~ then fevers came, seemingly at random

Slowly, with certainty, day by day, I’m emerging from the woes of the past 27 months. I still have plenty to agonise over as I flail in my bed at night, but it’s of a far different order than what has gone before.

All that remains of the legal fiasco is a three-weekly visit to an unpleasant office in Oakleigh, where doors snap shut with the finality of jail cells. But after the many trials and tribulations of the recent past, I can take that n my stride.

Some time before the final hearing, with the help of toxic pharmaceuticals, I began a fresh assault on my liver complaint. (see ~my intimate blood borne saboteur.) The first few months were, as expected, nasty and debilitating. Anaemia. Neutropenia. Dysphoria. Then, around week twelve, they began to slacken off, almost to a level that was bearable. I was off-colour but I could manage the odd life activity. About this time that I even went to the Rainbow Serpent festival.

But, with the inevitability of death, a seed took root in my lungs. I began to cough, and to produce a lurid green sputum. Fevers came, seemingly at random and I took to my bed. For five weeks I was scarcely able to drag myself to the kitchen - although, every few days, I shambled around the block in a dark bulky overcoat, usually at night, to forestall any pooling of phlegm in my lungs. As my immune system was suppressed by the HCV drugs, I had little defence against the infection. Despite the heavy duty antibiotics I had been prescribed, the condition grew worse. I was getting just a little scared. I’d never been quite so sick.

Then my viral load results were unblinded. (I was on a clinical trial for a drug by Bristol Myers Squibb) From a starting point of 13 million evil bits per ml, it was reduced to 275. But, frustratingly, two weeks later, it was 500 plus. At this point, I ceased medications. Once again, on my fourth attempt, I faced failure, And this time I had been just a little concerned that they might kill me.

I decided to wait for some of the new remedies come on line - what doctors like to refer to as the ‘small molecule’ drugs. Telaprevir and Boceprevir are examples. There are nearly a hundred being researched (see hcvdrugs.com) and one day, in the not so distant future, I pray there’ll be regimens without such crippling side-effects.

So I lay back down, played video games and waited to get better.

Now it’s three or four weeks later and I’m waking up into the world. I’m exercising again. I’m brushing the dust off affairs that have not been touched in two and a half years. My garden is tugging at me, and I dream as I pluck the hated oxalis from the flower beds. I’m thinking about my house, how I might rid it of the teetering towers of books. Within the next few weeks I’ll be gnawing happily on my various, long neglected writing projects.

And the deadly spores ... even with binoculars I cannot see their dark, roiling, semi-sentient clouds on the horizon. I am even toying with the notion of breaking my long and bitter relationship with spasmo-nemigron.

~ pink caligaric jug-eared

No point apologising for the wide intervals between my posts. No point promising to better my frequency, I’ll merely forswear myself. Life is too unpredictable and so am I. When things quieten, such as now, my mind turns to the Sails of Oblivion, but when I am harried by the innumerable demands of my mystifying existence ... it recedes.

I’ve finished my season performing for children as Roald Dahl’s BFG. Hundreds of litres of sweat passed through the fabric of my green giant’s costume. Many kilograms of snozzcumber popcorn spewed from my mouth onto a writhing, over-heated front row. I gave a thousand high fives, and hundreds of photos were taken of children in the presence of my pink, caligaric, jug-eared head. I damaged myself innumerable times attempting to match the energy of a cast which was, on average, less than half my age. Indeed, I went to school with the father of the actress Sophie Perillo, manipulator of an eponymous puppet which accompanied me through much of the show.

Actually, I think I’ve done something permanent to my knees. There’s a painful twinge now when I stand. In both of them. Have my seven weeks of delightful gamboling precipitated arthritis? [Not long ago, I espied an advertisement seeking applicants for a study on arthritis; the only prerequisite was a sore joint on the big toe of the right foot. I have that sore joint. I’ve had it for years. What does it forebode?] I still have a pain in my shoulder from Titus Andronicus. Perhaps I should be taking it easier. After all, I am approaching fifty. But then who cares?

My aim for the coming year is to raise fourteen thousand dollars, simple as that. The amount is a conservative estimate of what my lawyers will ask for representing me before a County Court judge and jury probably in early 2011. In some ways my life is on hold until then. I could be jailed and our house could be confiscated. Or I could come out clean. More likely the result will be something between these two poles.

