Work in Progress - 8 June 2003/2 August 2003/October 2004

Apologies to JDS

There were thirty seven western backpackers on the Trans Siberian, and the way they monopolised the toilet, the girl from Singapore in berth 19A had to wait from noon till almost two thirty to get in. She used the time though. She ate some noodles from a polystyrene container. She picked at the holes in her jumper and watched the fields widen underneath the pale blue sky. She talked to two swedish girls waiting before her in the queue; about Goldfrapp, Belle de Jour and the cats' meow, the poems of Pablo Neruda, the decadence of Michel Houellebecq and third world debt. They exchanged recommendations about the best lounge bars in Singapore and Stockholm. She also told them bar top dancing was legal and to avoid the Night Zoo at all costs. She disagreed with their contempt for Star Wars.

When their turn finally arrived, the Swedes shared the small toilet together. For Chrissakes she didn't understand how they managed it. The place was the size of one and a half wheely bins. She had almost finished counting in her head how many double AA batteries she thought she had left when Ulrika and Sibylla left the cubicle holding hands and smiling. She entered the toilet. The place stank, small puddles spread across the floor interrupted by little islands of sodden toilet paper and odd bits of grey brown. Gawd, she'd kill for a squeegee mop, pot pourri and a Filipino maid at a time like this. But she was glad for the space and some time alone. The first thing she did was to put the seat down and call her mother.

She held the phone between her shoulder and tilted her head. As the phone rang she looked at herself in the mirror directly facing her, strategically positioned for full frontal self awareness. She noticed how when she sniffed a few freckles wrinkled and stood out on her nose. She rubbed her knees with her hands and took her striped beanie with the red and white pom poms off. Then she started to clean up her cuticles, as best she could, given the circumstances. While the phone was ringing she pulled out a small silver comb and a pair of tweezers from the back pocket of her jeans and began to do her eyebrows.

"Hello!" There was a delay and she could hear her voice echo down the line half a second after she spoke.

"Emmy Lee? Is that you?"

"Yes, Mother. How are you?"

"I've been worried to death about you. Why haven't you phoned? Are you all right?"

"I tried to get you last night and the night before. My phone here's been -"

"Are you alright, Emmy Lee?"

The girl closed her eyes and increased the angle at which she held the phone to her shoulder.

"I'm fine. I'm hot. It's stuffy.I didn't know the trains in Russia were so hot -"

"Why haven't you called me? I've been worried to -"

"Mother, darling, don't yell at me. I can hear you beautifully," said the girl. "I called you twice last night. Once just after -"

"I told your father you'd probably call last night. But no he had to - Are you all right, Emmy Lee? Do you understand you're missing the June sales. Tell me the truth."

"I'm fine stop asking me that, please."

"How long have you been on board now?"

"Two days."

"And he hasn't tried any of that funny business with the window?"

"Mother. He's been perfectly nice."

"What colour's his nose?"

"Mother. I'm OK."

"Does he keep calling you that awful -"

"No. He has something new now."

"What?"

"Oh, whats the difference mother?"

"What's he doing now?"

"He's talking to a girl in the dining car. Its OK she doesn't understand a word of English and she's five years old."

A video of leggy dancers in purple glitter leotards, top hats, matching tails and sequinned canes plays in the Dining Car. As the dancers strut to tinny pop music, possibly ELO's Don't Bring me Down, a young man sits at a table, scratches the brown stubble on his chin and places his book, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, open and face down on the plastic top. Next to the book is a plate with a slice of soda bread with two bites taken from it and next to the plate is a plastic vase held to the table by a round swatch of velcro stuck to its underside. The plastic vase holds a miniature pink rose its petals made of cotton and its thorns made of plastic.

The young man places the plastic rose between his teeth, tilts his head and grimaces at the very young girl sitting opposite him across the table. They have the table to themselves. She is about seven or eight and has pretty eyes and high, elvin cheekbones. She leans forward with her elbows on the table and her hands holding her cheeks and she smiles at him.

On the table in front of her is a sketch book. She has been drawing pictures including one of him. The eyes and the shape of the face bear an uncanny resemblance but the nose is round, coloured bright red and not a little squashed. He has written something under his picture:

'A man sets himself the task of sketching the world. Throughout the years he fills a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, dwellings, instruments, stars, horses and people. Shortly before dying, he discovers the patient labyrinth of strokes outlines the image of his own face.₁'

She stares at him unblinking. He stares back unblinking, expressionless, cold. The plastic rose remains held tightly between his teeth. She smiles but she doesn't blink. She purses her lips and still she does not blink. They gaze intensely into each other eyes. He raises an eyebrow but does not blink - this is quite difficult to accomplish when your holding a plastic rose between your teeth. She giggles and does not blink and says something in Mandarin very softly and slowly. He blinks. The plastic rose drops from his mouth. He slaps himself on the forehead with his palm. She raises her thin arms like an prizefighter and shakes her little fists in the air. He sticks his tongue out at her.

