Friday
It’s Friday night, 9pm. I’m by myself on a train back home from my last day at work. It’s cold and raining. The girl behind me is curling her eyelashes on the train. My future is… completely unknown. In three days I will be officially homeless. In five days I will be faced with something that I was taken from decades ago. I’ve just sent a gif of a flaming fart.
9:45pm. I’m sitting in the Broadway KFC, UK grime playing over the store speaker, having a Crunchy Zinger burger. A Zinger with a few Doritos in it. A group of young island buys are negotiating amongst themselves on how much chicken they can get if they pool their money. The security guard paces in and out of the store, looking for hidden trouble. The same jacked albino guy I saw this morning as I got my international license just happens to be in line waiting for some chicken. There’s a cliche in the matrix.
My friend has just messaged me, he’s a close contact now. My last weekend in Sydney and I might not be able to see him before I go. This is sad.
10pm. On the bus. Not my usual bus but close enough. Although it probably isn’t, it feels like this might be the last time I see this scene. Sydney in the cold wet, Unfortunates roaming the streets, vaguely jumping on and off public transport, the movements a mystery. In a short few stops it will be my stop on Parramatta Road.
The lone pram
10:10. From the bus stop I cross Parramatta Road and into the back streets of Camperdown, the council (low-income housing) tower looms in the short distance. It’s abundance of lights making sure there isn’t any dark corners to hide in. I turn the alley and walk by the place I used to live, a place I was going to live in and then a brothel. I turn the corner again and there’s a lone abandoned pram on the roads edge, haunting the street in the wet street light, across from the road the women’s shelter. The last 50 meters I watch for human excrement on the dimly lit ground before crossing the road to what will be the last few nights in my apartment for the last 15 months, my unlikely sanctuary.
Saturday
Woke up early for the mandatory vote today. It’s cold.
8:07am Standing in line at the school and the Clive Palmer Australia party campaigner at the polling queue looks like he hasn’t had human contact since the early eighties when he briefly appeared to fling poop at a royal visit.
Room with a view
2:00pm. I took my last life drawing this morning and had lunch with some friends I’ve made there. I’m lucky I met them and I will miss them.
Sunday
Woke up the sound of my front door opening, I must have forgotten to lock it after my late night/early morning packing and cleaning. There’s grumbling of a man and it sounds like it’s coming from inside my apartment. There’s a crash, the sounds of an adult falling and hitting the ground, followed by mumbled profanities. Someone has tripped and fallen over the rubbish bags in the hallway. Then silhouetted against the dim light from the window, the figure of man stumbling in comes into focus. He’s muttering and jittery but I recognise him as my neighbour. He must be intoxicated and walked into the wrong apartment. After I called out to him he realised his mistake and stumbles back out and into his apartment. It’s 7am, I guess I’m awake now.
Down to Central
I ran into him again later in the day and he apologetically explained that he has PTSD fuelled nightmares and sleep walks, thanks to time served in Iraq. That could gone a very different way.
Monday
Woke up in the hotel to the sound of landing planes. Checked into an airport hotel for the last 2 nights in Sydney before I leave. I’ve been packing, planning and juggling for weeks now and I’m exhausted beyond words. A few weeks ago I was ill for a week due to exhaustion and it set me back a week. Now on the last full day before I go and I am again testing my immune system.
The last piece of furniture
I don’t understand how I move into a place a year ago with 6 boxes and 2 suitcases, I haven’t bought anything at all and somehow I have thrown away a dozen bags of junk, stored 6 boxes and have 3 suitcases. It is very confusing and I’m physically sore.
Tuesday
Time to go.