Goodbye Europe

It comes with deep anguish that the European limb of our tour reaches its conclusion. No longer, as sure as the sun will rise in the morning, will our days be filled with croissants, baguettes and fine cheeses. No longer will our band room be filled to excess with every kind of delight imaginable, every night igniting a ferocious battle between our dwindling self control and the evil spirit of gluttony in the air, constantly seducing us with his gummi bears so delicious. No longer will the governing rules and regulations, the laws and legislations, yet to be completely infested with bureaucracy, be reasonable and coherent. No longer will the most beautiful of women carry their beauty, not as a burden cursed with arrogance and petty mindedness, as is so often the way of the world, but instead with grace, elegance and dignity. No longer will we walk the streets of Germany drinking an exquisite beer, legally no less!, purchased for an utter pittance from a simple corner store. No longer any of these things I hold so dear of this land..

And yet each ending leaves behind a parting gift, eagerly awaiting to be unwrapped. A mere 8 hours from the airport so vile, so horrendous, so bitter, that surely there can be no explanation other than it being a requisite for employment that each and every member of staff must devour an entire bag of lemons prior to commencing their daily shift. Washington DC. The capital. The controlling entity of the worlds most powerful and wealthy nation. The birthplace of many of the decisions, and indeed, the sex scandals which have shaped the course of history over the past few hundred years. How will this epicenter of the world political climate cope when our touring circus, so ridiculous that surely there can be none alike, rolls into town? Impossible to predict. Bring on America.

Helpless Romanticism

This was written in a state of happy go lucky determination which I think conveys the feeling of inspiration you can easily be intoxicated by when dropped in the right places at the right times in Europe. It could have been developed after the first hasty draft, some bad grammar amended, some plot structure included, but I kind of like it anyhow. Werd to yo mamma.
Love, Nick.

Dear Diary

You should see this autumn night in Zurich. Us draped on the tiny top floor balcony, just big enough for one small table and chairs, blowing smoke over the warped red tiled roofs of the Old City. Illuminated apartments are stacked in rickety piles all along each side of the winding cobblestone streets. Jolly drunken voices exclaim from a safe distance below, and I feel, while on a safe level with my fellow homo sapiens, strangely elevated, close to the stars. It takes precious little elevation, coupled with a mind-buggeringly idyllic European ambiance and some splendid Parisian tea to catapult ones spirits into the stratosphere, tumbling like a drunken jester across the marble courts of divinity. Blissfully ignorant of their language and just high enough to be inconspicuous, I am happy at arms length from humanity.

For the second night in succession I can see twin gothic spires from my window. I can blow smoke rings over their grimy peaks like some 2D Greenburgian Cubist quoits game. First the Koln Dom, black and foreboding as every epic manifestation of deep icy Teutonic Hell from every bigoted, Pagan fearing medieval script ever written. Leering like a big black bat in the sky, thundering a sub frequency ‘Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom’ drum of Doom too low to be distinctly real, but too terrifying to be ignored.

Tonight it is Zurich and the church spires are white with matching blue flags, shimmering in ivory servitude like a couple of snowy Princess’ hats. The towers look as if they could adorn in solid sugar the top of a hearty Swiss Christmas pudding. They bring to mind the kind of elegant medieval aristocracy made real and innocent to generations of Western children by the great, frozen Walt Disney.

This display of proud inoffensive architecture embodies what I’ve seen of the city so far. As clean, calm and elegantly efficient as the Koln Dom was excessive, passionate, dirty and awesomely endearing. Regardless, from where I sit the city and the citadel are perfect vehicles for an evening of philosophical self indulgence, otherwise known as ‘Englishmanabroadovercomewithpoeticyearnings’. So, in this frame of mind I can melt into my chair, my elbows on the balcony railings, and utter sleepy insular chuckles, chuckles at my own luck and chuckles at the endless proof of the gloriously advanced European way of life.

Communique from Germany

by Dom

> And so it quickly became apparent that the act of smoking inside establishments is yet to be repulsed in the quaint city of Vienna. A fact, while encouraging sympathy due to the unfathomable cold festering outside, made for a most regrettable time on stage. I find it most challenging on tour to maintain my personal odor in as inoffensive state as possible, at the best of times! With the added factor of playing in a haze of pungent cigarette smoke, the battle is already lost and my days become spent seeking out laundromats and soaping elements, so that my contemporaries don't perceive me as the most vile of all creatures.
>
> From Vienna, our sights were set on Munich. Forever torturing us, treating us as pawns in the perverted game that is rock and roll, tour manager Matthew saw it fit to deprive us of the most basic of human needs, shelter!, and we were to drive straight to the venue, unshowered and lacking of sleep. Unsatisfied with this dire turn of events, I went for a brisk walk to quell my brooding disgust. It is fortunate then, that Munich is littered with marvelous architecture, everywhere the eye takes hold!, impossible to escape. Blinded by this beauty surrounding me, the horror suffered from not having a place to call home for the night was hushed, like a howling child given a pacifier.

