The Matter Stream
John Wang-Fitzpatrick
For Phil of Luxor
______________________________
With thanks to Mr
Kawabata
Note:
I couldn’t have finished this story without the direct
intervention of a much more reasonable Jesus; and also without Toyota; especially
their large range of well-priced and trouble-free small commercial vans.
- The
Very Reverend Dr Father John Rush PhD.
The
cover photo needs to be one that isn’t copyrighted, but it’s the kind of photo
that would be best.
Part
One
“I want to go to Brussels!” He sprouted.
That’s
what I wanted the first line of the book to be; but not this book. In light of what happened I guess it makes some sense
now to have it at the start of The Matter Stream book simply because I was
considering the line, and chuckled, when the cross-bow ‘went off’ and I killed
the priest.
It
wasn’t my best day as a kids’ book writer, but then, it wasn’t my worst day
either. For the priest I suppose it was a cunt of a day but we’ll get to that day, and to him, all in good time.
The
thing that takes up a lot of my waking time, and even sleeping time now, is my
home, the Orange Gate house. It’s a place where I am happy and comfortable. Everyone
I’ve ever known, at all their different ages, comes and goes. I live here from Monday
to Friday, mostly.
I
know every inch of this home; I know all the rooms, all the light and the shade.
I know the floors, the cupboards, and every large and even every small space in
the kitchen. I have my thirty year old convertible car there in the single garage,
and my new motorbike, and my ageless bicycle. They all just fit.
I
like German, Japanese and Italian machines, although the bicycle is Chinese.
It’s the famous Flying Pagan brand, made last year in Shanghai from Argentine
iron fuelled by Australian coal and perfected by the cool Cantonese artisans of
Southern China. I’ve always liked China and yet I don’t know why. Maybe it’s
because they make such good bicycles.
The
Flying Pagan bicycle is black and shiny and has chrome bits, and mud covers;
one gear, and a tray at the back, and a bell, and dynamo lights, front and back. It’s heavy and perfect and it
is the tallest, most righteous and most proper of all bicycles. It’s what I
like to call ‘irrepressible’. It is the People’s bicycle.
Should
there ever be a nuclear attack here, which is highly unlikely, it will not be
the cockroach that survives it all, nor will it be me, or Phil, but I’m pretty
sure it will be the Flying Pagan. After the nuclear attack, you just put on a
couple of new tubes and tyres, and off you go, riding along with your blue strontium
halo.
I
like to have these vehicles of delight but hardly ever use any of them especially
during the week because I prefer to just go for small walks in the yard. I like
to see how my orange trees are growing every day. Sometimes I take Phil for a wander around the
writer’s block of seven small houses here.
All
the house yards are very small. They are all separate houses but they are
really more like townhouses, I guess, but they are all on ground level. They
are on narrow blocks with a sizeable front courtyard and very small back and
side areas only around five feet wide. Most of the neighbours’ houses have
tropical yards full of tall palms and are totally over-stuffed with flowering shrubs,
hanging baskets of ferns, and all the natural fertility and rushed, passionate,
exuberance that comes with living in the tropics. The whole place just goes
crazy in spasms of warm wet joy for months.
My
front yard is different. It is mostly a terracotta flat expanse (and there’s a
good reason for that). When looking into the front yard from the house step, towards
the gate, there’s a small swimming pool on the left, squeezed between the front
of the house and the garage, with orange trees around the perimeter of the
whole yard. It’s un-tropical; I guess; almost dry-Spanish/Arabic.
Inside
the house I have the hefty Sumo air conditioner set to 23 degrees, and, it’s silent. It’s great. The air
conditioner is a big one and is in the roof, piping down those 23 degrees into
one room or into all rooms dependent upon a small dial in each, just near the
light switch. It’s a very modern house, and squat, but it’s good in the way
that some modern things can be good. Being kind of new, it has not been lived
in for aeons so, of course, it has no abiding soul or presence, but it will do.
Phil, Andromeda and I lend our presence to it for now. If you had to give the
‘space’ a modernistic architectural style-name you could call it Post-Mexican/Concrete
Tibetan-Drivel Block. Fortunately it would only take ten years for the
unrestrained rhythm of the jungle to take it all back.
During
the hot humid days Monday to Friday I am usually in my Orange Gate house either
busily editing manuscripts or sleeping or wondering what to eat. So if you ask
me where I am in my mind, and what I am doing with my life, it may take me a
minute or two to come back and answer. You are in my home too but in my home we
do not need to speak to each other about such things.
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