In the face of this and other no less serious [but far more personal] difficulties, I’ve had to enact some complex mental and spiritual contortions to keep myself from sinking into a debilitating depression. In fact, strangely, I seem to be experiencing a kind of rebound. The year ahead is looking more positive than I would ever have predicted. The fright and horror of my legal problems appear to have splintered my inertia, and instead of running about in panic I seem to be taking what for me are calculated careful steps towards some sort of solution.

I’m coming to the end of Truth by Peter Temple, the crime novel I am narrating for Vision Australia. An invaluable experience. I think I would like to do more of it. I’m sure If I minimise my daily dose of spasmo-nemigron the gravel in my throat will recede to more acceptable levels. Through February, I am planning to at last complete a solid first draft of Ambergris, a play I’ve mentioned before in this blog. I have high hopes for it, which I believe are grounded in reason. I also have a slew of short fiction - speculative, mainstream and weird - which I’m going to polish up and spruik.

If you’re interested, I’ll be performing something at La Mama Poetica on February 8. [My name's not listed, but I'll definitely be there. There's also a Facebook group]]

In a book by the SF writer Charles Stross, I encountered the phrase ‘The troops entered wearing cream and beige office camouflage...’.

~ the stigma of the booth

I don’t like speaking of my enslavement to spasmo-nemigron. In my shame, I even give it a nom-de-plume. I like to think of myself as a whole person without the inclusion of the controversial Bentley compound, but currently I’m not. The equation – at this time - is incomplete without my 9am sublingual dose ... and my diet vanilla coke ... and my copy of the Age ...

Polly’s school is just behind the Pinewood shops. After their children have gone in, many of the mothers mill in the courtyard before breaking up to go their separate ways. Some use the opportunity to go shopping. A few of these go shopping at the chemist where I acquire my spasmo-nemigron, and where my wife acquires her spasmo-dromoran.

I wonder how many mothers recognise the austere booth at the rear of the pharmacy for what it is? Well, one actually works there, but she takes her responsibilities seriously and appears unprejudiced. Neither of us have spoken openly with her about it, but she had no obvious reservations about leaving her daughter at our house for Polly’s party; if she considered us ravening drug fiends, might she not have had second thoughts?

It’s the other, less informed parents that need watching. B--- is a single father who also sups at the evil well of spasmo-dromoran. He tells a cautionary tale.

After he was recognised receiving his dose by a parent from his son’s school, the word spread among gossiping mothers. It wouldn’t have been much of an issue if they had merely shunned B--- - who is bearded, shabby, alternative and an unnatural fit for any suburban socio-parental bloc - but the pall of fear and prejudice also descended upon the innocent son.

I wish I could give you more details on this, but my memory fails me. Also, there may have been an element of paranoia, plus the school involved was Wesley, which may have skewed the parental reaction away from the mean ...

Earlier this week, my wife was seen emerging from the pharmacotherapy booth by the mother of one of Polly’s more obscure classmates. Who knows what the repercussions will be? One thing she has in her favour is her excellent grooming. Only on particularly bad days does she even come close to resembling a hollowed-out, slack-featured, opioid dependent Piltdown woman. The problem is the junky who exits the booth before her and the one who scurries in after.

Often, these are the characters who give the game away, who make the purpose of the booth all too evident. Some, but not many, are indistinguishable from the general clientele. Some are grey shadows, barely noticeable even when you look directly at them. Others lurk in attitudes of extreme discomfort, casting glances of suppurating evil about the store. Others, in faded track-suit pants, runners and beanies give themselves away sartorially. Others speak in loud voices, warmly greeting strangers like friendly drunks, pontificating on subjects of which they are entirely ignorant ...

Who knows what the average customer thinks of this, passing through the chemist on a casual visit ... It’s hard to look at it subjectively after visiting this and other similar booths on thousands of mornings. Do I look any better than my peers in this mournful sub-set of society? Perhaps someone out there can tell me. All I know is that the best way to solve this problem is to take a blade to my nemesis, to finally slip the manacles of my indifferent slavemaster.

~ a fine kettle of fish

I guess you could still call me a relatively new blogger. I’ve been uploading lunacy since the dying days of September 2007, and more or less keeping to a self-imposed regimen of four to five posts a week.