>
> On arrival the next day in Hamburg, news quickly spread amongst the community of the van that there was no show that night, and that we indeed had the night off!
> 'A night off? What is this foreign thing you speak of, a night off?" shyly chirped the young Nicholas Allbrook, nestled in the deep dark depths of the back corner, in the now fiendishly dank van. His mind, numbly adjusted to the routine of playing show after show after show each night was unable to grasp the concept of a night free to spend on his own pursuits of leisure.
> "I believe, honorable sir, that a night off means we are entirely free of obligations. That is to say, we can finally rest, recuperate and recharge for the inevitable onslaught that is due in the coming days." I swiftly replied.
> In response, betraying a face of bewilderment, the distinguished bass player only offered, "Incredible."
> And so, you must be asking, did we, as so gracefully phrased at the time, rest, recuperate and recharge on this once-in-a-lifetime chance of a night?
> Alas! For not even an hour into this mystical night off, the entire tour party could be found in the bar adjacent to the hotel, The Jolly Rodger, greedily slurping on the finest ales Germany has to offer.
> And while a jolly time was indeed had by all, so foolishly, the night did not result in the restoration of our bodies and souls, but on the very contrary, we awoke the next morning in a state of unwellness and dishevelment, a A result of the vicious alcohol, at the time so pleasing, liberating even! But somehow over the course of the night morphed into an enemy, a trojan horse already infiltrated inside of us, a vampire to wellbeing, sucking on the veins of what keeps us all in tact.
>
>
Post Hamburg we played a festival in Germany, in a town I have completely no idea the name of (how entirely nescient of me). But, true, it was on the coast and there was a beach!, a true opal to the weary eye and a complete rarity when touring Europe. This beach I talk of made me somewhat nostalgic for home, and for a moment a tear swelled in my eye, although upon recollection I'm quite certain the tear arose, not from my yearning for home, but instead was a direct result of the ravaging winds, lashing at the senses. Walking the pier was a task in itself, requiring all of ones might just to hold steady without toppling over the edge, never to be seen again. It is for this reason alone I absolutely resolve to never return here, and how truly lucky it is, after all!, that I cannot recall the location of this wind ravaged beach..

The Last Battle

The Final Battle

The Crusade of Britain had been a harrowing journey for all of us, fraught with bitter cold, malnutrition and that inimitable brand of Anglican embitterment we all know and love. But the challenges so far were all building up to last hurrah, the capital, Londinium, where all my worst English fears slink out of the alleyways, manifest in every ghoulish pommie stereotype from Mordrid to Mr. Hyde.

The misty plains of the Birmingham may have been desolate and eerie, but the foes were easily dispelled. The three ugly sisters of Walkers Chips, each more repulsive than the last, almost succeeded in bestowing their soft bellied cadaverous British-ness on be, but I was saved by Sir Gum, who banished every one of them – Prawn Cocktail, Smoky Bacon and Steak’n’Cheese – to far behind the bar fridge where they could taunt us no more.

The labyrinth of Manchester almost ensnared me forever in its Escher come Spinal Tap backstage area, but again the knight remained strong and the quest continued.

But in London a true sense of foreboding permeates the scene.

After we played and retreated upstairs, our stronghold was quickly assailed by an army of fun loving, rider consuming Londonites, who disoriented us enough to split our party down the middle. A rift in the group was all they needed. Before we knew it me and Jay were stumbling over damp cobblestones, dodging stray Dickensian stereotype, hands plunged in coats, heads burrowed in scarves like strange antipodean turtles in the tundra.

Amid the furor of escaping Heaven we had become somehow attached to a disconcerting chap in a long trenchcoat, who displayed signs of the grossest inebriation. By some inadvertent lapse in communication – maybe due to his schizophrenic see-sawing between being an amiable young Sydney sider to a grizzled cockney tramp – the man, calling himself T., had become our guide. We were no use anyway, being completely overwhelmed by the onslaught before, cold and confused, he ushered us into a taxi with the promise of finding our friends. Into the night we sped.

After much yelling and tense parries of miscommunication we were unceremoniously ejected into the street. T. hurled some colloquial expletives after the taxi then turned to us with a warped grin. “Here we are lads, The Witches Tit, the oldest pub in London”, he gestured towards a creaking sign swinging over a dilapidated inn with grimy windows, which depicted, unsurprisingly, a witch’s tit. “It looks a bit of a shambles, but you should see inside. Besides, there are some regulars who are just dying to meet you…” He let out a rattling cough, then led us through the front door. Inside it was just the musty squalor one would expect. A solitary gas lamp cast a dim glow around the room, dramatically foreshadowing the faces of the destitute regulars as they forced their faces away from their pints to peer at us as we entered. Their suspicion was palpable. The barkeep whispered into one of the drinkers ears, keeping both eyes fixed on us and a cigarette drooping from his lips. Before we had inescapably intruded on this exclusive assembly, T. ushered us up a narrow staircase across from the front door.

The top floor was a vastly different scene from that below, as resplendent as the lower level was derelict. Portraits of foxhunting gentlemen and country manors bedecked the walls, ornate wooden tables and chairs, spindly and impractically delicate, were tenaciously gathered in private clusters. The room was overwhelmingly red, boasting voluptuous velvet curtains and upholstery. But, instead of being warm and inviting, this gave the place an air of eerie diabolism. There was no music, hardly a sound at all save the muffled clinking of the bartender, who a curious character indeed. He was an elderly oriental chap, with long spidery whiskers and an ornate silken gown. Most unusual for a London drink hole. He returned my stare sanguinely, idly wiping some glasses in an unconvincing display of efficiency.

