Cascading Wit

Cocaine is the drug of ego. All shiny surface and hollow euphoria, it's the drug of stockbrokers and estate agents. Of puppet governments and corporate warmongers. Of thin girls with expensive teeth and cheap souls, of sharp subprime boys whipping fast financial horses. Where acid dissolves ego, cocaine is powdered narcissism. The Age of Aquarius is dead. All hail the Age of Celebrity. Do what? Invest, obviously, in coca futures.
Elizabeth Farrelly


He answered his phone and wished he hadn't. Where are you, she demanded. You can't just walk out without telling me where you are.
Of course not, he thought, because then you wouldn't have total control.
Total control, over you. A pop song from long ago.
I just had a feeling...
You're not paid to have feelings.
Finally, a flash of anger. It was all very well to be a control freak, but this woman was beyond anything...
He was cured, he had been cured for a long time. He was coming back.
I just had a feeling, he repeated...
She started frothing at the other end of the phone.
He turned it off.
He should have turned it off a long time ago. No one should be constantly humiliated, as he was. Nothing was right. The crowds were tittering, as if the surface had been tilted.
There were still wisps of smoke from the top of the building, and a curious crowd. The crime scene tape was still intact, and kept the crowd back.
He scanned the faces, and wasn't in the least bit surprise to see Don, standing there with a group of others. Three men and a woman, he thought. Just staring. As if they couldn't believe it.
He made his way over to them.
Don looked up, mistrustful after their conversation.
What happened? he asked.
Nothing that's not in the newspapers, he replied, staring at his old friend.
How was this to play, what was he to do?
Call the police? This is my old friend, I think he did it.
Now, standing next to him, he felt even more certain. He took in his companions, he had seen them, in those meetings, in those rooms in those remote suburban church halls. His brain was doing overtime, checking the archives.
Well, I don't suppose everyone will grieve, he said.
Perhaps, Don grunted, and just kept on staring. Weren't the guilty always meant to return to the scene? Wasn't this too big a give away?
"Perhaps," he said again quietly. "But certainly not everybody."
"Maybe we should go somewhere, talk?" he asked.
"You're a newspaper man, and not to be trusted," Don said. "Even if I knew something, which I don't, you'd be the last person..."
"Don, I know you know," he said quietly. "If I know, it's only a matter of time before the authorities catch up."


THE BIGGER STORY:

SMH:

TREASURER Wayne Swan flies to the international climate change conference in Bali today carrying an ultra-cautious message on targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of the Government team arriving over the next week, Mr Swan will set the stage for Australia to resist growing pressure to sign up to a 2020 target.

From Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd overruled the official Australian delegation in Bali after it last week endorsed a 25 to 40 per cent cut in 1990 greenhouse gases levels by 2020.

Mr Swan told The Sun-Herald before departing that the Government would await a report commissioned from Professor Ross Garnaut before committing Australia to short-term targets.

"Labor has a policy to reduce greenhouse gases by 60 per cent by 2050, but any interim target will depend on the Garnaut report," he said.

Professor Garnaut, the head of economics at the Australian National University and chairman of the Government's climate change review committee, will not deliver his report until the middle of next year. Professor Garnaut is attending the Bali conference.