But lately it’s been getting hard. Not because I’m losing interest – I want to make that very clear, as I believe the weblog is an important new medium. It’s more because of my recalcitrant brain. I have reams of ideas, it’s not writer’s block - but I’m prone, as regular readers may have gathered, to periods of despair during which writing is a trial.

Why am I subject to these lapses? I must be bi-polar - at least to some extent. My mind has probably been set askew by drugs. Or slowly fogged by the murky vapours of hepatitis. The intermittent stress of living with a beautiful sylph who has an even more hellish inner life than me - that must play a part too. Then there’s the accursed Spasmo-Nemigron and the way it drains the spirit. And the chaos I have naturally generated about myself as long as I have walked this Earth. And the fear, love and stress of serving as progenitor to the precious Polly. And the nagging witch of penury. And the slow ripping talons of age. And the lofty expectations I set myself – while blithely ignoring the existence of all the above.

But before I drive myself deeper ad profundis with self-pity, I will cease this catalogue of my trials. After all, you are probably quite familiar with most, if not all, of my afflictions. I suspect I’ve moaned and groaned enough for now.

I just want to beg your indulgence, apologise for not answering your comments in a timely way, for being generally uncommunicative. It happens from time to time, there’s not much I can do about it, and I pray you won’t damn me for it.

I’m thankful I have a forum where I can vent so openly. I'd like to think that other online diarists suffer what I am suffering now and live to write another day. Actually, I feel better already. You can put away the restraints. I’m feeling much much better now. Really. Nurse, I won’t be needing whatever’s in that needle …

Now a delightful reward for enduring my lamentations. For your certain pleasure, allow me to share a little tale I’ve been wanting to tell for a while. It’s the kind of story that only works because it’s true. And because it happened in Queensland.

I was determined to include it in my slowly evolving play, Ambergris, but it wouldn’t fit, it seemed made-up, and today I finally admitted this to myself.

As wise old editors say: once you’ve finished your final draft, go back, find your favourite line and delete it.

*

It was Nikki Lambert who posted me the article from the Courier Mail. I think this was around the turn of the century..

I had intended that it be retold like this …

beamish: The Midas was a long-line fishing vessel … They’d hit upon a concentration of tuna; the sea was boiling with them, and with frenzied sharks... The crew couldn’t haul fast enough; they’d been working like dogs for hours, not a second to scratch themselves, when Tony noticed that The Greek was missing….

This was a guy they'd hired at the last minute; big ugly bloke with a ventriloquist moustache, ears like starfish and a hairy black mole on his nose the size of a marble. They scoured the ship for him, but The Greek, he was well gone. Reluctantly, they abandoned their work and criss-crossed the area till night. It was dawn when the captain called it quits. There’d been so many wired up sharks that day; he didn’t hold an ounce of hope for the guy.

You see, this captain had a special respect for sharks; once, he’d almost been taken overboard by a grey nurse they’d brought up by mistake. The thing was rabid and smeared in blood and convulsing round the deck like something they might have fished out of hell. It bit down on the guy, nearly dragged him through the rail, and he still bore the scars…

Anyway, the crew of The Midas had a meeting that night. What to do? Sail home, make a report? They were way out in international waters, the hold only quarter full in the middle of a teeming sea. If they left then they’d take a beating money wise, if they stayed, they’d clean up. It didn’t take long to decide what The Greek would have wanted. They’d fill the hold first. After all, what difference would it make? So they spent another week out there. Good catches – tuna, pink snapper, cod, jewfish, even an massive grouper which the captain knew he could sell for a mint to this particular Vietnamese restaurant.

blueboy: Which restaurant?

elspeth: Fine Kettle of Fish!

beamish: Shut up. I’m telling it. So they get back home, report the incident, sell the catch - and the captain goes out of his way to personally present the grouper to this extremely delighted restaurateur, who serves it up whole that night to a party of his most valued customers. This thing was fat and more than a metre long and nearly a hundred pound - there on a huge plate garnished with lemon slices, coriander, whatever. The maitre de starts slicing it up in situ and they tuck in with a vengeance. But just as one of them picks this hairy meatball the size of a marble from his mouth and all eyes turn to the fish - a filthy big human head just rolls on out onto the tablecloth.

elspeth: GIGGLING: With starfish ears …

morgen: I wouldn’t have recovered from that.

beamish: It got in the papers.

elspeth: TO BLUEBOY: Up here anyway.

blueboy: Really?

beamish: Yeah.

blueboy: Where’d this happen?

beamish: Way way up north.

blueboy: And… It’s a true story?

beamish: I said so, yeah.


