Kokosnuss

I was sitting on a bench eating my kokosnuss icecream when a black hatchback swung in fast. A woman in a black dress with the most astonishing tower of hair ducked out. She looked about quickly, and, as I was closest, fixed on me. *Something in Deutsch*, she said.

--Ja, sure, I said, but I only speak English.

--Oh, okay. Can you watch my car? I really need this icecream.

--Okay.

I nodded and she smiled and… she ran. All five metres. To the icecream shop.

I was puzzled. Watch it? She’d parked it in a no-standing-zone perpendicular to all of the other cars. If the police saw it about the only thing I could do for her would be to create a diversion by chucking my dessert at them and hoofing it. Maybe then they’d chase me instead—no thankyou. But I scanned the street dutifully until she came back, walking slowly this time, the paddle in her mouth. She was entranced.

 

She sat down next to me on the wooden slat and we sat for a moment, appreciating.

 

Her hair was died black and collected at the back of her head in a thin yet perfect beehive, the strands plastered together with spray into a topiary cone that overlooked a series of smaller mounds built toward her forehead. She must have been in her early fifties. She had traced green eyebrows and firm eyes.

--Thankyou, she said. The police, you know.

--That’s fine.

--It is the best icecream here, in Berlin. The best.

She looked over at my icecream and then gestured excitedly at her own.

--Kokosnuss!

 

***

 

Today I wandered through the markets along Maybachufer just south of the canal, then up along Oranienstrasse where I sought out a copy of Canetti’s Die Blendung to give to R—. We had spoken about it in a café on the first night we met. She had read Crowds and Power but hadn’t noted his other writing. Embarrassingly enough we got onto the subject whilst talking about places we’d like to visit; I said Budapest was on my list and she asked why. I described Canetti’s memoirs, in particular his descriptions of life in the Sephardic community in Budapest when he was a child. Then we moved onto his Berlin and Vienna years and the people he associated with: Grosz, Brecht (whom he detested), Musil, Karl Krauss—most of whom I’m only very faintly familiar with, really. The discerning reader will have noticed the mistake—and a bad one it is too—Canetti was a child in Bulgaria. Those eastern European places. They’re all the same.

 

The funny thing is I’ve been telling people I’d like to go to Budapest for so long that now I feel like I should go anyway, even if I’m no longer following a literary star. It’s not authentic, but the name of the place will have to do; I’m not really burning to head off to Rustchuck. There’s displacement. But geez—mortification.

 

Anyway, R— expressed an interest and I described Die Blendung with its grotesques and its delectable parody of Kant. I remember that Canetti wrote in his memoirs that he was haunted by guilt afterwards for what he had done to Kant. I recall, reading this, envying him such belief in the life of his creations. To think that they should be so important, to have such a sense of an ethical responsibility toward their suffering, seemed so at odds with the unyielding savagery of that novel and yet somehow so pure. I found a copy in the second bookshop and took it to front of the shop, where the thin, gentle man behind the counter smiled indulgently as I asked in English what he had said, and he replied in English that he was offering me a bag for my book which was written in German; he knew I couldn’t read a single page of it, and I handed over the money and felt like a dill.

Afterwards I walked west and then south until I hit the jagged edge of Libeskind’s unravelled Star of David, where I spent a few hours. Inside, Menashe Kadishman's steel faces clanked underfoot and didn’t rest. Strange, and awful, that the aesthetic should gather this memorialising function to itself.

\Arrival

At Heathrow I gathered in the detritus of the flight—the eye-mask, the melted chocolate bar, my beaten hardback, my shoes—packed it all together and feigned sprightliness as we all shuffled and stopped, shuffled and stopped toward the hatch where the too-collected attendant smiled through her lipstick and wished us a pleasant stay. My stay was brief and strange: causeway, escalator, a shuttle across to Terminal 5 (stuck behind what looked like a tractor that had taken a wrong turn somewhere way out and couldn’t find its way out of this little concrete city), escalator, corral, plaza. When I came to the screens and watch shops I asked an official if there was somewhere to shower and she told me no, there wasn’t, but if I was boarding another plane straightaway I should just sit down and rest. Thanks, I said. I sat, for the last leg to Berlin, in the fume of my own stench, embarrassed and dressed in tracksuit pants.  As the plane turned over Berlin I saw, looking from the window, a vast brown smokedrift over the nearby forest, swinging toward us on the wind like a greeting. From above the city looked like a rubble-heap in the middle of nowhere.

