Remnants of a Saturday Night

Sunday morning early, five a.m to be precise, my mind awakes, then gently succours the body to arise from one’s mundane sleep. I then transfer to Britain via 1ZB, listening to the English football commentary, it’s worth the lack of sleep. Six a.m when finished, my jogging gear I engage, then to the streets of Manurewa and beyond, I go to record this page. Mahia road, with scattered glass set out like a sculptor mad kaleidoscope, sometimes giving the impression of an artistic master piece. Yet! always pointing upwards, in the parks, on the pavement, along the roadway, abundance of glass, complemented occasionally with odd smithereens of windscreen, to add a more neutral effect to the greens and browns, laying in profusion there. Moving on towards the hallow Gallagher Park, one espy two young girls sniffing glue, like it was an art, then pacing up and down the hedgerow as in some hallucinogenic dilemma. Alfriston road where a dilapidated Morris Oxford stripped of its bare essentials, sits naked, the unscrupulous thief not in any hurry to close the door, after his implicit plunder. Redoubt road where two youngsters returning from a night on the town, decide to hit a speed limit sign, this on the easiest stretch of the road, they had to hit it, there was nothing else to hit. “An idea flashing through my mind, tells me ‘These lads would be useful in a desert looking for water’” Hollyford road where poetic scenes one does greet, the fresh ice blue morning sky, beginning to fashion a hint of cloud rouged in cosmetic splendor, metropolitan Auckland spread evenly ahead, Rangitoto Island, majestic, yet languid in a shroud of northern mist, as one contemplates, ancient sirens beckoning one forth, into their watery grave, for the scene is one of conceivable beauty. But as one ventures towards the sleeping establishment, an odious smell begins to develop, an odour of the masses, akin to the morning after a piss up, booze, farts, belches and spew the sudorific populous at its worst, one could feel the stench lavishly within the breeze, my senses begin to absorb the stimuli, my lungs the slithery ooze, as the unseen prehensile seeps through the walls, the open widows and chimney flues, trapped in a massive air pocket, no escape for it, waiting for nature to absorb, as with all others that man has seen fit to produce. Boundary road, vehicles rushing by “Thank God” for the exhaust fumes, I hypocritically say, knowing now I was back into civilization. Wind assisted spinning bicycle wheel, laying where it’s unaccustomed rider had left it, no doubt glad of the ride and probably thinking “Stuff the owner, stuff the world,” Stuff! me if it had been any darker, I would have fallen over the bloody thing. Soaking farm beast glaring at me as though I’m bloody stupid, and probably right, theirs a force situation, mine entirely voluntary. Pokekoes silently stalking the grass verge, one of them on the roadway never to stalk again (not in this world anyway.) But worst aspect of all, is the transmogrified hulk that drags itself out of the shop doorway, awakening from a stoned related sleep, one red eye just managing to open, trying to look into the other, to see why it is not. Then a sudden impulse of shame as I approach quickly disguised, into a couldn’t care less attitude of the hard guy he wishes he was, one cannot be in awe or disgust, but feel a great sorrow, surely someone loves this thing! Someone somewhere cares. One tries to imagine the innocence of a child babbling in it’s cot, not a care, no poison as yet entering it’s feeble brain. This! this transition of matter, with the sun, rising to serve a brand new day!!! © Harry J Horsman 1986