*

Now, the original article has long been inhumed within the turmoil of my room, but I assure you the meat of this story is real. For accuracy’s sake, I’ll give you the important discrepancies

The name Fine Kettle of Fish is on the money, but unfortunately further research seems to suggest that it was a seafood wholesaler not a Vietnamese restaurant. Sorry. I’m sure the level of shock would have been similar and the human head was definitely said to have ‘rolled out’. [And I guess, at the restaurant, the fish would have been gutted first.]

The fish was probably a 97 lb. 1.6 metre long Morgan Cod. This species, unlike groupers, are opportunistic bottom-feeders. ‘As cods do not attack humans it is believed that the crewman was ripped apart by sharks that habitually follow fishing boats to feed off fish scraps thrown overboard and that the giant cod, a bottom feeding fish, found and swallowed the head.’

~ a bodiless revenant

There is a long cycle that rises from relative calm to acute crisis and back again. Currently, thankfully, I’m enjoying one of those more peaceful times.

As usually happens, when I have time to reflect, I begin to worry about my health. I’m too mentally disorganised [and sick] to become a genuine hypochondriac, but I give it a decent shove.

[The origins of the word hypochondriac are described in the book on Mesmerism I’m reading. Mesmer placed the body’s ‘equator’ and ‘common sensorium’ at the hypochondria on the sides of the upper abdomen. Hypochondriacs were people with unbalanced humours who ‘elicited sympathy, not the scorn reserved for malades imaginaires’.]


First, I attempt to reign in my Nicorette habit. I gave up smoking aeons ago, replacing cigarettes with chewing gum. But I’ve been unable to shrug the actual nicotine addiction. If I don’t watch it, I’ll grind up a forty dollar packet of 4 mg gum in less than a week, and that’s not good for the health or the budget. It results in palpitations and bad head. My answer is to snip the tabs into four pieces and ration these out, with the vague intention of one day giving them up entirely …

Then I begin to worry about my fitness and my heart. I have a membership at the Monash Uni pool, which I maintain whether I go or not. Lately, I’ve been badly remiss in that area. My stomach is sagging. I have little endurance. But at last I’ve returned to the water, where I feel the most alive. I’ve been swimming all week and am just beginning to feel less like a bodiless revenant.

Then I will dwell upon my liver, my Achilles heel. Over time, I’ve endured three long and nightmarish interferon treatments in an attempt to rid my system of the HCV virus, but only the last – a combination therapy with ribavirin - came close to doing any permanent good. Tantalisingly close, actually. I’m sure that the next improvement in treatment will see a cure - so with that in mind I’m returning to the liver clinic, to once more bite the bullet.


My appointment is in a few months and in that time I’ll work to prepare myself. Though these days I’m generally an abstemious drinker, even smaller amounts can worry the liver. I’m determined to teetotal. And I’m going to enforce a dietary regime which I’ve tried and failed to maintain for decades. Minimal animal fats. Water by the bucket load. Ersatz coffee …

All these ersatz substances. Ersatz cigarettes. Ersatz heroin. Ersatz cheese. Ersatz peace of mind … I can deal with it, if it helps me feel human… I love the word ersatz by the way. I learnt it from Philip K Dick, who had a fascination with the German language. Literally, it means replacement or substitute, but it came into English use during the World Wars, when the desperate Germans, deprived of raw materials, used what they had to develop substitutes: ersatz rubber, ersatz heating-oil, ersatz tea, ersatz coffee …

People describe one of the symptoms of Hep C as ‘brain fog’. Well I’ve got that in spades and it erodes my ‘basal hedonic tone’ [this describes whether you feel happy or sad]. I’m sure it interferes with my work, and I’m sure that my daily dose of Spasmo-Nemigron [aka suboxone] is also partly to blame. And that’s another thing I have to address.

It was around this time last year that I decided I’d had enough of the sleepy emotionless cotton-wool world of buprenorphine and tried to come off. Obviously, I failed, but the urge is uprearing again and I’m hot to make another attempt. If things can stay commonsensical and calm in my life, then I might have a chance.

