The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

Sunday, May 31st 2009

Okay. Things have happened. I'm writing this from Sarah's room. I'm not used to her keyboard and it's hard to type. It's got all these new keys on it that open windows and make lights go on and off. But I need to get this all down while it's fresh in my mind, so I'll just go slow. I've got all night.

The things started happening on Saturday morning when Celene came over – just like how we planned – and we called up all the tenants to tell them to come back. This part was really exciting because I was moving bits of the world around just by talking into my phone. There were snags though. I ran out of credit a few times but Celene would run out to the shop to get me some more even though it was raining.

The conversations I had with the tenants started off awkward but when I got into the flow of them, they got pretty fun. It was nice to find out they were all real people with voices. The biggest problem was that most of them didn't know who I was, so they wouldn't just take my word for it when I said that they could come back. But then by the third conversation or so I had the idea to say I was the landlord's friend or a developer or even David, which I think made things a lot easier because I didn't have to explain the whole shark thing. But there was one person who did know who I was and that conversation went a little like this:

“Hello?” This is the other person speaking.
“Oh, hello. Is that Mr. Roberts?” This is me speaking.
“Yes, who's speaking please?”
“Oh, hi Mr. Roberts. Yes, this is just The Ancient Shark Of Despair calling. I'd just like to tell you -”
“I'm sorry, what? Who's speaking?”
“The Ancient Shark Of Despair. I'm the Shark. You used to live in my building. You lived downstairs. I lived upstairs.”
“The – the shark?”
“Yeah, that's my deal. But don't worry, it takes all kinds of people to make a community, you know?”
“Oh god.”
“I met you on the stairs one time. Do you remember?”
“Oh god oh god,” he sounded really tired here, like he was just about to fall asleep and could see the dreams coming at him.
“But hey, I found out you're in Greyton now. That's cool, Greyton is very wide-open, it's not like Mowbray. It's not quite my kind of place.”
“How did you know that? How did you get this number?” he said. I tried to think of a good response to that. I didn't want to lie but I didn't want to turn him away from my team by admitting that the landlord had secret files on everyone. People get nervous when they are around someone who has too much knowledge. So anyway, I just stayed quiet for a while then said,
“You can come back to Mowbray to live now. The developers aren't coming any more. I sorted it all out for you.” There was a pause while he absorbed this huge thing I'd just told him.
“My landlord said that - ” he said, but I was on him.
“He doesn't know yet. It's going to be this big surprise. He still thinks that the developers are going to come here and destroy everything that matters. He doesn't know that I beat them. He thinks that he tidied up the garden for nothing, but he didn't. He tidied up the garden because there will always be a garden so long as I'm around. I'm going to be around forever.”
“I don't – what is, I mean,” I heard him swallow and get a grip. Get a grip, Mr. Roberts! “What did you do?”
“Come back to the house on Sunday morning and you'll see. We're all going to be together again. We're going to be a community.” I liked the sound of that. I hung up before he could say anything to spoil the flow and then I smiled at Colleen to tell her I'd been successful and she raised her eyebrows to say that she approved, then I went on to the next call. The next call was difficult. The name I saw on the list had been crossed out but the phone numbers were still there. The name was actually three names – the members of a family we all knew once. David's name was one of the names. I could see it under the crossing-out. I signalled to Celene to tell her to keep cool and not expect this one to work out so well. I can't work very well if she's expecting too much of me. I held my breath and typed in the cell number.
“Good morning, Craig speaking,” was the voice.
“Hi,” I said, and my voice was already all over the place. I pulled it back under my control and I think I took a bit too long to do this. “I'm looking for David – is David there?”
“Who is this?” he said sharply.
“Tell him it's me, it's the Shark. He knows me, it's cool.”
“The Shark?”
“Yeah, that's me. I mean, that's what they call me because, you know.”
“And what do you want with David?” the voice was cold and metal. I could almost taste it.
“Just uh, could you give him a message for me please? Ask him why he doesn't respond to my e-mails anymore. I'm not angry or anything, and he doesn't have to reply back if he doesn't want to, but I just want to know why.”
There was a long, stony silence on the other end of the phone. I cleared my throat twice and breathed as quietly as possible. Eventually, David's father said,
“You used to live in the same building as us, didn't you? Upstairs?”
“Yeah, well no. Not any more,” I said. I didn't like something about his voice and had to throw him off my trail.
“I'm going to have a little talk with David when he comes home,” he said.
“Okay, goodbye. Peace.” I said, but he'd hung up already. I guess he liked the sound of that last line and didn't want me to spoil the flow. That's just how it is sometimes.