The silence was terrifying, portentous of some malignant evil waiting behind the walls. In this room the warm glow of the lamps heralded not a calm respite, but rather the possibility that the walls could imminently crumble to reveal the thousand screaming souls of purgatory, a great concealed inferno in the wings.

“Ah, our guests have finally arrived”, a silken voice wafted from the corner, “I trust you encountered no difficulty on your way? Our great capital can be rather imposing, especially for you of such…humble stock”. At this jibe some quiet laughs – male, female or neuter – echoed in response. The young man who spoke rose to greet us. He wore a red dinner jacket and a black cravat, thin black trousers and blindingly polished black loafers. His hair was combed in a side part stuck fast to his skull, which flaunted his long white forehead. He was extremely thin, and his face was strikingly elegant but had an ageless, cadaverous quality which made him look like some mummified dandy necromancer. He introduced himself as A. and apologized for his initial rudeness. “I hope you understand, the English sense of humor can be difficult to decipher for those of the peripheries of the Empire. But I mean no harm.”

A. raised his hand to summon the bartender without taking his eyes from mine, “two Old Fashion’s for our esteemed guests, if you please”. When we got our drinks, a queer tasting concoction that seemed to take expert preparation, we settled into our chairs and listened to the refined anecdotes and gossip of the soiree. Some were becoming increasingly drunk, and would often assault T. or ourselves with foppish derision. Their superiority grew with their intoxication. They would reference some fashionable French philosopher, and when T. neglected to laugh, would say, “cheer up old chap, feel free to join in our mirth. You’ll find we’re not so different from the tramps at the Free House, besides, it would make less of a spectacle of your ignorance”. This cowardly bullying continued, and T. became more and more sullen under the weight of their petty taunts. His once boisterous inebriation descended into morose drunkenness. He looked woozy, looking into his lap between frequent trips to the ‘Cloak Room’. It didn’t take long before he abruptly stood up, swaying dramatically, and announced his departure. The company put on a nauseating display of mock disappointment. “Oh do stay! Your wit will be so sorely missed. The party will simply not be the same without you!” They promised him that the waiter would be only to pleased to go downstairs and fetch a pint of something “more suitable to a proletarian palette”. But he had had enough, not being so drunk or stupid to be fooled by their sarcasm. With a brisk nod of his head our defeated guide donned his cap and coat and bustled out.

“Thank God for that” the remaining guests exclaimed. “I say, I could smell the reek of the Spikes from here. It was like sleeping on the Embankment!”

A. then turned his attention to us, “well then, now that our friend has retired, we are free better make your acquaintance…” he grinned with an elegant savagery, distant and cruel like a caged monster. “I have been waiting to meet you for some time, you see. I am a fellow artist, and as an artist I understand that there are some appetites that cannot be quenched among typical company…” Jay and I exchanged worried glances. “The best of us are not afraid to use, shall we say, unusual means to plumb the wells of inspiration. A true modern gentleman, after all, does not shy away from Experience. It is our creed, our Bible our Koran our Buddha and all of our patron saints. You wouldn’t deny these, would you?” He gave us a puppy dog look that only heightened his wickedness. “We live in such dreary times, my friends. But there is light and color and vibrancy to be found, if one is willing to look for it. And the only place to look, as many of us know, is to travel abroad. We have all done it, and found such joy, such catalysts of thought hidden over the ocean. Asia, my friends! India and China! The colour and the fragrance! Did not the heroes of the impressionists, Monet and all, find new life in Japan? It is a pity then, that we can’t go there all the time. But if one is in possession of the right means, it possible to bring the intoxicating spirit of the orient home. Traveling physically is one thing, but spiritually and mentally, well, that is quite another”.

A. was beating around the bush interminably, and all I could do was cock my head in gross ignorance at his florid bullshit. He looked around at his friends smugly, who gave confidential giggled of titillation. “What I am trying to ask, my friends,” at this he leant forward and lowered his voice, “is if you have ever…ridden the dragon?”

The rest of the night, I am afraid, must rest in confidentiality. Firstly because of my reluctance to relate the inner workings of the opiated dandy underground to the big wide world, and secondly because the inherent obscurity of such experiences makes them nigh on impossible to recall with any clarity. I will, however, try and draw my original analogy back from its sprawling tangent to some kind of conclusion. After being weakened by its food and weather, I was finally run through by the decadent dagger of London. The nemesis who defeated me was the ceaseless social to-ing and fro-ing, meeting and greeting, following and being followed, dodging some and seeking others that the city demands. You can never be sure of what you actually want to do. It seems the social norm of London is to indulge in every fashionable, sordid imitation of celebrity you can, while still maintaining a façade of indifference. This is enough to send anyone insane, unless, like some admirable folks I have met, animals born and bred for this habitat, you willfully immerse yourself in the hysteria. I am not one of these animals, and so in an Arthurian analogy of our crusade across Britain, the strains of London sociability achieve the dubious title of Mordrid.

