney again, as I am almost every day. I decided to wander around the central area for you always see the most fascinating things when you lose yourself in a stretch of urbanity. So this is where I ended up.’ – I skip back and land my feet on the snaky stone, moving as though my legs themselves are pythons caught in the throw of some kind of trance or hip hop dance. – ‘I like it here. I’m standing just to one side of an old high school, around since the 19th century. Some English school. Namely: Cleveland Street Intensive English High. But whatever they teach here I’m thinking this would be the perfect setting for our stories when they hit the big screen.
‘So it’s simple, I’m here playing the promotional officer for Ford. I’m thinking it won’t do any harm to spread the word about our stories, wet the whistle of a school outside the coast. A few words of advice: if you wanna be someone then pretend you already are, and if you already are then pretend you’re not: you get kicks either way. But there are times’ – I catch a young Asian girl with my gaze as she leaves the school, passing through the teeth of an old, torn, steel gate – ‘when you gotta use fame to your advantage. Excuse me.’
‘Huh?’
‘Hey. Sorry to startle you. Do you go to this school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘It’s . . . good. You know someone who want go?’
‘Here’s the thing,’ I say. ‘Me and some mates, we’re into writing. We’ve put our stories up on Facebook and they’re kind of popular. But we wanna promote them to schools around Sydney. Do you have a Facebook page?’
‘Um . . . yeah . . .’
‘Excellent.’
‘Because I assume you all love writing, given you go to an intensive English school . . .’
‘We go . . . to learn language,’ the girl replies. ‘They teach us English.’
‘Oh,’ I say, nodding. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! Oh. Can’t believe I didn’t figure that out. Do you like writing though?’
‘Sure. I like reading more. I read some good Australian books.’
‘Cool,’ I say. I glance at the building and then again at the girl. ‘Well: the name’s Adrian Ford. If you wanna check my profile out on Facebook then go ahead, you might like some of the stories. Have a good day, yeah.’
‘Yeah. Bye. I see you again?’
‘Maybe,’ I say. Then I smile, grab my EasyWay and back down the path, watching the girl as she watches me. I’m frozen but I’m walking. Damn she’s fine.
‘Ok,’ I say, turning to face the camera. The cameraman still has the girl in focus and so I need to click my fingers to get his attention. ‘Whoa. Dude. Back to me. Ok. So let me tell you a little something about figures. You play with them when you’re a mathematician, right? You take them and arrange them into equations, and generally you end up with something solid, something which is universal, static, pure, simple and mythical almost. Something which stretches beyond the fine, tiny, confined dimensions of time and space and into dimensions one cannot define, into the realms of a heavenly ethereal dimension. Ok: such a place is where the perfect figures lie, when in the perfect entanglement, when within the perfect equation. And there are some females who have this figure. Ha ha! Bet you didn’t grab the punchline immediately then did you? But – ok – it’s girls like this who just look so fine that you almost feel as though discrimination is justified. Ok, I’m a slut, I’ll fuck anyone, but sometimes you see someone who really makes you feel like you never have before. Suddenly, you forget about morality: say you see a young woman smoking a fag on the side of a street and she does this with style, just fine, as though she is sipping champagne from a delicate wine glass made of this same ethereal fabric the aforementioned seventh dimension is made from. Suddenly smoking isn’t such a bad thing anymore. She has style, no doubt, and the smell of her breath after she has taken another drag is analogous to that of a perfect perfume: no doubt hers has a Fan Di Fendi flavor. And she looks as innocent and mystical as Ria Vandervis and suddenly you know that there are some figures which simply fit into an equation and some which just don’t. Let’s be honest, image is everything. So if you’re gonna roll with me then don’t check your style at the door. Shit! There are so many true figures here in the city. Sometimes I don’t know why I waste any time with the girls back in the High. Ha ha.’
******
References
1 This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race – Fall Out Boy
2 EasyWay Ice Tea website: http://www.easywayarabia.com/menu.htm
JACKSON CURTIS - 1:02pm - December 4 - 2011
‘Yeah, I don’t know if I should even talk right now while she’s lookin’ right at me, starin’ me down, strickin’ me down with the gaze of a goddess. It’s a light-bulb moment when I see the whites of her eyes, bright like lamps left on in an otherwise dark room, bright like a white dress, bright like the space between the words in the transcript of my thoughts. She takes my hand in hers and smiles. This is when I get a little nervous.
‘Note the two of us, posing like daisies, note the tone, the contours of the room, the beat of the drums in the songs we sing. Note the expressions on our faces, note the notable things and then take two. It’s a beautiful picture or a beautiful scene, and she’s one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. She’s the one – none other – that Adrian spent a lifetime writing about, she’s the one who remained in Jamie’s thoughts as he traversed the globe like a ‘trotter, and the first fine girl he ever thought he had a chance with, she’s the one I can only warn you about, the rosy cheeks, a cherry blossom in the clasp of her shiny hair, fine like the string of her concentrated gaze.
‘She’s the one you could fall for if you ain’t careful. Check yourself, don’t trip. It’s a cool climate where she dwells and if you know anything about thermoregulation then you should know that you’ll freeze, experience shock and your knees will go weak, if you gaze into her eyes for too long. And should she gaze into yours her soul might just burn to a crisp. It’s simple really: you too hot, she too ethereal. Wiki this shit if my point ain’t crystal clear like the space between her and I. Listen to the soundtrack to the scene, rewind, repeat, and rewind again, type a couple thousand words on why she’s too nice for you, run away and find your refuge in the sleek, sick streets of Sydney, or on a silver screen, or behind a typewriter as you typecast yourself by typing another typical text that defines and refines your personality in just the way the way her fingers swim through her hair defines her personality, her mystique, and the presence of this apparition you now see before you.
‘The light above you dies. Flashes first – like the light on the roof of a police car – then the scene’s as dark as a diamond. You take one deep breath and then another: never before have you touched a virgin. Electricity runs through your body. No doubt energy is being transferred from your body to hers already, and this you can do nothing to stop: the first law of thermodynamics states that the flow of heat is a form of energy transfer. She shivers so you’re sure she’s still cold. But sparks fly and you bow your head in shame.
‘You begin to feel weak, but you feel fine. You drop to your knees as she pushes one, two fingers into your naked palm. Her intent, to exorcise some vile fluid from your body, and yours not too dissimilar. She recites prayers from a book of God, calmly, speaking in a manner only