Paul J Penton – Songwriter

At any particular moment the future has just happened, even one nanosecond away and it’s already been and gone and become the ‘past’, and we’re left with a flash of experiences and sensations stored on the hard drive of our senses, sometimes easy to recall other times lost in a mist.

The future is Gassy, can’t really be grabbed hold of because it’s un-known. Donald Rumsfeldt’s explanation of unknown ‘knowns’ and ‘known’ unknowns flashes to mind from a precedent to war some time ago – you can plan for the future, plan for an invasion , plan for a victory, a house by the sea, winning a running race, becoming the boss, but nothing is certain. We’re just sailing in a boat of hope until we land on the shore of that place we imagine in ‘the future’, but then more dreams must be dreamed , in fact while in that boat have more dreams or moon landing syndrome might click in – “I’ve been to the moon. Now what?” Got to have something just a little beyond what’s current- what you’re in – like now it’s Trans Siberian Railway – large and undefined in blurry colours, slowly coming into focus, but what beyond that?

I put my nose out to sniff the breeze of the future, where it might go who I might be, and take the scent of a path until it turns into a dead end or a dream come true – I never know but the mouth of my imagination begins to water- to savour the tastes, the sights, the sounds, the smells of far away places, foreign lands, strange musics and ideas that become a coathanger I dress with the future.

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At High School, to alleviate the boredom of recess we’d invent dares, which usually involved climbing. On the side of the main building near the corner housing the Library was a grade one drainpipe challenge. Three stories straight up. Of course looking on it now the health and safety implications are horrendous, but then we were invincible and the challenge was to tap the roof – It was a big thick thing doused in rusty brown paint, shiny and dangerous in the wet – don’t think we would elicit the challenge then. It had useful rungs that licked the concrete wall.

Starting out our feet would scramble at ground level slipping and letting loose mortar dribble from the brick work. The pipe would be hot in summer and chilled in winter – it seemed to be a conductor for whatever weather was going on the day. You could always get a rest on the 2nd floor balcony and a quick scan for teachers out on patrol – we never did get caught. Back then vertigo was no issue, heights no problem, so being up that high was just another adventure. Now, I think my muscles would become gluggy and frozen and my heart would be beating in my mouth at such a venture. There was some sense of freedom being up so high, a sense of being beyond the world. For those few moments you were the king of all you surveyed. Then a tap on the gutter that supplied the pipe with its entertainment and a quick scuttle down , not going too fast as this could cause blisters…..

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Mine’s expired, should do something about that I guess, its thin sliver is sitting on the second drawer of my desk… I have no compelling reason to renew at this moment, but visions of a trans-Siberian adventure beckon so I should do something about it- in fact I have two – European Union and Australian…that’s about Five hundred bucks worth of renewal. It’s something about all the procedures that puts me off, going to the chemist to get some of those passport sized photos , the miniatures of myself, the mini me, that I then have to get notarised by someone- but I don’t ‘know’ anyone notable enough to notarise- do I then have to go to an echoey fluro lit police station and prove who I am? You see that whole train of thought is not beguiling.

Maybe I should think of how it will be to have another maroon booklet with a laminated photo of myself looking up with uncertain eyes, unlike the other photo form last time, taken just after meeting the love of my life- but that’s a romance expired longer than the passport.

I love going back through older ones – all those stamps in blotchy inks from exotic locations, Nepal Czech republic, Ireland etc etc… depends which one I use really. And then there’s that time I had to rush to the U.S. embassy at the last minute due to a flight change- a panicked flee from work on the Thursday before easter before it closed. Sitting in a cramped hallway, sweating on getting that visa approved or my Europe trip was off- a whole train of ‘what if’s’ chuffing through my brain until I heard that stamp clunk and resonate and arrived at the station.

Yeah it’s always a bit nerve racking getting through those passport checks- not that I’ve done anything wrong, but just the crawling sense I might have done something, or be carrying something that one of those eager beagles at airport security will sniff out. A forgotten piece of fruit in the bag or something. Don’t get me started on bringing in goods slightly over the excise limit through customs…….