She points at his pocket. He puts his hand slowly and deliberately into the pocket of his black woollen fisherman's jacket and pulls out an imaginary box full of nothing. She can see by shape of his fingers and the veins on his hands that its a heavy and that he's struggling to hold on to it. With a wry smile on his face, he takes the imaginary box, places it flat on his palm which gives a little and he looks at it as though something important is there . She nods her head quickly and claps her hands and almost topples out of her chair. He picks up the imaginary cube throws it high into the air following the flight with his eyes, his eyes bounce as though the box hits the ceiling. She laughs with glee. He catches the imaginary box but it has grown larger in flight and his arms are stretched wide. Under some strain, he holds the box by its sides by pressing his palms flat against its sides about a shoulder width apart. He moves his hands closer and wheezes and sways rhythmically from side to side and starts to get up out of his seat and do a little jig. He moves his hands together and apart as though the imaginary box is expanding and contracting. He rests the imaginary box on his hip. He winks at her. Other passengers look at him strangely. She giggles, hoots with laughter, closes her eyes almost crying with happiness.

For the last two nights, she fell asleep listening to her MP3 player knowing Ronan Keating would stop soon because her batteries were running out. The bunk beneath her was empty.

Boris was not at all there. But she kept telling herself: that's what she liked about him. Boris wasn't like anyone else she knew. What did he see in her? Boris saw shapes in everything: the slow tangle of lovers' legs straddling each other in the twist of a curtain falling to the side of a window, horses heads in the tiny creases of the vinyl seats. Everything he saw was a neverending Rorshach test. The truth she couldn't tell herself was that he didn't see her at all.

He hadn't spoken to her in days. All she got were yellow sticky things with strange messages placed in strange places. Boris left a yellow sticky thing on the pillow on her bunk. It said:

'You are so flimsy you could slip through a crackin the pavement. You are so delicate the wind could break you in two.' She scrunched up the yellow sticky thing and dropped it on the floor.

She remembered the first yellow sticky thing he'd stuck to the soft down at the bottom of her sleeping bag: 'You are so hygenic a misdirected cough would make you cry. You have slithers of lemon for ears. I love you very much. Don't be afraid.'

She got up had some breakfast and played scrabble with an Italian who was trying to get into her sleeping bag. [The Italian was using the words 'oxymoron' and 'ilk' when playing Travel Scrabble.]

She distracting herself by asking an Australian to explain cricket and battered savs. She ldozed in the afternoons remembering when he was chased her with words, conjuring tricks and scotch eggs.

Dazzling her with the production of budgerigar feathers from behind her ears. Dazzling buffoonery. Laughter that hurt. Walking around shopping malls, in amongst the sports clothing shops, scandinavian ice cream and two hour photo labs. Walking with him beside her buttocks jolting forward as though someone was kicking him up the backside with a Muay Thai round house whack. A jolt through the middle of the body.

Packed away at the bottom of his backpack is a pair of the softest longest leather shoes made by Borissini of Florence.

So he'd finally had enough. She said look I know what we need, a holiday. He said, you know I can't stand Langkawi/Phuket. No, I know what you've always wanted to take the Trans Siberian from Beijjing to Moscow. So they went. She paid. Her last ditch effort to resurrect their relationship.

When Good Clowns Go Bad.

He was once a clown. Took off his makeup. The smudge of oversize lips. Stars around the eyes. Red nose. The power to destroy the fundamental tenets of western civilisation. The most subversive plastic known to man. A red nose. The widest natural smile.

Long shoes stretched out. Little skinny body dimpled. Pock marked face. Acne scars and dimples. Recalcitrant facial hairs protruding from moles. Padded buttocks. Stuffed parrot wired stiff to his shoulder. The fond memories of clown groupies after the show, wanting to make love to him wearing his nose and shoes.

Wanting to stay a clown as his antidote to consumerism. The acquisition of things. Going deeper into clown. Losing the self.

She said, "Why are you leaving me? I'm not a bad person?"

Phoney. Weakness. Get thee to a nunnery. I want a life away from the accumulation of material possessions.

The engine of discontent. The grey sludge of unhappiness, blocking his silly pipes. He is dying. [show but don't overtly state this] Dying of a lack of light. So angry at the lack of freedom - this smothering of the soul. Caged and conned. Like his powers are being torn from him.

This little girl reminds him of what he once was. What he once could do. But she's a distraction and in a way makes it worse because she reminds him of the extent of his loss. Hating from amidst the brooding unsaid.

The firing squad. An execution. The clowns stand in a row facing him, he has to make them laugh, failure to do so and he is shot. Entertain so they won't shoot him. Custard cream pies ready to throw. Dancing and singing and recitation of bad poetry.

The apparatus of corporate materialism established to insulate us from our moral decisions/individuality - the only decision is when, where & what to buy? Colour, shape, brand, version. Choice touching on the surface of the variety of material experiences. not about the release of the soul or human connection. The modern chains of oppression. Still so unhappy even though we have more than the Kings & emperors of days gone by.

TBC

He leaves the little girl.

He returns to where Singapore girl is snoozing in their 2 bed cabin. He seees the copy of the Idiot & sticks the 2 yellow sticky things on the cabin wall beside her sleeping head.

Talk about what he physically sees as she sleeps.

Then he walks out of the cabin down the corridor to the gap between 2 carriages.

He opens the side door & jumps into space.

1. Jorge Luis Borges

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