The Diary - April 13, 2010

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

10, 531 words, or thereabouts! Pretty sweet number of words to be on I reckon. Once again, this shit just cuts off right in the middle of a scene.

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Still April 13, 2010

Shit falls through all the time for me.

Like three years ago, when me and Alex had planned to move in together. Strictly as friends, of course. We'd planned for six months, and it took about six minutes for it all to fall through when Alex got fired from her job as a deputy manager for a Coles in town. To be honest, I think she was kind of glad she'd been fired; no-one wanted to be a manager for a supermarket, let alone a deputy.

Or like seven years years before that, when plans for a family vacation fell through because of the not entirely unexpected death of my father. I'd been 12 at the time, just old enough to be sad, not old enough to know how to deal with it all. I'd been told he was an alcoholic and he'd had a heart attack because of the raised blood pressure he had from trying to quit; my mother neglected to mention that it was in fact meth he'd been addicted to and he hadn't been trying to quit at all - the dopey bastard had just overdosed.

I'd moved out at 20, a year after our plans had fallen through, got a job at a hotel and stolidly avoided getting addicted to methamphetamines. Alex moved in with a big group of lesbians, and then I met Dave and Josh after a plan to get tickets to see a rugby match had fallen through. They'd been pretend-scalping at the time; whenever anyone tried to buy one, they'd nod and give them a picture of a horse with Gary Busey's head pasted on. I knew their routine because they did it about once every month and told everyone about how funny it was about once every hour.

I'd been one of their first victims that day. I still had the picture of a horse with Gary Busey's head pasted on.

'This is just a picture of a horse with Gary Busey's head pasted on,' I said.

'No, it's a ticket,' said Dave.

'It looks like a ticket to me,' agreed Josh.

'It looks like a picture of a horse with Gary Busey's head pasted on to me,' I said.

'I think you're not seeing right,' said Dave. 'Maybe you should get better glasses.'

'I'm not wearing any glasses.'

'Exactly,' said Josh.

'There's no worse glasses than no glasses,' said Dave helpfully.

'What if you've got some real bad glasses?' I asked.

'Well there's no worse glasses than no glasses apart from real bad glasses, then,' said Dave.

'Hasn't really got the same punch,' I said.

'It'd have the same punch if you hadn't demanded we change it,' said Dave.

'I didn't demand.'

'I distinctly heard demanding.' Dave turned to Josh. 'Did you hear demanding?'

'I heard demanding, yes,' said Josh. 'A whole lot of demanding, really.'

'There you go, "A whole lot of demanding," he said,' said Dave. 'Straight from the horse's mouth.'

'He's not the horse in that phrase,' I said. 'I'm the horse.'

'You don't look like Gary Busey to me,' pointed out Dave.

'That's true,' added Josh, 'you don't look like Gary Busey at all.'

'More like a Steve Buscemi,' said Dave.

'That's not a nice thing to say at all.'

'Hey, I'm not the one trying to scalp tickets,' said Dave, and that was that. They asked for my phone number and my autograph because they'd always wanted to be friends with Steve Buscemi, we departed, and two days later they called me and asked if Steve Buscemi wanted to play pool with them. He did.

*

I woke up at 1:30 to the sound of the television advertising soap. I rolled over and on to the floor and it was only when the stench hit me that I realised we'd forgot to clean up the damn bathroom. It smelled like what I would imagine a baby made of shit gestating would smell like.

I rolled over and groaned, then rolled over again and groaned for emphasis.

'Did you know there used to be real cocaine in Coke?' asked Alex above me. I peered upwards. She was sitting on the couch, drinking a Coke, idly watching the television while it advertised soap. She looked . . . calm. She still had the bruise on her head, and she was wearing a long-sleeved jumper but I presumed the scratches were still there. I thought about a way to bring up the subject of last night then realised that was probably a bad idea; Alex would perhaps bring it up herself in time.

Perhaps.

'I know,' I said instead. 'Everyone knows that.'

'That was only a hundred years ago, or so,' said Alex. 'I bet there's still one of the cans from back then still around.'

'It would have biodegraded by now,' I said.

'YOU would have biodegraded by now,' said Dave, and chucked me a bottle of spring water as Josh and him came through the door. 'We tried to get Cokes, but the vending machine was out of everything but spring water.'

'I don't want spring water,' I said. 'Spring water is just normal water, but from a spring.'

'And springs are tasty, dumbass,' said Josh. 'Don't you know anything about spring water?'

'Apparently not.'

'So when are we heading off?' asked Alex.

'What?' I said.

'I said, "When are we heading off?" '

'I know what you said. What I'm worrying about is WHY you said it.'

'I said it because I was wondering when we would be heading off,' explained Alex.

'But what about . . .' I trailed off, with Alex's stare on me. I know now I should have brought it up then, but with the sun shining outside, and a seemingly hour long soap advertisement playing on the television, holding spring water that was just normal water but tastier because it was from a spring . . . I could almost pretend that last night had just been a trifle of an issue, like we'd lost some postage stamps, or we'd misplaced some keys.

'You're probably wondering about the toilet,' said Alex. 'That's what you were about to say, I bet. "But what about the toilet".'

'Yes,' I said. 'That was what I was going to say.'

'Well we mopped it up and then threw out the mop,' said Alex.

'That's good then,' I said. 'I am glad my question was resolved.'

'I'm thinking we'll leave in 10 minutes or so,' said Dave. 'We can have lunch in a few hours at this nice pie place I know out of town.'

'Isn't than an oxymoron?'

'No seriously, it's really great. Honestly. And I've drawn up a route for us to take for this whole thing. I figure we'll drive down to Brisbane then cut across to the A2,' said Dave. I didn't know what the A2 was, so I nodded mutely. 'You can have a look at it if you want. And I've packed all our luggage in the back. You two have told your landlords you'll be doing this, right?'

'. . . Not exactly,' I said. 'Not at all, really.'

Dave and Josh turned to Alex. She shook her head. Dave shrugged. 'They'll figure out eventually. That's everything, right?'

'Just don't forget to pack the spring water,' I said.

*

The pies were pretty good, and Dave didn't forget to pack the spring water.

The place was called Palace of Pies and was just outside of Brisbane. It had a faded old sign and there were no other customers but us. There was a big courtyard outside of it with an artificial pond that was kinda pretty. We made some light conversation about how pretty it was and how much we admired it, not at all talking about last night in a manner that was probably more obvious than just straight up talking about the whole thing.