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Somewhere along the way a piece of information was inserted, slotted into the command module of my brain, strike the match AWAY from your body – where, when or how I don’t remember, but it seems to make sense. Because – what if – and here I go on disaster psychology! – what if you are drawing the match toward you, feeling that pink bulging match head grinding, rasping its way across the terrain of the scratch-plate – what if- it just got to the point of ignition, the match head igniting into a fuse of yellow flame – what if- it snapped off and landed on your clothes or your skin- there you are with a burning white hot blazing sun absolutely gnawing away at your dermis – driving deeper – a yell would surely be emerging – a scream of agony and expletives – while you try to flick the still erupting ember and now it gets caught on a finger tip or a pad of your palm- Yowwwww! This now devolving orangey ball is setting off a whole bunch of fire stations down at nervous system central – plenty of fire engines are racing down those thin wires within – but they ain’t any water to douse this one when they get there- so it’s off to the sink as quickly as possible for a soothing jet of water, ringing out on stainless steel, while tongue biting and under breath cursing continue.

I think I’m glad that somewhere in the dark cupboard of memory this was Implanted – STRIKE AWAY from your body. Bit like holding a knife too isn’t it – Hold it with the blade down –lest one should trip and gore oneself accidentally.

Back to matches, useful things when you’re out camping. Good for lighting campfires and gas burners to heat up camp dinners that mingle with the flowery smell of the bush and undergrowth.

For some reason memory swings me back to childhood playing with matches under the family caravan………but that’s another story……

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I have a strange belief about trains, going fast that is. I believe that if you sit with your back to the direction of travel then you stand a greater chance of survival when the train crashes – note WHEN not IF. Most forms of transport involve a series of worst case disaster scenarios for me. The spectacular plane crash plunging into a cold green sea, the acrobatic train derailment, etc etc. So, today I’ll just mutter some mantra about arriving at the destination as the train pulls out of the station.

Even though it is allocated seating and my allocated seat is facing the wrong way I have swapped sides, until asked to move. My back pack is sitting somewhere further forward in a luggage nook wide enough to park a Mini in. The first few miles as we crawl out of the city are informed by a series of rickety track crossings and noisy bells and flashing lights that quickly dissolve into the back ground hum of train. The clickety clack of the wheels on the tracks begins to get faster and faster and then becomes imperceptible as we climb on welded rails, then there’s a just along slow scream, a whine as we hurtle through middle England at one hundred and fifty miles per hour.

A cart comes by full of delights and surprises. I take the option for tea and a Cadburys chocolate bar…… I jiggle the tea bag up and down while watching a flash forward world slipping by outside. Fence-posts, lamp-posts, sheep and cattle blur together and walls of tunnels almost don’t seem to exist as we seem to accelerate into infinity. A woman is having some trouble controlling her son – Johnathon – I wonder about the story…. where is hubby….?

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Does an indulgence have to really be such a bad thing? It can take many forms, a shopping indulgence, a food indulgence , a love induglence… if you say the word enough times it loses its power. For me I blame those marketing wizards down at the supermarket – there I am trawling the aisles , running over the mental check list, and marketing ploy number 4 pops into view… the two for one chocolate offer. See-saws of conscience sway back and forth before the rationalization is delivered on a platter – “of course I can have this it’s been such a terrible day/week/ hour appalling situation” etc etc. I NEED this, just one indulgence for the day. And those two bars become a lead weight in the shopping basket, its plastic handles seem to dig deep into my skin, the knowledge of their presence burning away in my brain, so by the time I have got to the checkout I am already unwrapping the crinkly wrapper and tasting the melty chocolate spreading like fur on my tongue a sludgey slurry of sweetness concocted from cocoa extracts from far away lands.

The scanners scan and the attendant greets me with practiced response I respond in kind and the goods are paraded into floppy plastic bags for the journey to the car where I mine the bottom of the bag in addictive frenzy for my indulgence and the ripping wrapper and melting chocolate taste just as imagined, but then comes Over indulgence as I consider the second bar- surely best kept for later- delayment of gratification and all – it’s never quite the same though, like that second cup of coffee or the second bowl of corn flakes… somehow is dulled and maybe that’s why an indulgence is an indulgence or should be other wise I would rate it as an addiction. an easy glove to wear for some, for others as easy to evade as if they wore a suit of steel.

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The final attempt, chewing on determination like a wad of expired bubble gum, surely there’s just a bit more juice here , just a little. The run begins, he’s a workman carrying a plank of wood at high speed, those African women who carry large bundles on their heads- the pressure, the responsibility . Each footfall springs up through his body, footfalls lost in a wash of noise that is the crowd, some are focused on this moment, others attention is focused on the foot race or the shot put, but all our boy is thinking of is that bar. The pole quivers with each thump of his foot, each beat of his heart, flubbering up and down, drawn like a magnet toward the slot. It catches and the forward momentum begins to lift him off the ground the pole flexing like a willow in strong waiting to flex back. Legs reach forward, up toward that thin flat line hanging in the sky the dream in need of fulfillment, legs over , torso over – sliding by on a smattering of lanoline, lift the head . YESSSSSS. The section of the crowd that is watching bursts into a marching band frenzy. Elation and weightlessness flood his body on the way down. A moment frozen in time always to be remembered, staring up at the receding bar in the sky , he has crossed the line. Every moment of practice and belief, every sacrifice now rewarded. Reality slaps him in the form of the landing bag and it’s straight up punching the air in a fist of victory, a salute to the crowd, jumps of joy, surely this means GOLD…..

