We were having coffee, talking. Mostly about books. "I think I've got a novel in me," he threw in.
And he was right. I could see the novel, right there behind his eyes. It wasn't a very good one.

i didnt spring it on him in lunch - i kept chickening
waited til we'd just about walked back to car, he was talking
about ppl at work having kids, and i said
"are you looking forward to having grnadchildren?" in this jocular way and
he said something jokingly enthusiastic and i said
"well then you'll be glad to hear the news!"
and showed him my ring and he said
"what does this mean?" and i said
"we're engaged"
and h elooked at me for a sec then sort of smiled complicatedly and said kindly "oh sashy" and kissed me on the cheek then said
"congratulations"
and kinda wryly smile-laughing i said "i can't believe you believe me!"
and he said "why, weren't you serious?"
looking taken aback
and i said
"no, i'm serious, i just didn't think you'd believe me!"
he had his concerns and a furrow in his brow as we talked but also a smile on his face
he was worried about me breaking your heart LOL
he said he thought you'd be good for me
oh yeah and when i was dropping him back at his work he said (joking) "so hey, is peatey's brother married?" lol

imagining a story, the confusion caused to a boy by the sudden death (car accident) of his father, a prominent euthanasia advocate.

he dreamed he went back in time, the year before his birth, christmas day, and crawled beneath the tree and shook and squeezed and tossed the gifts that were placed there under the pine twigs for his sister. he opened one and recognised the bear that would later sit on the end of his sister's bed in their shared red-wallpapered room.

he sneaks into the indoor play pool where he is forbidden to go with its piss stench of chlorine, ammonia. the dirty forbidden steam smell stings his eyes and nostrils. do not immerse head. the sign says. his mother always said. but he plunges into the amniotic warmth, floats, balls his body up. opens his eyes under the water, letting them stare and sting, looking through the chalky glow at the surrounding walking kicking legs of mother's and children, bottoms, swimming costumes dulled through the blue-lit grey-blue. a bandaid, loosed, swims toward him. he can see the bloodmark on the backside of the bandaid's little meshpad. it moves like an eel, soft and slow, past his shoulder. he still stays balled beneath the water, not breathing, barely aware he is holding his breath. then someone bashes into his back. a child. too many children buffeted together in this indoor sink--a crowded womb.

to bobble, today:


geesh! they're prtty cool groovers at them there bowling club when they wanna be!
bugered if i know if i'll be free - have seminar til 7.00 i think, and may be nursing a surgically-altered Peatey after that, but if I can't trot to this one you at least have gotta! let's hope they repeat the idea because it's kinda outta let field in a wa that suits this area hey.
riht now i can hear one of the doggies chewing something up - id better investigate.
hows u anyway? i reckon you musta left early coz them coffee was STONE cold - those of us who dont usually wear a watch have to rely on such symtoms to guage the workings of the daily day.
xoxoxox chape

Another glimpse, the second set of stair-rails. Two neat yellow-green feet on the top step, and the bottom half of a fat child's body waiting there. Two thirds of the pool, he has made now. Two thirds. So, so, slow. He hears the currawongs. Any minute now, he might hear his mother's sharp birdcall pierce through the rushed rustle of water in his ears. Get out, Paul. Paul, get out. But he does not. And his sister, where is she now? She must have made it up her lane... Glancing aside once more for a wet breath he glimpses the plane tree, redly glaring even through the goggles' green, its splayed branches holding on tight to the wide green sky. Just as he is turning his face back into the water he glimpses the single tough-woven cloud still making its slow lap across the long horizon.

with effort he can do this in seventy seconds but he enjoys the resistance. rediscovering the impossible length of each lap. the water as impossible as it once seemed: unyielding; even moses couldn't part it. he slops and crashes and glances sidelong to his right to see the first set of stair-rails. He has only made it a third of the way up the pool. With clenched teeth he grins. When he turns his grinning face up for a breath, the cold water streams off his gums. A quick glimpse of the green-shaded sun trees and sky before his head is down again. His slack elbows plow over his head, pulling the water at cross purposes. One stroke, two. Three. Four. Five, six, seven quick slaps on the water's surface, then seven, eight (slow slops) before he takes a breath. He has been told: breath every fourth stroke. This next go, he will try nine, ten. He will hold the spent gas of this breath in his mouth til his cheeks darken and his struggling limbs begin to twinge...

Squaring the circle with each stroke.
He deliberately kicks his feet too hard, wasting energy, wastefully pumping his ankles, imagining the ungainly splashing he is making as he winds ahead, ignoring the long black line. Imagining his mother's eyes aimed on his back, darting back and forth up his thin swimming length, resenting. Her voice tugs at him like a hard rip through the water, ESP messages urging him: Chin down! Shoulders straight! Shoulders straight! Like I told you! Like I told you!

Hammer-hearted, he pushes his goggles up, skewing them across his forehead, and looks back along the bright blue chlorine surface. To his surprise, he sees that his sister has only made it a third of the way up the pool. Except. Oh yes. Of course. She has made it here and back and then another thrid of a lap in the time it has taken him... Her pink-capped head gleams like a bead, or a wet nipple.
Feels a gonk of snot slide from his streaming nostril to his lip.

Seen through green plastic goggles the scene gleams: envious, sly. He allows his arms to slacken, his elbows to splay. He slops through the water. His trunk zigzags a little, and he doesn't keep his chin down but looks ahead along the line through the green-tinted cold.

And the breastless woman who is here everyday, in her swimsuit of dead dusk blue, machining the water with her stiff battery-powered stroke, always already there before Paul arrives and still there swimming when he leaves, taking tumble turns, barely every pausing in the water. Once or twice, the sight of this woman has given Paul half a hard-on.