Luckily the parallels continue after my death in battle, as I was carried onto a ferry, crossed the ocean and found myself in glorious Avalon. The ‘Prawn Cocktail’ crisps had been replaced with oozing cheeses, multifarious breads, meats, smoked salmon, delicately dressed salads and vast fruit bowls. The tins of Stella and dwarfish “coronitas” were replaced with soft red wines and exotic heady beers. Even the bands we were with had been magically transformed into gorgeous women playing ghostly electronic folk in wonderful harmony . In fact all the women were beautiful! I had crossed into the heavens of Europe. I was no longer plagued by the jaded, servile bureaucratic squalor of the mother country. Vibrancy and civility reign on the continent. The cold seems so much more bearable. You never realize how rife disenchantment and narrow mindedness are in the western world until you go to Europe. It should be easy to remedy, the old rule of ‘don’t be a dick head and no one will be a dickhead back’ being an obvious answer, but I guess some diseases are malignant. They are too deeply entrenched to be changed by mere rationality.

Anyhow, before rant too much, I should say I love Australia, England and America in their funny ways, and I’m sure Europe is full of its own eccentricities that would come clear all too quickly if I was a local. But, by Jesus, it can be frustrating seeing the all encompassing ‘live and let live’ statute work so well. End.

p.s. i didn't take opium in London. I didn't do most of this stuff in London actually.

Tour Communique no.1

For the next two months, I, Nick Allbrook, will attempt to keep a tour diary. This time I expect to surpass my modest record of two posts, which shouldn’t be too hard given the length of our journey.

The more we tour, the direr the need to write has become. Even the most vague, high-school-Gonzo tripe is a great personal help. These small communiqués are essential for maintaining some semblance of my mental agility, which can be almost impossible to recognize when left to wallow willy-nilly around the soup of my mind. Tangible thoughts become as evasive as rare birds, the only proof of their existence being blurred snapshots as they dart between the sporadic ideas and anti-ideas of a touring musician. Rendering my thoughts in the written word provides concrete evidence that my brain is still functioning. The Tasmanian tiger lives, the yeti walks etc. etc. etc. Making up a diary gives my little test the structure it needs to be truly authoritative. Putting it on the internet will show my father that his plea that I “…keep on writing [and not let my mind turn into a stagnant swamp, a tar pit to forever entomb ill conceived and unrealized ideas]” didn’t go unheeded, only embellished.

So, I’ll start with the airplane and the tragically relevant above sentence about tar pits and stagnant swamps. The mingled effluvium which has been caressing my nasal cavities with its acrid wand for nigh on ten hours has kept its origins a mystery, until now. I have been assured that the old woman across the isle is the perp. This is the kind of earthy grit a modern traveler never hears of, especially not from QANTAS. They portray impossibly urbane salt and pepper haired business men with strong jaws gliding suitcases past smooth crystalline frequent flyer card scanners, relaxing with glasses of champagne in futuristic comfort pods, automatic, sliding, glass, ethereal glowing white. Efficiency. Streamlined. State of the art. George Clooney. Terrifyingly sanitized. I wouldn’t blame Phillip K. Dick for saying a loud, jittery “I told you so!” if could see these humanoid machines and the apocalyptically sterile ideal they represent.

But an ideal it remains, as the woman next to us constantly reminds me. Here we are, a pathetic collection of dehydrated yet greasy apes, heaped together inside a flying steel phallus, individually wired to flickering blue screens. Gaseous, leaking, open mouthed and drooling. Henry Miller condemned the airplane as a mode of travel too clean, too removed from the blood and piss of humanity through which it is our God given lot to wade. If only he could smell what I smell. It might not have the homely fug of his beloved boats, buses or trains, but it could never be accused of being sterile.

The grotesque reality of earthly excrement, otherwise known as ‘passion’, is, according to Miller, wiped away in an airplane. And I guess this is true, to a degree. What do I know of the Macedonian peasant 40000 feet below? I sure can’t feel the icy winter air through my personal window, let alone the goat’s teat or the shitty mud beneath my gumboots? What would the imaginary farmhand say if he knew that somewhere in between the magical, twinkling stars above a dribbling 22 year old musician flew at 500 miles an hour, even while lying prostrate after ingesting a quantity of Mersyndol and red wine?

Unfortunately modern air travel falls awkwardly between the ideals of Miller and the QANTAS advertising committee, possessing neither honest human filth or uber-modern purity. The grime I am currently experiencing could never be rendered in romantic terms, even by the florid pen of Henry Miller. And I am probably at an altitude to challenge him personally, if his self-righteousness didn’t prevent his heavenly ascent. QF 31, eleven hours in, is pullulating with such a wretched stink that the toothless humpbacked Greek wench Henry described as so noble and resilient, would surely have pulled the ‘OPEN’ lever and sucked every useless, fat ankled, square eyed one of us into the starry night for emergency divine cleansing.

Although Miller was wrong in condemning air travel for its stark cleanliness, as the large woman of seat 40 D would attest, he was right in saying that the airplane will never be so noble a mode of transport as its terrestrial counterparts. I know I called him self righteous, but I must admit, I would give the niggling sting in my ass for the aching muscles of a cross country walker any day. Even though airplanes are not sterile in the true sense of the word, they are still anything but organic.

