Aidan.

Hey folks. New character. Enjoy. Love to all.

***

He adjusted his tie and collar as he walked into the old civic hall. There was a kettle filled with hot water on a side table in the corner close to the entrance, with bland-looking biscuits stacked on a plate. Tea bags and cheap instant coffee along with mini packages of cream occupied the corner of the table. The hall was huge, completely vacant save for the group of people in front of him.

They were seated on wooden chairs in a circle. It was almost comical how stereotypical these meetings were. Just like on television, one had to grab a name tag, scribble his name on and take a seat to become part of the "circle of trust". He didn't trust a damned soul in the “circle”.

Leading the meeting was a beady-eyed, podgy middle-aged lady with purple hair. Her name was Page. She acknowledged everyone, smiled sweetly, patted arms gently and spoke with a soothing voice. Next to her was an obnoxious-looking man, with bell bottom pants, a moustache and bejewelled fingers. Yet another stereotype met.

"Douchey pervert. Check," he thought to himself. Next to the Douchebag was a waif-thin woman in what could only be called pyjamas. She was clutching a teddy bear in one hand and a tissue in the other.

"Scared woman-child. Check," he ticked off one more stereotype on his mental list. An obese man wearing a baseball cap backwards with a chocolate stain on his upper lip was sobbing in silence next to the Woman-Child. An elderly lady with knitting needles on her lap looked forlorn and in pain. Her tear-soaked, wrinkled eye bags evidence that this meeting was going to be painful and excruciating.

“Tick, tick and tick,” he thought to himself. “Stereotype central.”

“Uhh, Aidan, take a seat will you. You’ll be sitting next to Amanda,” Page cooed at him. Funnily, he liked the sound of Page’s voice. She truly was soothing. He wanted to turn around and leave. He wanted to run away. Why was he here? Did he really deserve to be relegated to the average stereotype of an anonymous group meeting?

His body knew things he didn’t. He found himself seated next to the Old Knitting Lady. Her red and white sticky paper nametag said, “Hello, my name is Amanda.” He cleared and throat and Page prompted him to introduce himself.

“H-h-h-hello everyone. My name is Aidan,” he heard himself say. As if it were really out of a tv show, the group chimed in drearily, “Hullo Aidan.”

“Aidan, uh, would you mind introducing yourself again, only this time, tell us why you’re here. Why you’re really here...” Page insisted, in the most gentle way possible. He knew it was crunch time. He had to face it. He had to face his own pain, and just like in the movies, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one. His palms were instantly sweaty, his brow immediately furrowed, his eyes began to sting. He knew he was about to cry. Again, as he had for the past few days.

“Hello everyone. My name is Aidan and I have a broken heart,” he whispered. And then burst into tears.

A Night At the Bus Stop

Wow, it's been a while, eh? I'm a little rusty but I've warmed my fingers on this one. Let me know what you think, should I give up writing? You want more of The Builder? You want more flash fiction pieces? Let me know. Drop me a line. I've missed you people. All of you. Yeah, you, just you, just my one and only reader.

***

One could say it was frigidly cold, one could say it was it was just windy – she really couldn’t tell what it was when it came to talking about the weather. Really, one could just say it was fucking cold and move away from the whole awkward situation. She wished, if only for a minute, she had studied meteorology and knew all the buzz words linked to the weather. She often asked herself if anyone had ever really mastered the art of talking about the weather.

Completely absorbed in her own thoughts about the weather, almost like an autistic, she walked down the crowded street, ears plugged with earphones blaring techno music with her head hung low and her back pack pulled high to give her a hunched, almost ogre-ish gait. She travelled alone most of the time and knew all the tricks, how to make herself look like a homeless person, how to appear menacing at the worst of times, how to look bigger than she actually is, fooling one into believing she was actually a man – she knew it all.

Underneath the ugly, tasteless and worst of all, heavy jacket, she was really quite beautiful;  a sharp nose, perfectly straight teeth, high cheek bones, inquisitive brown eyes, shoulder-length black hair and a shapely body to boot. She bordered on breath-taking. When she wasn’t pretending to be a ghoul men had walked up to her and told her that she was gorgeous, and if they didn’t, they looked their fill and gave her approving glances. She felt their eyes on her – every time.

Most girls should be flattered, they should be proud to have men look at them with such adoration. She was flattered, really, but not while she was commuting home. One could never be too careful. It was still early in the evening and orange clouds were slowly turning purple. She knew every inch of the path she walked; each crack, every crevice, the mountains of cigarettes that either grew or shrank depending on whether or not the cleaners had cleared them – she knew it all.

As she turned the corner, the corner she had turned hundreds of times, she felt the sizzle in the air. Something was different about it. She was drawn back to her schizophrenic ruminations about not being able to describe the weather accurately. She felt herself shiver and knew it wasn’t the weather that had changed. She realised today would not be like other days, today something would change.