I smiled at Celene and she raised her eyebrows, but the way she did it told me that she had questions. I waved them down. I had another call to make. I called the number but it was busy. I called it and called it a million times before I realised that the number was my number, only the landlord had put it under a false name. Celene wanted to know was up, but try explaining something like that without using any real words.

The mission had been difficult but we were successful. We'd called everyone on the list and told them all to come back. Normally I try and explain what's happening and who's who to Celene when we watch TV, but this time she was cool to just it all wash over her and heal her. We'd done well. Then our son arrived at the door. We heard him coming a bit before he knocked, actually. Celene's hearing is almost as good as a shark's. When that happened, we looked at each other like 'Oh no!' but then our look changed at the same time to 'It will be nice to see him!' and then back to 'Oh no!' because we'd have to explain everything.

Knock knock knock went the door.
“Oh, who is it?” I called from across the room.
“It's me,” said the kid.
“Can you come back later?” I said. He thought about this.
“No, we need to come in and start the moving now,” he said.
“No, I don't think I'm ready yet. I've just woken up.” There was the sound of moving papers and then a voice, a voice that wasn't supposed to be heard, said,
“I think your mother's in there too,” it was Henrietta's voice. Then there was the soft hum of the landlord's voice. I didn't hear what he said but it was enough to tell me he was there. They'd come in numbers. I thought quickly and pushed the bed in front of the door. They heard me do this.
“Shark, I'm going to open the door with my key,” said the landlord. He wasn't threatening or aggressive about i, he was just giving me a heads-up. That was fair of him because it was taking a while to get my bed into place. There was too much stuff on the floor. I managed to get it in front of the door before the landlord could get it fully opened. Things were looking good for my side – the landlord couldn't fit through the crack in the door, all he could fit through were his words.
“Shark, come now. We've got the movers downstairs and we're renting the truck by the hour. It's very expensive and we've got a helluva lot to do and we've got no time for this nonsense now.” I didn't speak. Celene looked like she was going to move. He must have sensed that because then he started talking to her in Japanese. She was about to respond but I helf up my fin – no. He was trying to fight us with emotions, so that's the weapon we would use too. Doing nothing can be the most powerful emotion of all. It worked. He resorted to pleading in a soft voice. “Please Sharky. Please. We need to do this. It has to be today.” He didn't even need to say it, really. I could tell what he was feeling through the door, through the bed, across the room.

Then the kid came forward. It was ROUND 2. The kid is harder than the landlord because I don't know his tricks and techniques as well. When I stayed up in the landlord's mother's attic for a while, the kid was the one who got me to come down in the end. I think he's a lot cleverer than the landlord, actually. He could be as clever as Moe.
“We know you have the deeds,” said the kid. “We know you wanted to surprise us so we thought we would surprise you instead. The movers aren't here to move you out, they're here to move everything back in. So let us in, Mom can make us all some tea and we can put things back to normal.” I thought about this. It was pretty funny that they were going to turn my own joke around on me. That kind of thing is always how it goes on TV shows. One character is trying to pull a joke on some other characters but they find out about it and pull the same joke, only bigger, right back on him. I felt pretty bad actually for spoiling the joke by making the kid have to explain it. He said something then to Celene. Celene said something back. I looked at her and she showed that it was all okay. I stood up and pulled the bed away from the door. The kid came in so quickly, followed by Henrietta with a big stack of paper in her hands, then the landlord came in last. His lips were tight.
“They're in the cupboard,” said Henrietta, nodding down at her papers, and the kid had got the deeds out of the cupboard before I even thought of going round the bed and stopping him. He showed the deeds to the landlord.
“No, these are just photocopies,” he said, “Thank goodness.” He put them down on the bed and shook his head. “You could have caused so much trouble, Shark.”