 

I tried to get changed in the terminal toilet but had to be rescued by a middle-aged German man who, despite the fact that I had an airport trolley wedged halfway in and halfway out of the doorway, blocking all traffic, remained polite and refused, in his impeccable English, to express any shadow of surprise.

 

I stood behind some French girls, about twenty, who were saying that they were glad they were going to see their families—but wouldn’t it be sad to leave.

 

And then, naturally, I got lost on the way to the flat. It was hot and I hadn’t slept much for thirty-odd hours. The bus bumped along swiftly by a canal over streets for which I had no reference—that travelling strangeness that turns everything, the most mundane things, video shops and footpaths, into spectacle. I saw the S-bahn station on the right but thought it must be the wrong one, and ended up at the glassy arch of Hauptbanhof, just north of the centre. I staggered across the bus lanes and through a turning door. Platforms shot off on three levels. Standing there, bewildered, gawking at the blue scrolling screens, I was approached by a young American, similarly carapaced under his own backpack.

--Do you speak English? He said.

--Yes, I replied. Hi.

--Where are you staying? I need a hostel.

(It may have been hot and bright and dusty outside but it was eight at night and by the look of him, having just got off the plane, he was getting desperate.)

I told him I couldn’t help, sorry—I had my own place sorted and it was a private sublet. We stood. He looked around, then back at me. He nodded. A moment of mutual decision. Then both wanting to look as though we knew where we were going, we chose a direction each and strode off purposefully—in slow-motion, under our luggage. How ridiculous.

 

Five minutes later I doubled back past the same spot. Ach.

 

Eventually, though, after two more changes and a funny conversation with a ticket officer, I climbed down from a yellow U-bahn carriage, made my way past the mall and the church and found my way here. Checking my notebook for directions I wandered up over the cobbles and alongside the red brick wall of the school. High walls and a green gate. People were sitting and eating under trees and the twilight had started to sit over the evening like a soft sheet. I buzzed.

--Hallo. L—?

The door buzzed back. I pushed.

M—’s head and forearms were draped out over the courtyard from a window ten or fifteen metres up and—I have to tell you—my heart sank.

--What happened? He said.

--I took the wrong train.

--Up the stairs. It’s on the fourth floor, he said, from the fourth floor.

Help me with this pack, you bastard.

I climbed.

 

M— met me at the door. M— is Peruvian, a filmmaker, and into biorobotics.

--Have you heard of Stelarc? I studied. I met him.

I indicated I had.

--So, you are Australian? What are you doing here?

I told him that I had taken six months off work and that I didn’t know what I would do yet. But I hoped to be in Berlin for six months and travel round a bit, do some reading, maybe some writing, who knows. Time out.

--Well, he said, you’ve come at a good time. This summer there are lots of girls. Last summer it was not so good. Everyone was sad.

He has this way of speaking, M—, as though he is your best friend. He speaks about six languages and his accent is so blurry it feels as though you are listening to a tape recording that has started to decay. We fixed up the money straight away and he told me that there was a butō performance on soon that I should come to, seeing as I was a drama teacher. Thanks, I said, that would be great.

--There is a Canadian guy in this other room. He is nice.

--Cool. Thanks.

We stood. Then, after grabbing my number, he left. The door closed, I shucked my pack and aeroplane socks, stood semi-conscious under the shower for fifteen whole minutes, and crashed into bed under a garish orange doona, where I slept soundly until the morning light found me at five-thirty.

 

***

 

Last night I went with H— and R— (of whom more later) to the Berghain. It’s a massive place: a concrete shell of a building in Friedrichshain near the Ostbahnhof. We sat in a courtyard outside by a fountain, drinking bionade until one o’clock when the queue started moving, when we ducked and found ourselves being patted down airport-security style by bouncers looking for cameras. We handed them over to a surly old punk who gave us a ticket in return, then passed through into a cement atrium reaching up thirty metres to the ceiling above. Behind us stood a local cowboy, flares and jacket and ten gallon hat all in white. Booths with red lighting were tucked away over to one side of the rambling, extended floor and up past the concrete columns a staircase ran up to the balustrade of the next floor, another fifteen metres above. The light was blue and gold in beams carving down from the darkness. It was like being in an old church or lost theatre.

