The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

Sunday, July 11th 2009

Today I woke up and I knew that something big was going to happen. I didn't let it show on my face as made breakfast or showered because I didn't want it to turn out not to be true and my face to have been lying the whole time, but that didn't stop me from trying to guess what would be.

Mostly I thought it might have been the new TV that Sarah's dad ordered from the internet with his credit card. That's due to get here really soon. Or it could have been the guys coming round to set up the internet. I'm getting this new kind of internet where I don't have to dial up with the modem every time I want to check something. This would improve things, I think, but I'm going to miss the sound. But I was told that the internet guys probably won't be coming for another few weeks, so is wasn't 100% likely to be them. It could also have been the day that they start construction on the new houses. I've got a pretty good view of the site from the attic and they've been making good progress on getting it all cleaned up, but it still kind of smells. Anyway, I don't think I'd really get a special feeling about some building or a TV or even a new internet. People had to be involved.

It's been pretty weird not having TV or the internet. I've got my computer but it can't do anything beyond itself. I'm writing this blog by hand in a notebook, like in the old old days, which is a lot harder than I remember it being, especially because I've got to write so neatly so that Sarah's mother can type it out for me later. This is actually the second time I've written this all out, but it's okay because I've got a lot more free time now, or at least it feels like I do. I'm doing some more drawing and getting back into the meditation and I'm really good at making roll-ups now, almost as good as Nikki. I've got my TV show all planned out now, all the way to the end of the second season. Sarah's mother and father come to visit me almost every evening since my place is on the route they normally take when they walk their dogs. Their dogs aren't too small or too excited, they don't smell so much and they don't try to control me or get on top of me, so I guess they're okay. Sarah's parents did a good job with them. They tell me about what's happening out there and who they met in the shop and what's going on with politics, or something funny that one of Sarah's mother's students said or did. They bring me some food in a buckie almost every time – usually it's leftovers but it's still good because I don't mind that someone else had a chance to have it before me. It's good that I get that food because I can't order pizza any more. I call them up but they don't want to talk to me all of a sudden. Also, Sarah's father has been fetching my groceries for me in his car and he says he doesn't mind, but it's only until my own car is fixed. That might take a while though because the landlord towed it back to Greyton so he could work on it. He didn't want Sarah's father to take it in to a shop.

Yeah, the landlord still visits. Not as often as he used to, of course, because Greyton is far, but he bought himself a little car and comes down once every two weeks or so. He still calls and leaves a message for me every day. Mostly he talks about the Snipe and the progress on that. The other day he said he was getting original axels shipped in from Dubai and he's always changing his mind about the new paint job and so on and so on. He's not really my landlord anymore, I guess, but I don't want to come up with a whole new name for him because it would be confusing. The grocery kid is still the grocery kid to me – the landlord says that he'd forgotten how difficult it is sometimes to live with him and that he keeps letting the dogs in the house although they're not allowed, but he mostly just stays on his home and writes – and Celene has always been Celene. The landlord isn't angry with her for changing sides back then and I don't think he ever was. He keeps saying that he's just glad that no one was hurt in the fire and that she's having a pretty good time there in Greyton. She liked how she could arrange a whole new house just the way she wanted it and she likes that she can walk around outside without getting afraid. I don't know how you'd tell the difference between Celene being happy and not being happy, but I suppose he has known her for a relatively long time.

Sarah's father keeps telling me that I should blog about the fire. He says it was very traumatic and it would help me to write about it. He's a psychologist, like Burzum. People come to see him in his home. But I don't think the fire was like that at all. It was more beautiful and complicated than trauma.

I'd stayed the night at Sarah's house. It was early Sunday morning and Sarah's mother woke me up with some tea and bacon with eggs. I said I didn't eat meat, like Sarah and she went away and quickly got me some fruit yoghurt instead.
“Sarah used to hate it when I brought her breakfast in the morning,” she smiled.
“I don't hate it,” I said quietly. “And I don't think Sarah hates it either. You can't hate this.”
“She just likes to be different,” she agreed. I started eating. “Well, I'll leave you in peace for now. When do you think you'll be going back home?”
“Home?” I asked. I thought I was already home. I wasn't.
“Well, you're welcome here any time, Sharky, of course...” she said and paused for a while. “But aren't they missing you back at home? Sarah said you lived with your landlord...”
“He's not my landlord from today,” I said and I had to explain a bit about that.
“Well then if they're all moving out today, they must be wondering where you are!” she was worried that they were worried. Their worry collided with hers and the room was filled with worry. It made me nervous and I had to go have a shower. When I came out the bathroom, Sarah's father was waiting for me in the foyer.
“Your car's in a bad way,” his eyes were full of confusion. “What happened to it?”

