# 1

All it took was thirteen weeks.

Thirteen glorious weeks of dragging my feet, wondering when the deafening pop of my patience will jolt the fragile eardrums of co-workers; busily addressing the hows and the whys of regulations pertaining to the revised rendition to the previously updated rewording of the procedure to best push paper from one side of a desk to the other; smirking nonchalantly in order to instill the delusion of smooth sailing in choppy surf as the shipwrecked shores call them by their Christian names; never interrupted long enough in their diligent pursuit of prying dried fungus, bacteria and bum-gas particles that are at one with their spacious noses to know that the sun now disappears from view at 4:30pm.

Thirteen stupendous weeks to forget about the troubles I had left behind in a village on an island no bigger than my arm; blessed by tranquility and the non encumbrance of the glittering green back that so dazzled and mesmerised whenever it danced on tables. Thirteen equally memorable weeks since that same island, which had so graciously welcomed me and my caffeine induced psychosis laughed at my persistent and dedicated longing to remove myself from this fuckhole of a place.

To the people of that island in the sun I apologise for my every indiscretion, even my troubled thoughts. May you grant forgiveness at your earliest convenience and the opportunity to redeem myself as I want to return without negativity flowing through my veins.

Thirteen rapturous weeks of being bounced from wall to breakable wall by faceless cornholes in the world's finest suits haggling over minute adjustments to six-figure sums across vast bodies of water and ether; not a dry eye in the house during their rehearsed monologues of woe and pity and buts and excuses and reasons and pseudo apologies and jiggling butts and lubricated dildos inserted into their heaving asses to within breach of the moral code of ethics, while insisting that fault in wording of official documents relating to the rest of my godless life could not possibly lie with them.

To those people I profess revenge of the most destructive psychological and physical kind. Your faces may be unknown but your location isn't.

Thirteen rampaging weeks of finally getting horizontal, showing scantily dressed female clowns my dream pass and drifting into slumber only to be woken several seconds into bliss by the grating hum of miniaturised wings cruising above my eye-line; touching down upon a soft, nourishing surface and feeding until their hearts' contentment.

The clock is counting down until we meet on my terms.

Thirteen breathtaking weeks of conversing with silhouettes; imaginary creatures with impenetrable hides stalking me and striking when I'm at my most vulnerable: when I'm breathing; when I'm hibernating; when I'm targeting the next victim of my internally driven melodramatic soap drama which neither fact nor fiction can pry apart.

I'll be back for you lot.

Thirteen fucking insanely irritating weeks of coping with drivers oblivious to moving particles other than themselves, intent on leading the good life by backing into the middle of main roads and just FUCKING NOT MOVING IN ANY DIRECTION; convulsive body language so obvious that a chimp born prematurely could understand it somehow avoiding their comprehension: THE RIGHT PEDDLE, YOU MYOPIC PROTOZOA, THE FUCKING RIGHT PEDDLE!

The orchestra is tuning.

Thirteen death defying weeks of scraping my eyes with a wire brush as I sit behind trucks as big as my ass while they haul oranges fewer in numbers than I can carry in the palm of my hand; their cornering leaving no opportunity to pass; their unwillingness to exceed 20 km/h or to pull THE FUCK OVER to let the foreign man in the big car with the flashing headlights and unusually high smoke emission from the growling engine behind them pass; their confusion by the remonstration leading to the inevitable confrontation ON A BLIND CORNER AT THE CREST OF A HILL following their unannounced decision to stop the car and give me an earful.

You'll know the bat's manufacturer was foreign by the Easton logo imprinted on your fucking skull.

Aside from that, we sold and bought a house from several thousand kilometres away, which is a significant achievement considering the hellish thirteen weeks it's been.

There's a silver lining around every corner. La-la-la-la.