High Fives and Flying Lows

Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarreye / Bush Seeds

These were the high fives and the flying lows. 
The contract has ended. 
There was never a time for peace.
A massive wake-up call. 
He could have been born again but instead was trapped. There was never a better time for a breakout. 
The dreams of a nearby policeman often infected his own. 
There were guns and procedures, policies and bureaucratic reach, processes, all of them frustrating, the victim in the dock, often in the dark they were so clearly deranged. 
He tried to think only about the positive side of his job. His earlier obsessive enthusiasm had waned. He no longer slept naked in the vivid lust that had once preoccupied his every waking thought, try as he might to focus on the job, to present as a nice guy, the ultimate Australian camouflage. 
And he no longer thought obsessively, and with pride, of his job, the handcuffs, the paternal, good part of the job, helping others, maintaining order, donning a uniform, in the days before he went under cover and his faith in this life, this state, this country, all went spiralling down some secret tube. 
Like all those who stalked Old Alex, they thought a great deal about bosses and pay rates and the futility of what they were doing.
They came. They went.  
"I'm here to make sure it never happens again,"  one of the senior flies in the ointment had said several weeks before, after compromise exposed corruption and he kept his mouth shut. Not forever, as they would like, but long enough to escape detection. 
There were always parallel universes, parallel stories, even on this single, or singular plain. 
He was being welcomed into infinity but was not about to disband. 
And then they were gone, this infinite little spread. Across the oceans. Into the skies. 
The technologies of the 21st Century still surprised the ancient spirits. 
"Boredom is good, John," an old Chief of Staff used to say when he complained about being bored on the job. "It means we're not in crisis."
That was the place he was in now. 
Complaining about being bored. Relieved the familiarity of routines and the non-confrontational nature of this transforming suburb established some order at a discordant time in the nation's history. 
It was Saturday, the Lord's day in his household's traditions. He was not a believer, not in these old Abrahamic gods, but even that was an excuse to relax, just for a moment, relax.
And say adieu to the Floating World.

The Floating World

During Japan’s Edo period (1615–1868) the phrase "the floating world" (ukiyo) evoked an imagined universe of wit, stylishness, and extravagance—with overtones of naughtiness, hedonism, and transgression. Implicit was a contrast to the humdrum of everyday obligation. The concept of the floating world began in the Japanese heartland, migrated eastward, and came to full flower in Edo (present-day Tokyo), where its main venues were popular Kabuki theaters and red-light districts. Each offered an array of rich sensory experiences to the fraction of the populace able to partake of them directly. The floating world also afforded vicarious pleasure to countless others throughout the Japanese islands, for whom it was experienced second-hand through theater, song, story, gossip, and pictures.


THE BIGGER STORY: 

As predicted, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is pursued by a media he no longer assiduously courts. The man who thought he was the centre of everything, the cleverest man in every room, indeed in the entire country, has become a laughing stock. While he swans around New York, those he left behind are still cleaning up the mess from his truly awful three years of government.

Pic:BackGrid

WHEN Malcolm Turnbull retired from politics, we all wondered what he would do next with his illustrious life.
Sit on a few company boards, perhaps? Join the global speaking circuit? Follow the Keating model, and periodically pop up on the ABC to lecture whichever inferior being had dared to occupy his old office?
Few among us could have predicted the truth — that Mr Turnbull would, in fact, become the next Kardashian.
Paparazzi have been following the former prime minister around New York, taking surreptitious photos of his tight-fitting pants.
Anyway, what in the name of all that is good and holy was Malcolm Turnbull doing at a waxing salon? For answers, I turned to the establishment’s website, and found this description of the European Wax Centre experience.
“It reveals a more radiant you. A more honest you. A more confident you. The version of you that speaks her mind, stays true to herself and walks with a strut in her step everywhere she goes.”

Sam Clench, News, 3 October, 2018.