Human filth was meant to run among the stones and grass, to mingle into mud and soil and bring forth new life. Here in this Boeing 747, however, we see it candid as a turd on a dinner plate. Foul, stark and utterly useless, just like the husks of humans who birthed it.

ayaiyai

This is a silly song I wrote while waiting for my dear friend Ayaiyai, a treasured member of Pond who lent his bewitching sonic talents and characteristically ephemeral presence to the recording of Corridors of Blissterday. Bless his sweet ass.
Recorded in the backyard, Charles St, North Perth.
Go here to listen --- http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

Moon and the Grumpernickle

“Moon, honey, could you feed Claude?”

His mother’s voice drifted from the kitchen window. Moon considered this offer, but his bed of grass in the sun was so comfy he breathed deeply and stayed silent.

“Please Moon, he’s getting all strung out, mooing away like some kind of irate trombone thing. I don’t want him to eat my cabbages.” Moon lifted himself onto his elbow to look at Claude. Silence. Claude stared knowingly. He shuffled and grunted impatiently. “Strung out indeed,” said Moon.

Moon creaked into action, turning to look at his dark green imprint, like a continent of idleness in the grass. “Idle Island, it will be called,” he thought, “no… Moon Land, where Moon landed…or Frondwell”. He had been the king of Frondwell for four hours already, and his residency had lulled his mind into a state of contented sloth - but now that the sun was creeping down towards the rooftops and making the leaves glow in that sleepy, amber-wheat-field-gold, his prosperous reign was at an end. He would leave it with the natives. Placing a bucket in front of Claude, Moon leant on his friend’s shoulder and watched him munch. Claude munched. Moon smiled.

“I got sent out of chemistry again today,” said Moon, leaning his arms across Claude’s back. Claude grunted approval.

“The same thing, ‘Moon, pay attention, if you don’t want to learn, you may as well sit outside’. So…I go and sit outside.”

Moon refilled the bucket. “That’s okay though, right? I don’t mind if they want to look at numbers all day, but I shouldn’t have to join in, right?” Claude grinned smugly. I don’t know, man, I already hung out with you on Tuesday.” Claude smirked, stifling laughter. “Oh Christ,” said Moon, “fine, I’ll ask.” Claude could be very persuasive.

“Mum,” Moon called, ambling closer to the house, “it’s P.E. tomorrow, and I really, really hate P.E., and they just run around chasing balls while I watch, and Claude really wants me to stay and…”

“Tell Claude to stop bossing you around,” he saw his mother’s paisley dress flash between the curtains. She poked her frizzy haired head out to speak, “Moon if Claude said to nail your head to the table, would you do it”?

“Probably not,” mumbled Moon.

“Sorry Babes, I can’t write you a sickie every day, even if you do have to watch the other guys chasing balls all day,” Moon looked up quizzically. “Look,” she continued, “it’ll be the weekend soon, then you can just chill out all day, forget about it all, help me with my garden”. The last offer was a little ambitious. Moon sniggered. “Sure Mum, your petunias have been looking a little down anyway”. “Oh?” she replied. It was his mother’s turn to look quizzical. “Yeah, they’re usually up all night, singing and flirting and all this wild business.”

Moon’s mother laughed. “You little bugger, go to school, alright!” Moon grinned. Claude gave a deep, disappointed ‘moo’.

***

From the middle of the oval Moon gazed at the think ridge of ivory clouds tumbling past the sun. He held his breath with anticipation. The white monolith sailed by and, like a tidal wave of warmth and nourishment, sunlight swept across the field. Moon’s skin quivered with pleasure at the sudden thaw. His classmates whirred past chasing the football. The thundering voice of the PE teacher Mr. Mallon echoed in the distance as if he were bellowing from beneath the ocean. Moon closed his eyes and spread his arms to catch every ray.

Moon was just about to bend over and take off his shoes, when he was struck by a sudden rush of grappling players who could see the ball but apparently not poor Moon, who was standing in the middle of the field like a sapling before a charging bison. Luckily, Moon did not stay conscious long enough to feel any of this. The sound of trampling feet, ripping leather and violent panting was quickly followed by a rush of white-hot light and a terrible, heavenly, piercing wail. Both were brighter and hotter and louder than any other earthly phenomenon Moon had ever felt. Once this abominable pain had set in, Moon settled into a warm glow of unknowing, unfeeling bliss.

If you have ever been hit this hard before, you might remember seeing some strange and colourful visions, glorious to see, but making little sense. You might also remember feeling wondrously comfortable, like you just wanted to lie down and sleep, sleep, sleep. If this happened, you probably had a similar experience to Moon on that Thursday during physical education. You might have met, or met something similar to, the Grumpernickle.

Moon’s mind was now sailing over a forest of gently swaying hands. Coloured hands, waving cheerfully in every direction. He had that feeling of utter weariness and longing, but instead of waking up on the floor like me or you, Moon just kept on floating. He had been struck very, very hard.

He soon soared to an enormous wall, which stretched as high and as wide as the eye could see. As he drew closer Moon saw that the wall was in fact transparent, with slithering eels of rainbow light on its surface, just like those mysterious strands that hold bubbles together. Through it he could see a peculiar landscape of darkened sandy islands and churning ocean, mountains covered in living vines of purple, which snaked longingly out and waved huge bat like leaves towards the ether. The sun was a deep red and covered much of the sky. Moon leaned precariously forward to get a better look. He was about to lean onto the thin membrane that separated him from this bizarre new world, when he heard a strange sound behind him.