On the floor above a couple of muscular gay earlybirds were dancing solo in and out of the shifting indigo ripples projected down across the floor. A wall of glass ran along the length of one side behind the speakers—and early in the morning when the music was really loud the panes started to crack in long jagged lines—behind which a haughty barwoman presided over her bench. At the end of this bar were swinging seats and out past the floor, over the gulf of the atrium, a caged metal walkway. The speakers were towers—six gigantic insect legs leading up to an invisible monstrosity. There was another floor upstairs with artworks by Wolfgang Tillmans—some wavy lines and a fashion shot—a woman’s naked lower torso, legs spread, with T-shirt rising up out of shot so that you could only see her vagina and no face—like Courbet, I suppose, and just as problematic. More cages and booths and a smokers’ balcony that was completely enclosed by glass, from which you could look out coolly over the sunrise and the long queue outside.

H— tried without luck to find his supplier and while he was standing by the window was approached (as we all were during the night) by a petite man in braces and striped top. He stood, demi-dancing, nearby, and when I came back he moved away. R— was hit on by a guy from Belfast and a weird young guy who, despite the soaking heat, wore his hoodie over his head and danced around darkly like a bobbing flagpole.

I danced until my feet were sore. I gave up at six and R— decided to leave then too so we limped out into the daylight, squinting bleakly and rolling our shoulders. At the train station we became aware of the smell of our hair, our bedraggled appearance. 

At Alexanderplatz I saw a fight.

...that's it for today.

Departure/

A week and a half ago, after classes finished for the day, I grabbed my briefcase and thumped out past the canteen to the Drama Studio, over the black scabs of chewie, for a last rehearsal. The usual ravenous scene—styrofoam cups, milo, chocolate biscuits, apples—clustering by the kitchen, feeling special, my (lovely) colleague L— fielding gossip, giving directions, directing the traffic. So I got there and sat down. L— called them in and they mustered.

 

And—and I did not expect it—they gave me this:

 

Yes, I'm holding Teaching for Dummies.

Inside the card were written a whole assortment of notes. I won’t reproduce many, as it was really very, very generous of them. But this one, I think, rates a moment:

 

Dear Mr M—,

 

I never had you as a teacher & the first time I spoke to you yelled at me J but it’s okay I still think your awesome. J have a good trip sir! Be safe! Take care! ª R— xo

 

The thing is this: R— is not in the cast of this play. Nor was he present at that rehearsal. Nor do I remember ever yelling at him (or all but two kids at that school—“yelling” often is merely synonymous with “telling off”). It can’t have been much of an episode. But, here’s the worst part given the bubbly and friendly tone: I don’t even know who R— is. Who the fuck is R—? Isn’t that awful? When I go back, I’ll find out.

 

This one, too, left me scratching my head:

 

Good luck sir. Take your time.

 

***

 

At the airport I faffed along like a distorted tortoise under my green and orange backpack. We checked it in and then stood about like cranes in airport time, flicking through magazines and staring at the fat biography of John Howard, odious man. Dad said he wanted to rip them up; I was disgusted by the pulpy paper and poor print quality. We drank chain coffee in jumbocups. Stood on granite tiling. Considered neck-cushions. My sister called to say goodbye again. Then I got all edgy and impatient and said I should go, though there was still time. Mum and Dad kissed me by the customs gates and I waved as I walked through.

 

***

They took my toothpaste, the bastards. Before a thirty-hour flight. Stupid: I’m much more dangerous without my toothpaste. 

Tower of Babel

The weekend ahead:

Oh, fuck.

My girly legs are showing

I had a class full of meerkats yesterday. The year 8 boys are obsessed—and have become competitive. As the girls pretend not to look on, the boys shoot up and look about with their top lips raised above their teeth. They move their heads from one side to the other as though keeping a jerky lookout, put the weight on their heels, extend their necks and hold out their arms in coathanger paws.

 

I thought: okay. I’m prepared to go with this.

 

It was quite joyous, really.

 

And it’s working, too. At the lockers today I caught J— and S— in a skirted huddle, comparing pictures of meerkats that they had found on the net. They were trying to figure out which one was the best looking.

 

“That one looks more like B—,” insisted S—. (B— is the hot boy in the class.)

“Yeah, but this one’s cuter.”

An awkward pause.  Then: “Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t care,” S— continued, “I still think B—is okay.”

 

***

 

And below: a loving tribute to yours truly submitted by two year tens in place of an actual essay:

 

One day Mr M. walked into class and saw M— and the F—man all by themselves, so he said, “screw this, let’s party!!” He ripped off all his clothes (except underwear…eww) and magically music came on and he started dancing to partyboy. Then magically we were zapped to Berlin and a bunch of German people started to slap Mr M.’s legs.

