Please Do Not Urinate Here

*

This was what we imagined. A blighted past where nothing made sense. We caught you. We transfigured you. We were riding high above the infinite, a view across all the channels, all the grating ice, all the dips and fur-roughs, the channels which stretched forever, the alien sky, the places where we weren't now but loved so much. We wanted you, so much. We loved you, so much. We were caught amidst these strange inter-laces, lattices, places that meant nothing and everything, profound, oh my God I love you so much. Please rescue me. I could see the troughs. They were just stretching, like some European surrealist painting, into a distance we could never imagine, into a place we could never despair, or paint our own despair, pinpoint what was a stupid agony, that frivolous panting which was meant to be everything. No, I not give you so much money. No, I not so stupid. No I love you mak mak, and yes, it was the most stupid of things. Yes, I want to go sing karaoke in some stupid bar, no you not steal my soul. Oh how I loved you. Oh how I wanted you. Oh how the inconvenience of your stupid plans laid havoc to my stupid life. And yet, yet, we were there, his friend ordered drinks, we said yes to parties without margin; let's face it, we're the foreigners, we pay everlasting.

There it was, everything. Conflicting signals. He wanted to be her. He wanted to be him. He wanted to embrace everything. He wanted to avoid everything. Every ancient voice. They weren't just the sentinels of the ancient carved channels, they were spiritual voices that tapped into something far deeper, far more psychotic, for more emblematic. I kept myself pure for you, what a fool was I. He listened to the barbarism of the German's voice. The greed dripping in every last sentence. Hyped up on some sex drug or other. It was from then, he thought, that he began to notice just how ugly some of the foreigners were, the cute Thai boys with them. Was that a pained expression on the boy's face? Bit fat tubby pale queen, with rounded face and rounded belly, strutting, that was really a strut. He'd manage to buy something he could never get any other way. Well that was the commerce. But it was the German who disturbed him the most. Apart from being bald it was the whopping big nose ring that was perhaps his most notable feature. And the fact that he was drunk and edgy, and had just ordered a bottle of red which he clearly intended to drink on his own. And then parallel universes kept breathing through the fabric, touching him, sending shivers up his arms.

Evil in intent, these hungry ghosts. It wasn't long, as he sat outside the Balcony, before the German had told him not just his life story but things he really could have lived without, so that images of that hyped up ugly ugly ugly form having his way with some poor Thai boy kept recurring, off putting. There couldn't have been anything more hideous, exploitative. He walked past the Thai boys touting for business outside the massage parlours and couldn't look at them the same. Imagine having to put up with that German? Sweating, humping, demanding. Shudder through the depths. Even the sea creatures at the bottom of the ocean could feel their horror. It came as no surprise to discover the German had just sold his piercing shop in Berlin and was living on the proceeds. He had been married, he told him, to his boyfriend of 20 years, but these days they only got off together once or twice a month. There was an endless procession of other forms, faces, bodies, supplicants, bare asses. He was into S & M and the Thai boys just weren't into all that, so it wasn't very satisfactory, he declared. Then he stood up, handed the bottle of red back to the bar and declared he was going off to the massage parlour. Ten minutes later the German was back. He looked surprised. I came in seconds, he declared. It's the sex drug. I'll go back in half an hour and do it again. I haven't got my money's worth yet. Some things he didn't need to know. Some things he really didn't need to know. I hope you tip the boy well, he said. I've already paid, the German declared. Tip him, he insisted. It means nothing to you.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/24/3021064.htm?section=justin

The Federal Government has found a Coalition MP who is prepared to be deputy speaker and pair with Speaker Harry Jenkins, the ABC understands.

ABC News 24 political editor Chris Uhlmann has been told the deal is close to being sealed.

Any such move by a Coalition MP would preserve the Government's two-seat majority and would no doubt enrage the Opposition and its leader Tony Abbott.

This lunchtime Queensland Liberal MP Alex Somlyay, who was dumped as the Opposition's whip in the recent reshuffle, told ABC Radio Current Affairs that he had been approached for the deputy speaker's job and was considering his position.

Earlier he told ABC NewsRadio that he would speak publicly on the reported job offer later today.

The major parties are locked in a brawl over who should fill the role after the Coalition backed out of a deal to have to have the speaker paired with an opposite member during divisions.

Walking away from the deal yesterday, Mr Abbott argued that it was unconstitutional.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and independents Bob Katter and Tony Windsor have attacked Mr Abbott for going back on his word.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11367296

Thousands of anti-government "red-shirt" protesters have defied a state of emergency by staging a demonstration in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

The protesters were marking the fourth anniversary of the coup that ousted ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

It was also exactly four months since the suppression of their long-running protests in the capital.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says security was tight but there was no sign of violence.

Another gathering was also held in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Protesters in Bangkok gathered at the crossroads which earlier this year they had turned into a fortified encampment.

Thousands of red balloons were released and many demonstrators carried banners calling for the release of comrades held in prisons across the country.

Some red-shirt leaders face charges of terrorism and others are accused of breaching emergency laws which remain in place in Bangkok and several other provinces.

More than 90 people died and about 2,000 were injured during two months of protests earlier this year, which blocked off the commercial heart of Bangkok.

Many within the red-shirt movement are loyal supporters of Mr Thaksin who is currently living in exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption.

The coup which ousted him caused deep divisions within Thailand.

Our correspondent says Sunday's peaceful demonstration is a vivid reminder that those rifts remain.