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The television is on. An image of a man wearing a pink leotard reflects off the dirty windows as his decidedly British voice collides with the stained pine walls before disintegrating in this everlasting heat. The Grandfather clock stifles in the corner, bemoaning the swelter while the seconds pile up and become hours. The hours here were made to be counted down, to be dissected into minutes and eagerly crossed off as each draws to a close. There is no future here and present doesn’t become past quickly enough. This house is as empty as those whom inhabit it.

Another unpublished post.

When will this torment end.

The big reveal

This is who it’s all about.

Follow the link to find out a little more about Elizabeth (Liz) McDougall, the person who I’m looking for, the person who (to me, at least) is missing presumed dead.

If you think this is the behaviour of a madman, that I’m some crazy stalker, you might just be right. I don’t know any more. I really don’t.

Glissando.

Sleep fills my head; it nestles in the corner of my mind and purrs as it peers up at me with its familiar, unblinking gaze. The dreams are not mine to be had, not mine to touch. They reside elsewhere, in a mind far sharper than my own, and I can only throw guesses onto the pile of questions that sprawls across the floor.

The rhythm is soothing, it beckons me to close my eyes and add my own tempo to the …

And there the post ends – apparently last edited June 5, 2008.

It is July 30, 2010. It is a year since I had any communication from the writer of this post. I do not know whether she is alive or dead.

I hope she will read this. And contact me.

Crucify.

The year of your crucifixion was the birth of my nightmares. The words shot from your mouth like unforgiving bullets from a gun. I had no chance; I didn’t want to hear them, but outside the black and white songbirds had taken flight and left behind them a fragile silence in which your four rounds of ammunition sliced through the heavy air and assaulted my ears. It was more an accusation than a statement, wasn’t it? My gaze stayed firmly on the greasy, tawdry linoleum of the kitchen floor in what was either cowardice or confession. Some people weren’t born to dance and you were one of them. Our shuffle became forced and disjointed and I desperately tried to untangle myself from you, but the more I tried the deeper our ties ran. You mirrored every move I made and made it your own, wrapping it up in your filth and storing it under your bed with your shame. There was no escape. Nothing was halved and nothing was whole. The crash was going to be spectacular but your gawp was focused on your self-admiration and vile ways. My gaze stayed firmly on the greasy, tawdry linoleum of the kitchen floor in what was definitely confession.

In the end, I was nothing and you were less. I’m glad I made you carry your own fucking cross.

Longing.

I am in desperate need of a new Favourite Place. One of those places to where I can slink away, usually at ungodly hours of new days, and disappear. A place where I’m untouchable, unreachable and alone. It’s been about three years since I last disappeared properly, which, by my standards, is far too long.

In my previous life, a long time ago, my restless nights were spent drowning in the heavy, salt-laden air of Mona Vale on a beach where I was the only person in the world. Nestled in the sand or perched on the edge of the tidal pool, I’d offer Poseidon drops of my own salt water. He would always take them graciously and, in return, provide me with a fleeting feeling of being alive.

This was my Favourite Place for over a year. During the day the beach was a whore, opening itself up to the world. Settled amongst the glimmering heat waves radiating from the black tar of the parking lot were carloads of emptiness waiting for their newly sunburnt and sand-ridden contents to return. Mothers wiped the icecream-smeared faces of children whilst Fathers packed up the foundations of an enjoyable day out. I stayed far away from this persona of the beach, waiting instead until the stars winked at me from the night sky and the city lights cast a hazy glow on the horizon.

Since the unlamented and long-forgotten death of that life, my Favourite Place has been almost non-existent. There have been occasional whirl-wind romances with various places scattered over three thousand acres in the cold south-west of the former Garden State, but these relationships are short-winded and whimsical… and also prone to the uninvited inquisitions of nosey neighbours.

However; along a crooked fence-line, down in a gully amid a plantation of tall and proud eucalypts is a single pine tree. Resting upright against the broad base of its trunk is a length of steel piping just sturdy enough to give a monkey a leg up and to make her climb a little easier. Amongst the second row of branches, perhaps six metres from the ground, is a worn yellow cushion tied securely to the timber. On the trunk a little way above the cushion is an old nail consumed by rust, and hanging off this nail is a little tin box. A little tin box containing an entire childhood. A mark of a Favourite Place that was.

Now, in this City of Churches, I long for a Favourite Place. The four walls of this room are stifling and unkind and no place for little tin boxes or great Greek Gods.

Haunt.

I am in love with a ghost.

At night, when the crimson leaches from the sky outside and the last of the light is drawn out of the window, I give life to the tangerine and lavender pillars decorating the various nooks and crannies of this small, cramped room. The flickering orange lights cast the beginnings of children’s nightmares on the walls whilst here, in this semi-darkness, I wait for him. There is no need for a Medium; this séance is well rehearsed.

His arrival is announced by an almost imperceptible whisper of his customary greeting in my ear. I want to catch his words as they fall from his lips and lock them away like a precious jewel from a thief before silence robs them from me. The shadows of his fingers pass over my warm skin leaving behind them a frigid trail. He is the ultimate box of chocolates and I am the weakest of wills. I can’t help but indulge myself shamelessly in him.

Though in amongst the sweet nothings caressing my ear a question hides. A question that leaves my mouth dry and my lungs empty. A question that takes my words from me and places them on the highest shelf far out of my reach. It paints images of him on the insides of my eyelids. Images of him sitting in a small, cramped room while the candlelight takes the edge off the darkness and flickers against the walls, creating the beginnings of children’s nightmares, as he waits for me. A well rehearsed séance.

“Why do you haunt me?“

Onwards.

This is a painful admission… but I am a blog slut. A blog slut. There. I’ve said it.

Yes, I am a self-confessed blog slut. I’ve had more blogs than your town’s bicycle has had rides (well, strictly speaking this is probably not entirely true) and each has been as lacklustre as this one promises to be. Over the past seven years, my infrequent blogging habits have left numerous readerships with complex abandonment issues and have probably contributed to sending many a psychiatrist on an expensive holiday in the Swiss Alps (this is probably not entirely true either, for all I know they may spend their holidays in the Caribbean).

I’ve tried to work through my blogging issues. It hasn’t helped. Perhaps it’s because I like the position of power I’m in; I can give you my words but, at the drop of a hat, I can take them away again (sorry, what was that? Oh. Yes, I do intend on getting out more this coming year, really). Perhaps I do it because I am a follower, but then that isn’t necessarily true because whilst everyone has been screaming over Panic! At The Fucking Disco, I have been uttering voodoo-like chants and incantations (I don’t really hope they die. Honestly).

I think, most probably, I do it because I like to pretend. Because I am a dreamer. I like to pretend I can write and so, like most people who can write, I decide that this blogging affair sounds like a good option. However; reality sinks in at about the fifteenth post and I realise I can’t actually write. At all. And then the delete button looks amazingly irresistible.

But, whatever.
[On a side note: I despise the word 'whatever' and its seemingly most common use today. It's utterly, utterly infuriating. It makes me cringe. I know a girl who uses it frequently in her arrogant little way, complete with the flick of her blonde locks and roll of her soulless eyes. I want to kick her in her skinny little solarium-tanned shins.]

So. I give myself eighteen posts.