~ one clustering filbert

This morning I opened my sachet of Spasmo-Nemigron powders and found the creature depicted below - caked with pinkish dust and trying desperately to fly free. It would have succeeded too, had there not been something badly amiss with its organs of flight. It landed, apparently deceased, on carpet worn of pile by the restless soles of ten-thousand junkies. Inquisitively, I crouched down too see. The glistening young pharmacist was suddenly alert. He leaned over the counter, peering …

- Strange bug, I commented.

- Oh? he said, with surprising interest.

- Don’t worry. You won’t have to summon the exterminator.

- Oh? Oh, good …. he mumbled, clearly working to suppress any appearance of curiosity. Give it here. I’ll have it … disposed of.

I shrugged. It was already safe in my pocket as I strode from the pharmaceuticals outlet.

Of course, the image below is larger than life. The bug itself - I am reluctant to call it an insect - is about half the size of a cicada and radiates an aura of health and … fleshliness is the word that suggests itself. Though it appears dead, I am not wholly certain this is the case.


Does this representation bring to mind a name? A name frequently associated with extreme science? And with life-saving medical advances? A name as often cited by the journals Science and Nature as by Saucer Kooks and Pyramidiots?

Need I go on?

It bears the signature of that most estimable of human beings. Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius. His work is unmistakable.

The wiles of fortune – whether for fair or foul – have brought me into possession of a genuine Mercurial artifact.

Now I must ask if this is truly a creature and not some unimaginably complex clockwork automaton. No wonder I could not construe the principles it employed to achieve flight …

And, knowing its provenance, I may safely make some inferences …

Was it free to fly the magnificent spaces of his laboratory-dacha, [said to have been built by Peter the Great for one of his lovers?] Was it a fugitive? Or was it mere biological refuse, not quite dead or de-energised? Was it under examination when it strayed into the automatic units used by Mercurius to manufacture his elaborate compounds?

These units are hermetically sealed to prevent the Magister’s arcane recipes straying into the hands of a race unprepared for technologies of such sophistication.

So how did the bug – which I shall hereafter describe as a filbert*– get in?

Did Mercurius place it there himself?

And if so, why?

Often, I feel humbled that I am fated to consume the fruits of the uber-man’s labours. Who cares that they make me dead tired for ninety percent of my waking hours? Who cares that I no longer derive an emotional response from music? Who cares that my libido is massively reduced? Who gives a toss about the unknown havoc it wreaks among my organs …

This is Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius we are talking about!

So how to proceed? What to do with this iota from the hands of the Magister? I would never be so foolish as to sell it … but might I not, safely, reveal its existence ... to some close friends and associates...?

Such as you?

* see Shakespeare’s The Tempest

~ the twilight of the vilp

Usually, when I visit here, I sleep on the back porch beneath a slap-dash roof which has collapsed on me at least once in my memory. This time, however, I’m in the shed. It’s been cleared out, finally, and I have a very pleasant place in which to lurk – and it’s easy to avoid getting in the way of Nikki and Sid’s daily life. The chickens and the dogs wander in and out. At night, the porcine grunts and senseless giggles of the schoolies carry from the park across the street.

I generally fall into some kind of mindless routine after a few days here. I wake, walk to the Point, buy coffee, read the paper - the Courier Mail has gone from broadsheet to tabloid in my absence - swim, read on the beach… Though this time, it’s taking me a little longer to find a rhythm. I’m walking a lot, that’s for certain, and I’m fruitlessly attempting to take photos of very small things…. Crabs, barnacles, beautiful micro-fish darting in rock pools… I counted five species this morning, all lavishly coloured or patterned… I really have to get a better camera…

I’ve been going to the pub too, [where I am writing this]. The Straddie pub has metamorphosed from a typical and slightly dangerous Queensland hotel into a hulking complex with restaurants, accommodation, etc. that might easily have been transported whole from the Brisbane CBD. But there’s still the panoramic view of Moreton Bay out over Cylinder Beach…

I’ll walk back along the beach soon, as the sun sets, maybe watch some television, sleep…

Nikki has a bookcase dedicated to old science-fiction. All the books are dusty, the pages yellow, brittle, the bindings loose. She buys many of them for the covers alone, but there’s good reading too. She is a Philip K Dick aficionado and has a half dozen of his novels. There’s a lot of Clifford D Simak, some Badger Books and five treasured copies of The Twilight of The Vilp. I myself have at least ten. This is a hangover from a period during the Eighties when our Vilp Libraries vied for supremacy. I am certain I possessed at least forty copies at one stage…

