When I woke up the sun was getting ready to sleep and I had pictures of women swimming around inside my head that made me wish for their scent and touch again, but that was going to have to wait, who knows how long. Downstairs was still dry as a desert. And amongst the swimming women there were words too, whole snakes of them, swirling through and around the various arms and limbs and delectable bodies and faces. I could make out a phrase or two here and there but that was all. It only took the short walk back to the bar to convince me though that the sentences and such I could see waving about all over the lovely ladies, like seaweed, were from varying lines of the manuscript Louis had posted a while back, and which I had read, and read again, and had even consulted an appropriate dictionary once or twice to see if I would have translated this or that the same way. But I never went near the ones he had left behind in their original state, no, something there was holding me back from going anywhere beyond the most barest of glances.
The bar was busy. Post work quenching going on. I bought a beer and found a corner from which to watch. Next thing I know it's some drinks later and I'm in conversation with a kind eyed man called Sol who looks as if he could with one hand swing me around like a flag if he so chose. And then he offers me a job lugging rock next morning. He's a landscaper, currently building a dry stone wall down the bottom of an escarpment up at a property in Katoomba, though the residents prefer to say it's somewhere in Leura.
The next day, ably accomplishing the task earlier than expected, a little after lunch, he handed over some cash and mentioned a gardener’s position he knew was going at a nearby old people's home, if I was interested. And after jotting down the details, I drove the car to the edge of the bush and promptly went back to sleep again.
Posts
