awards

And so that same drooping, drawling, inherent sadness sets in. Like the day settling into beyond its final hours. After the official minute of sunset (as per the paper) has come, but for a brief time there's still light. Settling its passive, slight weight over me. Hello and welcome.

On the first Dunedin day of rain, following the eruptions of the previous night. One: That post-concentration explosion of focussed energy, the last scraps of life being extracted from the bottom of our selves; Two: That pent-up suffering felt by many for many years but never articulated between the skins. We bury ourselves and bring ourselves out again. We drag our buried selves out of the ground, vomited up dregs by the mouth of inebriated inhibition. We do the things we know will tirelessly bring restlessness. And hope that this time they will bring us peace. This time. Things will be perfect.

Then, finally, that lingering emptiness. When we have purged ourselves of all fluids. All gorishly scoffed fast-food gluttons. All unheard hate. All breath and tears and uneatings. All thoughts. All minds. All sense. Then, finally, we sit in the voide of This Morning After. But this morning is this late hour of early evening; this day then begins at five o'clock, post meridiem. We find ourselves thrust into the future, into tomorrow. Robbed of a day as punishment for our unthinking deeds. We have been made to sit quietly and hear our own vices ricocheting around and around and around our hollow stomach-lining heads. There is no rewind or option B. There's not even a make-do-with. There is just a huge, big hiatus that for you and you alone has fallen into the abyss of "did-not-exist".

You will try to fill this huge-big gaping hole with your tears, but they are so small and insignificant in comparison that they will only fill the small holes of your face. The holes of your face infected with black-streaked tiny face-waters. Carving rivers into your cheekbones and philtrum.

So that - once more, and not for the last time - your knowledge is cemented. That you are indeed and truly one self. One person. A part.