“Did I Daniel? Well, I’m sorry…. But you must understand; it’s a little difficult to maintain my composure….WHEN YOU PERSIST WITH THIS RIDICULOUS STORY!”
‘He’s suffering angst Mr Lightfoot’
‘Angst Mr Ameazak?’
‘A feeling of deep anxiety; typically concerning the human condition and state of the world in general.’
‘Oh gotcha! Hell, we’re all living in Angstville. Have been since you built Stalag Eden; right Mr Ameazak?’
The Kallu Hum
Grenville Psychiatric Prison, six months later
Lights out had just been called and I lay cocooned in the claustrophobic darkness of my single cell.
‘Halloo Mr Ameazak. Hey! You there?’
Mr Ameazak wasn’t taking calls. Hadn’t since I’d admitted to murder. Shrinks reckoned it was my medication stopped his visits. Well, I’d got me a new song!
‘I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation,
I just ain’t taking my medication.
Bye-bye-bye-my medication baby!’
The familiar explosion of the spurting coke can accompanied by the odorous waft of scorched hair informed me a Kallu Hum had just entered my cell.
‘A KALLU HUM HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!’
“Hey, Mr Ameazak! Where you been? Shittaflit! Thought you’d uptsticks and left me.”
“Hello Daniel. We meet again.”
Instantly recognising the soft camp accent of the assassin, I lay trembling, sucking in lungfuls of fetid air. I wished him no satisfaction.
‘NO S-S-SATISFACTION BABY!’
“You come to kill me or gloat?”
“Neither Daniel; I’ve come to help you. My name is Juan Gabriel.”
Living in the Shoe Box
Existence became half heaven, half hell. Stifling days spent in the regimented drudgery of a prison asylum; an endless routine of psychiatric evaluations, therapy groups, plastic dinners, TV and lights out. Lights out; that magical moment when the door of my cell slammed shut and the automatic lock slid smoothly into place. Each night we journeyed to remote, desolate places of breathtaking natural splendour. That first evening found us lost in the bleak beauty of Africa’s skeleton coast. Sitting amongst windswept dunes, wrapped in our Anu cloaks, we felt no extremes of heat or cold.
“Mr Ameazak’s gone hasn’t he? Flipped out; done a bunk?”
“Yes, Daniel he’s gone; but you’ve got me now.”
“Deceitful douchebag said he’d take me.”
“Yes, he lied Daniel. He lied about a lot of things.”
“Yeah, dam right he did! So, why you here?”
“Guilt I suppose Daniel. I am after all the reason you’re incarcerated.”
“Yeah; guess so. But hey! I don’t blame you Juan. See, I ain’t grinding no axe. Just don’t leave me Juan.”
“No Daniel, I’m not going to leave you.”
“But you’re not gonna take me with you either?”
“Perhaps later Daniel; when you’re feeling a little better.”
“That’ll be a while then; I’ve never felt so frazzlefried in my life!”
“You went to Anu didn’t you Daniel?”
“Yeah, I went to Anu. Just for a peak; before I gave the Kallu Hum to Mr Ameazak.”
“And?”
“Its like a barnacles one eyed trouser snake; way too big!”
“A barnacles what?”
“Beef bayonet! Those John Holmes got the biggest tadgers in the natural world. Relatively speaking of course. Shish! You know, if we had love truncheons the size of a barnacle, they’d be thirty-six feet in length!”
“Oh I see. Yes, I begin to see the analogy; Anu is a little big to grasp.”
“Course it is! You went there too! How come you’re not foaming at the mouth and skipping along to loony tunes?”
“They helped me Daniel, helped me come to terms with it; to adjust.”
“Adjust! How the hell do you ever adjust to Anu? Shittatrip! Like licking a thousand Colorado River Toads!”
“Colorado River Toads?”
“Yeah; they’re psychoactive toads used for getting blunted by the Church of the Toad of Light.”
“Who on earth are the Church of the Toad of Light?”
“God-dam hippy sect. Crazy mothers lick those toads like nympho rug munchers and get higher than a giraffe’s nuts. Cane Toads got the same effect. Hey! You know they even got junky dogs in Australia addicted to those wide mouthed mothers.”
“No, I can’t say I did Daniel.”
“Shish! Become a major a problem. Dogs find em in the backyard, lick em like their balls and next thing they know they’re spark out, chasing purple rabbits through doggy whackoville!”
“You must be joking.”
“Wish I was Juan. Governments had to set up cold turkey kennels for repeat offenders. Anyways, point I’m making; Anu likes that, cep’t a god-dam zillion times more! Holy amped! Even the night sky makes you want to sit and stare at it for ever. You can even forget to eat or drink in that place. I friggin did!”
“Do you have to swear Daniel?”
“Yeah, I do! Fuckenomenal! Only word comes close to explaining that surreal heaven.”
“Try a more literate approach Daniel. You are after all a writer.”
“Yeah right? Well, its like happily living your whole life in a dark shoe box. Then one day someone lifts the lid and you realise the shoe box is actually sitting amidst a magical tropical garden. You can’t make sense of the dazzling colours, the sublime scents and rhapsody of sounds; could never have imagined such exquisite, divine beauty exists. And as you’re craning your neck, gazing in mesmeric, catatonic awe at the majestic nirvana above you; some vindictive bugger puts the lid back
