sometime a fire

we’re sitting around a table in a hotpot restaurant in downtown chengdu, cooking ingredients in molten lard. i didn’t believe it was lard until a puddle of it solidified on the table. it’s an eclectic group – they’ve all just come back from tibet – and sibastian has been exaggerating about my chinese abilities again, which makes me feel shy, but it’s so good to see him.

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there’s this girl – maybe 14 or 15 years old - and her limbs fold like rubbery old celery as her mother ties the sickly body to her back with a blanket before picking up her begging bowl. i’m on the other side of the road in the tibetan part of town stuffing strawberries into my mouth. they're so tasty, these strawberries, but there's a new emptiness now.

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david and flori – the austrians from hainan – have explained the way group dynamics rule all of our social interactions, and i champion the omega role – the bottom of the heap. we’re looking out over the forests of qian shan from a taoist temple, hypnotised by the rhythmic beating of the wooden drum, and i suspect that something’s changing in the way i view the world. it always feels like that.

we’re doing 140km/h down the freeway towards the chengdu airport, and i’m surprised that my taxi actually gets overtaken. i’ve got the window open and the air feels like it’s flattening my face, as if i’m approaching the speed of light or something. cindi lauper’s ‘time after time’ is playing in my head so loud it might be an aural hallucination, and i feel filled with a deep-down goodness. the voice in me says something like ‘you’ve come a long way, baby’.

you can find love anywhere i realise. in the trajectory of a super-sized burger king drink on its way down from the second floor of the victoria peak observatory building, in a chinese medical clinic even after the doctor’s walked in and seen your dick by accident, in that market area in wan chai where the next bird flu pandemic will be born, and even in the hong kong ferry terminal, where i always seem to be leaving gerard with a racing, confused heart. i look over my laptop screen and see the way the end bits of my plain socks form a really nice pattern when i put my feet together, and that suggests a deeper truth about the life of boys.

the weekend before i leave again, vov and i head out of brisbane to the chilly beauty of bald rock and girraween. it’s a good end to a period of time in which nothing happened, but everything that needed to did. i’ve secured a job in darwin for the rest of the year, my legal problems haven’t budged, and i’ve arrived back at point A with with regards to my health, armed with realistic expectations. i ride my sister’s bike along the river looking up at a sky that is bluer than anything i’ve seen all year, and i’m really pushing myself. i say ‘if you can make it up that hill, you can do anything with your life’. i always make it up that hill.

so life’s tumbling along in its usual manner of unthinkable adventure and surprise that could be interpreted as heaven or hell depending on your mood. in 72 hours i’ll be in vietnam with my arms wrapped around a frenchman wondering how that door into the normal world of my past clicked shut and locked itself without my even noticing it. there’s a tinge of sadness in my great relief, which i’m thankful for. there’s still light out, so i’m going for a bike ride.

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