A random Saturday night on earth.

It's a Saturday night as I make my way to the fridge at the back of the bottle shop where the mixed drink cans live. Over the store sound system Elvis Costello is singing about how he'd rather be anywhere else but here today, looking around I note that many of the people in my immediate vicinity share these sentiments. I take my six pack of scotch and cola to the counter and fumble with the change compartment in my wallet in an attempt to pay for my drinks. I can feel the store clerk's eyes burrowing hatefully into me; I am standing between her and Saturday night torturing her with my lack of coordination and resolve. Shamed by the waves of psychic hostility being fired at me as I waste her time I give up on my quest for gold coins and decide to break a note... the girl behind the counter makes it very clear that we are not friends as she hands me my change with a trademark 'go-fuck-yourself' glare, her voice dripping artificial sweetener cut with poison as she waves me off spitting a "Have a great night!" through clenched teeth.


With my headphones in I get to the train station just as the train is pulling in, the carriage doors open and I find a seat. I am especially glad to be off the platform tonight because the security guard who always wants to tell about the latest girl he picked up and shagged in some random alley behind whichever 'smooth urban grooves' night club he happened to be at is working tonight and I am not in the mood... my migraine headache fading as the pills work their dislocating and disorienting magic on me, sitting there wandering around in my own thoughts listening to...

"Quick the cops are coming!!!!!!"


What the fuck was that?!


The meat head security guard's bogan friend is trying to freak out Lilydale stations' usual host of street trash rushing from carriage to carriage hoping for an outstanding arrest warrant but no one is biting... the whole world around me feels like it lacks the energy to care. A wave of disgust washes over me, I hate this fucking dead-shit place. The feeling that I want to smash something slowly fades as I melt back into a headache pill induced trance, the doors beep and the train takes off. I tune out till I get to Blackburn, pick up my bag and slip off into the night... at Blackburn I am busting for a piss so I go to an automated toilet covered in layer upon layer of graffiti, I recognise some of the tags from my end of the line... outside again and I am having trouble getting my bearings, this is not the Blackburn I remember. I stop to ask a girl for directions, she is dressed entirely in black and has weird scabs all over her face, she sounds very spaced and tells me she can't help me, a man who has no legs waves to her and she calls him over... obviously her time for me time has expired... I cross paths with her amputee friend as I walk away and notice that he too is covered in scabs.


A couple of hours later and my night ends in the messy drunken puddle I knew it would... I am propping myself up in some cut rate 24 hour Chinese place waiting for our takeaway order whilst my friend vomits in the restaurant toilets. This story is not remarkable, it is just another mundane Saturday night running parallel to a million others; smoke some cigarettes, drink some cans, talk some shit and try to forget that the working week is creeping up on us once again; before we know it it's time to wake up hungover, swear this is the last time and wish we knew how to spend our time more constructively... and life goes on...