As he turned, Moon was frozen with awe as he was confronted by what looked like a huge animal, about twenty feet long and very rotund. It had seven eyes, all of which seemed to smile amiably at Moon. The skin was difficult to describe, as its colour never stayed the same for more than a second. One patch of soft orange might settle on its flank only to be chased off to its neck by a cloud of mischievous green, which would in turn be encircled by serpentine ribbons of belligerent purple. The beast had innumerable tails, all of nebulous hue, lazily swaying, towering into the sky above like a crowd of gigantic squirrels.

Moon was shocked.

A sound flowed from the beast as if its body was an enormous gramophone. Imagine every dove and every blue whale on earth singing into your ear at the bottom of the ocean or deep in space, singing notes deep enough to crumble mountains and high enough to peel the crust off the moon.

It almost peeled the crust off Moon. The sound plunged him into a galaxy of fear and ecstasy, its sheer wonderment and joy forcing him to gasp for air. That is what Moon heard, but the message transmitted into his brain was more like, “Hello, I am the Grumpernickle, can I help you at all?”

It had no mouth, but the sonic blast it issued seemed to convey its message with eloquence and rather homely tenderness. Moon was so stunned he could only respond with a wheezing sigh.

“You’ve come an awful long way, young fellow,” the seven eyes wrinkled up into a smile, “surely you must’ve come here for something?” The Grumpernickle’s seven eyes scanned Moon like a fussy mother over a sick child. “Dear me, by the looks of you I’d say you’ve been misplaced!” The Grumpernickle gave a little laugh. “Yes, yes, I see where I went wrong.” Its eyes focused on Moon. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience, I’ll get you started right away, give it a couple of months and you’ll be right as rain”.

Moon tried to ask what the Grumpernickle meant, but the words came out like a thin wisp of smoke. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” it answered anyway, beaming the message right into Moon’s brain, “I’ll just get you back onto the right path and I’m sure someone will help you out when you return”.

The Grumpernickle shot a spout of glittering swirling light into the air from its tail, giggling as it dissipated into the air. The beast was beginning to lose its solidity, sinking into the vista of the distance. Moon’s vision started fading into the amorphous void between worlds. “Well, good luck little prince! I hope you fair well, and remember,” the Grumpenickle called from the edge of visibility, “if you’re not sure what to do, try to stop thinking about it, things have a way of doing themselves sometimes!”

The faces of Moon’s classmates began to materialise in his periphery.

“Just tell them I sent you, I’m sure someone will sort it out! You’ll be fine!” These words echoed in Moon’s mind as he regained consciousness. He could still smell the fantastic tropical world he had left behind. He could feel the Grumpernickle’s titanic voice, still see the sparks of glee from its tails and taste the air of infinity that lingered between worlds. Moon was now lying on his back with the sun in his eyes and a pain in his head. Pain. Pain in the head.

“Bloody hell, you copped it pretty hard there, champ!” Guffawed Mr. Mallon, looking to the class for a laugh of approval. They shifted uncomfortably, muttering with excitement as schoolboys do when a comrade is about to be singled out in front of a teacher. “What is it,” said Mr. Mallon, “what’s the matter with him…”

The bright sun was blocked out as Mr. Mallon’s red face leaned over Moon to get a better look. “Up you get, stop being a sook, it’s just a little…”

He caught his breath. “What the fuck are those?”

In one motion the crowd leaned forward, like leaves on a tree swaying in a breeze of anticipation, they peered at Moon’s forehead.

***

Moon sat in the sick bay dangling his legs off his bed while Mr. Mallon and Matron ogled his head, leaning right in without regard for their patient’s personal space, which was affronted by the smell of their mingled breath and the sight of the tiny burst capillaries on their noses.

They shook their heads and shuddered as if Moon was blind to their revulsion. “I just don’t know,” sighed Matron, “this is far beyond my training, I’ve never seen something so awful…” They stepped back and muttered about Moon’s condition.

“So you say he got hit from behind during the game…” said Matron.

“Yes, yes, completely by accident,” said Mr. Mallon, who seemed quite on edge.

“Then you went to assist and…”

“There they were! It was like they got pushed right through his skin after he copped it.”

Mr. Mallon had repeated his story several times to different inquisitors since Moon had returned from meeting the Grumpernickle, and Moon had grown tired of his increasingly defensive professional jargon. He zoned out of the adults’ conference, turning to look at his reflection in the sick bay window. From his forehead two small green growths were protruding, tiny, soft horns. Moon had spent enough time in his overgrown backyard to recognise that these were not horns at all, but very young buds. They had, in fact, grown significantly since they had first appeared. The one on the left had even begun to open. Moon couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the beautiful flower that might sprout from his head. “It could be creeping though my skull right now,” he mused out loud.

“Keep quiet, boy, it’s the headmaster,” hissed Mr. Mallon, covering the receiver of the telephone, “yes Sir, an unavoidable accident.” Moon rolled his eyes.

“Yes Sir, we’ll send him home immediately.” He put down the phone to address Moon and the Matron, “the Headmaster says that it would be in your best interest - and the safety of others- if you went home right away.”

Moon grinned.