The place had obviously been designed for whole swathes of customers, and it all looked a bit comical with 20 tables inside, 20 tables outside, and four people in the whole place - not including the guy who worked there, who looked about seventy years old and called me madam.

The Diary - April 13, 2010, In Which A Lot of Serious Shit Happens

Part 1

Part 2

So, it's the end of day 2 of NaNoWriMo and I've written 9000 or so words.

I did not expect to have written this much by now. Or anytime, really, but whatever. And yeah, this bit gets pretty serious towards the end, I guess.

______________________________________________________________

(Continued from last entry.)

'I think you're an idiot.'

'No, think about it,' said Alex. 'What else are we doing with our lives? You wake up at two in the afternoon and lounge around until it's time to work or watch Back to the Future again, then when you get home you lounge around and watch television until you fall asleep. I mean, it's not much of a life. You're not living, you're . . . SURVIVING. And all three of the rest of us are unemployed and living on welfare. Dave and Josh get through somehow, but me . . . if it weren't for the lesbians bailing me out I'd probably be living with my parents.'

The lesbians were a group of 20 or so straight women that lived in the same apartment block as Alex that she liked to call lesbians. They had big parties every weekend; the whole herd of them would flock periodically from apartment to apartment, drinking and making a quiet, focused kind of hubbub that was probably more annoying than would be a louder hubbub. Occasionally they invited Alex, or me, or a temporary boyfriend who had nice hair and a nice body and was ultimately discarded within a week. They were so straight that they were entering lesbianism from the other side.

They'd collectively paid her rent for her two months or so, a year back. Everytime she came to them with money to pay them back, they refused to take it, and eventually got so annoyed with her attempting to give them money and threatened that if she tried to give them money again, they just might take it. She'd never tried it ever since.

'Scissors, paper, rock,' I said. 'I win, we don't go, you win, we do your stupid road-trip.'

'What, all four of us in one game?'

'All four of us in one game,' I said.

'Alright,' said Dave. 'I like it. There's no truer democracy than Scissors, Paper, Rock, after all.'

'Scissors, paper, rock,' we all chanted, pumping our fists like retarded five year-olds. I put down a rock; every single one of the other three put down a paper.

'Best out of three,' I said.

'Alright,' said Dave, and we went again. I put down a rock. Everyone else put down paper.

'I think we win,' said Josh.

'You only won because you outplayed me,' I said. 'It's not like you're better than me or something.'

'Whatever, Mike,' said Josh. 'When are we going on your wack-ass roadtrip, Dave?'

'Four sounds like a good idea,' said Dave.

Alex looked at her pocketwatch. 'It's already a quarter to four.'

'Four in the morning, then. That's when you get off work, right, Mike?'

'Yeah . . .' I said uncertainly. 'Are you sure that's a good idea, though? I mean . . . four in the morning?'

'Okay, okay,' said Dave. 'We'll do Scissors, Paper, Rock. If I win, we go at four in the morning. If you win, we go whenever you wanna.'

'Fair enough,' I said, and we played again. I picked rock. Dave picked paper.

'Four in the morning it is, then,' he said. 'You'll be fine with that, right, Alex?'

'Yeah, sure,' said Alex.

'We'll pick you up after we pick up Mike from work, then. Cool?'

'Cool.'

'Cool.'

April 13, 2010 - Early Morning

'It's all cool,' assured the man pointing a gun at me and wearing a beanie over his face. 'It's all cool.'

'It's all cool?' I asked. I had my hands up, but it was possible that I could twitch my knee up and press the alarm without looking like I had epilepsy.

Possible.

The alarm itself was just a button that sent a message to the police station that the place was being robbed. The police station was halfway across town, so in order to even stop the man robbing the place, I'd have to engage him in a tea party or something.

'It's all cool,' assured the man once again. 'It's all cool.' Just hand over all the money from the cash register and we'll be cool.'

'There is no money in the cash register,' I said.

'What do you mean there is no money in the cash register?' the masked man demanded. He waved the gun threateningly, but there wasn't really any heart in; after all, there's nothing much more threatening than a gun.

'I mean there's no money in the cash register,' I said.

'Don't get smart with me,' he said.

'Sorry,' I said. 'It's just there's no money in the cash register.'

'Open the cash register,' he said. I opened the cash register. There was no money in it.

'There's no money in that cash register!' said the man in surprise.

'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, that's true.'

'Why is there no money in the cash register?' demanded the man.

'Every night, my boss comes and collects the money before my shift. And no-one's tried to sign in all night. Or morning, for that matter,' I said.

The man aimed his gun directly at my face and said, 'Give me your shoes.'

'What?'

'I said give me your shoes!' said the man. 'Give me your shoes or I'll shoot you in your stupid shoe-wearing face!'

I unlaced my shoes and handed them over. They were pretty shit shoes, to be honest. He looked at them scornfully. 'These are shit shoes!'

'Hey,' I said, 'at least I'm not stealing a pair of shoes.'

'If there was any money in the cash register, I wouldn't have to steal your stupid shoes,' he said.

'There is no money in the cash register,' I said.

'I know there's no money in the cash register, you bald-footed son of a bitch,' said the man. He aimed the gun at me again. 'Take off your shirt.'

I took off my shirt. It was my work shirt; an old, slightly faded black shirt with a small crown for Crown Hotel on the lapel. I couldn't see why he would want it. He stuffed the shirt in his pocket and held my shoes in his left hand as he brandished his gun at me.

'Take off your vest,' he said.

'I'm not wearing a vest,' I said.

'Yes you are.' He pointed to my undershirt.

'That's an undershirt,' I said.

'Well give me your damn undershirt, then.'

I took off my undershirt, leaving my chest bare to the slightly chilly night. It was just getting into Autumn, so it was cold, but not too cold. Quite nice, really.

I half expected the man to aim his gun at me again and tell me to give him my chest, but he didn't. He said, 'Take off your pants.'

'But they're my pants,' I said. 'I can't take off my pants.'

'Take off your pants or I'll shoot you.'

I took off my pants because if I didn't, he would shoot me. They were earthy-coloured, and drab, like the rest of the uniform. The whole thing didn't really fit the whole crown motif.

And now I was naked to the world apart from my underpants. He aimed the gun at me once more and said, 'Give me your underpants.'

