Bondi Beach
It’s hard to tell you what it looks like to me, standing on the boardwalk above a clean sandy beach watching the repetitive waves, or no not really, watching the heaving ocean just behind the breaking waves, behind the surfers, the in and out breath of the gargantuan. Of course it’s the first thing you do after a divorce or a break up or a firing or redundancy or the myriad of things that happen to each and every one of us at some point: you go and stare at the sea or wiggle your toes in the sand or dip your feet in the water or walk along the rocks like you used to do as a child and sort of remember how you used to think that this was so fucking wonderful and amazing. The beach, as if were, absorbs so much of humanity’s shit and hate and misery just because it can, it can take it, you can see, it absorbs any and everything and it gives nothing back. That dull relentlessness is what soothes us, the repetitiveness, the consistency of the beast, the fact that it doesn’t care, at last, that it goes on. We can remember how to love again when we remember that things go on, can go on, do go on. That, as far as the cosmos is concerned, you don’t matter. That simple fact, easily observed, is immensely consoling. It takes your toes inside it, doesn’t care, lets us throw ourselves in, drown if you must it says, I don’t care…you just drowned, that’s all. Just you. It is the edge of suicide in our most needy event-derived suicidal moments that we seek this monstrosity, this behemoth of uncaring power that tells us it is ok, whichever way you want to go, it is both ok and inconsequential. I walk along the promenade onto the council created coastal walk to get to places where the seemingly peaceful, solace-inducing god-figure of surf and sand gives way to the true power of nature, the hidden reality that you can only sense from the safety of the public bathing arena. Up on the headlands, away from the masses oiling, sunning and flexing themselves are the rocks, the thrashing waves beating their full force, aggrandising their position as the arbiter of death, telling you that yes, you can die, but it will not be pleasant, it is not that easy after all. I will take your body and throw you onto rocks, three, four or five times before exhaustion causes you to inhale all of the salty water I have enmeshed you in and then, and only then, will I allow your lifeless carcass to be consumed by me, rolled under and in, lost amongst the tide and rocks, not even fish food, some other one will drag you out pointlessly, and that will be you. You will have had your violence at my hand and it was not graceful, it was not a slow meaningful exit, it was hard and harsh and quicker than you thought, and you panicked didn’t you, you panicked after the very first wave and you prayed and you wanted to live. But it was too late because I am a true god: merciless, relentless and unaware of one small human being.
It’s hard to tell you what it looks like, from here, watching people, not really watching but, noticing them in my field of vision doing things; running, playing, baking, kicking a ball between them, talking, kissing, drinking a beer. I take it all as living, living a better life than I am living right now, that’s how I take it even though I know it’s not true, it just feels like it’s true, or, should be true, or better god-damned be true. I get it: they have just forgotten about stuff, they have come to the beach, a place where this stuff is supposed to be forgotten, where ‘stuff’ is consumed, they’ve left it in places where there is not a large plane of sand that gently slopes down into refreshing self replenishing salt waters that have health properties. Salt water can quicken the healing of wounds, can help alleviate back problems, can help you reconnect with your family. There is a young girl lying on her front with a small bikini on with the top of her bikini off and I almost start crying because I know that I will never be her boyfriend, yes, this perverted desire can make me upset, that I have aged and am who I am with all of my life that I have lived and still, still just this, this small, regular, normal thing can almost bring me to tears, like there is something I can do about it, other than pay two hundred and fifty bucks in a few hours to fuck a prostitute who looks near enough like her and is roughly the same age. There is always an outcome for this type of gross realisation, one that is perhaps worse than the realisation itself. Instead, I cast my eyes, not back to the blue lumps coming, ever coming, but across to the young men, happily bare chested, happily frolicking unaware that life is coming, life is happening, life is ticking and, worse, unaware that there are beautiful girls all around, because, they do not care, they fuck all the time, they are used to it, they do not need to love or admire or worship or dream or desire. They can live like that, go home, shower, get clothes on and continue on, the same thing, their same bodies now in clothes out in the cemented street cities, out with their eyes and the smell of the sea clinging to them, looking for that girl from the beach who was right next to them wearing nothing but small bikini bottoms just hours ago, this time, it is their best dream, their hardest want. But they get drunk and one of them gets into a fight and gets his nose broken so they all end up at 2 am sitting in an emergency ward, drunk, talking to nurses who are perhaps only five or ten years older than them but that’s what they like now, now that they are here after all.
It’s hard to tell you what brought me here, after all the clichés are spent, after all the desires are dreamt, after all the hours of the day you used to get through, clothed in shirts, pants, leather shoes, watching the sunlight and clear sky out of the window. I’ve only been here for an hour, I’ve smoked a cigar, I’ve patted a dog. I think about getting home. My wife thinks I am having a beer with my old work mates, retirees. I haven’t seen those guys since each of them quit, maybe five or more years ago. She wants to remember me as that young man I was, always going out, drinking, having fun with the guys on Friday night. Scolding me every Saturday morning for being a drunken lout, making me breakfast and not talking to me, getting through the morning and then we’d go to church on Sunday, me: sober, dressed. We used to bring our daughter before she moved out, or, did she stop going before then? Yes, she did, sorry. Anyway so, I am supposed to be out drinking because my wife thinks that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I used to do it too much. I miss my wife from those days. I wish I didn’t drink so god damned much. I didn’t even really get to know her for thirty fucking years. Who is this woman? I mean, I was there, but…christ, she is my wife, I married her when she was twenty seven. I worked like that for thirty years, drank for thirty years or more, and, now I am retired and I have a wife who now just wants me to go out and have a drink. She used to care, used to hate me, used to want me around, be with me, know me, have a life. Now she gets me dressed in the morning and tells me to go out in the afternoon and have a few beers with my old mates. She has given up, or, she gave up a long time ago. I go to the beach and stare at the waves and the young people. I don’t think about dying like I said, I’ll go home.
