Days Volume Two

* He still didn't know where they came from. The malls of ruined statues. The glistening hyper-spun glue that coated every surface. The half formed voices snapping in the unquiet wind. All was at discord and all was at peace. The stabs of pain were a reminder of mortality. The workers watched him as he passed; always at roughly the same time, 4 am. It had been the same in Sydney. Restless in Seattle was the only title that came to mind, trite, as he walked restless, gassap gassai, through this astonishing, 24-hour place, the fleets of neon pink and blue taxis passing beneath the overpass, the soaring high rise condos, the Ascot, The Sathon, Welcome To The Future, Ambience Arriving Soon declare the signs, Starting 3.5 MB, Mingle, Where You Live Says Who You Are, The Riverside, A New Kind Of Luxury, soar above them all they imply, away from the traditional streets, the crowded rooms, the Thais uncomfortable if they're alone, four to a room, a way of life at odds with the soari

* How did that matter? You, me, finished now, he heard the voice shout. He could hear them coming out of all the houses. He could hear every sputter of a bike in the surrounding network of sois, coming for me, coming to see me, he thought, but of course these were all illusions masquerading in a masque, the fabric of things. He had sat in front of the computer finishing off Chaos and now it was time to move on to something else. Fortunes were made and lost. Midlake and the Deep Dark Woods had been getting a bit of a thrashing, inter-cut with Bob Dylan's Desire, Blonde on Blonde and even Stranger Strange, how you listen to the river of my curdled song. These were the days, but were they really? The synapses misfiring. Mistrust all around. Treachery. He knew he was being set up. He walked the other way. He talked for hours to the strange little man. Was there any way around this, or through this? Crashing, crashing. Preoccupations came and went so swiftly. The boys all told him la

* There was an infinity of loss, that was for sure, but equally in his startled and erratic psyche there were moments of peace, destiny, a profound surrender to these oh so short lives. You papa, you gaw, old man, many year, the boys would say, and he would laugh it off because what else could you do. Taking care of papa. There were many times when he could of, should have, sought something else. Timae? Why? Why you sad John I worry you, his old partner in crime would ask. And he would simply shrug. I want you happy. You happy me happy. They were both desolate and exhilarating times. He liked it most when the sky started to lighten and the never say die nocturnal animals would gather outside the karaoke bar. He was, as always in these situations, the only foreigner. They were kind to him. As Thais tended to be when they weren't tricking you out of money, or even when they were. As long as they got their share they were happy, and would protect you against yourself and the city&#

* Well the book was finished. Chaos At The Crossroads. He lost track of time. Had barely slept for ten days; or was it more. Two weeks? Twenty days? He couldn't remember now. He had spent twenty hours a day at the computer and it ultimately came in at 176,000 words, twice the length of the average novel. He first began it in 2004 and an early draft had been up on the web ever since. It was a time to finish things. To forget old obsessions. To move on. But this was beyond obsession, beyond hard work, in a different place, really. Rats scuttled through the grass. The boy stared at him bewildered. He would never be the same again. Not ever. You broke my frozen heart; that was more or less what he said. I know you like me. You old man. Papa. Sure. I like you. Always have, always will. This strange obsession with street boys as they climbed, climbed. She have power over you, he observed. After, after, hah bee, sip bee, five, ten years, she will be big, gangster. You, too, careful, c

* Everything went every which way. Scattered origins, scattered futures, boys idling away the day in back sois. He would never be one of them; that he knew now. Although he still envied, sometimes, Baw's great ability to get lost in the karaoke bars of Bangkok, to get lost in the whisky and laughter and fine scale attempts to divide the heavenly divides. The policeman in the corner. The handsome, should that be pretty, girl in his lap. He had always been the only foreigner. Always. In these places no foreigner ever saw. And even now, when he sat amongst them and watched them touting for customers, it seemed that the French or the Europeans or whoever they were, ugly as sin to a man, never even acknowledged his presence as they were ushered inside. Often enough they would emerge shortly afterwards, underwhelmed or overwhelmed, it was difficult to tell, because they were suddenly the only customer in a bar of semi-naked, increasingly desperate boys. The nights wore on and customer

* At lest he had learnt a new Thai word, Tahm Peet, mistake. Maybe that was something. Anything. Everything crashed. Fire streaks falling to the ground. The battle scarred regions. The place where we would never be the same again. Shadows were everywhere. He had repudiated the light; for no particular reason except it wasn't him. Perhaps he just wasn't designed for happiness. Stupid things to say. Everything came falling down. Those cheap hotels in decaying parts of Bangkok, my God they were sleazy. Short time. Short time indeed. Well that was the mood he woke up in. Nothing worked, nothing came. In a nice house with a nice boy; and all he could wonder... Johnny Cash droned in the background. Before my time... before my time. If there was any blessed way to escape. Any way to make any bigger mistakes. Any way to encompass change. Things which should have been so easy never were. A time which should of been of peace and joy, haunted by doubt. He could smell his own foreign sm

* He woke up feeling like a shot of vodka and a cigarette, worried by the mere mortality of everything, and thought: you're just so crazy. The vodka was not a good idea on top of liver disease. The cigarette was not a good idea on top of emphysema. Why would he want to destroy what they had worked so hard to create? This perfect house, this perfect life. The handsome boy who took care of everything. The garden in the middle of Bangkok, so that he never wanted to go out. Suddenly, after being stupid enough to let the boy talk him into buying a car he did not need, he was desperately worried about money. His ideas of wafting away at the Happy Hippy when the money ran out seemed all the more immediate. Calcutta. The dead zone. Honestly John, some days I think a lot about taking myself out, Gary said after flying in from some disastrous situation in the Phillipines. Put it off till tomorrow, he advised airily, as in, I feel like a drink, put it off till tomorrow. Put off disaster fo

* The red lights on the sky scraper behind them blinked in the early morning dark, a warning sentinel soaring over their house. Strange statue shapes on the corner of its upper tiers gave it a certain Gothic feel, while he could feel every shadow in the streets around, hear every moto-cie as they puttered off to work. There were haunted lovers too, in all those sounds, sheets through the glass, muffled shapes, dignity abandoned. That house could have been mine, if only I hadn't made a mistake. Many mistakes. Pass away, pass away. Unrequited, these things were for another era, or from another era. Harden your heart. What would you tell your best friend to do? Stay away, stay away. And so, little evil on the blessed land, he became someone else in order to survive. He was attracted to chameleons, people who were different every time you looked at them, a princess one minute, a butch little lad the next, masculine, dripping compromise, all bowed under layers of conformity. He had

* They say that home is where the heart is. Having no heart, just a sad little collection of collapsing landscapes which passed for a splintered consciousness, the saying had never meant much to him. Oh to be normal. To have a craven heart. But thus it was that he found himself wandering the streets of Sydney after having been away all year, shocked and appalled, well shocked and astounded anyway, at how quiet the streets, how quaint the signage. Ten thirty at night and already the streets were deserted. No wonder I was so lonely here, he thought, and that, briefly, was all he could remember, the long spooky walks at 2am, with the mist dripping from the trees amidst signs of collapse, the well walked dog scurrying ahead, the pain of a restless spirit. Always, always, walking far and wide. There was never anybody there. He sat in alcoves in the cliffs, gentle overhangs, on tops of buildings, in deserted early morning parks, in the way of the truth and the light, holding to some stubb