The End Of Paradise

*

The birds tweeted their early morning sounds. You look tired, Peter said, to which he responded: yes, I'm tired of cheating death. It was only last year when the doctor measured his blood pressure and said: you are about to have a heart attack. I don't know whether to send you straight to hospital or not. In the end the medication worked. But now he was being treated for hypertension; an appropriate enough sounding illness. Getting old sucks, that's all he could think. Human. Divine. Damaged goods. Travelling, and falling into the liquid desire, the furnace of all things possible, keeping up the medication for something he didn't want to have seemed a far off priority, and while they, his passing companions in this fundamental, impossible to maintain disregard, might have been shocked at the sight of the old man puffing on cigarettes and displaying such careless contempt for his own health, nothing could be sustained. It didn't seem fair that now he was not drinking, or smoking, and swam his laps every day, that he should be bedevilled by something so mundane as a wonky heart, something so crisply and easily forgotten in the swirling search for paradise on earth, for days which would never end, for the ultimate fulfilment in the universal bar.

Languid, except there was nothing languid about a crushing headache and a threatening stroke, so he had his blood pressure checked and they refused to sell him medication over the counter, sending him off to the doctors. He wasn't sure where it would all end. He didn't like to be alone. Sometimes they were nice, the boy nurses anyway, the girls were all efficient professionalism while the boys flirted cheerfully while getting the job done. He didn't like being back in hospital, even for a few hours. He was exhibiting several of the signs of an impending stroke upon admission to emergency in one of Bangkok's five star hospitals, as the management at condo heaven claimed, and he wasn't sure where it would all lead, but hated being alone, even for these moments, even in this crisis, and just wanted to be back at the apartment whiling away the time, concerned and dismissed, nothing more to worry about than whether there were Thai subtitles on the latest pirated film they had bought off the street, amidst a vaguely generated fear that his past lifestyle might catch up to him, that his perfect life would come to an end, that he would not be able to generate enough cash to maintain the apartment. That he might have to fly back to Australia to sort out a few loose ends. Here in the ne'refall, with the snow falling, or was it ash, the eternal apocalyptic images floating in the ether, disturbed.

The woman with the plastic legs looked up and didn't even see him. Peter the multi-media artist from Erskineville, one of those trendy inner-Western suburbs of Sydney where the young, the fashionable, the aspirant, gathered, had arrived back from Cambodia and was already heading off; partly thanks to his advice off to the eternal city, to Rome. How beautiful, how amazingly beautiful, was that place. He couldn't be sure what he was going to do. He felt safe and he felt compromised. Surely he hadn't come all this way just to be dumped on a death bed? But why not cure the initial condition; why not let him walk free? If there was a God, which he very much doubted. If all those prats crapping on in meetings were right after all, which he also very much doubted. God grant me the serenity... He kept his mouth shut. There wasn't any way to be free. Certainly not through a testicle massage or the massage boy he liked around the corner, patting him on the behind in appreciation of his custom. A booking made him look good in the eyes of the management, and that he also liked, as he looked curiously to see who it was that had booked him. For two hours no less. I never want to leave here; he declared, I just don't want to go anywhere. Peter spent the day booking tickets and accommodation on his lap top. He was sad to see him go so quickly.

Thank you, Peter said, I've felt very welcome. Yes, you are, he responded. Aek kept the house tidy and every thing functioning, while his heart careered into a garbage dump and he knew he would end up back on the slab, ready to make the jump, any jump, into another life, another soul, functioning spirit, here on this strange fetid earth assaulted by smells, a sense he had never previously possessed. There were the creeping, encroaching walls of past benders; there was the infinite flap of a chorus of hands and the eternal shriek: not well, dear, not well. There were the stories of old friends which folded in and over each other, because every part of Sydney held a memory of intimacy or disgrace, of riding high and riding low, into a palace of ridicule and self abnegation; from the highest heights. When everyone had known him. When it never occurred to him that someone might not want to sleep with him. It's shocking, Scott said at the Tawana Palace cafe on Surawong; shocking; I was about 40 when it happened. When suddenly not everyone was available - and you might as well be 70. Or more like 150, he chimed in helpfully, to which Scott could only agree. From the hunted to the hunter, he threw in the cliche for good measure. And Scott nodded once again. I was 35 when it happened, he said. I remember the moment very clearly; when I was sitting in a sauna and the person I had my eye on moved away; and he felt like screaming, don't you know who I am, don't you know they've queued at the door all my life. That you should consider yourself lucky. Well, lucky no more, he showered and left, and that, if not the end of paradise, was the beginning of the transformation.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalition-narrows-the-gap/story-fn59niix-1225896788276