 

He had the hairiest legs in the whole of Germany, till the Germans slapped all his hair off!! “Oh no,” he said! “My girly legs are showing!!” So F—man said, “here have a bit of muscle!” F—man threw Mr M. muscle. Mr M. grew muscle on his legs instantly! Mr M. said, “Thanks F—man. Now I don’t have to show off my girly legs off any more.” M— threw Mr M. extra hair! Mr M. obliged and said, “Thanks, M—, my tank legs look rugged now!!”

 

Then Mr M. jumped into the Louvre and started singin I’m a Barbie Girl by acqua and showin off his tank legs in the partyboy suit. Over 25 men were by his side instantly!!

 

They were zapped back to Australia coz his singing is so bad and he went back to his girly self, and M— went back to his hairiness and F—man went back to his tankiness!!

 

THE END

From F—man and C—boy.

 

It’s a sign of affection. Yep, they’re going to miss me.

Bop and Luigi

Which are you today?

In the fog

Below: some recent samples. It was a tacky task and I feel a bit mean putting them up—but I found them entertaining in the middle of the black hole of marking that I’ve been inhabiting lately—you know: that event horizon beyond which no light escapes. The real universe is out there somewhere, but right now I’m stuck in here with Stephen Hawking and syntax from another dimension. Sorry for the overlate post.

 

I spent the day yesterday down in Geelong with my dear friends H— and P—, sitting at their kitchen table, breathing their oxygen and eating their experimental coconut agar dessert. I’d driven down in time for lunch and then sat like a lump until night; they were most tolerant and hospitable and lovely as I huffed and whined and ground away at the shredded forest of corrections in front of me. It’s still winter here and still cold, and I hid the fan-heater between my ankles and waved my feet across it, as though treading the pages while I read. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was about to give up and find a doona somewhere, I took a walk along the remnants of an old rail cutting that runs past the back of their house and off in a straight line each way into the distance. The rails are gone now and it’s a bike trail, with gravel underfoot. Deserted. I mooched along, and then it was midnight and I was driving back to Melbourne in a thick mist, all distance collapsed, with the engine in my ears and a blaze of white in my eyes. I saw vehicles that looked like animals in the fog: a train that became a screaming caterpillar; a truck with a hunched beetle-back, spewing black smoke from its carapace by its neck; another that slowly stalked through the thin trees on the other side of the divide, as though it were lurking, hunting or afraid; an old valiant limping along like a wounded hound. No people: just lights and metal shapes. Very occasionally a highwaylight burned down in a falling orange cone, and passing under I imagined my small car exposed to the scrutiny of a post-apocalyptic, mechanised invigilator. Vangelis was playing.* I kicked the accelerator and sped along the straight stretch, the little blue flicker of the high-beam light on the dash, the radio off, listening.

 

* Nah, just being fanciful. No Vangelis.

 

Samples: here you go. They’re not all bad—but not all good either…

 

Write a journal entry by Banquo after meeting the witches, in which you discuss what you have seen and your feelings about it, about your own hopes and about Macbeth.

 

Dear Diary,

 

Today was seeming to be a rather good ordinary day out running around the forest practising my fighting skills, until I met up with my good friend Macbeth. Macbeth joined me in some sword fighting and I must say that he is quite the fighter. I do really feel sorry for whoever comes across him with a pair of daggers in his hands.

 

Along with our normal daily travels we came across some witches who gave Macbeth and I some important but confusing information. They told Macbeth that he would become thane of Cawdor and then would eventually become king and that no man would be able to kill him until a forest moved to his castle. I don’t really understand how he could believe this talk. I mean how could a forest move. Last time I checked they just can’t get up and walk to him.

 

They also told me that I would move up in the line and really I’m not sure whether I should believe them after what they told Macbeth. Plus how could I believe them, they were the 3 most uglyst things I’ve ever seen.

 

And really I think Duncan makes a better king. He acts like a true hero unlike Macbeth. Lately he hasn’t been the best person. I mean he is good at what he does but I think he does it for the wrong reasons. To me it seems a bit more of a villain than a hero in my eyes.

 

Well I will just have to wait and see how all of this unfolds.

The end.

 

***

 

Write a journal entry by Banquo after meeting the witches, in which you discuss what you have seen and your feelings about it, about your own hopes and about Macbeth.

 

Student comment: The audience this is aimed at is mostly teenages and older or who ever loves William Shakespear’s novels.

