TRAPPED

They didn't call it The Age of Loneliness for nothing. Trapped within four walls, trapped on desolate streets and in dark dens, trapped under camera eyes and clouds of derision, searching for things that were never there. Peak Experiences Anonymous, he sometimes thought, as his skin crawled and he tried to forget everything, to stop thinking, to be someone else. He never knew where it would end. He was back in Sydney, and he didn't know why.

There was no plan, no easily laid out course. He wanted to be comfortable in his own skin, but instead he tried to embrace a familiar melancholy which no longer made sense. Old men and their regrets. Instant mistakes. A creeping dread; as if calamity was perpetually just around the corner. Nothing was as bad as he thought it was; there was hope; his soul could be rehabilitated, his behaviour modified, a calm could embrace him, perhaps for the first time. Or for a very long time.

But he could not adjust, to his age, his difficult temperament, his longing for he knew not what. He remained at sea, the infinite sea. Many of the people he had known had already gone. Other people had taken over. You could not embrace everything. Take care of yourself happily, went the Buddhist mantra, which he wished he could embrace, practice. Other lives, other ways. 

In the end there was no way out. Trapped. Optimism would return on the morrow. Poor old thing.

THE BIGGER STORY: 

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/25/watch-500-sunni-islamists-march-for-jihad-in-copenhagen-shots-fired-at-shia-march-24-hours-later/

Roughly 500 members of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) gathered in Denmark’s capital city of Copenhagen on Friday, calling for Shariah law for European countries, as well as “jihad” to “free” the Palestinian territories. The march, which took place on Friday, appears to have garnered little media attention, as has the shooting which took place in the same location just 24-hours later at a Shia Muslim ceremony.

Around 500 black Islamist-flag waving Sunni HT members began their prayers on Friday outside the Nørrebro train station, which was followed by a march through the local area. A day later, Shia Muslims found themselves attacked at the tail end of their own march in the same part of the city, leading to shots being fired from a gun and a police attempt to control the group.
“Muslim armies, do your duty. We have had enough of failure,” the HT crowds chanted on Friday afternoon, according to journalist Marie Jensen who was present at the scene.
TV2 reports that men and women were segregated at the event, and “infants” were also there, helping to wave the black flag of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is similar, though not identical, to the black flag of ISIS.
And just 24-hours later, there were clashes at a memorial march for Imam Hussein, a descendent of prophet Muhammed whose life is mourned every year by Shia Muslims around the world.