I recall throwing out the page-blocks and keeping the covers, then later throwing out the covers… I don’t remember why… But almost immediately I started collecting them again. And of course they’re a lot harder to find these days…

I haven’t actually read the book, but Nikki claims it’s extraordinary. I have my doubts …

Andre Norton was a favourite writer of my childhood. I found a novel of hers in the bookcase and have just finished reading it. ‘Voorloper’. Quite enchanting …

With the walking, the swimming, the sea air, I’m already feeling healthier and have been able to steadily reduce my daily dosage of Spasmo-Nemigron. One senses the occasional breath of Spore activity… shreds of evil drifting over from the mainland… But for the most part this zone is clean.

One last thought on the election… from Tony Wright of The Age …

“Aunty’s floral prints, which once saw sunny days, have all gone drab now in the musty dark of the wardrobe”

The trepidation mounts as we enter, one hopes, the real twilight of the Vilp …

spasmo-vizier mercurius

Many combatants in the Ulterior Wars place an almost religious faith in the ability of Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius to rid the Earth of the Spore Menace.

Here he is seen preparing a substance new to the universe, which he tells us - when released into the water supply - will reverse the polarity of spore compliant tissue. We're with you all the way, Mercurius!

~ The Swarf That Penetrates

In passing, I have mentioned the scientist in my car-port. Now I would like to introduce him properly.

Robert is a shambling forty year old with wire rimmed glasses and wheaten hair that falls to the small of his back, and which he usually wears in a single braid. For him, clothes are simply a means of protection from the elements - he displays no preference when, each decade, he reluctantly burrows through the sale bins outside of op-shops. Often, Jenny and I offer him habiliments in an attempt to upgrade his decidedly shabby image

Robert is more or less a member of our family. We love him dearly. To Polly he is a patient and extremely tractable slave-uncle.

I first met Robert through Lorraine, who at one time was helping me procure prohibited substances. Lorraine was once an escort, before working in a brothel and then on the streets. Ultimately, the Quinquagesima tool its toll on Lorraine and she retired to her flat high in a housing commission monolith. Robert was her boyfriend until they separated about three years back. Lorraine still drops by the boarding house where Robert lives to drink tea, inhale concentrated THC, read the newspaper, and sometimes sample a little of my heavenly nuVanilla. She has mellowed in her later years and is also a good friend to Polly, who calls her 'Rain'.

Both Robert and Lorraine are rat lovers and used to keep them as pets. One day, I encountered them facing each other with deeply sorrowful expressions. They were jointly cradling a deeply beloved rat. It had cancer and was dying. With tears streaking their cheeks, they saw it through its last hours. I could not help but be moved by the commitment of these two old junkies to the poor little creature. Love. Simplicity. Respect. Care

Recently, when The Black and White Cat was dying, Robert did not stint in his efforts to comfort it. Kylie was visiting at this time and, observing Robert's dedication to The Black and White, she immediately classified him as a saintly spirit. Kylie is not the only friend of mine who judges people by their treatment of animals. I too see it as an indicator of the soul

The Black and White Cat had been with me for eighteen years.Originally it was named Chagall, but I could never use this name without feeling pretentious. [Mind you, my childhood cat was called Raskolnikov [see Dostoevsky], and I still recall being mocked [and hurt] by distant neighbours when I hollered for him at night]. Old Black & White cried piteously night and day and, because she was deaf, she did it loudly enough for the whole street to hear. Once contentedly plump, she was now an incontinent bag of bones - and quite plainly ready to die. Jenny and others were demanding that I have her euthanised, yet I was reluctant. One year previously, The White Cat had died in my hands at the RSPCA - and a young female vet had had to cope with a tall, slightly weird middle-aged man's uncontrollable weeping. I dreaded the thought of going through that again. What's more Robert was against it. He was certain he could somehow nurse the Black and White back to life, find a way to fix her somehow ... But, in truth, it was the Quinquagesima at work and - to quote Burroughs - that is the mark you can never beat.