'You've already got the rest of my clothes,' I said. 'Why do you need my underpants? I think I need my underpants more than you need my underpants.'

He shook around my clothes and shoes. 'You think this is gonna sell well? No way! But underpants? Whoo-ee!'

'Who the hell buys used underpants?' I asked.

'You'll be surprised who buys used underpants,' he said. 'You know bums?'

'Never met him.'

'Bums, moron! Homeless people! You'll be surprised the amount of money a bum will pay for used underpants.'

'What kind of bum has enough money to pay for used underpants?'

'The kind of bums that wants used underpants,' explained the man. 'That kind of bum.' He shook the gun around threateningly. 'Now give me your damn underpants.'

'What if I don't want to give you my damn underpants?' I asked.

'Then I'll shoot you,' he said. He shook the gun around to demonstrate that he knew how a gun worked, or he knew how to shoot, or something. Maybe he just liked shaking the damn thing.

He was so busy shaking the gun threateningly that he had forgotten he was only a metre or so away from me, and only came back into focus when I stole the gun from his hands. I aimed it directly at his face. He blanched.

'Give me your shoes,' I said. He tried to hand me back my shoes, but I waved them away. 'I want your shoes. My shoes are shit.'

He unlaced his shoes and gave them to me. They were marginally less shitty than mine.

And the whole bizarre thing began again. He handed over his shoes, then his shirt then his undershirt and finally his pants. I dressed quietly and quickly and soon had all his clothes on. He was down to his underpants, but he just put my shitty shoes and faded uniform on. We looked at each other for a moment, and I could see his eyes blinking through the holes he had cut in the beanie.

'Your undershirt's kind of itchy,' he said.

'I know,' I said. 'Your undershirt's nice.'

'Technically it's a vest,' he said.

'Oh, right. That must have been why you said "vest" when referring to my "undershirt".'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, that's why.'

There was a beep outside, then a figure came running through the doors. It was Dave, dressed in a wooly jumper and slack pants. He looked from me to the beanie-wearing to the gun, then shook his head.

'Come on, Mike,' he said. 'It's already past four. We've been waiting outside for five minutes.'

'That's true,' said Beanie. 'When I came in to rob the place, they were outside.'

'That was at the least seven minutes ago,' I said.

'Then we've been waiting outside for seven minutes!' cried Dave. 'Come on, Mike, hurry up.'

'Sorry,' I said. 'I'd been talking to this guy. Ok, I'll - hey! If you were outside when this guy came to rob the place, why didn't you stop him?'

'We just thought he was very excited about the prospect of staying at the hotel, or something,' said Dave.

'That's not true,' pointed out Beanie. 'When I came inside to rob the place, I waved the gun at them and said, "Don't fuck with me when I'm robbing the place".'

Dave hung his head. 'Sorry, Mike.'

'It's alright, just don't do it again,' I said. Stuffing the gun in my pocket, Dave and I began to walk out, leaving Beanie in the reception area, looking around aimlessly. I turned back for a moment. 'You can probably sit down and pretend you're me. The guy who's replacing me will be here in a few minutes, and honestly he probably won't notice. Just arrive here tomorrow at six o'clock at night and take my shift.'

'Okay,' said Beanie. 'I've never really had a job before, though. What do I do?'

I thought over my nightly tasks as receptionist. '. . . Nothing.'

'I can manage that, I think.'

'Just don't let any scum-suckers rob the place.'

'I won't let any scum-suckers rob the place,' promised Beanie.

'The cash register's empty, anyway, there'll be nothing to steal but your clothes. And what kind of scum-sucker steals a man's clothes?'

'The lowest kind of scum-sucker steals a man's clothes,' said Beanie.

'That's right.'

'Come on Mike, Josh is waiting,' said Dave.

We left. The Polonez was waiting outside, looking like an accident on wheels. I slid into the back seat, while Dave hopped in the driver's seat next to Josh.

'You picked up my luggage, right?' I said.

'We picked up your luggage, yeah,' said Josh. 'Why'd you bring so many condoms?'

Fuck. 'Because fuck you, Josh.'

'Thanks, but no thanks,' said Josh. Dave started up the car, and with a suspicious clunk we pulled out on to the dark street.

*

Scrawled across the front wall of Alex's apartment block was the word bitch in big red letters. The streetlights were still on and they conveniently illuminated the diatribe with gloomy, weak light as we pulled up in the old FSO Polonez. Dave had put on an obscure Finnish heavy metal band called Iso Anukselle - I didn't know what it meant in English; in all likeliness, it was probably something about dancing - a few minutes back, and now we were listening to a Finn girl singing, again, something probably about dancing.

'Someone's a bitch,' said Josh.

'I didn't know your mother lived here, man,' said Dave.

'Yeah, she moved out a few weeks ago,' said Josh. 'She's not feeling the place, though. She's thinking of moving again.'

'Oh?' I asked innocently. 'Where to?'

'Oh,' said Josh, 'just to a little place called up yours Dave.'

We high-fived.

The three of us got out of the car and walked down the smooth concrete pathway. Alex's apartment building was a tall, square, hideous thing that had square balconies and sharp corners and a flat roof. It had been designed by one of the top architects in the country, and it was one of the ugliest buildings in town.

As we got closer, I realised that it wasn't simply "bitch" but written above it was "Macy Flake is a giant". "Macy Flake is a giant bitch," with bitch in giant letters. Clever.

'Who's Macy Flake?' asked Josh.

'Some bitch.'

The whole apartment block had bizarre, intersecting staircases that seemed to be trying to make up for the monotony on the outside of the building by being the most complicated thing in the universe. The architect had got it all the wrong way around: monotony on the inside, interesting twists and turns on the outside. No one wants to walk into a big block of concrete and suddenly be in Wonderland. I guess no one wants to walk into a big block of concrete at all, really, but you get my point.

Scrawled on the walls inside was "Macy Flake is a giant bitch" again. More than twenty times. Macy Flake and her giant bitchiness confronted us in its full glory; the flickering hallway light illuminated the sentences running across the walls and up onto the ceiling, big streams of red paint dripping from the letters. Someone fucking hated Macy Flake.

'What kind of name is "Macy Flake," anyway?' I said.

'Sounds like a bitch name to me,' said Dave.

'Yeah,' agreed Josh. 'A giant one.'

'Just because it's written on the walls doesn't mean it's true,' I said.

