Can't Live Like This

Is there anything that I could do, that someone doesn’t do for you?

I’m that’s how it is, isn’t it? You know in primary school how everyone tells you that each individual has one thing they’re good at, one special thing they do better than anyone else. Well isn’t that bullshit and a half. For every talent you may have I can guarantee you’re not considered world #1, and even if you are that’s only for so long as it takes for someone else to come along and knock you off.

You know in that movie with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson… ah I forget the name… well there’s this bit where they’re Instant Messaging after they’ve broken up, and Jack types “I Miss you”, then erases it letter by letter, and it’s sad not because Diane’s character never knows he typed that, but because we audience know he did. And that thoughtful, weary, deletion of emotion is EXACTLY how I feel right now. That one scene in that one movie captures most exactly this week.

I must have typed at least 10 messages on my phone to various people, only to press the little red X. I keep thinking about going out, and then getting to my letterbox and thinking the better of it. I can’t even make toast. I put some bread in this morning, then just popped it up straight away and re-bagged it. Then ate an apple. I was only seconds away from deleting the first pointless paragraph of tonight’s blog, when I thought it might be more productive to talk about this compulsion.

A Tuscan herd of elephants are murdering crows on my front lawn. I’m sitting in a leather-backed chair, that has vinyl instead of leather, on my porch. At times, I feel like stopping the elephants, and at other times, helping them. But the most important thing is that there never seem to be any less crows, and the elephants never seem to tire of the murdering. On the other side of the green grass, a red letterbox has a big yellow envelope showing through the blue glass. I’ve been waiting to receive it for many weeks, but I’ve decided not to go and get it until the elephants are done, partly because I don’t want to be stomped, but mostly because I don’t want to interrupt their important work. I already know the contents of the letter – it’s a census – but I still feel the same anticipation as if it was a big black box with a giant question mark on it. So to pass the time I’m building a radio. On Gilligan’s Island the professor makes one out of Island materials, and I feel I can do the same with Verandah ones. Theoretically there are all kinds of atoms floating around in the air, just in such small proportions that some people don’t even think they’re important. But for every copper atom that floats by my way I’m ever closer to real entertainment. Currently I can only pick up a few AM stations and John Safran’s Sunday night Triple J program, but life is about the little steps, and I understand their value.
Under the Umbrella Tree the crows are mounting an offensive. Wouldn’t it be silly if Umbrellas really did grow on trees, reads a large flashing neon sign stapled to it. Really though, it only has umbrella shaped stalks and leaf arrangements. The crows are planning to use the famous “Pincer” formation, and one of them is flipping through a copy of ‘The Art of War’, but crows can’t read so it wasn’t performing any meritable service. I have seen the crows launch infinite offences, and I know they will launch more. Crows just can’t take down elephants, it’s an obvious fact. But by giving up, they would be wiped out. This means they are fighting a war they will never be able to win, only prolong, and are choosing to do so. Neither the elephants nor the crows can decide if this is ignoble, but I can see it deep inside one elephant’s left eye that she believes it is. That eye, however, was one pecked out by crows, so it may be biased.
So there is a Sisyphean struggle unfolding on the lawn, and as such the chances of receiving my census are looking ever grimmer. Without it though, the government might not know I exist, and without that I lose my nationalistic acknowledgement. How can I be here if I am not censored; freedom is to have never been born. And if I have never been born, then it is obvious my ears cannot listen to John Safran, and I fear the silence.  

I fear the silence.