Naked in Melbourne
The rain dripped from a buckle in the guttering where a tree had hit it years ago. He stood on a tree stump, over the dark soil of the front garden, his umbrella wetted black and felt the fear coming on. The taxi wasn’t going to come. The taxi. 6:35. He must have called the company what, ten minutes ago? And didn’t the operator say there were five cars in the area? What’s that? No, just an old car, driving slowly. The shadows of its wheels passing by like cats. It’s already been. When he was saying good-bye. There were so many cars that one came by straight away, found no-one and pissed off. Who looks silly now?
He hears them still laughing down the back. He could go back round down the side of the house and say wups and go call a taxi again. Of course he’d have to explain where he’d been for the last ten minutes and of course he’d have to say standing on the porch and what a really good thing it was coz he really mellowed out there just looking at the stars and clouds and watching the rain. Who looks silly now? And why, when everything seemed to be going right, smoothing out. Better to wait. Maybe they send follow up taxis for the passengers that aren’t found waiting first time round.
Ah, what do we have at home? He might add milk and “make” muesli, or more mufta and have some tea and biscuits yes definitely the later coz it makes sense to go to all that bother of making a tea and then rewarding yourself with a smoke cool thus ratified the decision to further himself down the perilous path of wanton substance abuse (he vowed one day he would stop eating muesli). The taxi continued not being there, rather like a naughty French school boy, caught killing a kitten because he thought it might be God. We are of course speaking of the late great J.P. Sartre, who headed towards the vanishing point of fame the minute he chose to wend his warp into the world’s wide tapestry; as happens to, sadly at times, all public figures. For instance, we might remark that Lady Princess Diana’s future begun inexorably falling towards her fate when she married Prince Charles. Maybe we could tie it to a moment, a second? Saying I do? Or that kiss on the balcony? We might comment on the irony of a woman finding her feet and a hope of happiness so dogged by a process that sought to disassemble her that she eventually tired and the hounds tore her down. Our hounds. Did it surprise you that much when she withered under our x-ray gaze? Enough, he snapped at his conscience, but his conscience was right – the taxi wasn’t there in the same way that Diana wasn’t there. He shrugged, and wished he could write some of this down. He was sure it would make sense in the morning. Look at that, 6:37. It must have been, what, ten minutes? Come on taxi.
© N.T. Tuddenham 1998
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