'Why not?'

'Well let's say I wrote that Macy Flake was a real good person on the walls right now. Does that make Macy Flake a real good person?'

'No. Macy Flake is a giant bitch, not a real good person,' pointed out Josh. We continued on up through the staircase designed by M.S Escher. At one point we got stuck on some stairs going down and found ourself arriving back at ground floor, where the message of truth was still painted across the walls. We went up again, once again took the same staircase back down again, went up again, this time took a different one and arrived at number 7.

'Alex is at number five,' I said, 'so she should be right next to . . . this one . . .' Number five wasn't right next to number seven. Instead the number 12 was painted across the next door. Not in red paint or anything, like the message downstairs. It looked pretty official, with serifed black lettering edged by gold. Number 12 was definitely next to number seven.

'Number 12 is next to number seven,' pointed out Dave.

'That's retarded and I hate this stupid hotel,' said Josh.

I didn't remember this the last time I had been here. Number seven had definitely been next to number five, with number six on the other side of the hall. That was how hotels worked, right? 'I was here two days ago,' I said. 'Number seven was definitely next to number five, then.'

'Maybe they changed the numbers since then.'

'What, changed it so it went 5, 6, 12?'

'Maybe it's like . . . Arabic,' said Josh.

'No, I don't think that's it.' We walked down the hallway and up it again. Every number apart from number five was 12.

'We seem to have encountered a problem.'

Just then, there was a thump at the 12 in front of us. Like someone was knocking at the door. Like someone was knocking . . . on the inside of their door. Dave and Josh both nodded at me to answer it.

'Come on,' said Dave.

'We're on the outside of the door,' I pointed out.

'And? Don't be impolite. Answer the door, dude!'

I opened the door cautiously. A head slumped out and banged lightly on the floor.

It was Alex.

Shit, I thought, then realised I'd said that out loud. I kneeled down. She was completely unconscious, and when I opened her eyes they were bloodshot and red, like she'd been drinking. She was limp, and there was a quickly developing bruise on her forehead. Down her arms, there was long scratches that were bleeding, just a bit. But any bleeding is blood. I checked her fingernails out. Under them was a bit of blood. She'd . . . scratched her own arms? What?

Music was playing, I realised lastly. It was Paranoid Android, by Radiohead. I didn't know she listened to Radiohead.

'Shit,' said Dave.

'Shit,' said Josh.

'Help me pick her up,' I said. I picked up under her arms and they picked up her legs and we carried her into the room and on to her couch. Her room was messy. Messier than usual, that is. The chair and the coffee table were knocked over and the magazines spilled across the floor. Women's Day, and shit like that. It hadn't been this woman's day. There was a big crack across the east wall, too, and below it, her baseball bat. I knew it was her baseball bat because every time I came over she jokingly told me to get out of her apartment and threatened me with it. The whole joke didn't seem so funny anymore. There was a foul stench that wafted through the place, too, like shit. Exactly like shit, really. I followed the smell to the bathroom, where the toilet had overflowed and thick, brown water spread across the bathroom floor.

Well, that would probably explain the shit smell.

So . . . signs of a struggle, toilet overflowing, Alex knocked out and scratched . . . by herself. Someone had crawled up through her toilet, she'd fought him off, then . . . what? Decided to scratch herself?

I felt tired, and stupid. This whole thing was a retarded idea. I went out to tell Dave and Josh. They were sitting on the couch next to Alex, staring at nothing. I looked up at the clock on the wall. 4:40 AM. It was too damn late, and not one of us looked like we could drive.

'I think we should stay here for the night,' I said. 'We'll take shifts watching her. Obviously something's happened here.'

'Maybe it was Macy Flake,' said Dave, and we all laughed, not because it was particularly funny, but because it was something we could laugh at.

'I like that idea,' said Josh. 'We'll stay here for the night.'

'Yeah,' said Dave. 'That's a nice idea.'

And I couldn't fail but notice that neither of them had mentioned the road trip at all. Maybe we weren't going on the stupid thing after all. Personally, I couldn't care less either way. Work graveyard shift at a hotel, take a road trip to the centre of Australia: it was all the same in the end.

Well, kind of.

We had enough energy to drag out a few mattresses and sheets and lie down on them. It was terribly haphazard. 'I'll take first shift watching her,' I suggested. 'After all, I am the one with the retarded sleeping schedule. I'm used to being up around now.'

'I'll take second,' said Josh and Dave at the same time. They Scissor, Paper, Rock-ed it. Dave won, and decided to take the third shift, the one he hadn't wanted to take in the first place.

'I'll wake you up when my shift's over,' I said to Josh. Both of them rolled over on their mattresses and pulled their sheets over them.

When I was sure they were asleep, I locked the door with every lock it had, closed the windows and locked them, and drew the curtains shut, so it was just the four of us, safe in a little world outside of the big, scary one. I grabbed the baseball bat and held it limp in my hands, and slumped on the couch next to Alex. I felt like a knight guarding over a sleeping princess, except the princess was a girl covered with scratches with slight body image issues, and the knight was a guy who didn't have armour, didn't have a sword but did have a baseball bat, was 5"10 and skinny and was scared out of his mind. So not really like a knight at all, I guess.

I tried to ponder over the question of the 12s, and the Macy Flake shit, and the whole thing, but that didn't work, so I tried going over each one individually, and managed to be confused and bewildered about each one individually. At some point I realised we hadn't organised when the shifts would start and end, and soon after it was 6:40 and the sun was rising. I watched it out the window, lighting up the world, making it seem a little bit safer. My shift was probably over, so I shook Josh awake and collapsed into my own mattress. The last thing I remembered seeing before falling asleep was the crack running across the wall where Alex had beaten the wall with a baseball bat for unfathomable reasons.

The Diary - April 12, 2010, Later That Day

Here is the first bit of writing!

More writing done! That's 5400 or so words done today, which makes me ridiculously ahead of schedule for NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately, tomorrow is NOT the weekend anymore, so, you know, I doubt I'll be as productive as this.

And yes, I am aware that it just kind of cuts off, but I'm pretty much done for the night and I'm just exhausted of writing right now.

____________________________________________________________________

April 12 2010 - Later That Day

I was a goddam moron at night.

