THE PLACES FLED VI
Courtesy Aus Bush Adeventure
They invaded every part of an otherwise quiet life; working, occasional outages, a slow explore. They crept under every door, through every window. Evil, black, all these things, the chorus of voices crept through every opening in the fabric; haunted. A deliberate haunting. There was no good will. No shadow of decency. The mob had taken over, and the mob had no heart. No shred of anything that could be called reason. And he could hear them still. It was a long time ago? Then put yourself through it; and see for yourself. Frail. Elderly. Gone to God. These were things that would not stop swirling in his dreams. The only cure was time. In this distant, ancient place. Away from an unpleasant world. Cursed and cast; he didn't care if he never saw the emerald city again.
He missed the routine of getting up and going to work. Which was strange considering how much of a yoke it had seemed. Miserable in the core of things. But reflections and past injustices; was that all that was left? A craven corner in a craven world; and then finished. He wasn't safe here; he wasn't safe anywhere. They flocked in reaches far out of mind; but remained. An evil head. A malicious laugh. You could tell them to stop laughing. Oh how funny they had thought it was.
He could see, in the old Chinese policeman, the probing, angry glare which was meant to instil fear. But he looked guilty, caught in a lie, there in the Babylon sauna, guilty, stupid and dishonest, with a towel wrapped around his waist. An older man tried to kiss him; with the same guilt and sense of jeopardy. "No like," Michael declared, pulling away from a mushy kiss of death, in darkened labrynths where, comparatively early in the carnival of flesh, men lurked in dark corners and waited for the combinations of personnel to fall into place. The fast, the frantic, grappling, their much boasted about prowess over in barely seconds. They were craven, stupid, and with hearts like flinty black blancmange, and so he walked away to yet another observation post; sat on a corner bar stool, and watched.
They knew he was there. Word always spread quickly. And so they came. To see what? To get a laugh? In the hope of killing him? To try and humiliate him once again?
Just as he had long ago realised that you could not be bullied if you did not allow it; had acquired some forms of resilience on a troubled, delinquent path, so he painfully discovered you could not be humiliated if you did not let them. It was an insanity. The police were so hated that some silently barracked for him. Everything they did blew up in their face. Why they weren't all sacked he would never know. Power came in many strange forms. In the corridors of steam, instant casual beauty. It is for some to have, and some to want. Once it was him frustrated men would say to him in luminous moments of transmission. Now, as the saying went, the shoe was on the other foot, if they had been wearing anything but a wrapped towel.
And so they embraced and parted in a second. And he was left with a trace of a poisonous heart. Empath by nature; occasional telepath; an urban synapse; a river through which many things flowed. It was over now. He fled.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/04/fairfax-chairman-roger-corbett-rudd
Kevin Rudd has brushed aside criticism from Fairfax chairman and Reserve Bank board member Roger Corbett, who said on Tuesday that the prime minister had been "discredited by his own conduct".
Speaking to the ABC's Lateline, Corbett, who is one of Australia's most prominent business people and is a member of the Liberal party, repeated allegations that Rudd had been active in destabilising the government at 2010 election, arguing that Labor would have been better off under Julia Gillard at the 2013 federal election.
"In my view Kevin Rudd is a leader that has been really discredited by his own conduct. His colleagues sacked him because they judged him to be incapable as PM. He, it's alleged, was active against the government during the elections – maybe true, may not be," said Corbett.
"Here's a man that really has done the Labor party enormous damage, destabilised it, and is now wishing to present himself to the Australian people as a PM and as the incoming PM. I don't think the Australian people will cop that, to be quite honest, and I think that's very sad for the Labor party.
"I think if they come undone in these elections it would have been much better that they'd come undone with Julia Gillard leading them than Kevin Rudd."
Rudd responded on Wednesday morning by saying that Corbett was "talking up his own business" interests.
"I respect Mr Corbett talking up his own business book and his business interests," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"That's a matter for him. Mr [Rupert] Murdoch does the same," he added, "But guess what: Australian voters make up their own minds."
Corbett used the interview to come out in support of an Abbott government: "I think he [Abbott] will probably be a pretty good PM because he's a very sincere, nice type of human being and I think he will be very dedicated, focused in the job and we certainly need in the economic times we're about to go into some really clear and good leadership."
Corbett also criticised the bias of News Corp Australia's papers. Asked his opinion of the Rupert Murdoch owned group, which has produced a number of heavily pro-Coalition frontpages in recent weeks, Corbett said: "To be as strongly biased as News have been in the last few months, I do think does great damage to the credibility of the press."
TONY Abbott says every seat in Queensland is winnable for the Liberal National Party as he embarks on a last minute blitz of electorates around Brisbane today.
And he is targeting the ultimate prize of Labor's safest domain in the state - Kevin Rudd's seat of Griffith.
Polling suggests Rudd could lose own seat
All the federal election latest
In an exclusive interview, Mr Abbott said he doubted he could replicate Queensland Premier Campbell Newman's crushing victory on a national scale, but there was room to win more than the two-thirds of the state's seats already held by the LNP.
"I'm not getting cocky and I'm not predicting the kind of win which Campbell Newman had. But I do think we can win more seats in Queensland," Mr Abbott told The Courier-Mail.
"Without saying it's a done deal, I think even in Rudd's own seat we have a seriously competitive campaign and a seriously competitive candidate."
In a sign Mr Abbott believes there is swing against Mr Rudd in his home state, he has ramped up his personal attacks on the Prime Minister, who he said was "more Canberra than Caboolture".