I looked from face to face. The landlord was sad, like usual, but was doing disappointment and relief all at the same time. The kid was stern and I think he was actually angry at me. Celene looked kind of spooked and nervous. Henrietta came towards me and her face was big and sorry. She held the stack of papers out for me to see.
“I read it on your blog that you had the deeds and I had to tell them. It could have been so bad, Shark. I'm sorry,” she said. The papers were my blog. I didn't know you could print it all out like that. I couldn't see my own face but I knew what it was doing. It was staring at the landlord and saying the words that I couldn't say. The words were, “From the moment I met you I knew that this would happen. I didn't want it to. I tried to stop it. But the world pushed us to where we are.” The landlord saw my face doing that and folded his arms to defend against it.
“I read it too. All that nonsense about throwing me out the window. Is that what you want to do to me?” He said it like a joke for the others but the way he looked told me how hurt he was feeling. I had him in my jaws before I could feel his hurt. There was no time for feelings to reach me, no time to fetch his boxing gloves and wait for the grocery kid to get here. I jumped right over the bed and caught him as I landed. People forget sometimes that I'm a shark and that a bed or a door can't really stop me from killing you. I had him in my jaws and I turned towards the window. The burgular bards were still bolted to the wall outside but I'd been testing them and I was pretty sure that if I threw the landlord at them hard enough, he'd tear them right off. He wasn't struggling in my mouth at all. I used to pick him up in my mouth all the time when he was just a kid and he knew that if he moved about in there he might cut himself accidentally on my teeth. The kid and Henrietta were all around me, shouting and telling me to stop and to put him down. Celene was being quiet. I thought they were being pretty silly about everything. I'm a shark and I'm holding this guy in my mouth. His feet aren't touching the ground. I've won. You can't talk me down from this, guys. I know what I'm doing. I remember hoping really hard that the developers were down in the courtyard like I'd planned it and then I took my first step towards the window and then there was so much pain in my back that I actually blacked out for a second and the next thing I knew I was on the bed, the landlord was on the floor and Celene was hitting me over and over with her fists.
“It's over! It's over!” she was saying.
“Get away from him! He might, he might - ” Henrietta was saying.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” the kid was saying. I wanted to talk to them all, to tell them that I was just joking and they'd all fallen for it, but Celene kept hitting me and I couldn't think or talk or get off my back, which was causing me more pain than I really thought possible. At last Celene stopped and everyone quietened down. She stood over me and jutted her jaw out and snarled, “I want to move to Greyton,” and then Henrietta took the landlord downstairs and the kid went to fetch the movers.
“They'll be coming up in five minutes,” he said before he shut the door. He meant that I had to get out of there if I didn't want them to see me, but there was no where to go. Celene was staring at me. Her smile was gone and wouldn't be coming back. I had to get away from the absence of that smile. I needed to hide. As she watched, I crawled inside my cupboard, shifted the landlord's mother's box to make room for myself and shut the door. She wouldn't be smiling and I wouldn't be coming out. It was all over.

There was a lot of noise. I stood there in the cupboard while a lot of strangers who smelled bad took all of my things out of my room. They took a long time and I think they were a bit confused by all the bottles in the back room. I think someone had told them not to move the cupboard because they didn't touch it once. The grocery kid's play was in there with me, sitting just on top of the landlord's mother's box. I thought about reading it but I couldn't, obviously, because it was too dark.