In Robert's attitude, we find a clue to his character. Everything, to his mind, can be fixed, [though not the The Black and White Cat, who keeled over shortly after I resolved to take her to the vet]. Robert, personally, seems able to fix almost anything: Jenny's shoes, microwave, playstation, ratchet from my socket set, washing machine, about fifty components from Jackie [my beloved Renault 12 stationcar, who is the same age as Jenny and whom I'll speak of another time]. He's rewired the entire house and is installing rainwater tanks [Eight 220 recycled olive barrels raised high upon a wooden structure]. Every Wednesday, we have a working bee to keep our home from falling down about our ears.

Many years back, in pre-Jenny times, when I used Spasmo-Dromoran [rather than the Spasmo-Nemigron], Robert lost his flat and moved in with me. I was a different person then and though Robert was the perfect boarder, I had trouble with the noise he made cutting carrots and encouraged him to leave. His yacht was in the front yard and he spent all his time working on it. Lynne was a little fascinated by this, [she was my lover at the time,] and was certain that the yacht was symbolic - that Robert was expressing his desire for freedom. She believed that he would never leave on his dreamed of journey up the east coast of Australia, but would work patiently on the boat until the day he died.


When Robert left, the boat stayed. As it dominated the front yard, I urged him to move it and, a year later, he did. The yacht traveled from property to property until a particular friend moved out without telling him. Robert never found this friend, nor his boat... I feel guilt over this. The mast still lays on the roof of the car port, and I curse myself whenever I see it.

But now Robert has a new obsession. He is in love with metal. He has set up a working space in the car port and, since he has retired from the Ulterior Wars, [with the interesting ability to manufacture synthetic honeycomb,] he lives in dirt cheap accommodation, gets most of his food from a skip behind South Melbourne market, and is able to save nearly every penny of his Veteran's Pension. First there came a smallish antique metal-working lathe. Then a giant industrial grade lathe. Then a big bulky compressor. Then his beloved Deckel Tool Mill.

A tool mill masses more than a ton and this one was delivered onto the drive way. Robert spent the next month producing metal rollers with his lathe, so that he could move the thing into shelter [He also manufactured a heavy duty steel button for the toilet at his boarding house]. Once it was in place, he proceeded to dissemble the machine and - with the help of the online machine tool community - he set about cleaning, polishing, repairing and painting every single component. It has taken more than a year, but he has now begun reassembly and with each day the machine comes nearer to completion. It's not my usual kettle of fish, but I must say his Deckel Tool Mill is an impressive thing. Robert should be lauded - even if it is only by the members of the Model Engineers Association.

Robert is the only genius I know and I could speak of him at great length - but I shall save that for another day. Suffice to say he is wonderful to have around, despite the tiny shards of metal [called swarf which are scattered everywhere and which cause the most painful and deeply penetrating splinters in the feet of Polly, Jenny and I.

[Read 'the discombobulated genius' - another post in celebration of the artful Robert]

Spasmo-Nemigron

Each morning, I go out to collect my daily dose of Spasmo-Nemigron. This is my primary medication and a defense against the Spores. Sometimes, at the pharmacy, I meet other users of Spasmo-Nemigron, easily identifiable by their thin down-turned lips, haunted eyes and furrowed skin; by their arbitrary grooming and their often threadbare garments.

One of these ghouls, Lemon, I have known for a couple of years and treated as a friend - until recently she did me great harm.

This complex war has bred monsters, individuals who have surrendered wholly to the Spores and who make a living in their service. Amy encountered one such man - a Romanian - who offered her fleeting luxuries in exchange for the betrayal of her friends. The first victim was my beautiful wife, Jenny.

At this point, I should pause to say something of the Deadly Spores' physical nature. Their principal means of enslavement is a glistening compound - excreted in an unknown manner and generally referred to as Honeycomb. It is a foodstuff so enticing, so delicious that few can resist it. But once it is consumed, some fraction of one's humanity is lost forever and replaced by spore-complient non-flesh. Men such as the Romanian trade in Honeycomb and, having identified her as vulnerable, he plied Jenny with this pernicious material, forcing her into despair and unmanageable debt.

All this happened fast and outside my knowledge while she was away and explains her unpleasant manner on the phone and in person. Thankfully, she has struck back, freed herself [at least to some extent], and - because she is returning to the fold tomorrow - I am allowing myself a little optimism. As for Lemon, ought I devise some way to punish her?