“Besides, it wouldn’t do to have you walking around distracting other students with your new…appendages.”

And so Moon found himself strolling along in the early afternoon with the great beige buildings of his school fading behind him and two green buds on his head, tingling with pleasure under the sun. The seniors at the bus stop stared and the bus driver, eyes widened, quivered as he handed over Moon’s change. But Moon could not help feeling a touch of pride in his splendid emerald growths. It was only when a small girl on the bus began to scream and cling to her mother that Moon reluctantly tied his jumper over his head.

***

“Hi Mum,” Moon called as he creaked open the front door.

“Moon?” came a voice from her room at the top of the tight spiral staircase, “you’re home early today…”

“Yeah, something happened at P.E, you should come and look.”

He heard the shifting of his mother’s settee, followed by her pattering feet stepping carefully around the clutter of pot plants and unceremoniously heaped oriental ornaments that crowded the awkwardly thin staircase.

“What is it now, they didn’t make you do boxing again, did they? Those boys can be so violent, it really should be…” she stopped abruptly as she approached and saw Moon’s two green protrusions. “I see,” she sighed, and said, smiling, “it looks like you’re budding, honey!”

If the way Moon’s mother reacted to her son coming home in the middle of school with leaves sprouting from his head seems slightly strange, then you would be right. This is because Moon’s mother was indeed, for most ‘normal’ folk, very strange. She winked at clouds and smoked a joint in the bath some Friday nights. She danced alone, with only the stars of her imagination as partners and only the echoes of eternity for applause. She was certainly not the type of mother who minded her son skipping school. In fact, she had been secretly suspecting something like this might happen for many years. This is because she had dealt with many people who, like her son, had had their spirits misplaced.

After Moon had recounted the whole saga of his sudden knock to the head, his encounter with the Grumpernickle, the P.E teacher, the nurse, the headmaster and the ride home, his mother sat him down and began - somewhat inappropriately, some might have thought - swirling about the kitchen making tea. She seemed utterly overjoyed. Humming and whistling, she danced her way to the kettle and shimmied to the biscuit jar, calling in between motions, “I knew this would happen, Mooney! I just knew it!”

“You’ve gone mad, haven’t you…” sighed Moon.

She laughed loudly, Oh no, no, definitely not! I’m just so happy for you, Honey, there is so much to tell you.” She began, “Moon, you, like so many others I’ve seen, have been misplaced! Born into the wrong body, a simple mistake that was made way back in another world – before your spirit sailed through into this one.” She emphasised ‘sailed’ with a sweeping flourish of her hands. She had forgotten the tea and the biscuits and bounded out of the kitchen, kneeling on the rug in front of Moon’s seat in the living room.

“So you say you saw the Grumpernickle?” She said, leaning forward earnestly, her eyes glittering in anticipation.

Moon nodded.

“Well, you must’ve got hit pretty bloody hard at football!” she cackled.

It was true, Moon had been so preoccupied by the two lumps on his forehead that he had hardly noticed the large lump on the back of his head or the inexplicable urge to vomit on the bus home. His mother grinned lovingly at his vacant stare.

“You see, Mooney,” she said softly, narrowing her eyes to hold her son’s gaze, “the Grumpernickle created this world, his entire imagination went into this wild, crazy, beautiful place. But it’s been so long now - and the Grumpernickle is exceptionally lazy nowadays - and that’s why so many people get misplaced! The Grumpernickle just doesn’t pay enough attention to where he puts souls anymore. I guess he sees so many of us – us humans – that he just assumes…” she trailed off a little sadly, lowering her eyes to look at her hands resting on her lap.

Moon was enthralled, and tried to keep his mother on topic, “Mum, how do you know all this? The Grumpernickle, I mean…and all the things he does?”

“Well,” she continued, snapping out of her momentary reverie, “me and a whole lot of others who have had experiences with the Grumpernickle – by meditating, by accident or whatever – have seen all the mistakes it keeps making with misplaced souls and decided to help people who look like they are stuck in the wrong body return to their natural form,” she paused and shook her head in wonderment, analysing, as if for the first time, Moon’s little branches. “How could I have not noticed? Jeeesus”, she muttered, “you have the same problem your father had before I came.”

Moon’s mouth dropped open, “but I thought Dad went to Tibet?”

His mother focussed again, her gaze becoming more solemn. She leaped up and hoisted Moon off his chair, leading him out into the back yard to stand in front of Claude, the cow. “Claude, Honey, I thought I should tell you that Moon was misplaced, too,” she said in a bright, clear voice, like someone talking to a small child. The cow gave a low moo, twitching a little with pleasure.

“He is just a cow, but I still think he can understand us.”

Moon shook his head, trying to grasp the onslaught of revelations his mother was pouring on him.

“Claude”, she motioned lovingly towards the cow, “was your father! He was misplaced, too, but it took him a lot longer than you to visit the Grumpernickle and find out. I had to teach him to relax his mind and body to the point of unconsciousness that you came to today completely by accident! That’s how we in this world can get through to the Grumpernicke’s world, the place we all pass through before birth and after death, the world between worlds!” Her eyes widened with childlike excitement. “It’s quite wonderful to see, isn’t it?”

“It was…it was really nice,” said Moon, remembering the fields of waving hands, the window into a parallel island world, “but strange…really strange.”