I'm not the kind of dude who believes shit like that. I kind of pride myself on the fact. Michael Lincoln: Guy Who Doesn't Believe Shit Like That. I was a skeptic. I was so much of a skeptic that I was skeptical of other skeptics. If they made a show about my life, it'd just be me sitting on the couch, not believing in shit for half an hour each episode.

But still, no harm done. I just hope no-one ever finds this diary.

There was a sharp ringing below me from inside the work-clothes I had left sprawled on the floor. I scrabbled around inside and picked up my phone. Dave. Why was Dave ringing me so early? It was only 2 PM. Dammit, I hadn't even had breakfast yet.

'Dave?'

There was a crackle from the other side of the phone. Then, 'Mike? It's me, Dave. What's up?'

'Uh . . . not much,' I said. I always felt uncomfortable when people asked what was up, because most of the time, nothing was up and I was afraid they'd just get bored of me saying 'Uh . . . not much' all the time and start yelling at me.

'Me and Josh have got some big news. You gotta meet us at Timmy's. Ring Alex, tell her to come too. I know you two are like a couple or something.'

'Friends,' I corrected. 'Well, I guess you COULD classify us as a couple, but only as a "couple of friends".' I chuckled.

'Yeah, whatever, Mike. Anyway, meet us at Timmy's in half an hour. We've got this tape. It's real interesting, you'll like it. We've got this big plan.'

I sighed inwardly. Dave and Josh always had some big plan. If they didn't have some big plan, they wouldn't be Dave and Josh. 'Okay, okay, I'll come. You're paying.'

'Nuh-uh. No way. We'll play Fruitsies. I've already got a fruit in my hand right now, Mike. You are going down.'

I cast around, and picked up an old apple. 'Alright, alright. I'll see you there.'

'No grapes,' said Dave, and hung up.

I dialed Alex's number, waited for the answer. She picked up after three rings, like always. She said it gave the caller "time to prepare".

'Alex?' I said. 'It's me, Mike.'

'Hey Mike. What's up?'

'Uh . . . not much,' I said. 'Dave and Josh are doing this thing-'

'Dave and Josh are always doing things,' said Alex. 'You wanna come over and watch Back to the Future with me?'

'We're always watching Back to the Future. Marty's kissed his own mother so many times I'm surprised he hasn't formed NAMMLA.'

'North American Man/Mother Love Association?' said Alex.

'You know it.'

'I suppose I'll go, though,' said Alex. 'Van Helsing is no fun alone.'

'Be at Timmy's in half an hour, then. Oh, and bring a fruit,' I said.

'Fruitsies?'

'Yeah. And no grapes.' I hung up. I stuffed the apple in my pocket, stuffed my phone in the other pocket, stuffed my wallet in my back pocket, and slipped on a black shirt. It was dirty, but that was alright, because everything else was too.

*

Timmy's was Timmy's Diner, on the corner of Eucalypt Street, which was so named because of the growth of Eucalypt trees that had been cut down to build Eucalypt Street. It was supposed to be a tribute, I guess. Like killing a man and then naming your firstborn child after him.

Timmy's Diner was the kind of place that excelled in mediocrity. It served cold food hot, hot food cold, and everything else in between lukewarm. The pies didn't have any meat in them, but that was alright because no-one else's did either. All of the food was shit, it was just that sometimes that could be concealed by the sauce, which was slightly less shit. The coffee tasted like battery acid and urine - apart from the mocha, which tasted like battery acid, urine and prepackaged chocolate powder.

It was the best place in town. It was the only place in town.

Dave and Josh were already there. Dave had an orange; Josh a lemon. I brandished my apple.

Dave and Josh were the kind of men, to put it bluntly, you expected to be homosexuals. They went everywhere together, apart from the toilet, but that was probably only because they both couldn't fit in the same cubicle. They rented a room out in the centre of town. Just the two of them. Neither of them had jobs, but they both had cars, and they both managed quite well. How they did, I will never know. Alex had a theory that they were both secretly dark wizards on the run from the wizard law. Alex had a lot of theories.

I slid into a plastic seat bolted to the ground beside them. 'I haven't had breakfast,' I said. 'So this better be worth it.' I never liked breaking fast at Timmy's. Breakfast was apparently the most important meal of the day. Having it at Timmy's was like being baptised at a drinking fountain.

'It's worth it,' said Josh. 'But let's wait for Alex.' He looked from side to side, made sure no-one was watching, then rolled the lemon across the floor. It skidded on the slightly dirty tiles, bounced a few times, and came to a stop in the middle of the floor.

'Nice shot,' Dave observed. He rolled his own orange across; he threw it too hard and it bounced over into the corner and settled there. 'Shit.'

I concentrated. This could mean twenty, thirty dollars. I picked up my apple, rolled it around in my hand, then threw. It bounced once, rolled, and hit Josh's lemon directly, knocking it away into the corner with the orange. I smiled across the table.

'It's not over yet,' said Josh. 'Someone could . . . walk right into the corner and just stamp around. Anyway, Alex isn't even here yet.'

'Yes I am,' said a voice behind me, and I felt two soft arms wrap around my neck. In a friendly manner, of course. Like a friend.

Alex sat down next to me, holding an old, wrinkled peach. Alex had short brown hair that managed to layer and intertwine in bewildering, exciting ways, and a face like a mouse, except she didn't have whiskers and she wasn't a flea infested rodent. She had a full figure that she thought was a little on the chubby side; I thought it was a little on the beautiful side.

In a completely friendly manner, of course.

She was the kind of person who knew facts about history, and knowledge on how to train dogs, and knew how planes worked. She was also absolutely, without a doubt, socially retarded.

'Hey,' she said.

'Hey,' I said.

Steamy.

'Roll your fruit,' said Josh. Alex threw the wrinkly peach across the floor. It hit the two in the corner head on and scattered them across the floor just as a flock of ten or so teenage girls came through the door. The swarm of chattering, laughing, short-skirt wearing animals entered, engulfed the four fruits in their wake, then sat down at a few tables opposite us. I tried to pay attention to the fruits as 20 or so feet stamped across them, but realised that looked creepy, so I looked away at a kid eating a burger. Equally creepy, really, so I looked intently at the tablecloth, and not at all at the delicate little ring on Alex's left hand. Not at all.

When they had settled in their seats, still talking about, as far as I could make out, how small shoes were these days, I looked over at the fruits. All four of them were pulverised, squished to a pulp.

'We'll call it a tie,' said Dave.

