THE PLACES FLED XIII

A bridge, Oak Flats, NSW, Australia

In pain, once again his brain descended into a grizzly rout. He had reignited an old repetitive strain injury, and he was finding it difficult to handle. That was what made things so satisfying, he heard someone say, looking on from afar, the torture of a soul. And others, "We had no idea..." The chorus had, if not entirely disappeared, retreated so far as to be invisible, amidst the quiet houses. Lights out by 10pm, often earlier. There was almost no sound, as if sound was a sin. He didn't want to be caught in the stark reaches. He didn't want to wander and watch, always watch. Other people's lives, not his own. If everything had gone to mud, there was no point. He was struggling, he didn't mind admitting. He thought of soutions, but none were easy. These things ignited in a blasted past. "Leave me alone, leave me alone." Chanting.

He had sat on the balcony in the mornings and watched the squirrels running along the branches of the mango trees. The relentlessly cruel haranguing of the mob, the hysteria, the blind vicious hatred of the Thais for foreigners, almost all foreigners. He was not the first to discover that the perfect face hid a perfect hatred, that the Land of Smiles was nothing of the kind. It turned into a nightmare for many thousands every year. Many ended in death. Others were just robbed, ridiculed. Perhaps they should never have encouraged foreigners to arrive and settle in the first place; the local populace had such a distaste for them. In the fetid streets and jeering crowds. Living rent free in your head. They were the places fled, and yet they kept coming back to roost, circling in the quiet streets, curdling through coagulated dreams. Stalking him now, just as he had been stalked before. He might have been bullied as a child; now he was harangued by a mob. And with his world having fallen apart, he had no idea where to throw a life raft, if only one had existed.

But the light caught the squirrels as they scampered through the trees; and he watched with fascination as they ran along the electricity wires. The only person who was friendly was the woman who ran the food stall down near the main street. And so he grew more and more isolated. Sadder and sadder. Twisted and turned and tried to escape; and nothing worse. And now, as he walked beside the splashing cold of the southern seas, his mind raced. And the pain stabbed through his shoulders. And he grew grimmer in a kind of Arctic Circle of the soul, an interior monologue that would never stop. Lonely is as lonely does. Phantasms which had become a fiction of their own. A sharp intake. A gasping, cold shock. A melancholy air. Nothing but racing time. His shoulders hurt, and everything hurt, and duty before pleasure, he wished the pain would go away. There had to be solutions, he would find them, but in the interim, cast back and forth between freezing oceans, deathly quiet houses and an ancient heart, between fetid sois and lost hope, he struggled to rally, and watched Babylon 5 instead.

The woman sat in her cheap dressing gown and talked to the two women at her gate. "Ten dollars," one of the women said, waving a package. "I needed a new frypan. Only ten dollars. At Aldi. They were on special, half price. Ten dollars. I couldn't believe it. I needed a new frypan."
"Where?" the woman on the steps asked.
"Aldi, at Albion Park," one of the two women at the gate replied, repeating information she had already provided.
"Where?" came the question again, as if hard of hearing.
"Aldi, at Albion Park. Only ten dollars. I couldn't believe it. I needed a new frying pan."
Michael walked past, slowing down to take in the conversation, as if it might be an entre to a more fascinating world.
There was little money sloshing around in this dampened, vacuum cleaned society, but if he could find any beauty in the exchange, he did not know how.
And so, in a kind of terrible deneoument, where all adventure had died, he kept on walking.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/new-labor-leader-about-to-be-revealed/story-fn59niix-1226739119670

BILL Shorten has clinched the Labor leadership by a razor-thin majority after a historic ballot in which he gained enough support from caucus colleagues to offset a loss to rival Anthony Albanese among the party's branch members.

Mr Shorten, 46, from the party's right, is the first Labor leader to be elected under rules in which a ballot of party members is weighted equally against a ballot of MPs.

The result was determined by a handful of MPs, as Mr Shorten won 55 of the 86 votes in the parliamentary party, slightly better than some of his own allies thought when caucus votes were cast last Thursday.

Mr Shorten's lead in the caucus meant that Mr Albanese needed votes from more than 65 per cent of the more than 30,000 branch members who sent in postal ballots.

Instead, Mr Albanese secured just over 60 per cent of the branch membership vote.

“Together we've chosen a new Labor Leader,” interim Labor leader Chris Bowen said an email to members.

“With a caucus vote of 63.95 per cent and a membership vote of 40.08 per cent which totals 52.02 per cent, the new leader is Bill Shorten.”

Mr Bowen said there were 30,426 votes cast from Labor members, a 74 per cent turnout in the first vote of its kind.

Mr Albanese attracted 18,230 rank-and-file votes to Mr Shorten's 12,196.

The new rules count against any change of leader before the next election, because they require 60 per cent of MPs to petition for a leadership ballot.

Mr Bowen predicted Mr Shorten would go on to become the next Labor prime minister of Australia.

“Bill Shorten is a man who has dedicated his working life to representing vulnerable people and to representing this nation,” he told reporters in Canberra.

Mr Bowen also paid tribute to Mr Albanese, saying he still had a “significant contribution” to make in parliament.

Mr Bowen said since the leadership campaign began a month ago, more than 4,500 people had said they wanted to join Labor.

“Both Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten campaigned hard and campaigned with respect for each other and a firm commitment to the Labor Party.

“Today we start the work of holding the Abbott government to account and showing we are a better and fairer alternative for Australia's future.”

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/new-labor-leader-about-to-be-revealed/story-fn59niix-1226739119670#sthash.ypBexTLC.dpuf