19^th May 1821

Dear Diary,

 

Today Macbeth and I were meeting up with the three witches on top of the heath. It was quite weird to be honest.

 

When we arrived to the heath, no one was there. Macbeth and I started to get scared. Then all of a sudden the three witches appeard with a cauldron and started to rhyme. It was quite impressive. Macbeth started as king them “Why are we hereeth?” One of the witches replyed “Hahaha, what does ‘hereeth’ mean O wise one?” Macbeth looked at the witch and answered “Hereeth means ‘here’, you know, why are we here. It’s Olden Elizabeth talk, I think.”

 

Anyway, continuing on, I was (excuse my French) shitting myself a little bit when Macbeth and one of the hags were arguing about the word ‘hereeth’, I thought that the witches were gonna cast an evil spell on Macbeth and probably me. So I didn’t say a word and left Macbeth to do all the talking. My feelings at this point are me wanting to run like the wind and get the heck out of there, but I won’t leave Macbeth by himself with the three witches.

 

My hopes are tell me that I hope I get out of here alive and in one piece. Also, I hope I never see the three witches ever again.

 

***

 

Write a journal entry by Malcolm after the murder of Duncan, in which you put down your thoughts about your father’s reign and the manner of his death, and in which you start to work out your own plans.

 

Dear Diary,

 

It’s been a hard week. After seeing my dad reign Scotland for so long, defeating the unthinkable British soldiers, puts death to those who betray, to suddenly be murdered by a faceless coward. He didn’t deserve what he got. I grew up with him. He went through thanes, fought in famous battles, and even married a princess.

 

He was a man of his word. He would always look out for the people close to him. He grew up in a poor town, to becoming a thane, then to exploring and fighting in battles he won. He was an elderly man before he died. And I’ll never forget the day he took me hunting. We caught 4 rabbits and a fox. We shared the fox after cooking it on the fire. And when mother passed away was just as bad. She got struck by a horse and fell into a well. She was never retrieved. And my parents would fight a lot. But they always made up. God I miss them.

Boy-sick

Well, the snap must have done it, and now I’ve got a cold. Leaden legs and swollen eyelids; tissueburn around my nostrils. There are little balls of soggy paper scattered all through my jacket and trouser pockets and all over the flat like a giant’s dandruff, along the bedhead, in the front seat of the car.

 

Yesterday, leaning over a student’s work, time went into slow motion. Not the slow motion of a car crash—the slow motion of impending social death. I watched a globule of my snot fall through the air and onto the student’s page, where it splashed. She looked up at me just as I grabbed my nose and mumbled “Shorry”. Every fourteen-year-old in the room watched as I dashed to the desk and grabbed a tissue and blew, then still sealing my leaking tap with my right hand, dashed back and tried to soak up the snot with the tissues in my left. The work smeared. I tried to look suave and unconcerned.

 

Maybe it was the fever—later in the day I told a year seven student to pretend he was on acid. This is not the done thing.

 

And he did. 

Cold Snap

At the tired end of the week the hail came jauntily down on the roof of our canteen. The kids were queuing twenty deep in blue and maroon, scuffing their shoes in the steaming din. It was cold; their sleeves were stretched over their hands; shoulders hunched; hopping; chatting; reeking; swapping money; demanding the four-day due of a chupa-chup from a mate; pushing in (and being sent back!); wrangling; preening; but most of all standing like cars in hopeless traffic, wheels stalled, exhausts blowing wasted fuel straight out into the air in phantom, misting limbs of carbon dioxide, drivers stuck. The lunchers inched forward so slowly, leaning on the metal bars. Everyone was sweaty. Behind the counter the ladies were shelling pies and chicken burgers to the kids as if from a gun battery:

 

piepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiedimmypiepiepiepiepiepiepie…. 

 

When the ice fell, the crowd stopped. There was the minutest hush—as we all figured it out—then, seeing that bean-bag stuffing bouncing crazily down the kids belted out into the yard and put out their hands and shook their heads and danced about and—of course!—tried to catch it.

 

A few savvy souls stayed inside and bought up big.

 

I finished my allotted span on duty and, tag-teaming with Mr M—, a tall, thin vegetarian, mooched back to class. I passed T—, a new girl, whose eye-shadow has crept like a pestilential Egyptian shadow across her cheeks since the start of the year (looks cool but definitely a no-no); she was drenched and looked like a nighttime waterfall, jet streaks of mascara down her face and her dyed noir hair clinging to her skull and dagging down in a black sheet. She looked happy; she was jumping.