THE election campaign has become a tight contest, with the Coalition back in front on primary votes.

Furthermore, Tony Abbott has narrowed the leadership gap on Julia Gillard.

The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals voters have turned against Labor's proposal for a citizens assembly on climate change and that the women's vote advantage for Australia's first female Prime Minister has disappeared.

Labor's 10-point lead on a two-party-preferred basis at the start of the election campaign has been reduced to a knife-edge 52 per cent to 48 per cent over the weekend, while the Coalition's primary vote jumped four points to 42 per cent, compared with Labor's 40 per cent, down from 42 per cent.

The two-party-preferred vote, based on preference flows at the 2007 election, is now the same as it was the weekend before Labor dumped Kevin Rudd as prime minister and put Ms Gillard into the job - only three weeks before she called the election.

Primary support for the Greens is unchanged on 12 per cent, while support for other candidates and minor parties dropped from 8 per cent to 6 per cent.

Satisfaction with the new Prime Minister has also dropped dramatically, from 48 per cent to 41 per cent; dissatisfaction with the job she is doing leapt from 29 per cent to 37 per cent last weekend.

Last Monday, Newspoll showed Labor ahead 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party-preferred vote and four points ahead on a primary vote, 42 per cent to 38 per cent - initially vindicating the removal of Mr Rudd as leader to improve Labor's polling.

According to a breakdown of Newspoll figures, much of the Labor boost came from female voters, with Labor's primary vote of 42 per cent coming from male voter support of 39 per cent and female voter support of 44 per cent.

Last weekend, the Labor primary vote of 40 per cent came from an unchanged male vote and a female vote of 40 per cent, down four points in the first week of the election campaign.

Approval of the way the Opposition Leader is doing his job has improved markedly in the first week of the campaign, with satisfaction up four points to 40 per cent and dissatisfaction down from 51 per cent to 46 per cent.

Mr Abbott has also halved Ms Gillard's 30-percentage-point lead as preferred prime minister at the start of the campaign after her support fell seven points to 50 per cent and his rose seven points to 34 per cent. At the last Newspoll survey when Mr Rudd was prime minister, he led Mr Abbott 46 per cent to 37 per cent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10755856

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded an "intensive" investigation into the deadly stampede at the Love Parade music festival in Duisburg.

Mrs Merkel said she had been "appalled" by the tragedy, adding that everything must be done to ensure such deaths did not happen again.

The crush outside a tunnel at the entrance of the festival killed 19 people and injured 340 on Saturday.

Survivors have blamed organisers for the deaths.

Speaking in the town of Bayreuth, Mrs Merkel again offered her condolences to the families of those killed and injured, saying the federal administration had offered full support to the North Rhine Westphalia regional government.

She said: "It now needs to be very intensively investigated as to how this happened because the many young people who were delighted to be going to the event have had... terrible memories and we have to do everything to make sure that something like this does not happen again."

Officials said blame should not be apportioned before the investigation had run its course
Mrs Merkel added: "The organisers have said themselves that they will not hold any more Love Parades but such large events need to be made safe and the federal states of course have the required police forces to do this."

Festival organiser Rainer Schaller appeared with officials at a news conference in Duisburg on Sunday.

He said: "The Love Parade has always been a joyful and peaceful party, but in future would always be overshadowed by yesterday's events.

"Out of respect for the victims, their families and friends, we are going to discontinue the event in the future, and that means the end of the Love Parade."

Picture: building site, Bangkok, taken on my Blackberry.