After what seemed like a long long time with my back aching and hurting like nothing else, the movers were gone and it was all quiet in my room again. In fact, it was too quiet. When I left the cupboard, all I could hear was empty room and echoes and all I could see was the wrongness of my room not being there in the place it belonged. They'd left my posters up on the walls and the dirty dishes were still in the sink but everything else was gone. There was nothing to say that it even had been there in the first place. I kept on having to go back into the cupboard just to remember what it all had used to look like. I could feel my memories of my real room being replaced with this fake, empty room I was standing in. After a while it got dark.

I was back in the cupboard when the landlord came in. He knocked on the cupboard door and I slowly opened it. He didn't look right at me. He was carrying a big sheet of rubber.
“Hi Shark. Look, you don't have to stay in here tonight. You can come sleep in my room. The furniture's all on its way to Greyton but I've got these inflatable matresses. You can sleep on one. You don't have to stay here.”
I said that I didn't want to stay in his room. It didn't feel right. I wanted to stay in my own room, even though they'd taken everything out of it. I felt like I had to start over and put a whole new layer of emotions and experiences into the room even though there was no point and I'd be leaving soon. I explained this again and again but I don't think he ever really understood what I was saying. He just gave up after a while.
“Okay, okay. I'll come check up on you in the morning. I'm fine, by the way, you don't need to worry. I didn't fall on anything.”
I said that was cool and then he left me. I went into the kitchen to sleep on the floor. I tried to remember the times I'd done that when people had stayed over. It was uncomfortable down there, but I think it was good for my back for a while. I slept for a few minutes here and there but at about ten 'o clock I woke up with a new plan. I got my phone out of the cupboard and I dialled the number I'd memorised years ago. It rang for a long time but I wasn't going to give up.
“This is Shark Of Wisdom and I'm here for you,” said the phone.
“I don't want to do this anymore,” I said. “I'm in trouble. I want to go back.”
“What?” he said. There was a lot of noise in the background. It was music and shouting.
“I want to go back to Sharkania,” I said. I tried not to say it too loud because the house was so empty. I got inside the cupboard and said it until he could hear me.
“Sharkania?” he asked.
“I've never been! I thought I could just stay here but I can't now. How do I get there?” I had to almost shout it to get heard over the music.
“Oh! The planet! The planet, the planet the planet. All right, I always meant to tell you this but, aw jeez, I made it up.”
“Sorry?”
“There's no such place. I'm sorry, kid. But hey, check this out - I'm at a party. Do you want to come over?”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn't know anyone there.”
“Okay, but I have to go. Take care of yourself. Take care of everyone.” He went then. I stood with the phone at my ear until the light went out.

I thought about taking the landlord's mother's box with me to Sarah's house but I figured it would slow me down so I left it in the cupboard. I think it was a good decision because it's hard enough to get down the stairs without having a heavy box to carry. I noticed the garage window was broken but I didn't stop to investigate. I gunned the car out into the street, knowing that everyone would hear me leave and would know that they couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't long before I noticed that the car was making a 'thunk thunk thunk' noise and not going very fast. The tyres were flat. I didn't let that stop me though. I thunk-thunked all the way to Sarah's house and practically jumped up to her door. I had everything laid out in front of me. Our whole life together. First we'd go and we'd find David. Then we'd drive out to the wild and build a little house out of my car and my teeth. I can start pulling them and saving them from tomorrow. They keep on growing. They're very strong and tough, if you built a whole house out of them it would be practically invincible and wouldn't just float off into space one day. We could start over in a place where what we did mattered, which could stay there for thousands of years. So long as I was there, I could keep it going. We'd paint our emotions on the walls of the place, but we wouldn't let it become filthy and overgrown with bad emotions like Carolyn's house got to be. We'd keep an eye on each other and help each other out when one of us starts acting in a bad way or using the wrong emotions against someone. We'd start off small, just me and David and Sarah, but we'd collect the right kinds of people from the internet. One day they're writing about how a corkscrew made of love had been softly screwed into their heart over the period of many years and then yanked out in a single afternoon, then the Snipe pulls up outside their house. David is driving it. He knocks on their door and tells them that there's a place for them. A house made of shark's teeth. The owner of the house needs their emotions to keep the house strong but they have to promise first to leave all their bad emotions behind. David makes them promise right there on the doorstep and then they're away. They'll stay at the house for as long as they want and there'll always be fresh groceries coming in and cool TV to watch and juice to drink. They won't see me, though. Not at first. I'll be up on the top floor, just watching and paying attention to everything. When they're ready, they'll meet me. I'll tell them how I knew them from the internet, how I saw the potential in their words and their profile and the kind of links they had. When I've got enough of the best people together, we'll go looking for Moe. We can get him back. He'll be working at an old dusty petrol station, composing new tunes as he fills the gas tanks, taking apart the world with his mind as he rings up the till. He'll see us drive up in the Snipe and he'll instantly see that every one of us is the best possible person we can be. He'll smile and he'll run over to the car and jump right into the back.
“Everyone, this is Moe,” I'll say, but it won't be necessary because everyone will already know about Moe. “It's time to go home, Moe,” I'll say and then everyone will put one hand on him and I'll drive us back to the tooth-house.