 

Passing around the corner near the oval I fell into step with A— and S—, who were having an argument. A— and S— are opposites: A— is a slight boy who I am yet to convince to do any work (he struggles and I haven’t cracked it yet), and who as a consequence has ended up on the lighting crew. He loves the Holden Racing Team so that qualifies him technically. A— spends a lot of his time wandering around the school on ‘official business’, which means asking teachers for their keys so he can get up into the bio-box. In class he likes to swing on his chair and I have resorted to taking it off him and making him stand or kneel. We get along well. S— is different. She is diligent, well read, and knows all of the answers. As I caught them up they started to bicker:

 

A: Hey! Move over!

S: You’re so immature.

A: You’re so immature.

S: No. You’re so immature.

A: No. You’re so immature.

S: Listen to you. You’re talking like a three-year-old.

A: Yeah, well you’re talking like a one-year-old.

S: Duh. They can’t even talk properly yet.

A: Yeah, well then you’re talking like a half year old.

A: I mean a two-year old.

A: You are.

 

S— realised I was witness and attempted to enlist me by laughing conspiratorially. I ignored it and moved ahead. I must have been smiling at the exchange though, as when I reached the classroom N—, who was waiting there, looked taken aback, and said: “Whaaaat?”

 

“I was just laughing at something I heard,” I told him.

 

He looked shocked. Then he said: “But I do have soggy nipples.”

 

And for the rest of that class I kept catching him looking mournfully down from side to side, and lifting his tee-shirt out from his chest.

Sunday night marking

I remember, exactly ten years ago, sitting down at this hour (11.38pm) in front of the two decrepit second-hand computers I had piled on top of each other and interlaced with cables (in an effort to get them to hold on, in their grinding silicone dementia, to more than twenty-two hundred words at a time – and, incidentally, which I had painted red and blue, scratching naïve rocketships and flowers into their thin acrylic skins, long before apple computers discovered bondi blue – ) –

 

I remember sitting in that baggy corduroy chair, swinging back, staring at that old screen with its scarlet fringe, getting up to pace about, putting on a record and standing by the open window, turning around, admiring my couch for a good while, debating a cigarette, getting out some charcoal pencils and fiddling them about, turning back to the night, then closing my eyes tightly and growling and setting myself back to the computer. That essay took me eight hours and it was always the same. I’d read and fret and worry, right up to the night of the day before, then realise that I was out of time. I had that creeping panic and loss of circadian time; the essay gods were on my tail and the task, which only I could acquit myself of, closed in, bringing with it a comfortless isolation that insomniacs also know.

 

In Bangkok once I had a moment of clarity in the middle of months of anxiety and stress and illness, catching sight of my own shape in a window backlit by a fluorescent from the bathroom, as I was staring out from a high floor. The sheets on the bed were clean; there was a TV; on this side of the glass it was hushed, with just the occasional bell from the liftwell. I heard myself breathing and my eyes shone out strangely from that temporary mirror like the hundred thousand other pinpoints that were windows and doorways, streetlamps and neons and vendors' torches. I didn’t know what part of town I was in and I realise as I write it now that it could have been any moment in the passage of the night; I couldn’t tell. I had wandered there desperately by foot and tuk-tuk after making a mistake with a visa and finding myself stranded at the airport; I booked in and started to count. The visa took another ten days and in that time I had nothing to do but walk around Bangkok at all hours, manufacturing diversion and praying that sleep would find me, which it didn’t. Looking out of that waiting-room window, in a room that was not my home, too proud and alone, I thought—this is bleak.

Sunday night marking is not that bad.              

But it does suck.

The Zeno Drive

Meanwhile Achilles of the nimble feet continued his relentless chase of Hector. As a hound who has started a fawn from its mountain lair pursues it through the coombs and glades, and even when it takes cover in a thicket, runs on, picks up the scent and finds his quarry, the swift Achilles was not to be thrown off the scent by any trick of Hector’s… And yet he could never catch him up, just as Hector could not shake Achilles off. It was like a chase in a nightmare, when no-one, pursuer or pursued, can move a limb.

(Iliad, Book XII)

Eventually, of course, Achilles does face – and slay – Hector outside the gates of his own city, with his mother and father looking on. He strips Hector of his golden armour, ties him to the back of his chariot, and defiles his corpse. The Trojans look on and weep; the Greeks take turns to stab the body with their weapons, jeering now that their enemy is “easier to handle”. 