We went outside and he showed me what he had seen about my car. The tyres were all down and it wasn't sitting well.
“The tyres've been slashed,” he explained. “You've driven on the bare axels and they're all broken.”
“Can I drive it home?” I asked. He shook his head.
“This is a beautiful car,” he said sadly.
“Thanks,” I said. “The landlord and me worked on it quite a lot back in the day and it was his for a little while but I bought it off him when he ran out of money.”
It was decided that I'd be driven home. It wasn't very far but we also agreed that I wasn't really up to walking it. The first thing that came to us was the smell of the smoke, then we could see the smoke itself. The next thing we saw was David. He was running down the road. He looked wild.
“It's David!” I said.
“David? The David who Sarah went out with?” said Sarah's father. He hadn't seen him yet.
“Oh my god,” said Sarah's mother. She'd seen him.
“Sarah didn't go out with him for long,” I said.
“He's a strange boy,” hummed Sarah's father. David was alongside the car now. He'd recognised it. Sarah's father rolled down the window.
“Fire! There's a fire!” he yelled. He looked at me and said, “Your building!”
“David, calm down sweetie. Are you all right? Are you burned?” said Sarah's mother.
“No, but there's a fire!” he cried.
“What kind of fire?” said Sarah's father.
“A really big fire!” David yelled and ran back to the smoke. The window went up again and we followed him slowly in the car.

The fire had been going on for quite a while. The roof and attic was all up and a lot of the front wall and a few of the apartments had fallen down into the courtyard. It was all ash and broken house there. People were crowded around the apartment, watching, and I recognised the people. There was the landlord, who was running around, there was the grocery kid and Celene and a lot of other people and even though I hadn't really ever seen them before, I knew that they were the people who used to live there. They were watching it all finally come down. But none of them were standing on or near that ash. It was a no-go area. It was hostile. It was the Moon. Only one person was standing out there, all screaming and suited up in light brown. He was shouting at the people but no one could hear him over the crackle of flames. His eyes were huge and his face was black and flecked with ash like a reflection of the stars. He turned to David, who was running towards him, waving his arms around, then he saw the car and his eyes homed in on me. His face collapsed into a black hole of fury and he ran in slow motion towards the car. Sarah's parents tried yelling and questioning but that didn't stop him coming. He hit the door beside me and the force of his body made the car rock. He looked at me and he screamed and he screamed.
“Get out the car! Get out!” I just shook my head and backed away and he started pounding on the roof, the door, the window. He turned back to scream at the crowd. The landlord was already running this way. Others broke off from the fire-watching and followed him, one by one at first and then in a big mess, but they didn't run as fast as the landlord. Sarah's father opened his door and tried to talk to him, father to father, but he punched him and shoved him and got into the car with me and Sarah's mother. David cried and tried to pull him out of the car by his shirt, by his belt, but he was too strong. Sarah's mother screamed and got out of the car and ran to her husband, who was wiping his face and frowning. The man in the front seat tried to grab me – I tried to unlock the back door but my hands were slow and numb and I couldn't close my mouth and I was shaking all over.
“Dad! Dad, don't!” shrieked David and he sounded just like a little girl. David's father grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him and I hit my head on the window and I could hear him shouting something and then all I could think of was Moe being a secret agent and me with him and we were rescuing the grocery kid's daughter again only she kept on running away back to where she'd been captured and we couldn't get back to the spaceship and Leonard Cohen was so disappointed with us because we'd miss the flight and there's this whistling as David's father says, “This isn't going to hurt! It's not going to hurt!”

The landlord yanked David's father out the car by his leg with one huge pull that made him walk backwards for a few steps after he'd dropped David's father onto the road. Before he could get up, the grocery kid was there, and his dogs were jumping. Celene joined them when she arrived, which took a while because of her bad knees. Mr. Roberts was there. I think I saw Monopoly. David took their side and so did Sarah's parents. They got in between David's father and the car and they closed the doors and stopped him from coming near. They formed a community and it was impenetrable. He shouted but he couldn't shout louder than them. He tried to rush them, but the landlord got his arms and pushed him back. He tried that a few times but he got weaker every time. After a minute or two of shouting, he grabbed his own face in his hand, squeezed it tightly, then walked away. Every so often, he'd punch his fist downwards at nothing. David followed him. He got in his own car and drove away.