There was a sharp cry from the kitchen. Timmy, the owner of the whole place, had spotted the fruit smeared across the floor. Timmy was a perpetually angry, balding man of the kind that laughed at pictures of balls hitting people in the forehead. He maintained that everyone was a dirty son of a bitch that needed no attention payed to them, so hired no cleaners for the diner, on the basis that the whole place would be instantly dirty afterwards, anyway. He'd told me this a few nights ago, drunk off his ass with a fifty year old woman with a boob job and hair dyed pink, checking into the hotel I worked at as a doorman. She looked kind of like an angry gargoyle, even when she was smiling; when she was smiling, she only looked like a smiling angry gargoyle. He'd called me Sam, slapped me on the back and signed in to the hotel, then stumbled into the elevator with her. This was about one in the morning, when the kind of people like Timmy and Gargoyle Woman checked into hotels.

'Shit and damn!' said Timmy. 'Fucking kids!' He screamed and ranted, and followed the fruity footpaths of the girls to their table, and told them they were dirty sons of bitches and they were to get out. He threatened to call security, of which he had none, and when they pointed this out, he threatened to call the cops. When they said he wouldn't do it, he pulled out his phone and shrieked at them they were going down, and rang the cops. There was a frenzied two minute conversation, during which the teenage girls laughed at Timmy and Timmy raged at the teenage girls, and Timmy slammed his phone down on the table in front of the teenage girls and told them once again that they were dirty sons of bitches and they were going down.

He departed into the kitchen, shrieking at his employees that, by God, if they didn't work faster he could fire them all at a snap of his fingers, and snapped his fingers to demonstrate. When a young waitress took this to mean she had been fired and began to walk out, Timmy threatened that, by God, if she didn't start working again he'd hire her at once and make her start working. He grumbled and shrieked tremulously and departed back into the kitchen and as soon as he was gone the ten or so teenage girls raised their hands and began a mass imitation of his tremulous shriek that was, on the whole, quite accurate.

'We should go,' said Alex. 'We should go.'

'We should stay,' said Dave. 'We should stay.'

'It feels like I'm intruding on some private conflict,' complained Alex.

'You only feel that way because you are,' reassured Josh. 'We'll stay. We'll stay and see how it pans out.'

The police arrived five minutes later, one of them a dark-moustached forty-year old man with narrow eyes, the other a young kid that looked around 17 with a thin wispy moustache. Both their moustaches bristled at the injustice of being called out to a diner for a domestic dispute. They went into the kitchen, and came out again with Timmy, his hands cuffed behind his back. When he shrieked that he had called them himself and they were to arrest the girls, they punched him in the midriff and told him he was a dirty son of a bitch and he was going down.

They escorted him out, and the customers around us sat in an awkward silence, until the girls again began to shriek 'You dirty sons of bitches are going down!' in Timmy's tremulous voice, and everyone laughed at the funny joke.

*

We ended up not buying anything at all, and since we'd already decided we'd split the costs four-ways, we each paid our equal parts of nothing and left the diner and went across the street to the park. The park was a wide expanse of grass, occasionally shaded by trees, occasionally populated with an odd bench. People liked to walk along and feed the ducks, or jog in the early morning. It was the kind of place that people had picnics in.

We sat down on the grass by the pond; Alex had bought a loaf of bread and threw it into the pond as whole. It floated, soggy and bloated, like a brick. A duck swam up to it and pecked hopefully.

'I think you're supposed to throw it in bit by bit,' I said.

'Probably.'

'Guys, guys,' said Dave. 'I've got to tell you already. Enough monkeying around.'

'Monkeying?' asked Alex innocently. 'We were monkeying?'

'You were monkeying, is what you were doing!'

'I don't see any monkeys,' pointed out Alex. 'Surely there would be monkeys involved in monkeying around.'

'They are metaphorical monkeys,' explained Josh helpfully. 'You're the metaphorical monkeys.'

'I'm a metaphor?' I asked.

'No, you're a monkey.'

'I don't SEE any monkeys.'

'Shut up, shut up,' said Dave. 'You're doing this on purpose. You two are doing this on purpose.'

'Am not.'

'Am so!' cried Dave. 'Am so!'

'Am no-' I began, but Dave tackled me on to the grass. Dave wasn't exactly a small guy, so my struggles only served for him to weigh down on me more. He ground against me like a horse against a tree.

'I'll keep grinding,' he said calmly. 'I'll keep grinding and you'll just be sitting there and I'll be grinding on you.'

'Fine! Fine! For the love of God, just stop grinding me,' I said. Dave laughed and hopped off. He turned to Alex.

'Time?'

She took out her pocket watch. It had originally been a fake pocket watch that came with a fake monocle, but she'd refitted it so her actual watch sat inside the compartment where the phony workings had lay. 'It's half past three,' she said. 'You're lucky none of us have jobs, Dave, otherwise we'd actually be doing something productive for society right now.'

'I have a job,' I pointed out.

'Graveyard shift at a shitty hotel doesn't count,' said Josh. 'That's more like . . . advanced slavery.'

'I'd rather be an advanced slave than a dog-ass lazy pig,' I said.

'I'm not a dog-ass lazy pig,' said Josh. 'That's harsh, Mike.'

'It's alright,' I said. 'Some guys are dog-ass lazy pigs. Some guys aren't.'

'None of us are dog-ass lazy pigs!' shouted Dave. 'Now can we get on with it?'

'We can get on with it when Josh stops being such a dog-ass lazy pig, maybe.'

'Call someone a dog-ass lazy pig again and I'll grind you, Mike,' said Dave. 'Enough.' And he reached into his pocket and took out his camcorder. His camcorder was a sleek, black thing he'd bought from a friend he knew in the Black Market for twenty bucks and a packet of cigarettes. That same friend robbed him of his laptop, television, and wallet a week later by the cunning method of asking to stay the night then taking all his shit. He left the camcorder, though. Dave liked to think the guy was hiding in Mexico, and that was payback enough for him.

'So, I was up at five or six this morning,' began Dave, and I knew with a horrible dropping certainty what was on his stupid camcorder. 'I was cutting an orange, I think. Or was it?'

'It was an orange,' agreed Josh. 'There was dried orange juice on the table this morning.'

Dave nodded, turned to me and Alex. 'There was dried orange juice on the table this morning,' he explained, 'so it must have been an orange. Anyway, it turned out I'd left the camcorder on.'