“It’s true, death is strange”, she muttered, “but nothing to be afraid of”. She looked into Moon’s face and grasped his shoulders. “But even so, I’m glad you came back alright, Honey! The Grumpernickle must’ve really liked you…”

She gave Moon a great big hug. He slowly lifted his arms, folded them around her back, and gently squeezed.

***

The next morning Moon’s mother didn’t wake him for school. He drifted into wakefulness at around ten thirty to the percussive mantra of the shovel and dirt. Shuck Humph, it whispered modestly in the backyard. Moon felt his forehead, and sure enough, yesterday’s buds were still there, In fact, they were far more there, having grown at least four inches since he had gone to bed. They now had unmistakeable leaves and tiny white flowers. It had not been a dream. Moon lay back and stared at the ceiling, smiling.

Moon rose to investigate the sound in the yard, and saw his mum standing beside a small hole, leaning on her shovel, wiping her brow.

“Morning Honey!” she piped when she noticed Moon strolling through the grass, “how was your sleep? Come, have a rest in here, cool your feet, you must be tired,” she pointed at the moist, dark soil in the hole.

Moon complied to the strange request without question, not wanting to bridle the flaming steeds of his mother’s excitement, and sat down with his feet in the hole. He was in fact quite weary, even though he had only walked about ten metres since his fourteen hours sleep. Moon’s mother gazed at him with more pride than he had ever thought possible. Moon looked at his feet awkwardly, wriggling his toes in the cool muck. His mother kept staring, beaming at her son in the dirt as if he was receiving a Nobel Prize. Moon tried to think of something to say before his mum’s volatile mind returned to reality and she realized that he was meant to be at school.

“So…” he fumbled, “what are you up to today?”

“Oh, not much. I’ll pop over to the markets and grab some tea, feed your father, do some more gardening…”

She kept staring, smiling serenely.

“Ummm…What am I doing today?” Moon winced at his own clumsy conversation. She would definitely remember school now.

“I don’t know, honey. What do you want to do?”

Moon looked at his mother’s radiant face and realized that she had not forgotten about school at all. He sighed with relief, “I think I’ll just sit here for a while.”

“I thought you’d say that,” she replied. Moon’s mother bent down and gave him a kiss on the forehead, her cheeks brushing against his ever growing branches, then poured a little beaker of water into his hole and turned to walk inside. “Call me if you need anything, Moon, I’m just going to be in the living room.”

The hours passed by. Moon lazed in his hole as the sun floated across the sky. He didn’t call for his Mum. He had all he needed.

***

As the weeks rolled on Moon continued very much as he did that first day when his mother had introduced him to his small plot of land in the back yard. He did not return to school, in fact, he stopped going out at all. Moon was quite happy to spend all day in the sunshine, as he had always wanted to do, but now that he had realized his true nature, he could actually do it.

His mother continued to help in every way possible, with the passion and dedication only a mother could summon. She brought Moon food and water, but as he barely moved from his hole anymore, he soon stopped needing it. She came and chatted to him sometimes, even when he stopped talking.

As the spring became summer and the sun became hotter, Moon got extremely tanned, His skin began to resemble that of a hard toiling desert elder; ravaged and burnt into a callous, brown mask that showed a million etchings of life lived with heartiness and vigour. Moon’s skin hardened and cracked, adapting to its new, static, weather beaten existence. Moon moved so little that his mother didn’t need to feed him, and his mouth had hardened shut so as to disable him from drinking. His mum simply poured a beaker of water at his feet, which were now fully immersed in the ground.

Like most teenage boys, Moon shot up, growing taller and taller, but unlike most teenage boys, Moon kept growing. Six feet, seven feet, eight feet, nine. His arms stretched upwards and outwards, his fingers reaching like great tentacles in every direction, greedily soaking up the summer sun with the leaves that burst from his extremities.

The two horns that had appeared unexpectedly that distant Thursday during physical education stretched, sprouted and spread. Others joined them from every part of Moon’s head and shoulders, all vying for a place in the sun.

***

Moon’s mother came out into the backyard early in the morning in her sarong, wiping sleep out of her eyes. The world was still silent, tiny birds could still be heard twittering above, as the dull hum of traffic had not yet churned into action. She was slightly hunched now, and her ginger hair had grown a long, eccentric streak of grey along its left side. Claude had died many years ago, but the tree beside his old trough was bigger and stronger than ever. She was proud of the tree, and often watched it standing proudly over the garden.

“Morning, Moon,” she said softly. There was no response, of course. Her son’s face had morphed over the years, stretched and stirred by the miasmic flow of living wood, into a surreal echo of his satisfied grin. She walked up to the tree and wrapped her arms around its mighty trunk, resting her face against the rough ridges of bark. On these solemn mornings, though she knew it was silly, she sometimes longed for the family she had helped free from the confines of humanity.

“I miss you, Honey,” she whispered after a few minutes, “but I guess I’m only human, hey?” She stepped back and began walking inside, but turned half way, “If you need anything, I’ll just be in the living room.” She giggled at her own sentimentality. The leaves rustled high over her head. Moon’s mother turned around to continue her life as a human, while in the back yard her son, Moon, continued his life, happy and silent, as a tree.