I didn't feel like talking much after that. I stayed in the car until the fire engines showed up and the landlord told Sarah's parents to take me back to their house. I spent the day in bed, not really thinking anything. At nighttime, they took me back to the building where the landlord helped me across the surface of the Moon and showed me into the granny flat. It hadn't been hurt by the fire. It hadn't been hurt by anything. It was the only part of the original house still standing. I thought it would have collapsed when Carolyn died, but the structure left by her emotions was enough to keep it up. When I opened the door I saw all my things piled up carefully around the place in boxes. They were arranged all around the old bed and the old wardrobe and dresser and the books on the shelf and the old bathroom that brought back too many memories to be looked at directly. I'd have to replace Carolyn's old emotions and memories and self that had seeped inside the walls and the ceiling and the bed and the wardrobe with my own. They'd have to be powerful enough to keep the house standing but not so powerful to suffocate me like they did to her. I wondered if I could do that or if I had enough time. I said goodnight to the landlord and I said goodnight to Carolyn and I fell onto the bed and did my best to get to sleep before the memories in the room could get me.

The special thing that happened today, which I knew about before it even happened, was that someone came to visit. He came to knock on my door but I knew who it was even before I opened it because you can see people walk through the gate and up the little path through the window. Even though I saw him right from the moment he parked his scooter outside on the curb, I didn't quite recognise him until he'd actually reached the door. He had shorter hair and he was wearing a different kind of clothes. He had something in his hand. I got up from the desk and moved as quickly as I could to the door. I hadn't seen him since the Matric Dance. I didn't want to keep him waiting outside. It might have rained.
“Moe!” I said.
“Hey,” he said. He raised a hand and let it drop again.
“Come inside, I live in a new place now,” I said, which was a dumb thing to say because he'd obviously figured that already.
“Yeah, I saw the old place all burned down. That's messed up,” he said.
“It's not so much,” I said and shrugged. “Lots of places burn down. It's cool.”
“I drove past the other week and I was like, 'This doesn't look like the right road, the Shark's building is supposed to be here,'”
“But it burnt down!” I said and we laughed. He looked down at his hand and he stopped laughing.
“Here, I made a new CD,” he said and he gave it to me. “You can listen to it if you like. It's a bunch of stuff I made at college before I dropped out. There are some demos and stuff.” I took the disk. It was blank on the outside but inside it were a lot of new sensations.
“Thanks, yeah, I'll give that a listen sometime. Thanks,” I said. I was smiling. It was really him. “Would you like to come in? I could set up the TV games,” I said. He shook his head and looked away.
“Nah thanks man, I'm on the job right now, I'm doing some stuff for my dad. I'm supposed to be out in Belleville by one.”
“Oh, that's okay, some other time.”
“Yeah, I just came to drop that off. You said you liked the last one I made, so...”
“No, yeah, that's cool. Any time.” I said. He hung there for a few seconds. Long enough to give me an idea.
“Hey, what does your dad do?” I asked.
“He's a pathologist,” he grinned shily. “It's pretty weird, but yeah.”
“Does he make you work on the weekends? Sunday?”
“No, weekends are free.”
“Because I need someone to fetch my groceries for me every week,” I said.
“Uh huh,” he nodded.
“I can't do it myself, you see,” I looked down at myself. I looked fat. “I can pay you. And you can use my car when it's fixed.”
“That's a nice car,” he said. “Yeah cool man, I think about it, speak to me closer to the time.” I got him to write his number down on a bit of paper while he nodded. He left after that. He put his hand up and let it drop, went to his scooter, put his helmet on and left without looking at me again. I thought of all the adventures we could have now. I wondered for just one second if he still remembers how to have adventures but then I remembered, he's Moe.

The last time the landlord called and left a message he said that he was thinking of building an extention to the new house in Greyton. He keeps on saying that he doesn't have enough to do now. He says that I could stay in the new room he builds if I want. I don't know about this. I'm a shark. I'm used to being alone. I'm just working out a whole new system for living in Carolyn's house. It will be a system plus Moe. Last time Moe was around, I accomplished so much. I got a blog and I made friends and everything went pretty well. I'm not sure I want to give that up by going somewhere else all of a sudden. The landlord also said that he was reconsidering the idea of giving me my money as a monthly allowance, he was coming round to the idea of giving it to me all at once, like I wanted. I've called Monopoly and told him that the TV company is going to happen soon. He's still on board. We can make it happen. He's been writing some songs but I might want to use Moe's music instead. I haven't listened to it yet because I'm waiting for the right mood, but come on.

It's Moe we're talking about.

THE END

THE ANCIENT SHARK OF DESPAIR
By Sebastian Borckenhagen and Tom McNally
Thank you kindly for reading.