A Long and Happy Life

Today there were the miners emerging and the budget; and nothing much else would make it. I had a tour of the Channel Ten news room. There were always rooms, cameramen setting up. Today is unusual, he said, we're not usually going live. There were screens everywhere. Concise events. Events like this; the miners emerging with a triumphant wave; the industry gossip, who was bidding how much; or other endless pressers, pictured, where they went crashing through, cameramen setting up, familiar faces, the restless waiting, at the behest of important men. Howard was the master of the art. He emerged unscathed from almost every press conference. He conducted himself in his own style. We hurled questions and we left.

Live a long and happy life, the voice said, as unknown pains ran through him and the voice of consciousness never gave him rest. The walks, the meetings, the meditation practices, the socialising, all these things died on the wind so easily. There was a strange fishy smell, sick. He could feel things in the ether, but the trick of every day was getting through the hours of work.

There was the Sophie Delezio story of course; where the poor kid got hit by a car a second time; just terrible; is her spirit trying to escape, people whispered to each other; in the midst of an outpouring of sympathy, the terrible details of the five year olds injuries. And then today, a stabbing murder in an illegal brothel in Yagoona called The Purple Rain Cafe. Yagoona was always a desert of the human spirit. You'd stab yourself to death if you lived out here, we joked, "rent me" the signs in the shuttered windows pleaded; heavy purple drapes; there wasn't a coffee machine in there; the police searched the neighbouring area; including the roofs; Vietnamese; nobody saw anything; nobody knew anything; they couldn't even establish his real identity. Purple rain, purple rain. The traffic never stopped as the man bled on to the pavement.