8. Six in the first at Randwick

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I arrive at the airport with the thought something will go wrong, ptsd stricken through my blood. I thought about what I will do when this doesn’t work out; My early flight to Goa. I awake at 3:30am. But I don’t get to sleep in fear I won’t awake at 3:30am. I had a dream I was home; in Wandong. Which will always be my home. There is a good line by someone that I’m going to steal - I’m always going home, I’m always going to my fathers house. Or something like that, when I think of home I think of my mother. How she cannot do anything but be a mother. How beautiful she is. Dinner is ready. The washing done and folded. Everything done in a way only your own mother can. You try to do things yourself, like clean your sheets and cook your meals, but it just isn’t the same. A mothers love really is the best ingredient for anything in life. My heart is riddled with it.

I thought I’d just get an Uber to Goa. Would take 16 hours. I’d sit in the back as the man drives between trucks and beeps at goats. I don’t care. To my beautiful and grateful surprise everything went to plan. My luggage was 2kg over the limit but the man who sat with a smile behind the desk didn’t mind. I walk through, slightly scattered but excited and guess who I see.

Jack. The diamond exporter. I’d left his last 12-15 messages go by and last night I messaged him back. Mainly because I was going to a bar close to his apartment and wanted the reassurance I wouldn’t run into them. Jack told me that him and Raj were driving. That they were going to Goa next. That they wanted me to jump in on their plans. The plans the invisible lured jack towards. So I caught him in his own lie. He was at the airport flying home to Mumbai. Solidifying my souls disgruntlement towards him. He also wasn’t with Raj, he was with his boss. The odds are innumerable. As I sit and wait for the first half decent coffee I’d had in two weeks he walks in. Tail between his legs!! As fore mentioned; the gods that came to me when I first sat with Jack. The psychedelic feeling. The geometry and red shades on the white walls. Sober yet altered. They have come to me before. Whilst sober that is. After sleeping with a girl I fell in love with before coming away. Now that Jack has been exposed by coincidence, if there is such a thing. I can tell those gods were warning me. So were they warning me of that girl? Or is each time my own interpretation and they can only show their presence. I had a bad dream the night after meeting them. Which I have not told you about. But it involved danger, and then my Dad being given up by my uncle and cousin. The real emotional knowledge that my Dad was in trouble. That I was going to lose him. I took that as a sign, that my dad is a symbol for wisdom and guidance. Me handing over my future to Jack to pursue this false reality of travelling the world exporting diamonds and making 400k a year with little to no work was bullshit. Obvious when you see it in text. You get nothing in this life for free, and if you do, then you just haven’t realised what it cost.

I walk from Jack, sipping my macchiato. Hand my ticket to the lady, she scans it, a successful beep and I feel I could float to Goa myself.

Kochi, you are mere but a toenail on the body of India. But by golly, what a beautiful toenail you were. But like all good things, they have an expiry date, and I’m excited to leave.

Now I sit on this rattling plane with a free aisle. My fat feet lay across the seats. Nail polish splattered on my toenails from my nephew over a month ago. No sleep and a coffee and I have the anxiety this thing is going down. I don’t usually get scared of flying so I know it’s the circumstances. My intuition proves well but it can be corrupted. My intuition can also observe my intuition and know when it’s bogus.

I am scared to die - are you?

It gives me time to ruminate. I think about what I’d leave behind. The life I’ve lived to date. It all goes to beautiful dust eventually. Star dust that builds us. Falls away. But what do I want out of life?

The man with a mortgage and a girlfriend, settled in and settled down. Alive but not living. All he wanted to do was run. Give his heart to the pen. Take a chunk out of this juicy peach. But now I grow maternal instincts like a 33-year-old woman. I think about having a child. I really want a child. But that’s the thing with this polarising mind. The grass grows green on the other side of the fence. Maybe you need to run away to realise what you want to run back to. Or maybe, and there is every chance, that I am just horny. But the pursuit of meaning, the pursuit of that thing you’re looking for. That spirit sized hole in your soul. A key you are trying to cut with experience. Chip away the clay that clings to you. I think it’s always going to be there. You can chuck the external world into it. You can chuck a kid into it. 25 kids. But you have to find it within yourself. Or I could be completely wrong. When I have that child. Little Riley junior with a fat ass like his old man. Then it’ll all fall into place. I think everything is in place. Why the spirits have the ability to reach me even whilst sober. In saying that, I could go a joint. I could go a fistful of mushrooms. There is one thing that prevents me from having a child and that’s the ability to support it. The pursuit of the arts. It’s not going to pay the bills the way it needs to. Not for a little while yet.

The dream in life is to support your family with a job you love. But if that’s not enough, you can learn to love supporting the family you love.

Or I could start taking horse racing real seriously. Or blackjack. Or I could smuggle diamonds around the world!? That’s it! Turn this plane around pilot, I’m coming for you Jack!

All in all, Riley has done it again, on his way to another city to walk around and think in. Hopefully see more good paintings. Some western women to fondle with. A child to adopt. A joint to smoke. A kingfisher to strangle. A poem to write. A soul to flourish.

And if this thing goes down, if the great Riley Dyson finally meets his maker, then find this passage. Show it to the world. Capitalise off it and put all the profits on the six in the first at Randwick this Saturday.

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