Every part of this plan flashed in and around my head as I waited for Sarah to come and answer the door. I don't think I was even waiting for long, it's just that my mind was working that fast to help me make the future happen. Everything stopped though when the door opened. It wasn't Sarah on the other side. It was a father.
“Oh hi, good evening, is Sarah home?” I said. I tried to stand up straight and look smart but I suddenly realised that I didn't have my towels or anything and I was standing outside, totally exposed to anyone and everyone. The warm buzz of my future plans was gone. Sarah's father looked down at me. For some reason I felt much smaller than I am. Maybe everyone I knew up to then was just a really short person and Sarah's father is the only normal-sized one.
“Who are you?” he said. He didn't put any anger in it, he was just laying down the rules: He had to know me before he gave me access to his house and daughter. I remembered that Sarah had told me how angry and alcoholic he was all the time, so I figured he was just saving his anger for when I gave him the wrong answer.
“The Ancient Shark Of Despair, sir,” I said. “I live just round the corner.” He turned away, but kept the door exactly as open as it had been the whole time. He called out to his wife, he called her name. Then he came back to me.
“Sarah did her work experience with you, didn't she?”
“That's right. That's what she did.” I said. He smiled just a little smile then and his wife appeared. She did a much bigger smile.
“Well hello Shark, pleased to finally meet you. We know all about you, of course, Sarah's told us so much.” She pushed gently past her husband and flapped her hands at me, “Well don't stand out there in the cold, come in. We're still up, we're just watching something boring on television,” Sarah's father did an exaggerated 'Oh no!' look at this.
“You said you were enjoying it!”
“No, that was you,” she said and they laughed as they backed away to let me in.

