Saturday, February 23, 2008

Magic

I'm often plagued by the 4am Horrors. There's a lot that's wrong with the life I've lead. There's a lot - given the impossible opportunity - that I would change if I had the chance. More than one wannabe has said they have no regrets. Fuck, man, have some of mine; I've got thousands.

But just then, just moments ago... I've been wide awake for a while and the sky is lightening and I've been thinking it's raining but it's just the wind playing with the leaves outside the window. And there's just the silent whirlwind of thoughts in my mind and I'm free-falling through my maelstrom of regret and love and thinking about that time I met that singer and how I've got four editors now and where am I ever going to ever get the money because I'm living on borrowed time and is there happiness and what have I done and then I hear this sound. It's a flock of birds. Rare birds. I remember them from a lifetime ago. They are black cockatoos or corellas, can't recall which. They are flying overhead with their happystrange call, their laugh, their cry that's saying get up silly humans and look at this shining new day. Eeerie laughter in the dawn air.

I'm up and at the window with a smile on my face because I want to see this flock from the past, from when I was a boy in the bush-thick suburbs. But I'm too late and they are gone, their call fading fast. My smile fades. Sweet sound. Sad sound. Music.

I go back to the couch and I sit in the shrinking dark and suddenly it's like time itself is suspended. I'm somewhere between the 4am horrors and the reality of a new day which could bring anything... and it's the weirdest thing but I can see all the people. All the ones who were a part of this particular existence that is me. The ones who made me laugh and the ones who made me cry, the ones who liked me and the ones I hurt... all there, suspended in this still moment.

And that's all really. They were just there. They all played a part in the flawed thing that is me, and that is all.

There's a wedding on a beach today that I wasn't going to go to. But the theme is Magic and I get to wear a plush red cape, so I think I'll go after all.

6 comments:

meva said...

Lee.

You are a most beautiful human.

One I don't know, but wish I did.

This post is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.


Thank you.

xx

Lee Bemrose said...

Wow, Meva. I doubt there is a lovlier thing someone could possibly say to someone they've never met. I thank you.

I'll write about the wedding later. It was indeed quite a magical day.

But right now I think I'll just re-read your comment and smile to myself.

Anonymous said...

Meva's comment and your reaction to it BOTH made me smile. How lovely.

Benito Di Fonzo said...

3am is when I get my sweats, apparently 3am is 'the witching hour' because it was 3pm that some cunt died on a cross or something, and 'il diablo' gets the opposite... doesn't make much sense to me but whenever i wake up as frightened as tony soprano and sweating with anxiety, hallucinating monsters in the bathroom, it's always around 3am... maybe it's something i eat?

discuss, with reference to the text.

Benito Di Fonzo said...

oh, should say, just came upon your blog while researching for an interview with one Mr. Cowell I am conducting domani, and ended up surfing it, as you do... nice prose.

Lee Bemrose said...

Hello Benito. Thanks for dropping by. Hope the Brendan Cowell piece was some help... it probably wasn't.