'And the television,' said Josh. 'You shouldn't forget the television.'

'I shouldn't forget the television,' agreed Dave. He turned to us once again. 'And the television,' he added. 'I'd also left the television on. Anyway, I turn the camcorder off. And the television, too. Or did I?'

'You did,' said Josh. 'When I got up this morning, the television was not on.'

'When he got up this morning the television was not on,' confirmed Dave. 'Consequently, it must be assumed I did, in fact, turn the television off as I did with the camcorder. So here I am, cut orange in my hand, both television and camcorder off. I look at the camcorder, realise it's on. I am forced to assume I have left it on, accidentally filming the television. So I open it up and look at the video . . .'

. . . And of course he found The Other Side, and the stupid God-interview, and since this was Dave he believed the whole thing without question. I listened as he excitedly told us about the whole thing, how the world was going to end in three weeks, how Jesus was going to do a retarded Sermon on the Mount on Uluru, how God didn't like dudes ditching other dudes for ladies.

'That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,' I said.

'YOU'RE the stupidest thing I've ever heard,' retaliated Dave swiftly. 'Anyway, I've got the video, and me and Josh are really excited about the whole thing, and I guess what I'm really trying to say is we should take a road trip to Uluru.' He looked at us hopefully, as if he expected he could slip the whole proposal into the end of his little speech without us noticing.

I didn't think it'd be a good idea. 'I don't think that would be a good idea,' I said.

'Well your conception wasn't a very good idea, but that happened, didn't it?' said Dave.

'Please do not compare my conception to your crazy-ass idea to travel into the centre of Australia,' I said. 'Well, not exactly the centre. Kind of off to the left.'

'I think it's a good idea,' said Josh.

'I think I fucked your mother. Oh wait, I don't just think that, I did that.' I looked at them for a moment. 'Just listen to yourselves, you dumbasses. Firstly, how are we going to get to the centre of Australia? And, secondly, why are we believing a show about crazy people? And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all, why is your mother such a bad lay?'

'One, we'll use my Polonez,' said Dave. 'Two, what proof do you have they're crazy people? Seemed pretty legitimate to me. And lastly, because she caught it from you.'

Dave's Polonez was the FSO Polonez he'd bought for $700 and a carton of eggs on a whim, and it was so monumentally bad that the amount of money he had spent on repairs over the years had accumulated to more than the money he had saved by getting it instead of a more expensive car. Every three years, without fail, it developed a fresh rash of rust, even if the car was so rusty already that it was rust that was rusting. It guzzled up fuel like welfare payments, and the seats, the suspension, gearbox and dashboard fell apart at regular intervals, and the brakes had to be replaced every year - if they weren't, he'd find himself careening wildly down a steep hill and crashing with a thump into the backside of a semi-trailer; in fact, that had already happened. Most parts for it were obsolete, so these days the thing sat gathering rust like one of those weird old ladies who hoarded tea cups, and occasionally Dave dared to drive it. He had to be sufficiently stupid to even think about the prospect of driving it, though, so this meant the only times he would consider driving the vehicle was when he was very drunk, very angry or both - neither of which were prime moods to be in when driving a vehicle that had a proclivity to stall when you drove too fast.

'I don't think the old Polo could handle it, Dave,' I said.

'She can handle anything,' said Dave proudly. 'Have I told you about the time she saved me from a crash into the back of a semi-trailer?'

He had told me. He told everyone the story about twice every year since it had happened, and every time he managed to gloss over the fact that it was the Polonez that had got him into the crash in the first place. He had been travelling around fifty at the time, listening to a song the title of which depended on whoever he was telling the story to at the time and how drunk he was, when he'd come over the crest of Acking Street, the main street in town, which started on the steep hill and came down all the way through the centre of town. It was, miraculously, empty at the time, due to everyone being parked around the showgrounds at the time, which was hosting the annual Ackingville Show, where everyone met up and got drunk at eachother, so there was no harm done when his brakes failed and he came to a screaming, screeching halt as he crashed into the back of a semi-trailer loaded with furniture. The front of the car had crumpled hideously, he had slammed forward into his seatbelt, which went taut immediately, and the airbags shrieked outwards and engulfed him; he survived the whole crash without a scratch. He often focused on this fact when telling the story, rather than the fact that he had just crashed into the back of a semi-trailer.

Everything worked out with the insurance, and everyone advised him against buying another Polonez with the money he had recieved. He had carefully considered this, weighed in their suggestions, and two weeks later he had driven into town with a brand new - well, as new as it could be - FSO Polonez.

'You've told me,' I said. 'You've told us all.'

'I think it's a good idea,' said Alex.

The Diary - April 12, 2010

April 12, 2010

I guess it all started with the hokey little show called The Other Side. It was the kind of fake shit that got broadcast at five in the morning and starred the kind of guests that believed aliens were gutting cattle and that influential politicians were lizard people. The host himself was a smiling, keen kind of dude, with a quiff-like hairstyle, white teeth and a suit. He looked enthused, energised and healthy, and he obviously didn't believe a thing his guests were saying. He was the kind of person you secretly suspected was a kiddy-diddler.

That night - or, more accurately, morning - they'd had on a man who believed bankers were sending assassins after him, a woman who believed assassins were sending bankers after her, and an old man with a walker and liver spots who mumbled his way unintelligibly through a script he held in his shaky thin hands, while the host sat on and nodded, asking the regulation questions. The regulation questions were questions like, "So, have you believed in ghosts all your life?" and "You've got a family? Are they lizards?"

I'd watched the show enough times to know that they'd have a final guest on the show to fill in the last few minutes or so. The last guests were generally enthusiastic young advertisers looking to sell a product to identify Karma in your life, or Rid Your Life of Demons. Generally, it was a cream, or a lotion or something, which had always puzzled me. Perhaps Karma was stored in the pores.

The last guest looked old and kind of sage. He had a beard and a thick head of grey hair. He looked prodigious, like an old army major who had recieved over a dozen medals in his lifetime and held no truck with silly business.

'For our last guest,' announced the smarmy little host, 'we have a man who refused to give us any other name Elohim. Let's have a warm The Other Side welcome for him!' There was a smattering of applause and the cameras focused on the audience. They looked exactly like the kind of people you'd expect to be there.

'Greetings,' said Elohim.