Pulling her frayed collar closer, her eyes darting around furtively, the sound of her footsteps softening; she tried to feel out the cause of the sudden interruption of peace. Nothing. Almost as though it was the scene from a movie, the trees had suddenly stopped waving around in the breeze. She found herself on the home stretch – she was in suburbia already. The air crackled with some nameless of tension. It seemed the crowd she had started walking with had shrunk, and eventually one by one the pedestrians had walked away or diverged.

She knew better than to wave this feeling off, the air was crackling with some strange tension. If only she didn’t live so far. The bus stop was close by. She figured she’d stop walking, take the bus and somehow change the course of events that could possibly happen. What evil lay waiting for her on the road home? She wondered if skipping the walk and having the bus drop her off a little closer to home might help. She dug her hand into her pocket and turned the music down low – before deciding to shuffle the songs over and listen to something a little less raucous.  

A sad song started playing as she rounded the bus stop and perched herself on the metal bench. It was just so quiet. It was so deserted. She knew something was about to happen, but couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out what it was. She likened it to the feeling you get when you’re just about to ram your car into the car in front of you at the traffic light. You know you need to stop but you keep going anyway – until something happens. Laughing at the thought of a minor vehicular collision, she relaxed a little. The previously orange-purple sky had now turned dark. A small streetlight lit the immediate area around her. The air smelled like rain was about to fall, like grass had just been cut, like children had played nearby.

The bus was not due for another twenty minutes, but she didn’t want to tempt fate by continuing her walk home. She would wait for the bus, where it was safe, where there was a street light, where there was a playground nearby, where there was a strange form moving behind the trees...

The End of The World in Perth

After a long hiatus, which really was no hiatus at all, I have returned to my hobby of writing. Only this time, I feel I need to explain the goings on in my head. I have come to the point where I do actually believe the world is coming to an end.

What proof do I actually have that the world is about expire along with all other corporeal entities on it? First of all, the natural disasters and their repercussions are increasing in their severity and intensity. Secondly, there are diseases out there stealing away the lives of our young and the current health care provisions are, quite simply put, shit. Then there is the issue of infertile women and impotent men – I have been checking my spam box, and there is a tonne of mail selling male performance enhancers. What happened to the classic boner? 

Following that appalling bit of information, the one true reason I am convinced that the world is about to stop spinning is, well, I still can’t whistle. I have practised fruitlessly all my life, but to no avail. Also, I am the world’s most isolated city, Perth. In Australia...If I could describe the entire city in one word, the only adjective that come to mind is “Bleh”. Yes. “Bleh”. The world is coming to an end. I’m sure of it.

Having gone from Kuala Lumpur to Moscow to Melbourne then back to Kuala Lumpur and Kuching, Perth really does seem like a step down as far as “city-living” goes. Slow paced, smiley and relatively safe, it’s exactly the kind of place Grammy and Grampaw would enjoy. Kuching was also a slow paced town, but I was fully equipped (I had a car to drive around – too easy, and I had a swanky apartment, which then turned into a swanky house) Now I live with an old lady and her cat. Yes. Her cat. She’s got diabetes and arthritis, requires insulin twice daily. Yes. I was talking about her cat. My landlady is wonderful, actually. Also in the house is a sophomoric 22 year-old from Hong Kong. Also wonderful.

Something is missing, and it’s not just the fact that I miss Hamster Wong terribly. I miss having my own kitchen, I miss having my own car and the freedom (financial, temporal and spatial). I also miss smoking terribly. Having to quit, but not quite totally, has been incredibly hard for me. I had been smoking for ten years. It was truly time to give it up. Shyly, I also miss being a doctor. I am very proud of what I’m about to become, but one can never really let go of the feeling of a ward full of patients.

I have started a seemingly fancy course at a seemingly fancy university, but like many other places, it’s all a farce. No university is as amazing as they claim to be, no student is as brilliant and happy as pictured in the glossy brochures. I am now a full time student. I do love it, I must admit. I miss my friends from Russia. You people are the ones I miss most. I suddenly appreciate my old housemate even more than I ever did, I miss my friends from senior years who always had time for me, who always had fun with me, I miss Moscow more than anything in the world and would give just about anything to go back.

I miss the painfully cold winters, the lightning speed internet, the fast-paced throbbing of a city that never sleeps, never rests and almost never leaves one bored. I was recently told that I was too forgiving, and that while I was in Russia I was incredibly unhappy. I don’t remember being unhappy. I remember life being hard and I remember relishing it. I must have complained and sought sympathy a lot more than I thought I had. Oh well. Moscow, you will be missed eternally - even after the world comes to an end.

Expect new articles and stories from me soon. I wish I had the time to write so much more. I’ve truly missed it. Cheers for the end of the world. Perhaps we'll all get cancer before we go, just because it could happen. Bite me.