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Even though it’s environmentally friendly I’m going to have to change that brand of washing powder I use. I forget until I open the lid and dig in the petite plastic scoop and happen to breathe – there’s a causticness in the air and a door slams shut at the back of my throat and breathing is temporarily suspended. Lately to counter this it’s a case of holding my breath while I scoop it out and then take a dash to the kitchen for air and another gobfull of oxygen and then slam the clothes in and get the lid down quick.

I feel sorry for the clothes as if I’m sending them on a space mission or into some time travel journey. The inside of the machine is sparkling chromalloy, punched with drainage holes, it seems futuristic as if it’s a portal to another dimension, maybe that’s where the lost socks go?

Above the caustic fumes of the enviro friendly powder I pile in the clothes, they are dead bodies of the weeks indulgences. I select the ‘normal’ cycle, the machine beeps at me. High water level , beep, Econo-wash, beep and then the ‘go’ button. Inside a Niagra falls of water powers in over the clothes which are drowned in the dissolving flakes of snowy powder until the correct water level is reached, The machine then clicks into operation , it wrings from side to side, putting the clothes through a torture chamber of stretches and groans until part A is complete then it’s another round of hissing and filling before the machine starts an attempt at the land speed record. It spins up slowly eventually hitting high speed with a resonating whine. Is this where the parallel universes collide and the socks disappear?……….

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Peering down a barrel into a microscopic world, a kaleidoscope of moving stars in a universe far away, each star with its own unique pattern, becoming unstable and melting away from view….. Outside in the park we run about in blubbery Wellington boots, hard rubber that screeches our footprints into the field of snow. We build a snow castle using our bare hands, the cold makes them as numb as disbelief and then we put on our gloves and throw snow balls. Thousands of those tiny individual flakes compressed together on catapault arms flying free again, flying floating, drifting down from the heavens come more paratroopers, washing the ground with purity, which will soon turn to gritty grey slush on the sides of road and merge into sodden earth on the football field.

Really snow is ‘nothing’ I taste it and it is just water, plain H2O competely boring. Under a microscope it’s a transparent crystal nothing too it but those beautiful jagged edges. Somehow it reminds me of angels and choirs of hosts singing their song all laid out over the earth.

Hard crunchy snow under foot in a ski resort as I attempt to master the art, riding to the top of the easy run, skis hanging out like helicopter blades. Practicing the snow-plough, make a triangle and slowly wind down on those gentle slopes . Hat keeping in the heat of my head , a jacket as thick as a leg of lamb encloses my body. The world perceived through a tint of yellow glasses…..

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A world map in black and white, gleaming and shining in Briney oblivion. Not something to be stuffed and mounted; too big. A blowhole atop a head speaking air, rows of perfect teeth fed by a diet of high protein fish, strictly Lo-Carb this animal No seaweed munching vegetarian. The water may be cold as he cuts through but his body is like tempered plastic, toughened against the chill. Radar smell scents a penguin or a fish or a seal in need of chasing, in the depths below the light is dim, hazy like a street lit badly from a 40’s black and white movie and he’s a gangster cruising with hat tipped forward and a tommy gun under his coat. He looks harmless but under the cover of that oily skin there’s a serial killer the Dexter of the sea. Just because he looks nice doesn’t mean he is.

Caged animals we see in parks have been domesticated, the real deal in the ocean is pure frenzy in a scrap….I think I’ve seen one in real life at one of those side show aquatic places, trained to jump through hoops, water dripping in gleaming beams from a hide while my flashy arse was numbed by a flat plastic chair. Them and the dolphins and of course the seals – taught to be cheeky as hell- make sure they don’t go in the same cage or pool. Reminds me of this other place in Mooloolaba; Underwater world or something, they had mini manta rays at the entrance, a pool of them. Ffloating triangles like hors d’ouvre bites you get at parties . The edges of their wings flittering like fields of wheat in the wind. We walk through a plexiglass tunnel where sharks and multicoloured fish shoot their eyes at us in vacant disinterest.

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