Hullo. This was just some weird stream-of-consciousness-ish thing. Don't take it too seriously I guess. I just wrote it now and felt like sharing, though it was unplanned and is still unedited. If you can make any sense or meaning of it, great!

Paint

At eleven o’clock I have to bring the shirts in off the line. It was a warm day but the last hour has come over all cloudy. And they call this a heatwave. Nobody can get anything right. So if it rains, I’ll have to take the shirts in off the line, because Luke spent more than an hour this arvo painting on them. Painting big white letters, perfect for their announcement, perfect to be seen and applauded. But even if it doesn’t rain, I’ll have to bring them in off the line at eleven, just in case.

At eleven-thirty I have to put myself to bed. I am a big boy now after all. I am an adult now. I’m a single man. And I have work in the morning, so I need my sleep. If I don’t get enough sleep I wake up in the morning at six-forty-five when my alarm screams with breakfast radio shit and I wash my face but it doesn’t wash away the bloodshot and I walk into the branch and everyone casts sideways glances and wonders if maybe I’m a bit of a stoner.

At half-past midnight I throw myself into bed, but I’m not angry at myself, because I know myself and I know how unreliable I am. I couldn’t expect to be less than an hour behind schedule, because I never am. I try to close my eyes but there’s a chink of light coming in under the blinds. God how I want to go to sleep. I wish I could remember my sleep, because whenever I wake up I always have the feeling that I left something really good behind.

At twelve-thirty-three, I swear at the ceiling with the kind of language only workmen and sailors and whores used to use in the eighteen hundreds, but of course now anyone can swear, because we’re egalitarian. I swear because I forgot to bring in the shirts off the line. It’s not raining yet, and it might never rain, but do I really want to take a chance that the shirts might get wet? Luke spent well over an hour on them, after all. He drank his full strength (but low carb) beer and daubed white fabric paint on those navy singlets, making big fat white letters while the computer pumped out pub rock in the background. Can you imagine if they were destroyed?

At five-sixteen, I’ll stumble out of bed, my eyes still closed. I’ll slam my shoulder into the doorframe as I negotiate a clumsy path to the dunny. It’ll take a while to piss, cause I’ll have the usual morning boner, and I’ll half lapse into sleep again while I stand over the bowl. I’ll yawn and grunt and wash my hands and go back to bed.

At six-forty-five, my alarm will scream breakfast radio shit at me and smoke me out of my bedroom. I’ll throw some pants on and trudge down the flight of fourteen steps. One day I’ll probably be too bleary-eyed to see the steps properly and I’ll miss one and go flying and end up breaking my neck or my spinal cord and I’ll never walk again. But this morning, I’ll make it down okay. Josh will be snoring on the couch; the table will be obscured by the forty-eight bottles of beer and seven cans of bourbon and coke we had last night. Nobody will have had the arse or the consideration to clean up. I’ll probably do it, because I’m a big boy now. I’m a single man, and I have to take care of myself.

At seven o’clock, I’ll have breakfast. Three weet-bix in a bowl of milk. I’ll put the bowl in the microwave for one minute, because that’s the way I’ve done it since I was a kid, even though everyone has always said to never eat soggy weet-bix. Apparently it gives you direction. But I’ve always eaten soggy weet-bix, and I like it, though I’m not meant to tell anyone.

At seven-fifteen I’ll be dressed in my black pants and black long-sleeved shirt and yellow tie and I’ll look out the kitchen window with its dated brown edges and swear like some kind of workman or sailor or whore from the eighteen hundreds, because I’ll realise that I fell asleep again after I woke up last night, and I left the navy blue singlets hanging on the line. Luke spent well over an hour daubing fabric paint on them, massive white letters for the ten boys to wear proudly tomorrow at the cricket. One letter on each Bonds singlet. “T-H-A-N-X G-I-L-L-Y.” They were hoping to get on TV with it. They wanted to be seen at the cricket in their navy singlets, with their message of stoic gratitude.

But it rained.

At one-thirty in the afternoon they’ll be going to the cricket, but I won’t be going with them. I have to go to work in the morning, and I have to work all day. I have to go into the branch, where they’ll all shoot sideways glances at my bloodshot eyes and wonder if maybe I’m a stoner. I won’t be going with them; I won’t be going with them because I have to work. I am an adult, after all. I’m a very big boy now, and I have to take care of myself.