Their house was so nice. There were pictures up on the walls – pictures with frames. There were photographs of the whole family being young and happy up everywhere. In the hallway was a phone that looked big and heavy and forever and there was a pot with fresh flowers next to it. I smelled them. They weren't fake. There were so many rooms and the carpet was so soft. Even the curtains were clean. They invited me into the big main lounge and they turned the TV off and took some newspapers (also fresh) off the couch so I could sit down. Sarah's mother asked me what I wanted to drink. I said guava juice and they had that. While she was out getting that, Sarah's father talked to me about the economy.
“We've tipped over into recession now, but we're weathering the worst of it down here,” he mused. “Now that our man Manuel's on the Planning Commission, I think we might have seen the worst of it.” I agreed to this. It sounded exciting, like something from a movie or another culture. Sarah's mother came back in with the juice. It even had ice in it. The ice cubes were shaped like hearts, not like cubes at all.
“So, sorry to tell you this,” said Sarah's mother once everyone was settled and some music had been put on. It was old timey, classical music. It disappeared into the background and made all the words that followed more colourful and meaningful. “But Sarah's gone to England.”
“She landed on Thursday morning,” added Sarah's father.
“She didn't tell anyone, shame, you must have been wondering where she went.”
“She's like that. She loves to do something big and leave everyone to find out for themselves,” said Sarah's father, shrugging for effect.
“Like when she got that tattoo! Oh my god!” said Sarah's mother, laughing again.
“Oh, that was a shocker,” chuckled Sarah's father. “We only found out after a year, when we went to Nature's Valley and we saw her swimming.”
“Shame, she had a big fight with her boyfriend,” said Sarah's mother to me.
“Huh, good riddance,” muttered Sarah's father, then laughed again.
“I think that's what made her jump the date ahead on her ticket,” said Sarah's mother. “We tried to talk her out of it but it's probably for the best, hey. She's signed up with an agency now,”
“They'll put her in the homes of rich old people and she'll wipe their bottoms,” smiled Sarah's father. “She'll earn a fortune with the exchange rate.”
“We hope she'll come back and study after a year,” nodded Sarah's mother. “But she's not ready yet.”
“That's if she can get through a whole year,” added Sarah's father.
“Yes, I hear it's very stressful,” said Sarah's mother. “I hope she didn't give you a hard time when she was doing the work experience.”
“No, not at all,” I said. It was the first thing I'd said in a while but I felt like I'd been part of the conversation the whole time. “It was nice to have the company.”
“Ag shame,” said Sarah's mother. “I know how you feel, hey. Sarah's just been gone three days and already it feels so empty in the house. I keep on making dinner for three people and a third of it doesn't get eaten!”
“The fridge is very full!” laughed Sarah's father. He almost giggled it, actually.
“Would you like some? Have you eaten? We've got so much!” I said that I hadn't eaten. I said that I'd spent all day hiding in my cupboard while people I didn't know took all my things away. Sarah's mother's mouth was one big 'O'. Before I knew it I was at the dining table with a huge pile of hot food in front of me and she was putting so many different sauces and cups and sidedishes all around me.
“Would you like the TV on while you eat?” she asked. “We could bring the little one in here for you to watch.”
“It won't have DSTV on it, but we can bring in the old decoder if you like,” said Sarah's father. I said that I didn't want to watch TV. I actually wanted to hear them talk some more. I didn't say this part though in case it made them not want to talk so much because of the pressure. Thankfully, they did talk some more. They talked about the news and the new president, which I didn't know about, and about books I should read. I told them about the grocery kid's books and they loved that. They thought it was so great that I had creative people in my family. I told them that I was the creative one, really, and then they wanted to see my drawings and paintings and things. They really meant it too.

“You can sleep here tonight,” said Sarah's mother. “We can't have you driving back in the dark. You can sleep in Sarah's room, since she's not using it. All her stuff's packed away in the corner, but we can put some sheets on the bed now-now.” The sheets were so clean and they smelled so good. They were crisp and cool and white and they seemed to fit me better than most other sheets and blankets I've used. They both made sure I had everything and even rigged up a clean toothbrush that I could use. They showed me where the shower was and asked me what time I wanted breakfast.
“Good night, Shark,” said Sarah's father. They both stood in the doorway. He turned out the light and she shut the door.
“Good night,” said Sarah's mother.
“Good night, thank you!” I said. I smiled as the door shut. It was so quiet. I waited for them to walk back to the lounge and then I got up quickly to write this. It's all still fresh.

I think it's all going to be okay from now on. I don't think Sarah is coming back. There's everything for her out there. I can stay in her room and eat the meals that her mother accidentally cooks for her. Maybe some day she'll call and we'll talk about the old days and how we used to hang out, but when I ask if she wants to do those old days again, she'll just laugh and say, “No, I belong to the world now. Goodbye Shark.”

Goodbye Sarah. Goodbye.