Monday Morning

It was cold. It is winter. I set off for the office early. Walking, of course. I like to get there early so I can leave early, it is not selfless. Monday comes around so quickly, I’d forgotten how quick. The working week focusses on it.

I write my journal on my phone as I head to work. I can walk and chew gum at the same time, as they say. I catch the free tram down Collins Street. It gets stuff written where I wouldn’t write stuff before I headed to work. Little things, a swish of somebody’s hand, a look, a smell, the way somebody smiled. What I saw, the way I felt that morning, what it felt like to run. My wonky foot. The pain in my head. This Ha, ha. So, there is an upside (to work).

A beautiful Indian boy walked towards me just as I got the notes section up on my phone to write, as I walked around in front of the fire station. Flawless skin, big brown eyes. A serene look. Am I being racist even mentioning his nationality? I fleetingly think. Of course not, I think, just as quickly. How stupid can we get? Funny the things that go through your head? I think it is just a bi-product of the “outrage culture” that we now live in. (I blame it on new services selling the news as a rating commodity)

It was cold, but not as cold as it has been on recent mornings. It was grey, to be sure. I was wrapped in my warm coat. Double-breasted. Double buttons.

I was walking along wondering why I was going to work at all, if I don’t really have to go? (I should write that) What am I trying to prove? (Write that too) Is this defeat? What happened to writing? (I’m doing it) Aren’t I supposed to be writing? (Good stuff. Fiction) Is this just a huge elaborate plan to avoid writing at all?

My feet crunched on the gravel that surrounds the plain trees. I love the sound of the gravel crunching under my feet, the same way I love the sound of gravel on a driveway crunching under a car’s tyres. It makes me feel alive, granted in a quite small way. But, it is the small things in life that are important. (Watch all the small things and the big things take care of themselves…. Ah? Er? Something like that)

I decided to run down MacArthur Street, not because a tram was coming but because I think it is good for us to run every day. I slide my phone into my pocket as I quicken my pace. Besides, it is better than running when a tram is, actually, coming.

Standing at the tram stop, I pulled my phone from my pocket again, and I write some more.

The tram came pretty soon after.

I sat next to a girl with wide hips, I mean huge hips, which took up some of my seat on those narrow tram seats. I sometimes wonder how all that feels, you know, when she runs her hands down over it with a towel, or moisturiser, or something? I was glad when she got off fairly soon afterwards. Then I had the two seats to myself. Smart tram travel, never move over if the person closer to the window gets off, someone will just sit next to you, probably someone who will take up part of your seat. Those modular, easy replace tram seats are narrow.

We sailed up Collins Street in no time.

I followed a guy with a tight, sexy little bubble-butt arse squeezed into dark blue chinos, and a dark blue wool lined jacket, off the tram. Now that was an arse I could have grabbed. (Would have been much more comfortable to sit next to) Just two handfuls.

I jay-walked the main intersection. The morning black parade walked with me down Collins Street.