But here’s the thing: Achilles is only able to vanquish the man because Hector decides that enough is enough, a real man can’t run forever, and he should turn and bravely face his foe. The point is, Achilles can’t catch the guy. Hector has to stop.

(Well—actually—Hector is tricked into it by the goddess Athena who is disguised as Deiphobus, Hector’s brother, and she is supporting the Greek cause because… well, look, there’s a whole back story to do with love and jealousy and revenge. Go read Robert Graves.)

So -- I have been wondering about this alleged swiftness of Achilles. It’s a bit late for Hector, but maybe it’s time to revisit the reputation of the great Greek hero. What do we know, after all? He is quick to take offence—but slow to action. He can’t dodge arrows (which puts him in a category way below Green Arrow); he has one of his biggest fights with an angry watercourse (you think he could have avoided that one); and then, when Homer gets to the climax of his epic, he has to use a deus ex machina to get around his champion’s deficiencies. Reading between the lines, Achilles needs a lot of help for the son of a goddess.

And then there’s the tortoise.

 

Homer doesn’t mention this episode, but according to the paradox attributed to the philosopher Zeno, ‘fleet-footed’ Achilles is unable to even catch a casual tortoise.

 

Surely this can’t be the case? Sure, the tortoise came from behind to beat the hare, but we’re not talking about Egyptian fables anymore. This isn’t donkeys and frogs and scorpions; this is big bloody men, familial vengeance, golden tripods, funeral games, a shield made by an ugly immortal with a limp. A tortoise? Really?

 

The paradox runs like this: if the tortoise starts galloping away from Achilles, by the time that Achilles catches up to where the tortoise had started the tortoise has moved further on, which means that Achilles has to then get to that point. But, again, by the time Achilles reaches the second point, the tortoise has toddled on another few plods. Achilles can never catch up to the tortoise because to reach it he always has to first get to the place it started from, by which time the tortoise has hightailed it, is looking back over his shoulder at the frustrated warrior, and is presumably relieved that he is wearing armour.

It’s a lovely paradox.

 

And if we take Zeno seriously, there are several significant consequences.

 

The first, and most immediately important consequence in an Olympic year (note the continuation of the Greek theme?), is that we need to re-train our athletes so as to maximise their chances in relay events. Our coaches should be telling them to stand still while waiting for the baton, or it will never get passed from one runner to the next.

 

Second, if you get the jump on a Yarra Trams ticket inspector, you’re safe. This is good to know.

Third, there is a possible application for a new type of split engine which could be used for interstellar travel. Generally, if one tries to visualise Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, common sense tells one that Achilles must be covering shorter and shorter distances between ‘points’. Common sense, though, is assuming in this case that Achilles is actually the swifter party, and that the tortoise is travelling at a steady pace. But what if this is not the case? What if, instead, we conceive that while the following party is indeed the swifter, it is the following party that is travelling at a steady pace? In this case, to uphold the paradox, the forward member of the pair must continuously accelerate, getting exponentially faster and faster and further ahead.

So my contribution to science fiction is this: a dual engine system in which one rocket is sent out in pursuit of another, travelling at a steady rate, while the forward rocket is pushed out to the stars. All we need now is the Zeno drive: the field binding and enclosing the rockets into their special relationship, that force suspending common sense for the perpetual expansion of the human sphere.

Oh, hang on…

 

*

 

There’s been fire somewhere near Melbourne this week, and through the smoke haze the moon has been glowering yellowly over the city like a distempered eyeball. I’ve been thinking about fire and flames now that the season is changing to Autumn and the plane leaves have started to flare up and fall, and I’m waiting, I suppose, for the first fever, which has been doing the rounds. Not long now until I pack up my stuff and head off for Europe; I wonder if distances really are so hard to bridge, and what the moon will look like from that, different angle, and whether… many things.

 

Purple

I know. But I'm rusty. And I'm trying.

The test

They were scribbling away--actually scribbling in some cases, and I wanted to kill myself--when I saw one of them pause, and breathe out gently, as though something had come to mind. This boy, who drives me crazy--but whom I have a great affection for--swung on his chair a little, stretched out his right arm--and then deliberately, carefully, rapt in it, brought his fourpen up to meet his crossing eyes, and balanced it across the bridge of his nose. 

He slipped at first, and the fourpen dropped. But he caught it and replaced it and this time he made it stick. He was completely oblivious to the rest of us. How could he know we were watching? His eyes were occupied. No one was speaking. Most were writing; the rest looked with a slow curiosity. The pen swayed a little, a short see-saw on its fulcrum. 