'Wotcha,' said the host, and winked, which sent a look of utmost outrage across Elohim's face. There was a brief moment where you could feel, even through the television, the sheer heat of that rage radiating from Elohim like heat off a red-hot frying pan. I felt the ground shake beneath me, the heavens open up, the very fabric of the world tear itself into shreds and settle upon nothingness like so many flakes of snow; I felt the world end and begin again in one moment, I felt the feeling that only one man can feel when he has stared into the eyes of the universe and seen its true form.

'They say you're slick,' said the host. 'They say you're a real mover.'

Another thunderous look, and Elohim opened his mouth as if to say something.

'They SAY,' said the host, cutting him off, 'they say you're big in the religion scene. That you've got big plans for the Old Man Up Above. That you two can somehow communicate.'

Elohim coughed lightly, cleared his throat, and said, 'I do not have communications with the Old Man Up Above. I AM the Old Man Up Above.'

'Say again?'

'I'm God,' explained God.

The host looked from one side to another, like a man hemmed in on all side by an Italian biker gang called Il Pazzo Uomini. 'God, you say?'

'The Almightly. The Lord Above. The Holy Spirit. The Father of All.'

The host paused. There was an awkward silence around the studio. He looked to his camera men for support, but they had taken a sudden keen interest in the woodwork. The shot flipped to the audience, who sat looking from one to another in a believing silence. The thing was . . . he looked the part. The beard, the hair, the general look that you were a small bug beneath his feet; at most, you were an angry chihuahua. They wouldn't just believe any old coot that had wandered in and mistaken dementia for divinity - this guy looked like the real world-creating thing. The definite Wahoonie.

'Well, shit,' said the host. 'Damn.'

'If it helps,' said God kindly, 'think of yourself as insignificant specks beneath my mighty gaze.'

'Thank you, but I don't think that helps much,' said the host. 'I mean DAMN. We've never had God on the show. No gods, really. I hadn't prepared any questions . . .'

'This is no problem,' said God. 'I have prepared notes. Or perhaps you may consider it a speech.' He took a folded piece of yellowed paper out of his pocket and spread it out across the desk in front of him. 'Forgive me, the speech may be a little dated. In all honesty, I meant to get down here a lot earlier, but things came up. You know how it goes.'

'Yes,' said the host. 'I know how it goes.'

God swept back his hair, and began. 'Good morning, and congratulations on your new progression into the dawn of the 20th century. I can see the human race is doing quite well. I fully endorse this Automobile that is developing such a hubbub.' God looked up for this, and nodded at the audience slowly, as if to affirm this fact. 'On the other hand, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon I consider to be a travesty. Pablo Picasso is a disgrace to holy goodness. No good will come of it. On a lighter note, a good birthday to Joseph Conrad. I very much enjoyed your book.' Another look up at the audience, another stony stare to drive home his message. 'But enough of trivialities. Today I have a very important thing to tell you all. Almost as important as Juliet's love was strong. Almost as important as that.

'From the get-go, I think, I got it all wrong. Putting the forbidden fruit out there right in the open? Oh, and letting that snake dude into the Garden of Eden? Whoo-ee! Big mistake right there. Original Sin, you know what I mean? You try to create a good, holy devout kind of human and along comes original sin fucking shit up. Just all "hey gonna fuck this up" and "hey gonna fuck this shit up too". Just like that.

'That said, it is with regret that I have to inform you of my terrible news today. It is with deep regret and all apologies that I have to announce all Earthly operations are to be shut down. Cancelled. Down the hatch. Canned. Axed. Slipped in the wad-bu-'

'Sorry?' said the host. 'Did you just, no offense Mr. God, say what I thought you just said?'

'I don't know,' said God. 'What DID you think I just said?'

'I thought you just said you were going to destroy the Earth. But that can't be right, because you're the all-loving creator. Not really the one for destroying, I reckon.'

'Not DESTROYING, as such. More . . . recreating. Destroying then putting the pieces back together. If it helps, think of yourself as dispensable and in the end quite, quite replaceable. Like tiny plastic toy soldiers.'

'I don't think,' said the host slowly, 'that metaphor helps at all.'

'Anyway, yeah, that's basically the lowdown of the whole thing. Gonna start up the Earth again. Kinda like the Second Coming, you know? Except none of that "the righteous will descend unto Heaven" stuff. Not right now. Maybe in a few years, when the whole thing has started up again and we've got a little less Original Sin, a little less atheism and a lot more righteousness. I've always felt that righteousness has been very low recently. Almost as low as ditching a dude for a fine lady. Almost that low.'

'The program only runs for thirty minutes . . .' said the host hopelessly.

'Don't worry about that. Are we going over schedule? Do not even worry. I'll sort something out. Anyway, I think I'll be going soon. I think that's all for the day- oh, no! Wait! You know how I said it's kind of like the Second Coming? Well, yeah, Jesus, big J, he will be coming down for a little encore performance of the good old Sermon on the Mount. You ever heard of a little place called Australia? You probably haven't, not many people have. Well it has this nice as hell rock smack bang in the middle of the whole place. Well, not exactly the middle. Kind of off to the left. Like the whole place has a squint or something. Anyway, yeah, Jesus, son of God, he'll be going up there for a little Sermon on the Mount kind of thing! Sweet, right? Sweet!'

The host floundered. He swallowed, looked around for support, floundered again then put one hand to his temple.

'Why Australia?' he asked, apparently deciding to focus on one single element, for ease. Maybe he thought that if he could focus on one element, he could forget everything else he had just heard.

'Always liked the old place, really. They've got nice beaches,' said God. 'Anyway, I think that'll be it. Cheerio, everyone. Good luck in the following few weeks. Oh, yeah, I don't think I mentioned. The world is going to end - to be RECREATED in three weeks from now. So, uh, good luck. See you in Heaven, when you get there.'

I expected him to flash out of existence, or turn into a flock of doves and fly out a window. Instead, he stood up and strolled out of view of the cameras.

The host looked to the audience, who, a shot revealed, looked quite satisfied with the whole thing, really. It had been a good show. They sure had hired a good actor, hadn't they? Of course, they'd all thought the whole thing was real a few moments ago, but they'd been just caught up in the moment, right? Of course they had.

I, on the other hand, was completely convinced. It was - I checked the clock - a quarter to six in the morning, but I was completely convinced that not only was the man who had just appeared on my television was God, but also that I'd be completely convinced of that same fact tomorrow, when I was at least semi-lucid.

Testing!