scribbling damselfly

Today it rained, and Melbourne forgot to wake up.

I ventured out into the darkness and the hissing rain, giving the trench coat it's first outing (even though it's not cold enough for a coat of any description yet), and found myself utterly alone.

No cars, no pedestrians, just me and the rain and the dark and islands of damp glare glancing off the wet bitumen under the streetlights.

For the entire walk to the tram stop, I seriously considered the possibility that my night's dreams of the paddle pop lion¹ had presaged the apocalypse. There were no lights on in any of the neighbouring houses, and the main street was deserted.

But the tram turned up on time — no apocalypse, then. Perhaps instead my clock was running early? But the dawn turned up on time as well, spattering the eastern horizon as the rain kept hissing down and the air turned from dark to gloom and then slowly to overcast as the tram dropped me off a mile from work.

And still I was alone. That walk is normally filled with pedestrians, dog-walkers and gym-goers and road crew grabbing a bite of breakfast alongside office workers too hurried and harried to eat at home. This morning the windows of the open cafes were as brightly-lit and abandoned as those of the closed furniture stores.

The whole of Melbourne hit the snooze button this morning, and the streets were mine.

It was lovely.

1. Don't ask me. I just live with my subconscious; I have no insight into its vagaries. [↩]

"Excuse me, miss…"

He's proffering something, a small pamphlet barely larger than a business card, so I take it. It's a reflex, nothing more; I don't look at what he's given me.

It's in the same manner — a reflex, nothing more — that he adds, "You look like you've been miserable lately."

This, I think, is presumptuous, even for a standard marketing hook. I am, after all, sitting at a tram stop on Bourke St, temporarily alone, surrounded by strangers. Supine on the seat behind me is a resident loon of some description, gesticulating and ranting to whatever angels or demons happen to be keeping him company at this point. I rather suspect if anything is written across my face, it is boredom.

But he is young — I doubt he's old enough to shave, there's barely any fuzz let alone the stubble which (perhaps) lurks in his distant future. He has not yet learnt the language of nuance, and how to alter his pitch to his audience, otherwise he wouldn't be using a standard line, or at the very least he wouldn't be delivering it in such a hesitant manner.

So I say nothing. Although I do meet his gaze and lift an eyebrow, a challenge that makes him blush and stammer and hurry away.

At the next seat he hesitates, obviously questioning the wisdom of giving the booklet and spiel to the loon. Perhaps the loon looks too fierce — or I don't know, maybe the loon doesn't look like he's been miserable lately.

The blackbirds fall silent as I step out the front door.

There's three of them, one perched on the wall that hides the garbage bins, another on the low-hanging power lines, and the last is crouched inside his own fluffed feathers on the strangely purposeless arch that adorns the mouth of the driveway.

They hold their silence as I pass, three cocked black heads twisting to watch my progress, tiny black eyes tracking my every step. I watch them in turn, but if it's a staring contest they're winning, if only because I'm simply trespassing through the field of battle. I have a tram to catch, after all.

I've reached the next house up the street before they start with their melodies again.

What didn't they want me to overhear, I wonder?

Probably the fact that they were taking bets on who could make the best star-burst pattern when they crapped on my car.

As a public service announcement to all the blokes:¹ asking a girl standing at the taxi rank "Where's home, though? I might be able to help you" is not (however much it might seem like it at the time) a particularly endearing way to earn said girl's trust. At best she's going to assume you're drunk and therefore largely useless to her, but either way, the very first thing she's going to do is cast a quick eye over you to see if you're an immediate physical threat. You won't see her glance behind her in search of the bouncers at the nearby bar, because she already knows exactly where they are; she's a girl alone on a street full of drunken idjits, of course she's already placed where the troublemakers and the sources of potential aid each stand. If she gives you an answer at all, and it's not some variant of "I'm not telling you where I live!", then rest assured she's not giving you her real address.

And if said girl politely declines your invitation to accompany you back to her place for a few more drinks, the best way to try to win her over is not some diatribe about how you're married but just hate being married.

You know. In case you were wondering.

1. the ones who need said public service announcement guaranteed never to make up any part of this website's readership [↩]