He was in Kashmir, he knew, lying in the meadows near running water among violets and trefoil, the Himalayas beyond, which made it all the more remarkable he should suddenly be setting out with Hugh and Yvonne to climb Popocatepetl. Already they had drawn ahead. "Can you pick bougainvillea?" he heard Hugh say, and "Be careful," Yvonne replied, "it's got spikes on it and you have to look at everything to be sure there're no spiders,". "We shoota de espiders in Mexico," another voice muttered.
Malcolm Lowry.
Life had become impossible. They made it so. An army of communist style bureaucrats had turned the people's lives to mud. Towers loomed over the rain swept streets, but what made it more disgusting was the people who peered down from those towers, their beady, self=righteous eyes justifying everything that had gone before. It was chaos, it was a depth of despair these self-righteous bastards would never know. Nothing was more dangerous than a bureaucracy on a motherhood mission or a noble cause. And contemporary Australia was riddled with them.
The new government is working out worse than anyone could possibly have imagined. They are little better than communists, and Kevin Rudd's close association with China raises eyebrows everywhere. We were principled, old fashioned, believed in things that had been washed away long ago. There couldn't be any greater level of suffering. The causes, they loved their causes. Global warming, obesity, domestic violence, drugs, industrial relations, child support, social welfare, you name it, they're trying to make our lives better, and instead turning it all to mud.
He couldn't have been more bewildered, as he stared up at the skyscrapers which surrounded the park. Years ago he had worked nearby, in the city's major newspaper offices. He had even been considered talented, though no one who saw him now would have believed it. Your aching heart. My aching heart. The flicker of the computer screens. Before the sting got him; and the voices became overwhelming, and everything turned and churned and his life became a bitter joke. He couldn't reach back to fix a point, the smell of his dank clothes distracting him. He couldn't find where he had hidden the bottle, if indeed he hadn't drunk it already, and the voices were more tortured and persistent than ever before.
He watched them pouring out of the train station each morning on their way to work, wave after wave of them, pack animals. Even at their young age there was a resigned look on their faces, as if they had become automatums already. Sometimes he would shout at them, trying to break through. Couldn't we be weary? Couldn't you acknowledge my vast humanity? Couldn't they see the person behind this jerking frame?
I was once like you, he shouted. Then: bastards! The guards from the station were heading towards him, their ironed grey uniforms picking them apart, frightening him. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? What did it matter to them where he slept? The most recent crackdown, although he didn't understand that was what it was, was making his life harder. The little alcoves where he had slept were all being hosed away, his bedding tossed into the garbage tips, his possessions scattered. He could never, would never, understand their casual cruelty.
He watched another denizen of the park, Ben he had an idea his name was, sitting squat legged, his back against the rear wall of the park, the city trains thundering behind him. Ben was rocking back and forth, talking animatedly, clearly off his medication. Then he noticed the line of piss running out from him, his sopping clothes. And then he looked down at himself and saw the same thing: he had pissed himself without even noticing. He, too, was rocking and muttering as the guards approached, looking for all the world like modern day Gestapo. There can be no justification for this brutal treatment he shouted. I was somebody once. Or that's what he meant to say, all was confused.
Leave us alone you bastards, leave us alone, he shouted, waving a walking stick he had found at them. He could see one of them on a phone. Dialling the Fuehrer he thought; as he rushed at him waving the stick. The men backed off, like nuisance birds, and he could hear sirens in the distance. You have no idea, he shouted, no idea, and could feel the damp of his clothes clinging to him, the smell of stale urine. I was once somebody, I was once somebody, you bastards, he shouted again; and the tears flowed down his face for no apparent reason. Terminal stages of alcoholism, he heard someone say, and turned around startled, but there was no one there. The sky scrapers stared down unblinking, and he began to run, or shuffle, as fast as he could. Away, away, turning only once to wave his stick and shout again: you bastards.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/strike-forces-qantas-to-cancel-14-flights/2008/06/23/1214073151596.html
QANTAS struggled to cope with a national engineers' strike yesterday, with disruptions to its flight schedule worse than predicted.
The airline told customers six flights would be cancelled but its flight data showed 14 flights were hit by late afternoon.
Its pledge that no customer would wait more than an hour for a flight was also broken, with long delays to four domestic flights; nine international flights from Sydney were also delayed by more than an hour.
"The vast majority of domestic flights left [after a delay of] less than half an hour," a company spokeswoman said.
One businessman, who asked not to be named, was told QF25 from Melbourne to New Zealand had been cancelled less than two hours before departure.
"I was literally going out the door when I got a call from Webjet, who I booked the flight through, and then 20 minutes later Qantas called. I asked was [the cancellation] due to the industrial action and they said yes."
The strike went ahead in four cities - Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane - after wage negotiations between Qantas and the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association failed on Thursday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7469102.stm
Africa's newspapers are discussing what could be in store for Zimbabwe following opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's decision to pull out of the presidential run-off election.
One South African daily says the world now has to make it clear to Zimbabwe's President Mugabe that it will not accept him declaring himself a winner in the run-off. Another says it is now time for "radical diplomacy" to find a solution, with Britain as the principle negotiator.
Zimbabwe's own papers remain silent on the political implications of Mr Tsvangirai's announcement, with the government-owned daily focusing on his alleged criminal activity.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23913016-2,00.html
A PERTH man who was offered $2.2m when he put is life up for sale on eBay has had his multi-million dollar dreams crushed after bids were cancelled.
Ian Usher, a 44-year-old divorcee living in the Perth southern suburb of Wellard, is selling everything, including his home, car, jet ski, hobbies - even friendships and his job - in the online auction after his 8-year marriage fell apart.
Late yesterday the total amount offered for his "ALife4Sale'' eBay item plummeted from $2.2 million to just $155,100 after dis-genuine bids were removed from the online auction site.
The bids were removed after retractions were entered by users who said they entered the wrong amount or by others who were deemed not genuines bids by eBay.
Mr Usher, who is originally from Yorkshire in England, launched the auction on Sunday June 22 with a starting bid of $1.
Within hours he said was popping champagne corks as bids climbed toward six figures.
Early yesterday his "ALife4Sale'' eBay account had 114 bids and the highest bidder (Bidder 41) was offering a staggering $2.2 million for a package valued between $450,000 and $500,000.
But by 6pm (WST) his eBay dreams were shattered with the total bids now a far reach from his hopeful $500,000.
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