I've never seen him concentrate like that before. I couldn't do it. I know: I tried later, instead of correcting his essay. (Well--role modeling works both ways.)

Time passed. I crossed the quarter hours off on the board and their essays lengthened from a half, to one, to two pages, to three. Then, at no special moment, he dropped his head. The biro fell away from proboscis to palm; he started to write again.

I knew that this student hadn't prepared adequately for the task, and he wasn't really breaking any rules, and he wasn't really disturbing anyone, either. I had glanced at his work, and he had written about as much as I had expected. So I didn't feel the need to interrupt the project. But here's the lesson for me--he wrote for another twenty minutes. My expectations were totally wrong. Whatever he was doing, it worked. And I-- I was ready to let him be! Shame on me! Getting soft.

The bell tolled as it inevitably does. I let them out, save for one, who was still looking from bicep to bicep with his sleeves rolled up. 

Later in the evening, after dark, when all the parents had gone home from the information evening and the displays had been taken down, the pizza boxes thrown away, the doors shut and lights turned out, gates padlocked and bags packed--seven of us found ourselves locked inside the school. "See you bright and early guys!" called J-- from the other side of the wire, and none of us had the wit to do anything but stand there dumbly--dim and dimlit. We wandered through the school like a posse at Timezone interactive laser, fumbling at doorhandles. One of them opened, then another, then eventually we fell out into the carpark--refuse from a trap in the side of a ship, a clump that then drifts apart on the black.

Present fears are less

Fittingly, the rain was drifting down today in a slight, chilling mist as the bell rang to end recess; I shrugged and shook myself and and attempted to will my blood to move again, then crossed the quadrangle to the doorway where my year elevens were standing about, miserably, like dead trees leaning at all angles, and chattering like harpies. We greeted each other and smiled and I enquired of T-- why he was carrying an oversized wooden set-square, knocking it against his leg: he was too cold to speak, and I thought that was a good deal so I left it at that.

Inside, we progressed with the first act of Macbeth. Reading through the initial scenes we took our parts and I acted as go-between where needed. It had been about half an hour of good work when we started to get fidgety and decided that enough was enough. So I threw it over to them: Macbeth's first moments of temptation and uncertainty. 

MACBETH 
(Aside) Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme. (To Ross and Angus) I thank you, gentlemen.
(Aside) This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

"Your task," said I, "is this. Easy: working in pairs, look at the legend on the right-hand side, and figure it out. You've got five minutes. Write down what he is saying in your own words and hand it up to me. Best answer gets a prize." 

I hoped to move on from this point to a discussion of Macbeth's character and the nature of ambition. But, aptly enough, I was brought back to the present by a very fair question:

"Well, what's the prize?"

I thought. (Not very hard.)

"You're doing it for the glory, N."

So they did it.

And the best (though not the most accurate) answer was:

Macbeth is thinking that he wants to be king. He has new power. Because he's perfect. And he wants to get in with the ladies. So he wants to cut Duncan. And throw his body in the Yarra river.

Apologies to Dante

but I think his schema needs updating:

non-squawkers from nowhere

Drilling headache - decided to leave my year seven marking on the table and skive off for a watery coffee in W--. Snuck out five minutes before the bell, thus avoiding the end-of-day rush. Roll marking, detentions, staff, bustle. 

I want you to know that I did come back; I am very dedicated.

Discovered a new thing: a new local - very exciting - a café that I didn't know existed, and maybe an entirely new concept. It's a café-cum-butcher. The coffee is not far superior, but they do sell sausages. Tongue and steak and kebabs.  The space is divided down the middle using one of those elasticised-tape barriers you find defining the queues at airports and cinemas. On one side there were laminated tables and chairs, Herald-Suns and sugar-holders and a few idling souls. A counter down one side with some cheeses and jam tarts and sandwich-ingredients. On the other side: flesh. I think that the wife does the brewing and the husband the butchery - or perhaps I just wanted them to be together because it seemed such a perfect picture of independent cohabitation. 

Is this the biggest thing since petrol and milk teamed up?

On my way out, just opposite the school gates, I saw a grey flock of cockatoos circling tight behind the branches of the pines. There must have been at least a score, but they weren't wrenching the air with their scream-squawks like cockatoos do. They were just circling on a diagonal, brushing the roof of the house, rising, diving, rising, in a great big ring. Really strange. When I stopped to look, a parent honked me.